iar with it all his life; but never before had it
struck him as such an unpleasant place to work in, day after day, month
after month, and even year after year, as it did now. How hard people
did have to work, anyway! He had never realized it before. Still,
working in a mill must be a little harder than anything else. At any
rate, he certainly would not choose to earn his living there.

Then he walked down to Deacon Brown's store. The deacon did a large
retail business; this was a busy afternoon, and the place was filled
with customers. How tired the clerks looked, and what pale faces they
had. How people bothered them with questions, and called on them to
attend to half a dozen things at once. How close and stuffy the air of
the store was. It was almost as bad as that of the mill. Then, too, the
store was kept open hours after the mill had shut down; for its evening
trade was generally very brisk. It did not seem half so attractive a
place to Glen now as it had at other times, when he had visited it
solely with a view of making some small purchase. Perhaps going to
school, and keeping up with one's class, was not the hardest thing in
the world after all.

So the poor boy returned home, more perplexed as to what he should do
than ever, and he actually dreaded the after-supper talk with his
adopted father that he usually enjoyed so much.

When the time came, and Mr. Matherson asked, kindly, "Well, my boy, what
have you decided to do?" Glen was obliged to confess that he was just as
far from a decision as he had been the evening before.

Chapter VI.

RECEIVING AN OFFER AND ACCEPTING IT.

"Well, that is bad," said the master mechanic, when Glen told him that
he had been unable to arrive at any decision in regard to going to work.
"It is bad, for I can't see that there is anything open to you just now,
except one of the two things we talked about last evening. At the same
time, I hate to compel you, or even persuade you, to do anything that is
hard and distasteful. If you were a year younger, I should say, 'Spend
your vacation as you always have done, and have as good a time as you
know how, without worrying about the future.' At seventeen, though, a
boy should begin to look ahead, and take some decisive step in the
direction of his future career. If he decides to study, he should also
decide what he wants to study for. If he decides to work, he should have
some object to work for, and should turn all his ener