ing,
and had more than half filled my bag, when I had the misfortune to
enter the squire's large corn-field. The corn was all reaped and bound
up into sheaves. As there were no other gleaners there, I found a good
store of ears on the ground, and should soon have filled my bag, if the
squire's son, who was in the field, had not seen me.

"He came close up to me with a stick in his hand, and called me a dirty
beggar-boy. But I went on with my gleaning as if I did not hear him,
which vexed him so that he set the dog on me. I was very much
frightened, and in fear and self-defence took up a handful of earth to
throw at him, which so incensed its master, that he came up to me,
pulled my bag violently from my neck, emptied all that I had gathered
upon the ground, threw the bag in my face, and gave me several hard
kicks and blows, and ended it all by setting the great dog upon me
again, whose bites you see upon my feet."

"What a bad boy!" cried Willy, "and did you treat him as he deserved?"

"No, indeed; I only begged that he would let me pick up my ears of corn;
but he would not consent, and drove me out of the field, bidding me
never enter there again, under pain of a sound drubbing from the
workmen, who would be ready enough, for they laughed when they saw the
squire's son ill-treating me." Then the poor sorrowful child began to
weep afresh.

"Do your feet hurt you much, poor boy?" asked Willy, in a very
sympathizing tone.

"Yes, sadly enough," was the reply; "but I would not mind that at all,
if I had not to go home with my bag empty. Father will think that I have
been idling all day, and will be angry, and not give me any thing to
eat; and I am very hungry now, for I have had only a small piece of dry
bread before I came out this morning."

"Oh, is that all?" rejoined Willy. "Here, take this," said the kind boy,
handing him a bun which his mother had given him for his luncheon, "for
I am not hungry, and if I was, I had rather see you eat it than eat it
myself."

The poor boy hesitated to take the bun, but yielded to Willy's kind
entreaty, and ate it up very quick.

Then Willy said, "Now let us fill the bag, for I am going to help you."

So they went to work where the sheaves had stood before the cart was
loaded, and had nearly filled the bag, when Willy heard his father
calling to him from under the walnut-tree.

CHAPTER SECOND.

HOW THE YOUNG GLEANER WAS MUCH FRIGHTENED, AND HOW HAPPY HE WAS
MADE--A