forests had yielded to the pioneer’s axe, and well-conducted farms dotted the landscape. Neighbours were near and many now, as compared with the distance and number of them ten years before. The pioneer stage had really passed, and it was not “life in the woods” that James was living. There were a saw-mill and an ashery in the vicinity; also a carpenter was added to the population of the town. All this brought a change that James, young as he was, could but notice.

The plan of exchanging work was one that James originated, and it proved of great value to him during the season. It lightened his labour when “Two heads were better than one,” and gave him the use of the oxen when no other aid could be half so valuable. Then Mr. Lamper was glad to exchange labour with a boy who was equal to a man in his efficiency. James could turn his hand to any sort of work upon the farm, and had physical strength to endure almost any strain. His honest pride of character assisted him, too, more than ever in his work, as any sharp observer could see.

We cannot dwell upon the labours of that eventful season, except to add, that the farm did for James what a teacher did for some other boys. The celebrated engineer, and inventor of the locomotive engine, George Stephenson, said that he studied mechanics with his engine instead of a professor. Indeed, the engine was his professor, and taught him daily the most important lessons. He was eighteen years of age, and was running the engine in a colliery. On Saturday afternoons, when the workmen were released from labour, and were spending their time in rum-shops, or attending dog-fights, George took his engine to pieces, and cleaned and studied it. He could neither read nor write, but he could understand and appropriate the silent lessons of his engine; and these made him the renowned inventor of the locomotive. Well might he call the engine his teacher.

James might have called the farm his teacher. It taught him many excellent lessons. He extracted the most valuable knowledge from its soil. He evoked inspiring thoughts from its labour. His manhood developed under its rigid discipline. His mind enlarged its mental grasp. The season spent in the log school-house could not have pushed him higher up than did his experience on the farm. It was positive proof that work is discipline as much as study, and that it can do for boys often more than study to qualify them for the stern duties of life. James was more of a man at the close of that season than he was at the beginning of it.

He had little time to read during those months; and yet he never valued reading more. He was never more hungry for knowledge than he was during that period of constant labour. He thought much of going to school; and often the thought would force itself upon his mind, how can I get an education? Not that he formed any definite plan concerning it, or even considered that such a thing was possible; but the vague thought would sometimes arise. And then his mother frequently dropped remarks which showed the strong desire of her heart, that James might, at some future time, she knew not how or when, become a scholar. That such a boy should spend his life in tilling the earth appeared to her like wasting pearls.

“James, I hope that you will not always have to work on a farm.” How often she remarked thus!

“What would you do if I shouldn’t?” was James’s thoughtful reply.

“I hardly know. ‘It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,’ and I am glad of it. There is my hope, that some day you can get an education.”

“I should like to, if it is best.”

“I know it will be best, if you can do it. You can never know too much.”

“I guess that is so,” replied James half humorously.

“I couldn’t ever know too much to work on a farm. There is more to learn about it than I could learn in many years.”