THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

called Uncle Miah, by his neighbors—
and every possible effort was made to
let me into the secrets of the profession.
But I never liked the details of farming
at all; and it must be confessed that I
succeeded rather poorly. |

There were many things about the
farm that I found pleasant enough ; but
I never could fall in love with a hoe or
a rake, much less a scythe. I wonder
those who had the charge of me in my
boyhood did not find out earlier than
they did that I was’nt cut out or a farm-
er. From first to last, 1 made wretched
work of the more scientific parts of farm-
ing, such as navigating a cart, propelled
by a yoke of steers, through a pair of
bars. I generally managed to tear down
one of the bar-posts, and not very un-
frequently contrived —so Uncle Miah
used to say —by alternate hawing and
geeing, to get them both down. My
heart was not in the work. That was
the secret of my bungling efforts. They
called me lazy. It may be. I have never
denied that there was a little chronic lazi-
ness in my system. But if I had been
as free from this disease as the hard-
working Uncle Miah himself, 1 never
could have succeeded in that line of
business.

In justice to my tutor, however, I
ought to say, that my poor success was
not owing to any want of faithful in-
struction on his part. He tried hard
enough to teach me, I am sure, and he
was severe enough in the demands he
made of me, At any rate, I never found
the least fault with him in respect to
these matters. He was called one of
the best farmers in the county where I
lived. He knew perfectly every branch
of the business. He was just the man

 

 

for my tutor—so everybody thought.
“What a farmer Theodore will make un-
der Uncle Miah’s training!” the neigh-
bors said. I took hold with some ener-
gy at first. My first lesson began as
soon as I had got my trunk unpacked.
That unpacking operation did not take
long, by the way. My chattels were
not very numerous.

Uncle Miah was what might be call-
ed a hard-working man. Some of the
neighbors called him close-fisted ; but
the term was, perhaps, not exactly a
just one. He was economical, thor-
oughly, totally economical. No one,
who had any dealings with him, could
doubt that. He always wanted what
belonged to him. His gold came rather
slowly. It did not flow into his pocket
in a steady stream, as it would do into
some other people’s pockets. He had
a hard farm to till. A great deal of
work had to be done for a little profit.
Money came hard, and, as is natural

enough, I suppose, it went somewhat

grudgingly. Accustomed, too, as he
had been from his childhood, to work
steadily, all the year round, three hun-
dred and ten days—deducting, for other
purposes, fifty-two Sundays, the fourth
of July, thanksgiving day and fast day—
fifty-five in all—it is not strange that he
should have exacted something like the
same industry from those in his employ.
And such, in fact, was the case. He
kept us all pretty closely at work. He
was of the opinion, decidedly, that

“ All play and no work, makes Jack a mere toy ;”

though he seemed not to have adopted
the notion contained in the other line be-
longing to the couplet. I used some-
times to be puzzled to see why Uncle