THE YOUTH’S CABINET. s

Just as I was starting off in high spirits,
“You may wait in the village till they
stop work in the factory,” said Uncle
Miah, “and then you can see Mr, Smith,
and ask him about that wool.” I went
to the store, and bought my jack-knife.
It was one of the “ Barlow” manufacture,
I believe, warranted not to cut in the
eye, and in fact, not to cut at all. I had
to wait two full hours after the purchase,
for the factory to close. I liked that.
It would not have been at all unpleasant
to me, if the time had been twice as long.
I was very patient, in the circumstances,
and found means to amuse myself every
moment, till the factory bell rang, when
I went to find Mr. Smith, did my er-
rand, and started homeward, on a pret-
ty brisk trot.

It was nearly nine o’clock when I en-
tered Uncle Miah’s door, and as dark as
pitch. Of course I expected the good
man would have prayer—I secretly
hoped it would be at least ten minutes
briefer than usual—and that then I
might be permitted to go to bed. But
I was quite mistaken in my reckoning.
The cows had not been brought home.
While I had been waiting at the store,
Uncle Miah had been waiting at home.
So, after 1 had eaten my supper—an
operation which did not require many
minutes, for we did not fare very sump-
tuously at Uncle Miah’s, it being one of
Aunt Sally’s maxims, that the way for
a farmer to be healthy and happy, espe-
cially in the case of a boy who was
growing fast, was to eat plain food,
rather sparingly—after I had drained
the last drop of skimmed milk from my
bowl, and began to look anxiously at the
shelf where the big Bible was lying, al-
most hoping the old man would ask me

 

 

to read a chapter, in which case I had
made up my mind to hit upon a pretty
short Psalm,—I was posted off after
the cows, and told to hurry, as there
was a storm coming up.

I had to go half a mile after the cows.

Long enough before I found them, the

whole sky was darkened by a dense
thunder-cloud, and it lightened almost
incessantly. The lightning frightened me
a good deal—for, like most children, I
was always afraid in a thunder-storm—
but it was of great service to me in my
search after the cows. I am sure I
could not have found them, if it had not
been for the flashes of lightning. After
getting the cows into the yard, and milk-
ing two of them, as may ‘be conjectured,
I was tired enough to go to sleep with-
out much difficulty.

This milking, by the way, I never fan-
cied much. We hear a great deal-about
it in poetry, and it sounds well endugh
there; but I would much rather write
half a dozen couplets about the “sweet
breath of the evening,” and the “lowing
kine, returning from the dewy mead,”
and matters of that sort, than to sit on a
crazy stool, and milk a cow. Still I
don’t blame anybody else for liking the
exercise. Far from it. Indeed, I ad-
mit, as I think I did at the outset, that
this task, like a hundred others which
the farmer has to perform, is very pleas-
ant—for those who take a fancy to it.
But for my part, I must say that I had
no such fancy.

I don’t think I should ever have made
a good farmer, if I had lived to the age
of Methuselah, even if Uncle Miah had
been alive all that time, and I had en-
joyed the benefit of his skill and his
discipline. The old man was finally con-