CHAP. VI.—TAYMAKING,

MUST have been twelve or thirteen years old,

and lanky and tall for my age, when one sultry
haymaking time my father suddenly told me that
it was high time I was doing something towards
getting my bread, and that he had agreed with
Farmer Williams to take me on during the busy
haymaking season, and if I proved steady and
industrious he might perhaps keep me on as farm-
boy.

Oh! my lessons with Mr. ITurst, my hopes of
schoolmastery and scholarship—what would become
of them? But if my fate was settled, it was
settled ; and my father’s allusion to my eating the
bread of idleness made me fcel too sore to make
any protest. So I only replicd by asking, “ How
soon I am to go?”

“ To-morrow morning.”

To-morrow! Should Ihave time to go to Mr,
Hurst afterwards? and if not, how could I let him