Ghe Best \May.

OW hot the July sun poured down! Will rested on his hoe
handle, and drew his sleeve across his face to wipe off the mois-
ture. Such a lot of potatoes to hoe! He looked back at the
rows he had hoed, and then over at what there was still to hoe.
A sullen look crept into his face, but he worked on. At the end
of the long row he halted and, flinging the hoe in the furrow, sat

down in the shade of the tall corn that was nodding its tassels in the fitful
breeze:

“T don't believe there ever was a boy that had such hard times as I do,”
he muttered to himself. ‘It’s just work, work, work, work, from morning till
night. I’m sick of it,” and Will pushed back his hat and leaned against the
old basket to think it over, and build castles about what he meant to do by
and by. When he grew to bea man, he wouldn't work on a farm all day; he
would live in a fine house like Mr. Brown's, with a great spreading lawn and
tall shade trees in front; he knew just how it looked, for he went by there
almost every time on his way to town. Once he had seen a little boy just his
own size out inthe yard, reading in a book, and how he wished he could change
places with him. He would havea span of gray ponies, too, such as he had seen
Mr. Brown driving out of the great gate. So he went on planning and thinking,
till the minutes crept into half an hour—a whole hour—or more. Suddenly
Will was startled at a rustle near him in the corn, and springing up, he saw
Uncle Esek looking at him with a peculiar twinkle in his eyes.

Uncle Esek was no real relation to Will. He was an old, weatherbeaten
man who lived in a little log house a mile up the road from Will's home. He
was shrewd and keen, and by his kindly words, spoken at just the right moment,
he often helped many a perplexed boy out of his troubles.

“Well, what is it?” said Uncle Esek, glancing down at the hoe and then
at Will’s flushed face, from which the discontented look had not yet faded
away.

Will looked as if he would rather not tell, not feeling sure what answer
Uncle Esek would give him; but at last he said: ‘Don’t you think it’s mean to
make a boy work all the while, anyhow? When I get to be a man, I shan’t do
anything I don’t want to,” and he looked up rather defiantly; then he told what

he had been planning.
“Well,” said Uncle Esek in his aot quiet way, “I can remember when