“I took the boy, not to benefit myself, but to help him, and I am willing he should go when he can do better; but I know very well that he is better with me than he can be away from me, and therefore I try to make him contented and happy. I gave him the use of this land because I have noticed that since he has obtained some notion of time, knows how many days there are in a month, and how many months in a year, that he will sometimes say: ‘A year is a good while,’ and perhaps when he remembers that he has agreed to stay here four years, it seems to him like being bound for a life-time. But now when he has a crop in the ground to take up his attention all summer, the proceeds in the fall, to put in his chest, and look at in the winter, and another crop to look forward to in the spring, it will shorten time up wonderfully. He’ll forget all about being a redemptioner; won’t feel that he is working just to pay up old scores, and he’ll be more contented. I know I should; besides it will teach him to lay up, and put life right into him.”
“I think it has put life into him, for he works just as though he was working on a wager all the time.”
CHAPTER XV. SOMETHING TO PUT IN THE CHEST.
That night as Mr. Whitman, accompanied by Peter and Bertie, reached the door-step, they were met by George Wood who said their mare had broken her leg, and they were going to kill her, that she had a colt four days old, and his father would sell it for a dollar.
“Father,” shouted Bertie, “won’t you let James have it, and keep it for him till it is grown up? You know Peter and I have each of us a yoke of steers, and James ought to have something. Will you, father?”
“I’ll lend it to him, and he can pay me when he sells his potatoes.”
“But how do you know he wants a colt? Perhaps he had rather have the dollar.”
“Oh! I know he does, of course he does; you know how much he thinks of a horse, father, there’s nothing he loves like a horse. He’s got no father nor mother, nor brother nor sister, and it will be something for him to love just like a brother. He’s out to the barn, I’ll ask him, and if he says he wants him will you let him keep him?”
“He won’t say so, if he wants him ever so much, but you have a sort of freemasonry by which you reach each other’s thoughts, and if you think he would like very much to have him and pay a dollar for him, you may get him.”