"But we want a horse to go, father, and not to stand. Charley stops short when we come to a hill. I'm curing him of it, though."
Dick went the same evening to engage Mr. Fuller's horse, and the next morning his mother heard him going softly down the stairs a few minutes after four.
At half past five a gentleman, just arrived from New York by the express train, was hurrying to his home a short distance beyond the minister's house, when he saw a novel sight.
He waited until the horses had reached the wall close to the road, watching with a pleased curiosity the ingenuity of the child who was working them.
"How do you do, Richard?" he asked. "It seems to me you have a new method of ploughing. You do not work on the ten hour system, I see."
Dick tossed back his curls. He wanted to wipe the perspiration from his face, but his hands were too dirty. "I like farming," he said with a merry laugh; "but I never knew before why farmers wiped their faces on their shirt sleeves," suiting the action to the words. "Father thought it was absurd for me to try," he went on; "I want to show him I can plough with a span and without a driver too."
Richard pulled the rein as it hung about his neck and the horses started on the next furrow. Though he had no idea at the time that the gentleman watching him had any thing more than mere curiosity, yet subsequent events proved that this morning's work had a great effect on his future life.
[CHAPTER IX.]
DICK AND THE DEACON.
THE next winter the teacher of the advanced school did not prove satisfactory. Mrs. Stuart urged that Dick ought to be sent to an Academy, where he could attend to the higher branches. Her husband agreed with her; but where was the money to come from to pay his expenses?