"Then you mean to play some yet?"
"Of course I do. I shouldn't be a boy if I didn't play, though father says I shouldn't believe in all play and no work."
"You don't. If you work in the morning and play at night, that is believing in both, and I think it is about fair."
"Ben Drake was along here when I was planting my squashes," said Nat, "and he told me that I was a fool to worry myself over a lot of squash vines, and have no time to play. He said he wouldn't do it for a cart-load of squashes."
"And what did you tell him?" asked Frank.
"I told him that father thought it was better for boys to work some, and form the habit of being industrious, and learn how to do things; for then they would be more successful when they became men."
"What did Ben say to that?"
"'Just like an old man!' he said. 'It is time enough to work when we get to be men. I should like to see myself taking care of a garden when the other boys are playing.' By this time," continued Nat, "I thought I would put in a word, so I told him that it would be good for him to work part of the time, and I had heard a number of people say so. He was quite angry at this, and said, 'it was nobody's business, he should work when he pleased.' 'So shall I,' I replied, 'and I please to work on these squashes part of my time, whether Ben Drake thinks well of it or not.'"
We shall see hereafter what kind of a boy this Ben was (everybody called him Ben instead of Benjamin), and what kind of a man he made.
Nat expressed his opinion rather bluntly, although he was not a forward, unmannerly boy. But he usually had an opinion of his own, and was rather distinguished for "thinking (as a person said of him since) on his own hook." When he was only four years old, and was learning to read little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite a dispute with his teacher. It was INN.