Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes
for a tool. They are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure
to meet such men. One only wishes there was some work he could do for
_them_ by the hour. There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have
very nearly solved the problem of Life: it is to work for other people,
never for yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have no
anxiety, and little work. If you do things by the job, you are
perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you
gently sail on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the
haven of Pay, whether you make any effort or not. Working by the hour
tends to make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew
a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs
continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them
swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by
the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the
flight of time seems to his calm mind!--_My Summer in a Garden_.




FRANCES LEE PRATT.

(BORN, 1830.)

* * * * *

CAPTAIN BEN'S CHOICE.


An old red house on a rocky shore, with a fisherman's blue boat rocking