nothing about farm work, but Mr. Tinch said he would soon teach him,
and it was settled that Archie was to remain on the farm a week. Mrs.
Lane went inside the house to see her sister, who looked sick with too
much work, and the farmer told Archie that he might as well start in,
as there was no object in waiting. So the boy donned a pair of "blue
jean" trousers, and was taken into a field, where a one-horse plough
was standing. Archie knew how to hitch a horse, so he went to the
stable and secured his steed, and then harnessed him to the plough.
The farmer didn't see fit to give him any instructions about
ploughing, and the poor boy hardly knew what to do, but rather than
ask he started off, and tried to guide the animal in the right
direction, as far as he knew it. Of course the horse went wrong, and
the plough refused to stay in the earth, and altogether the attempt
was a miserable failure. The farmer leaned against the fence, picking
his teeth with a pin, but when he saw the horse going crooked, and the
plough bounding along over the earth, his face grew livid with anger.
For a minute he seemed unable to speak, but strode toward Archie with
a fierce look in his eyes. Then he found his tongue, and opened such a
tirade of vile words that the poor boy shrank from him in terror. He
was in mortal fear lest the man should lay hands on him and commit
some crime, so intense was his rage, but Hiram Tinch seemed to know
how far to go, and after five minutes of cursing and swearing he took
the plough in his own hands, and guided it through the earth. "Now
take it," he growled at Archie, when he had gone a furrow's length,
"and see ef ye can do better this time. Remember, not a bite of dinner
do ye get until this field is ploughed."

Poor Archie was weak from fright, but there was nothing to do but to
obey. He looked at the vast field before him, and made up his mind
that he would get nothing to eat until night, anyhow, for it was