ertheless, he could not bear to be beaten after all he had done; so on he went again, looking round almost at every other stroke to note how much farther he had to go.

Then the old man, seeing the struggle of the poor boy, fell to cheering him, first clapping his hands and crying "Bravo! bravo, captain!" and then calling him "Peter the Little" and " young Master Cristofaro," " till the little fellow was obliged to laugh even in his pain. And after that he told him to think of the grand story he should have to tell his father and mother, on reaching home, about his young friend Captain Benjamin Franklin, as to how he had saved his old uncle by his great courage and energy, as well as fine seamanship, from being drifted out of sight of land at nightfall without either provisions or water.

Thus, at last, the harbor was gained.

And when the little hero stepped from the boat on to the landing-place, he felt, though his arms were cramped with the long labor, that he was really a new man; that he had learned for the first time in his life to have faith in his own energies, and had found out by experience that a strong will can master difficulties which seem insuperable to a weak heart.

CHAPTER XII.

A NEW WORLD.

"Hoi, Ben, hoi! we'll stop here, lad! stop, you wild young jackanapes-stop, I say!" shouted the uncle through his hands to his young fellow-traveler, who had started on ahead, as they burst from out the dusk of a dense wood into the bright sunshine of a vast open plain.

The long, luxuriant grass of the broad meadows before them reached so high above the belly of the shock-coated pony young Benjamin was riding, that the little porpoise-like animal positively seemed to be swimming along in a sea of verdure. However, in obedience to the summons, the boy leaned back on the saddle, like a rower in his seat, as he tugged at the creature's mouth, and cried aloud, "What, stop here, uncle-stop here!"

Then wheeling round, he galloped back to the old man, and found him already hanging over the saddle in the act of dismounting. The uncle paused for a moment with one foot in the stirrup; and as he looked across the pommel at the features of the disappointed lad, he could hardly keep from laughing on beholding his godson's face all lengthened out with wonder almost as extravagantly as if it had been reflected in the bowl of a teaspoon.

"Stop here?" iterated the amazed young Benjamin. "Why, there isn't a house for miles round; just you look yourself, uncle; you can't see a curl of smoke any where about-can you, now ?" And the youth leaned his hand upon the crupper, while he turned himself sideways on his saddle to look well back upon the scene.

"I know, boy, there is not a homestead nearer than a day's ride," answered the godfather, still inwardly enjoying the fun of the boy's bewilderment, and patting on the shoulder, now that he was fairly dismounted, the old "nag-horse" that had borne him from St. Louis that morning. "Nevertheless, this is our journey's end, Master Benjamin."

"This our journey's end! Well, well!" the youth exclaimed, in greater amazement than ever, as he tossed up his head like a horse with a halfempty nose-bag; and then drawing one foot from

the stirrup, he screwed himself round once more on the saddle as upon a pivot, so as to take another good broad survey of the country. "Why, I thought you were going to show me some large town or other, uncle-or some great shipping place or grand farm, perhaps; but what your object can be in bringing me out here to an immense wilderness in the back-woods, I'm sure I can't tell;" and the half-sulky lad flung himself off his pony, and stood almost up to his middle in the grass.

a

Then, by way of consolation, he proceeded to hug the shaggy little steed round the neck, calling him the while his "darling Jacky," and " beauty," and telling the tiny creature, as he cuddled and caressed it like a human being, "how happy he would be if Jacky only belonged to him, instead of the French farmer they had borrowed it from."

"Patience, my little philosopher, patience. You shall know all in good time," was the simple rebuke of the godfather while slipping the bridle from his nag previous to turning him adrift in the herbage, that was almost as high as corn.

Little Benjamin proceeded to follow the old man's example, and, having divested Jacky of his head-gear, he advanced toward his uncle with the bit dangling from his hand. Then, as the lad stood on tiptoe beside a neighboring tree, trying to hang the bridle on the same branch as his godfather had used for the same purpose, he exclaimed, "But, uncle, you must allow I've had a good bit of patience already. Why, let me see, we've been away from home now" (and he paused to make a mental calculation of the precise time)yes! more than three weeks, I declare; and though I did worry you, perhaps, a good deal at first-when we were in the sloop, you know, on

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our way from Boston to Annapolis-as to where you were going to take me, and why we were coming so far away from home, still, you remember, when I found you wouldn't tell me any thing about it, but bade me have a little patience, as you do now, why, I never said another word to you on the matter, though I must confess I couldn't keep from twisting it over and over in my mind all the time we were in that strange-looking old stage-wagon traveling over the Alleghany Mountains to Pittsburg, and that was many dayswasn't it uncle, eh ?"

"Yes, you monkey! but you made up for it well-that you did-on board the 'ark' that we came down the Ohio in," responded the tutor, as he shook his forefinger playfully in the face of the laughing lad; "for then not a town appeared in sight but it was, 'Are we going to stop here, uncle?' 'Is this the place you wanted me to see, uncle?' 'How long will it be before we get to our journey's end, uncle?" "What are you going to show me this time, uncle?' and a thousand and one other knagging questions that would have given poor old Job himself an attack of the bile." "Well, I dare say I did tease you a bit, poor unky," replied the wheedling little fellow, as he sat down on the grass beside his godfather, and curled his arm about his neck, while, half abashed, he leaned his head upon the old one's shoulder; "but you should remember I'm only a bit of a boy' still, as mother says. Besides, you have such a strange way of teaching me things, you know -so different from old Mr. Brownwell; though I am sure he was kind enough to all of us boys in the school. First, you take me out fishing; then we go boating together; and though I fancied each time you meant merely to treat me to a day's pleasure, I found out afterward that

you had planned the trip only on purpose to give me some lesson in life.'

"Yes, my dear lad," said the kind-hearted old gentleman, while passing his hand over the cheek of his young pupil, "I turned your recreations into matters of study. I used your boyish sports as a means to show you what is a man's business in the world. Children remember their nursery rhymes better than their catechism, Ben, because the lesson is pleasanter; and when the heart is in the work, the task, you know now, lad—”

"Is always lightened," promptly replied the little fellow. "I recollect, uncle, it was that which made the hard labor of the dock-yard come so easy to Peter the Great. But still, unky, dear, I really can't see what there is to be learned in such a place as this." (The old man shook his head as he smiled at the boy's frankness.) "You said you were going to teach me how to get on in life, but what can I possibly learn of the ways of the world in a part that seems to be almost out of it where there are no towns, no farms, no crops, no workshops, no shipping-nothing, indeed, but the tracks of wild Indians, wild birds, and wild cattle ?"

"I dare say, my little man, it does seem strange to you," replied the uncle," and doubtlessly it will seem much stranger when I tell you that I have brought you all this long way from homemany hundreds of miles-to this vast uninhabited plain to teach you-"

"What?" cried the eager boy, unable to wait for the conclusion of the sentence.

"How to be rich, my son," was all the reply. "How to be rich!" cried the youth, even more bewildered than ever. "How to be rich! Oh, I should like to know about that, uncle, very much ;" and, boy-like, he chuckled with delight at