earth can naturally-or rather, I should say, spontaneously-support. Here, however, the land yields, of its own free-will, such a superabundance of natural wealth that man has hardly thought it worth his while to begin to appropriate any portion of it to his own individual use; hence the only labor required in such a place as this is that merely of collecting the riches which Nature freely offers up to her uncivilized children. Here the fruit has but to be plucked, and the beasts of the field or birds of the air to be slain, to allay the cravings of the stomach, so that a hunter's life is sufficient to satisfy the common necessities of human existence."

"Oh yes; and that's the reason, uncle, why these prairies are called the 'Indian huntinggrounds," "exclaimed the younger Benjamin, with no little delight, as the true significance of the phrase flashed across his mind.

"You will understand, then, my boy," the elder continued, "that so long as the children of Nature are few in number, and their mother-earth yields more than enough for each and all of them, there is no appropriation, no scrambling for the world's riches, no hoarding of them, no coveting of our neighbor's possessions, no theft, nor, indeed, any labor for man to perform, harder than that of gathering the superabundant food as he may want it. Directly, however, the human family begins to outgrow the natural resources of the land over which it is distributed, then men proceed to seize upon the good things of the world, and garner them as their own special property, while others strive to force the earth to yield by cultivation more than the natural supply, so that the more savage members of the tribe fall to fighting among themselves for the possessions obtained by their brothers, and the more peaceable and sedate to

raise for their own use fruits and grain that the soil otherwise would never have borne. Thus, then, you see, Ben, that as the world becomes peopled, and tribes pass from a state of nature to civilization, there are developed two new features in human life — the one, the appropriation of what is growing scarce (for no one thinks of gathering and hoarding that which is superabundant); and the other, the production of artificial crops and riches, as a means of remedying the scarcity."

"I think I can make out now what seemed so strange to me before, uncle," young Benjamin chimed in, as he lay looking up in the old man's face; "the only work required of the wild Indians out here is that of gathering the fruits of the earth, while the farmers and others round about us have to produce them."

"Just so, lad; and while collection is the easiest form of work, production is a long and laborious process," added the tutor.

"So it is," the boy made answer, as the difference was clearly defined to him; "it takes just a year for the harvest to come round, and a deal of work has to be done before that-eh, uncle ?"

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'Well, then, Ben, the next thing to be considered is, How are the laborers to live between the crops?" said Uncle Benjamin, as he led his little pupil step by step through the maze of the reasoning. "Collection yields an immediate return to the labor; but in production the producers must wait for the produce, and of course live while they are waiting."

"Of course they must," echoed the youngster; "but then, you know, uncle, they've got all the last year's corn to keep them."

"Yes; but suppose, my little man, some of them made their corn into cakes, and pies, and puddings, as well as bread, and so ate up all their

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YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

stock before the harvest came round again, what then, would be the consequence ?" inquired the uncle, watching the effect of the question upon the boy.

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Why, then they'd have to starve, of course," was the simple rejoinder, for the youth was still unable to detect the drift of the inquiry.

"Ay, Benjamin, to starve, or else to labor for the benefit of those who had been more prudent,' answered the uncle, still gazing intently at the youth as he lay with his head pillowed on the old man's lap; "and thus civilized society would become divided into two distinct classes-masters and men, rich and poor."

"Oh! I see," pondered the little fellow, as he woke up to the truth; "the prudent people in the world become the rich, and the imprudent make the poor." But presently a doubt darted across his mind, and he asked, "But is it always so in Boston and other towns, uncle? Are riches got only by prudence, and is imprudence the great cause of poverty ?"

"I know what is passing through your brain, Ben," interposed the old man," and I should tell you that many persons are certainly born to riches, while many more inherit a life of poverty, lad. In most cases, however, the heritage is the result of their parents' or their forefathers' thrift, or the want of it. If your father, Ben, chose to make a beggar of himself, not only would he suffer, but you and your brothers and sisters would become hereditary beggars, and, most likely, find it difficult in after life to raise yourselves above beggary."

"Then the sins of the fathers," murmured the thoughtful lad," are really visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation,' as it says in the commandment."

"Yes, my little man," the elder Benjamin added, "poverty is truly an 'estate in tail.' It descends from father to son; and it is supreme hard work to 'dock the entail' (as lawyers call it), I can tell you. As the mere casualty of birth ennobles the son of a noble, so, generally speaking, does it pauperize the son of the pauper. The majority of the rich have not been enriched by their own merits, boy, nor the mass of the poor impoverished by their own demerits. As a rule, the one class is no more essentially virtuous than the other is essentially vicious. The vagabond is often lineally descended from a long and ancient ancestry of vagabonds, even as the proudest peer dates his dignity from peers before the Conquest. The heraldry of beggary, however, is an unheard-of science. The patrician's pedigree forms part of the chronicles of the country; but who thinks of the mendicant's family tree? And yet, lad, the world might gather more sterling wisdom from the genealogy and antecedents of the one than the other. 'Who was the first beggar in the family? How did he get his patent of beggary? and how many generations of beggars have been begotten by this one man's folly or vice?' These are questions which few give heed to, my son, and yet they are pregnant with the highest philosophy, ay, and the most enlightened kindness."

The little fellow was too deeply touched with the suggestiveness of his uncle's queries to utter a word in reply. He was thinking how he should like to learn from the next beggar he met what had made him a beggar-he was thinking of the little beggar-children he had seen with their father and mother chanting hymns in the streets of Boston, and wondering whether they would grow up to be beggars in their turn, and bring their little ones up to beggary also.

"Moreover, I should tell you, lad," continued the uncle, after a brief pause, "that in the struggle of the transition of almost every race from a state of barbarism to civilization, possessions are mostly acquired by force of arms rather than by industry and frugality; for no sooner does the scrambling for the scanty wealth begin, than the strong seize not only upon the natural riches of the earth, but upon the very laborers themselves, and compel them to till the land as slaves for their benefit. But, putting these matters on one side, boy, what I am anxious to impress upon you now is, that even supposing right, rather than might, had prevailed at the beginning of organized society, and all had started fairly, producing for themselves, why, long before the second harvest had come round, some would have eaten up, and some would have wasted their first year's crop, and these must naturally have become the serfs of those who had saved theirs. Thus, then, the same broad distinctions as exist now among men would have sprung up, and the human world still have been separated into two great tribes-those who had plenty of breadstuff, and those who had none; while those who had no food of their own would be at the mercy of those who possessed a superabundance; so that not only would they be glad to be allowed to labor for the others' benefit, but even constrained to work for the veriest pittance that their masters chose to dole out to them."

Little Benjamin remained silent, conning the hard bit of worldly wisdom that had been for the first time revealed to him.

The uncle noticed the impression his words had made, and added, "Such, my little man, are the social advantages of prudence, and such the heavy penalties that men pay for lack of thrift in life. But, before we proceed any farther, Ben,