I knew he was only joking, yet I got quite
excited. 'Yes,' I said, 'Do as my father and mother did. Have a farm
about twice as large as you can manage. Don't keep a hired man. Get up
at daylight and slave till dark. Never take a holiday. Have the girls do
the housework, and take care of the hens, and help pick the fruit, and
make the boys tend the colts and the calves, and put all the money they
make in the bank. Don't take any papers, for they would waste their time
reading them, and it's too far to go the postoffice oftener than once a
week; and'--but, I don't remember the rest of what I said. Anyway your
uncle burst into a roar of laughter. 'Hattie,' he said, 'my farm's too
big. I'm going to sell some of it, and enjoy myself a little more.' That
very week he sold fifty acres, and he hired an extra man, and got me a
good girl, and twice a week he left his work in the afternoon, and took
me for a drive. Harry held the reins in his tiny fingers, and John told
him that Dolly, the old mare we were driving, should be called his, and
the very next horse he bought should be called his, too, and he should
name it and have it for his own; and he would give him five sheep, and
he should have his own bank book and keep his accounts; and Harry
understood, mere baby though he was, and from that day he loved John as
his own father.
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