In engaging himself to teach this art and mystery to Tony, he undertook to impart a great deal
more knowledge than he himself possessed,--a thing, by the way, which is very common with a
good many other people. Altogether it was a hard bargain for poor Tony; but when parents are
so idle and thriftless as to expose their children to such a fate as his, they leave them a
legacy of nothing better than the very hardest kind of bargains.

In addition to this help, about a year after Tony took up his quarters with Mr. Spangler, there
came along an old man of seventy, a sort of distant relation of the Spanglers, who thenceforward
made the farm his home. Mr. Spangler and his wife called him "Benny," but all the younger members
of the family, out of respect for his age, called him "Uncle," so that in a very short time
he went by no other name than that of "Uncle Benny," and this not only on the farm, but all
over the neighborhood.

Uncle Benny turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls had ever been acquainted
with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he was very fond of children, and like generally
begets like. He was a very different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been
well educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting disposition, he had
travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude of strange men and strange things, and had
such a way of telling what he had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who
heard him. Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of foreign countries,
or how people lived in our great cities, or how they carried on farming in other parts of our
country, he talked so pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before
he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his chair in the chimney
corner, and once or twice actually tipped over quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny
got fairly under way, there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and
listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.

Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both men and boys, and
even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much, that he had something appropriate for
every event that turned up. Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides
this, he was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed able to make
any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.

In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an old man, and not strong
enough to do a full day's work at mowing or hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could
potter about the house and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a hundred
broken places that had been neglected for years before he came to live there. If he saw anything
out of order, a gate with no latch, a picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling
defect about the premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the broken
lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats and bonnets that had been stuffed
into them. He put on new buttons to keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from
the wood-pile that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to look at.

It was Uncle Benny who nailed up the loose door-step which the pig had rooted away from its
place, causing Lucy Spangler to fall on the edge of a bucket and break her nose. Lucy came
out to thank him for doing the thing so nicely; for ever since the accident to her nose, she
had been very skittish about putting her foot on the step.

"Ah, Lucy," said Uncle Benny, "I wish I could mend your nose as easily."

"Indeed I wish so too," replied Lucy.

Inside of the house were numerous things that wanted looking after in the same way. There was
not a bolt or a latch that would work as it ought to. All the closet locks were out of order,
while one half the doors refused to shut. In fact there were twenty little provocations of
this kind that were perpetual annoyances to the women. Uncle Benny went to work and removed
them all; there was no odd job that he was not able to go through with. Indeed, it was the
luckiest day in the history of that farm when he came to live upon it, for it did seem that,
if the farm were ever to be got to rights, he was the very man to do it. Now, it was very curious,
but no one told Uncle Benny to do these things. But as soon as he had anchored himself at Mr.
Spangler's he saw how much the old concern was out of gear, and, providing himself with tools,
he undertook, as one of his greatest pleasures, to repair these long-standing damages, not
because he expected to be paid for it, but from his own natural anxiety to have things look
as they ought.

The boys watched the old man's operations with great interest, for both Joe and Tony were ambitious
of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy
fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever
turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters
of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides,
it had become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus gave them a miserably
weak decoction for breakfast. Now, Uncle Benny had been used to strong coffee, and couldn't
stand what Mrs. Spangler gave him. So he unshipped the mill, took it to pieces, with a small
file sharpened up the grinders, which by long use had become dull, oiled its joints, and screwed
it up in a new place, where it was impossible for the knuckles to be bruised. It then worked
so beautifully, that, instead of every one hating to put his hand on the crank, the difficulty
was to keep the children away from it,--they would grind on it an hour at a time. Such a renovation
of damaged goods had never before been seen on Spangler's premises.

Author of "Ten Acres Enough."

(To be continued.)

AFLOAT IN THE FOREST:

OR, A VOYAGE AMONG THE TREE-TOPS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BROTHERS AT HOME.

Twenty years ago, not twenty miles from the Land's End, there lived a Cornish gentleman named
Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died, leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose
mother all three had mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.

"Squire" Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his ancestors for hundreds
of years before him had dispensed hospitality. None of them, however, had entertained so profusely
as he; or rather improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after his
death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to it, passed into the hands
of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless.
One thousand pounds apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial
estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality theirs, but had been given
to them by the very respectable solicitor who had managed their father's affairs, and had furthermore
managed to succeed him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three thousand a year.

Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions received their two thousand
pounds must have believed it to be a gift, since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor
with the private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes elsewhere,--anywhere
except in Cornwall!

The land-pirate who had plucked them--for in reality had they been plucked--did not wish them
to stay at home, divested, as they were, of their valuable plumage. He had appropriated their
fine feathers, and cared not for the naked bodies of the birds.

There were those in Cornwall who suspected foul play in the lawyer's dealings with the young
Trevannions,--among others, the victims themselves. But what could they do? They were utterly
ignorant of their late father's affairs,--indeed, with any affairs that did not partake of
the nature of "sports." A solicitor "most respectable,"--a phrase that has become almost synonymous
with rascality,--a regular church-goer,--accounts kept with scrupulous exactness,--a man of
honest face, distinguished for probity of speech and integrity of heart,--what could the Trevannions
do? What more than the Smiths and the Browns and the Joneses, who, notwithstanding their presumed
greater skill in the ways of a wicked lawyer world, are duped every day in a similar manner.
It is an old and oft-repeated story,--a tale too often told, and too often true,--that of the
family lawyer and his confiding client, standing in the relationship of robber and robbed.

The two children of Squire Trevannion could do nothing to save or recover their paternal estate.
Caught in the net of legal chicanery, they were forced to yield, as other squire's children
have had to do, and make the best of a bad matter,--forced to depart from a home that had been
held by Trevannions perhaps since the Phoenicians strayed thitherward in search of their shining
tin.

It sore grieved them to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the secret understanding
with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By staying at home a still greater might be called
for,--subsistence in penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for, notwithstanding
the open house long kept by their father, his friends had disappeared with his guests. Impelled
by these thoughts, the brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune
wherever it seemed most likely they should find it.

They were at this period something more than mere children. Ralph had reached within twelve
months of being twenty. Richard was his junior by a couple of years. Their book-education had
been good; the practice of manly sports had imparted to both of them a physical strength that
fitted them for toil, either of the mind or body. They were equal to a tough struggle, either
in the intellectual or material world; and to this they determined to resign themselves.

For a time they debated between themselves where they should go, and what do. The army and
navy came under their consideration. With such patronage as their father's former friends could
command, and might still exert in favor of their fallen fortunes, a commission in either army
or navy was not above their ambition. But neither felt much inclined towards a naval or military
life; the truth being, that a thought had taken shape in their minds leading them to a different
determination.

Their deliberations ended by each of them proclaiming a resolve,--almost sealing it with a
vow,--that they would enter into some more profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment
than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil--with their hands, if need
be--until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate
from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young,
strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done,--with time, patience, and industry to
aid them in the execution.

"Where shall we go?" inquired Richard, the younger of the two. "To America, where every poor
man appears to prosper? With a thousand each to begin the world with, we might do well there.
What say you, Ralph?"

"America is a country where men seem to thrive best who have nothing to begin the world with.
You mean North America,--the United States,--I suppose?"

"I do."

"I don't much like the United States as a home,--not because it is a republic, for I believe
that is the only just form of government, whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object
to it simply because I wish to go south,--to some part of the tropical world, where one may
equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune."

"Is there such a place?"

"There is."

"Where, brother?"

"Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus of Panama. As Cornish
men we should adopt the specialty of our province, and become miners. The Andes mountains will
give us that opportunity, where, instead of gray tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say
you to South America?"

"I like the thought of South America,--nothing would please me better than going there. But
I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for the occupation you speak of. I had rather
be a merchant than a miner."

"Don't let that penchant prevent you from selecting Peru as the scene of mercantile transactions.
There are many Englishmen who have made fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow
their example. We may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One thousand
pounds each may give both of us a start,--you as a merchant of goods, I as a digger for gold.
Peru is the place for either business. Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered
celebrated by Pizarro?"

"If you will it--I'm agreed."

"Thither then let us go."

In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward
from the Land's End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao,--en route
first for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower
above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,--vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks.

CHAPTER II.

THE BROTHERS ABROAD.

This book is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it
were so, a gap of some fifteen years--after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco--would
have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the
details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid.

Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner's life; and, parting
with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest,--the
"montaña," as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with
a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and
upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth,
in the thriving "city" of Gran Pará.

Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife,--the
daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Pará. In
a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"--only two of whom survived to
prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence
of their mother.

Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years
of age, was a widower, with two children,--respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary
affairs,--rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so
much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,--"otium cum dignitate."