IT stood with its thills upon the low stone wall that separated the barn-yard from the house-yard. There were wedges behind the wheels to keep the cart from rolling back, for it was little Sally Reed’s baby-house just now. She had brought an armful of hay from the barn and spread it upon the floor of her little oblong room, and had put the three-legged milking-stool in one corner, and there she sat nursing her great rag-baby. She felt very grand indeed, up there,—the mistress of a house in the air, and the mother of so precious a child as her black-eyed, black-haired Jessie. How she loved that little bundle of rags, which seemed to her warm heart a living thing and beautiful! and how she loved the old cart, and enjoyed the hours when it was resting!

Whatever has done good service, is entitled to rest, and the old market-cart was no idler. Its strong wheels had often been in swift motion, and many a bundle had it borne safely to the desired destination.

Gill looked upon it with a sort of affection. He was Mr. Reed’s farmer, a Scotchman by birth, and a good-natured, honest, kind-hearted man. His figure was tall and lank and awkward; but such a genial face shone out from under bushy, yellow locks, that little Benjamin and Sally Reed thought him almost handsome. His hair seemed to them quite like the glory which artists put around the heads of their saints, and they never dreamed of criticising Gill’s aspect. To them he was simply “Our Gill;” and when children say this, their heart is in the expression. The Scotchman had been with Mr. Reed ever since Ben and Sally were born, and their world would have been very strange and imperfect without him. Their father was away at business all day in the city, three miles distant, and Gill managed the land—only twelve acres—and made it bring forth enough for family use, and a surplus for the market. He was such a good steward that he took the same interest in the place as if it were his own; and he would have cut off his right hand rather than have proved unworthy of the trust reposed in him.

Gill was in the field hoeing, while Sally occupied the cart; and Ben sat upon a large rock that was in a corner of the barn-yard and served as a salt-lick for the cattle,—a lump of the white substance being kept there for the animals to go to at pleasure. The boy was shaping a handle for his hammer, and was talking with Sally about the virtues of his two-bladed jack-knife, which he was trying for the first time. The barn-door was open, and they could see Dobbin standing in his stall eating, preparatory to a trot to town. Dobbin was a plump creature, with a shaggy mane and tail, and long ears that made people say, “He is the son of a jack-ass;” but that is no disgrace to a horse. When it is said of a lad who is vicious and stubborn, and does not try to overcome an obstinate temper, which is partly inherited from a wicked father, it is a term of reproach or contempt. Dobbin deserved only praise. Good, patient, hardworking Dobbin! Always ready to come and go at Gill’s call,—to take a brisk pace toward the market-place with the heaped-up vegetables behind him; or to carry the bags of grain to the mill; or to hold Ben and Sally on his back, and give them a jaunt up and down the road while the Scotchman was getting the evening mash ready for the animal’s supper. Dobbin also earned his rest, as well as the old cart.

Little Sally hushed her baby to sleep, and laid it down upon the sweet hay. I can not say that dolly had done any work that would merit her repose; but then little babies are only meant to eat and sleep, and gather strength for labor by and by. The toil comes surely enough to most of them in after life. I’m not saying this with any feeling of regret. Oh, no; for “Work is worship,” if it is the work that God designs for us to do, and there is the sweetest pleasure in such worship. The most miserable people I have ever known are those who have nothing to do.

Sally felt that she must find something to occupy her, the moment she had finished her task of hushing the baby. So, while it lay sleeping, she clambered over the edge of the cart, and ran to the kitchen door. A chair was turned down across the sill, and Gill’s little child of nine months old was sitting upon the floor on the other side.

“Mind Jack,” said Lucy, as Sally stepped over, pretty near the little hand that was grasping at the patch of sunlight before him. “I put up the chair to keep him from creeping out; he’s getting a pert little fellow.”

“Give me a doughnut, please, Lucy,” said Sally. “I’m so hungry!”

Lucy was Gill’s wife, who did all the house-work, and the little Jack made a foreign soil like home to the emigrants, who were content to stay under the sky which had first smiled upon their bonnie laddie.

Sally took the nice brown ball from the good housewife, and stepped over the chair again. She gave two or three peeps through the slats, to make Jack crow, and then away she went to find Gill.

The baby pursed up its tiny mouth to cry, as he lost sight of her. He loved Sally so dearly!

“Never mind, little man,” said the mother, leaving her “biggin,” as she called the oat-meal porridge-cup which she was washing, and lifting the child to her shoulder, from whence he could see the little girl’s pink frock in the field, not far away.

Gill was bending to his labor, but now and then he stood erect and looked toward the farm-house, to catch a glimpse of Lucy and the “little man,” to sweeten toil. It makes work so light when one does it for those whom he loves.

“Why do you hoe so often, Gill?” asked Sally. “Won’t the things grow without?”

“Oh, yes, but other things will grow—weeds and things that are not wanted. You see this, don’t you?” pulling up a dockweed, and showing its long tap-roots. “Well, if I didn’t watch and pull, watch and pull all the time, I should have it thick enough pretty soon.”

“Isn’t it good for anything?” asked Sally, noticing its lance-like leaves, “I think this is what Lucy picks sometimes for spinach.”

“Yes, some people like it,” said Gill; “and the doctors have dockroot ointment, and dockroot powder, and dockroot liquid. They know what ‘tis good for, I suppose; but I can’t have it spreading every where among my crops. Then there’s this ragweed; if I let it alone, it will choke out every thing else. To be sure, the birds like the seed, but I have other mouths than theirs to fill.”

“And here’s a mullein, Gill, shall I pull it up?”

“I think your little hands would find it tough work; let me manage it.”

“It seems a pity to pull it up, and throw it away to wilt. What a long, hairy stalk it has, and what pretty yellow flowers, and how woolly the leaves feel,—just like flannel!”

“You can boil them in lard and make an ointment of them, to soften and soothe with. And you can steep the young leaves in water for cough mixtures.”

“You know a great deal about plants, don’t you, Gill?”

“That’s pretty much all I do know. I live among them, and I study them in the books, and out of the books. I like to study them; there’s no better learning than to look into the things that God has made.”

“What’s this?” asked Sally, pulling up a slender green stem, with long “spider legs” branching out from point to point of the stalk, until it looked like a miniature pine tree.

“That is what they call the field horsetail,” said Gill, “but a prettier name is low pine, or pine-weed, as some say. There’s another kind with a long stem of a light-brown color, with a darker-colored sheath at each joint, and, at the top of the stem, a head shaped like a pine cone. You find it on low, damp ground, and among the meadow grass. People fancy that it hurts horses, but Dobbin has eaten quantities of it with the hay, and isn’t any the worse.”

“I hope nothing will ever hurt Dobbin,” said Sally.

“Here’s my enemy, I meet it on every hand,” said Gill, twisting up a tuft of foxtail grass.

Sally admired the hairy brush at the top of the stem. “It does look like a fox’s tail,” she said.