THE TIM BUXKER PAPEHS. 127 



work of the laborer. If it is given to a boy, he has no 

 idea of what it has cost, or of what it is worth. He would 

 be as likely to give a dollar as a dime for a top, or any 

 other toy. But if the boy has learned to earn his dimes 

 and dollars by the sweat of his face, he knows the differ 

 ence. The painful stretch of his muscles through the 

 long rows of corn, or at the plow tail, is to him a measure 

 of values, that can never be rubbed out of his mind. A 

 hundred dollars represents a hundred weary days, and it 

 seems a great sum of money. A thousand dollars is a 

 fortune, and ten thousand is almost inconceivable, for it is 

 far more than he ever expects to possess. When he has 

 earned a dollar, he thinks twice before he spends it. He 

 wants to invest it so as to get the full value of a day s 

 work for it. 



It is a great wrong to society and to a boy to bring him 

 up to a man s estate without this knowledge. A fortune 

 at twenty-one, without it, is almost inevitably thrown 

 away. With it, and a little capital to start on, he will 

 make his own fortune better than any one can make it for 

 him. The most of the capital they need to start with, 

 they might earn in their minority. It is better for farmers 

 to pay their boys regular wages, beginning, say, when 

 they are fourteen, and teaching them how to take care of 

 it, than to give them a much larger sum when they are 

 of age. The seven years wages, if put in the Saving s 

 Bank, in annual investments, would come to over a thous 

 and dollars, and with this, and a good character, and in 

 dustrious habits, a young farmer s fortune is secure. That 

 is double the capital I had to start with ; but then I had 

 Sally Bunker for a wife, and the like of her is better luck 

 than common mortals can expect. 



Yours to command, 



TIMOTHY BUNKER, ESQ., 



Hookertown, Jan. 15th, 1860. 



