The Fruit-Farm and the Young Folks 223 



L 



[J found, on farm or in factory. As now his eye roams 



IB up and down his native heath, to the hills, over the 



II lake, across the grand sweep of orchards and vine- 



H ys-rds, comfortable homes among the trees, the 



II quiet of prosperity, he is saying: ''What more is 



II there than this, but I did not know; I could not 



"" know; my father never let me know. Hard work, 



early and late; mud, and storm, and cold, and never 



a penny to call my own. That is my memory of 



the old farm.'* Yet when this man was born, his 



I mother said to his father: "Now, Samuel, we want 

 him to have something when we are gone ; you and 

 I began with nothing, and we know how hard life 

 is " ; and so they saved for him, and in their zeal for 

 saving they forgot him entirely and thought only of 

 saving. They saved the money and lost the boy. 

 "For the life is more than meat and the body 

 than raiment. '* Are the parents saving life or old 

 clothes? Did the mother say at her boy's birth: 

 ' You, son John, are bom, delicious torment as you 

 are, and you are bom for the sole purpose of ac- 

 cumulating $17,314.19; and you, Maria, — I forgot 

 to tell you, that you are to marry $19,413.71, and 

 mind you, both of you, not a penny less. So take 

 notice. Now leave the room and let me sleep ; but, 

 Samuel, don't forget to put on a kettle of hot water.' 

 Was it not the thrifty mother of George II., 

 "snuffy old drone from the German hive," who, 

 as Thackeray tells us, was ever saying to him, 

 * ' George, be a king ! " ? And he played king till the 

 curtain was rung down. What fruit-grower says 





