"You will not enlist at once, father?" asked Frank.

"Not for three or four weeks. I shall wish to give you some special instructions before I go, so that your task may be easier."

"Hadn't I better leave school at once?"

"You may finish this week out. However, I may as well begin my instructions without delay. I believe you have never learned to milk."

"No, sir."

"Probably Carter will undertake that. Still, it will be desirable that you should know how, in case he gets sick. You may come out with me after supper and take your first lesson."

Frank ran for his hat with alacrity. This seemed like beginning in earnest. He accompanied his father to the barn, and looked with new interest at the four cows const.i.tuting his father's stock.

"I think we will begin with this one," said his father, pointing to a red-and-white heifer. "She is better-natured than the others, and, as I dare say your fingers will bungle a little at first, that is a point to be considered."

If any of my boy readers has ever undertaken the task of milking for the first time, he will appreciate Frank's difficulties. When he had seen his father milking, it seemed to him extremely easy. The milk poured out in rich streams, almost without an effort. But under his inexperienced fingers none came. He tugged away manfully, but with no result.

"I guess the cow's dry," said he at last, looking up in his father's face.

Mr. Frost in reply drew out a copious stream.

"I did the same as you," said Frank, mystified, "and none came."

"You didn't take hold right," said his father, "and you pressed at the wrong time. Let me show you."

Before the first lesson was over Frank had advanced a little in the art of milking, and it may as well be said here that in the course of a week or so he became a fair proficient, so that his father even allowed him to try Vixen, a cow who had received this name from the uncertainty of her temper. She had more than once upset the pail with a spiteful kick when it was nearly full. One morning she upset not only the pail, but Frank, who looked foolish enough as he got up covered with milk.

Frank also commenced reading the Plowman, a weekly agricultural paper which his father had taken for years. Until now he had confined his readings in it to the selected story on the fourth page. Now, with an object in view, he read carefully other parts of the paper. He did this not merely in the first flush of enthusiasm, but with the steady purpose of qualifying himself to take his father's place.

"Frank is an uncommon boy," said Mr. Frost to his wife, not without feelings of pride, one night, when our hero had retired to bed. "I would trust him with the farm sooner than many who are half a dozen years older."

CHAPTER VII. LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

"Well, father, I've got some news for you," said John Haynes, as he entered his father's presence, two or three days later.

"What is it, John?" inquired the squire, laying down a copy of the New York Herald, which he had been reading.

"Who do you think has enlisted?"

"I do not choose to guess," said his father coldly. "If you feel disposed to tell me, you may do so."

John looked somewhat offended at his father's tone, but he was anxious to tell the news. "Frost's going to enlist," he said shortly.

"Indeed!" said the squire, with interest. "How did you hear?"

"I heard him say so himself, just now, in the store."

"I expected it," said Squire Haynes, with a sneer. "I understood his motives perfectly in urging the town to pay an enormous bounty to volunteers. He meant to line his own pockets at the public expense."

"He says that he doesn't mean to accept the bounty," continued John, in a tone which indicated a doubt whether Mr. Frost was in earnest.

"Did you hear him say that?" asked Squire Haynes abruptly.

"Yes, I heard him say so to Mr. Morse."

"Perhaps he means it, and perhaps he doesn't. If he don't take it, it is because he is afraid of public opinion. What's he going to do about the farm, while he is gone?"

"That is the strangest part of it," said John. "I don't believe you could guess who is to be left in charge of it."

"I don't choose to guess. If you know, speak out."

John bit his lip resentfully.

"It's that conceited jackanapes of his--Frank Frost."

"Do you mean that he is going to leave that boy to carry on the farm?"

demanded Squire Haynes, in surprise.

"Yes."

"Well, all I can say is that he's more of a fool than I took him to be."

"Oh, he thinks everything of Frank," said John bitterly. "He'll be nominating him for representative next."

The squire winced a little. He had been ambitious to represent the town in the legislature, and after considerable wire-pulling had succeeded in obtaining the nomination the year previous. But it is one thing to be nominated and another to be elected. So the squire had found, to his cost. He had barely obtained fifty votes, while his opponent had been elected by a vote of a hundred and fifty. All allusions, therefore, recalling his mortifying defeat were disagreeable to him.

"On the whole, I don't know but I'm satisfied," he said, recurring to the intelligence John had brought. "So far as I am concerned, I am glad he has made choice of this boy."

"You don't think he is competent?" asked John, in surprise.

"For that very reason I am glad he has been selected," said the squire emphatically. "I take it for granted that the farm will be mismanaged, and become a bill of expense, instead of a source of revenue. It's pretty certain that Frost won't be able to pay the mortgage when it comes due. I can bid off the farm for a small sum additional and make a capital bargain. It will make a very good place for you to settle down upon, John."

"Me!" said John disdainfully. "You don't expect me to become a plodding farmer, I trust. I've got talent for something better than that, I should hope."

"No," said the squire, "I have other news for you. Still, you could hire a farmer to carry it on for you, and live out there in the summer."

"Well, perhaps that would do," said John, thinking that it would sound well for him, even if he lived in the city, to have a place in the country. "When does the mortgage come due, father?"

"I don't remember the exact date. I'll look and see."

The squire drew from a closet a box hooped with iron, and evidently made for security. This was his strong-box, and in this he kept his bonds, mortgages, and other securities.

He selected a doc.u.ment tied with red ribbon, and examined it briefly.

"I shall have the right to foreclose the mortgage on the first of next July," he said.