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“Well, old Leathershanks, what are you going to make of young Cheat-the-fishes there? I suppose he’s to follow your own trade, he began to tan hides so early?” And the glance which shot from under his shaggy brows caused the boy to blush, and shrink behind his protector.

Simon’s eyes twinkled, but he shook his head as he answered:

“Nay, Parson Bruks, we’n thowt o’ sendin’ him t’ th’ cotton fact’ry; but it fair goos agen th’ grain to send th’ little chap through th’ streets to wark Winter an’ Summer, weet or dry, afore th’ sun’s oop an’ abeawt his wark. But we conno’ keep him bout it—toimes are so bad.”

“H’m! Then what a stupid old leather-head you must be not to think of the College, where he’d be kept and fed and clothed and educated!—educated, man—do you hear?”

Simon heard, and his eyes again twinkled and winked at the new idea presented to him.

“And apprenticed!” he echoed, with a long-drawn, gasping breath.

“Ay, and apprenticed.”

The parson, cramming his pockets with apples, for which he had higgled with much persistence, handed one to Jabez with the question—