ONE October afternoon Frank Stevens was gathering apples in his father's orchard. Great piles of golden pippins and rosy Baldwins lay under the trees, waiting to be sorted and packed in the barrels that were standing near. His brother Kent, many years older than himself, was helping. It so happened that their work lay for a time near the main road where people came and went. Leaning against the fence was Mr. Marvin, who had stopped for a little neighborly chat. Down the hill, trotting leisurely along, came a black pony. On his back was Harry Porter, one of Frank's schoolmates. He, too, drew up by the fence, and as he called, "Halloo, Frank!" cast a longing eye at the red apples. After chatting a few minutes, he trotted off again, an apple in his hand, and two in each pocket. "That's a splendid boy!" said Mr. Kent Stevens. "Yes; there's the making of a fine man in him," answered Mr. Marvin; "he's uncommonly bright, I noticed him at the examination last spring; clear as a bell he was, working hard examples and talking off the explanation as glibly as the professor himself. I reckon it would have puzzled some of us committee to have done it." Frank listened in silence as the talk went on while he sorted the fair apples from the knurly. He had a gloomy, cross look on his face, as though his thoughts were not pleasant ones, and he did not work in his usual brisk way. When Mr. Marvin went away, his thoughts came out. "No wonder," he said, "that Harry Porter is always praised up so. He has some chance in the world. His father is rich; he has a new book every time he turns around; his father never goes away but he brings him one; then he goes travelling. He has been out West and been to Boston and New York. He has been on the top of Pike's Peak, and he has seen Bunker Hill monument and the obelisk. Why shouldn't he know more than any of the rest of us? He has lots of time besides, to study, and have fun, too. Out of school he needn't do anything but trot about on that pony. What's the use of a fellow like me trying to make anything of himself?" It was not such a very long time ago that Kent Stevens had been a boy himself, even if he was now a young lawyer in the city. He came every summer to the old home for a play spell, he called it, and then he proved that he had not forgotten how to rake hay and pick apples. He had not forgotten, either, how a boy feels, so he was excellent company for Frank. He placed the last apple in a closely packed barrel, then he turned and looked curiously at his brother.