About seventy years ago, a physician with a young family springing up about him, consulting his wife, as all good husbands find it prudent to do, bought a large farm in one of our New England States, where every farmer truly earns his living by the sweat of his brow. Both felt that nowhere could their children be trained to industry and frugality so thoroughly as on a good farm. The doctor was obliged to "run in debt" for this property, and he gave a mortgage on the place. The payments were to be made quarterly, and promptly, or the whole would be forfeited and revert to the original owner. In those days physicians were not likely to become millionaires, and though Dr. Mason's practice was large, the pay was small, and not always sure. He therefore looked to the farm for the means to release him from the bondage of debt; and the children, even to the youngest, were taught to labor for, and look forward eagerly to, the time "when we have paid for the farm!" The creditor was the doctor's father-in-law, through his first wife, and while the good old gentleman lived, if by any mishap or overpress of business the quarterly payment had been delayed, it would have been kindly excused. But for the ten or fifteen years that he lived after the sale of the farm, there had not been one delay in payment, though now and then there would come a time when it was very hard to secure the needed sum in time, for even in the olden days "hard times" were often experienced, to the terror of our hard-working New England farmers. But little by little, the heavy debt was diminishing, and the doctor's family were looking forward hopefully to the year of jubilee, when they could sit under their own vine and fig-tree with none to molest and make them afraid. At this period the father-in-law died. He had but two children, --daughters. The younger, the doctor's wife, died childless. The elder married a hard, close, scheming man who lost no opportunity of remarking that he would, no doubt, soon come in possession of Dr. Mason's farm, as the latter, with his large family, must fail by and by. The financial troubles which the war of 1812 had caused, as all wars are sure to do, were not yet adjusted. Money was scarce, and payments very difficult. Ten children now filled the old house with merriment and gladness; but they were to be clothed and educated. Let us see how successfully they had been taught to make their high spirits and resolute wills cheerful auxiliaries in lifting the burden, which, since their grandfather's death, was pressing upon their parents.