"Oh, yes, pretty much as usual! Miss Eunice is first-rate;" and with this satisfactory though rather indefinite assurance Fidelia had to content herself till all things were safely bestowed in the wagon, and they were on their way home. Then she did not need to ask questions. Jabez had the faculty of putting a good deal of information into a few words; and as she listened, Fidelia got a summary of all that had been said and done--or at least attempted--in town-meeting, church-meeting, and even in school meeting, with personal and domestic items of the neighbours thrown in here and there as he went on. He had an interested and appreciative listener, and he knew it and did his best to be at the same time comprehensive and brief. "And the garden, Jabez? I hope that has been a success," said Fidelia at last. "Well, yes--pretty middling;" and then a brief but clear and satisfactory statement of the sowing and planting, the transplanting, watering, and hoeing which had followed; of what the bugs and worms had taken, and what had come to maturity; of how all had in general been disposed of, and the net results in dollars and cents. It was not a large sum, but it was the first money that Jabez had ever earned--that is, it was the first he had earned for himself, though he had done a good many fair days' work for his grandfather. He had all he needed as to food, clothes, and schooling. He had been as well off as most boys in the state; and the boys in the state where Jabez lived were bound to believe that nowhere in the world were the boys better off than they were. But Jabez had never before owned a tenth of the money which by cents and dimes he had been accumulating through the summer; and his dollars meant more to him by a great deal than his first ten thousand-- should he ever possess such a sum--could possibly do. "It isn't so much, but it is a beginning. I tell you, Fidelia, it feels good to be earning money for yourself--to be independent and to kind o' see your way clear. If I were to set out for it, I could be a rich man before I died." "Would it pay, do you suppose?" said Fidelia gravely. "Well, judging by the pains folks take to get rich, it ought to pay. There would have to be a good many other things along with it to make it amount to--well, to satisfaction." Fidelia laughed, partly at his way of expressing himself, and partly at the extreme gravity of his countenance. "I expect more from you, Jabez, than just to die a rich man. Many can do as much as that." "Oh, well, I say before I die; but I mean a good while before, so that I should have the benefit a spell! I say I _could_ do it." "I hope you haven't let your lettuce and cucumbers put your Nepos and Euclid out of your head. If I were you, I would make up my mind to be a learned man rather than a rich man, though, as you remarked, there would have to be something else along, to make even that amount to satisfaction."