Tom's mind had suffered from a famine of knowledge. He could read passably well, write a little, was good at reckoning, and the little he knew excited a craving for more. Public addresses had always moved him deeply, and the living truths of the gospel, as presented by the living preacher, had set the mental machinery in motion, until the decision to go from home in search of an education, had been wrought out; and it was this rising purpose that kept him so patiently at his day's task of finishing up the fall work, that he might commence his new career. "I will finish getting in the crops by dark," said he, as he filled the basket, "and then there will be nothing to keep me at home;" and he was about raising the basket to his shoulder, when he was startled from his reveries by a loud cry of,-- "Tom, Tom! come quick! I've caught a fawn, and he'll get away!" It was twelve-year-old Charley from the hazel bushes that bordered the potato-patch near the woods. Tom ran to assist his brother, but could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw the little fellow had caught the fawn by the tail, and was struggling to hold the agile creature, forgetting how dexterously the deer can use his heels. Scarcely had the elder brother mounted the fence, when, with a smart kick, the fawn sent Charley over on his back, and leaped into the enclosure. At this instant a bevy of flaxen-haired urchins, hatless, bonnetless,--Tom's brothers and sisters,--came whooping from the cabin, and joined the chase. In a moment Tom had forgotten all his gloomy thoughts and high resolves, and was as eager as any of them, as they tried to secure the nimble prize. A lively time it was, too; fear and speed against numbers, noise, and strategy. A good force were the pursuers; the "olive plants" of the Joneses grew very naturally in regular gradations, like the steps of a flight of stairs. Tom, Eliza, Charley, Bob, Sarah, Bill, and Bub, the four-year-old, were all active with hands, legs, and lungs, while the mother stood in the doorway, surveying the scene, with baby in her arms. "Fix up the fence where the deer jumped in!" cried Tom to Charley; and the latter hastened to repair the breach, for the brush had been broken down at that point. From corner to corner and side to side bounded the deer, slipping through the fingers of one and another of the youngsters; but they gave him no rest.