One day, late in April, Robert Starbird dropped in while the members of the Walker family were at dinner. He was a wool-buyer for the Starbird Woolen Company of Lowbridge, and a nephew of its president. Having completed a bargain with Grandpa Walker for his scanty spring clipping of fleece, he turned to Pen. "Haven't I seen you at Colonel Butler's, down at Chestnut Hill?" he inquired. "Yes," replied Pen, "I'm his grandson. I used to live there." "I thought so. Staying here now, are you?" "Until I can get regular work; yes, sir." "Want a job, do you?" "I'd like one, very much." "Well, we'll need a bobbin-boy at the mills pretty soon. I suppose--" And then Grandpa Walker interrupted. "I guess," he said, "'t we can keep the young man busy here for a while yet." Robert Starbird looked curiously for a moment, from man to boy, and then, saying that he must go on up to Henry Cobb's to make a deal with him for his fleece, he went out to his buggy, got in and drove away. Pen went back to his work in the field with a sinking heart. It had not before occurred to him that Grandpa Walker would object to his leaving him whenever he should find satisfactory and profitable employment elsewhere. But it was now evident that, if he went, he must go against his grandfather's will. His first opportunity had already been blocked. What opposition he would meet with in the future he could only conjecture. With Old Charlie hitched to a stone-boat, he was drawing stones from a neighbor's field to the roadside, where men were engaged in laying up a stone wall. He had not been long at work since the dinner hour, when, chancing to look up, he saw Robert Starbird driving down the hill from Henry Cobb's on his way back to Chestnut Hill. A sudden impulse seized him. He threw the reins across Old Charlie's back, left him standing willingly in his tracks, and started on a run across the lot to head off Robert Starbird at the roadside. The man saw him coming and stopped his horse. Panting a little, both from exertion and excitement, Pen leaped the fence and came up to the side of the buggy. "Mr. Starbird," he said, "if that job is still open, I--I think I'll take it--if you'll give it to me." The man, looking at him closely, saw determination stamped on his countenance. "Why, that's all right," he said. "You could have the job; but what about your grandfather Walker? He doesn't seem to want you to leave." "I know. But my mother's willing. And I'll make it up to Grandpa Walker some way. I can't stay here, Mr. Starbird; and--I'm not going to. They're good enough to me here. I've no complaint to make. But--I want a real job and a fair chance." He paused, out of breath. The intensity of his desire, and the fixedness of his purpose were so sharply manifest that the man in the wagon did not, for the moment, reply. He placed his whip slowly in its socket, and seemed lost in thought. At last he said: