"I expect to work with my hands, Jack," said Bob; "I haven't got a head for books, as you have. But I'd like to know a _leetle_ more before I settle down. I wish I could make enough at something to be able to go to school next winter." "If I only had your strength and size, Bob, I'd go to work for somebody as a farmer. But I have more than myself to look after. I must help mother after this term is out. I must get something to do, and then learning will be slow business. They talk about Ben Franklin studying at night and all that, but it's a little hard on a fellow who hasn't the constitution of a Franklin. Still, I'm going to have an education, by hook or crook." At this point in the conversation, Judge Kane came in. As usual, he said little, but he got the boys to talk about their own affairs. "When do you go home?" he asked. "Next Friday evening, when school is out," said Jack. "And what are you going to do?" he asked of Bob. "Get some work this summer, and then try to get another winter of schooling next year," was the answer. "What kind of work?" "Oh, I can farm better than I can do anything else," said Bob. "And I like it, too." And then Judge Kane drew from Jack a full account of his affairs, and particularly of the debt due from Gray, and of his interview with Gray. "If you could get a few hundred dollars, so as to make your mother feel easy for a while, living as she does in her own house, you could go to school next winter." "Yes, and then I could get on after that, somehow, by myself, I suppose," said Jack. "But the few hundred dollars is as much out of my reach as a million would be, and my father used to say that it was a bad thing to get into the way of figuring on things that we could never reach." The Judge sat still, and looked at Jack out of his half-closed gray eyes for a minute in silence. "Come up to the house with me," he said, rising. Jack followed him to the house, where the Judge opened his desk and took out a red-backed memorandum-book, and dictated while Jack copied in his own handwriting the description of a piece of land on a slip of paper. "If you go over to school, to-morrow, an hour earlier than usual," he said, "call at the county clerk's office, show him your memorandum, and find out in whose name that land stands. It is timber-land five miles back, and worth five hundred dollars. When you get the name of the owner, you will know what to do; if not, you can ask me, but you'd better not mention my name to anybody in this matter." Jack thanked Mr. Kane, but left him feeling puzzled. In fact, the farmer-judge seemed to like to puzzle people, or at least he never told anything more than was necessary.