One day the lawn had been mown, and the children where all very busy wheeling their little barrows, and loading them with the short grass; David was with them at first, but when Purday left off work, he marched after the old man in his grave deliberate way, and was seen no more till nearly tea-time, when he walked into the school-room with a very set look upon his solemn face, and sat himself down cross-legged on the locker, with a sigh that seemed to come out of the very depths of his heart. “What’s the matter, David?” He made no answer, and Miss Fosbrook let him alone; but Annie presently bounced in, crying out, “Davie, Davie! where were you? we have been hunting for you everywhere! Where did you go?” “I went with Purday.” “What, to milk the cows?” “Yes.” “And then?” “I went with him to Farmer Long’s, to see his little Chinese pigs.” “And you have bought one! O Davie!” “Purday is to ask the farmer about the price to-morrow morning, because he wasn’t at home.” “Then you won’t get the carpenter’s tools?” said Annie. “No,” said David; “Purday said tools that they make for little boys never will cut.” “So you told Purday all about it?” David nodded his head. “Oh, do tell me what Purday said!” continued Annie. “It’s nothing to you,” said David bluntly. But by and by, when John came in, and a few more questions were asked, David let out that Purday had said, “Well, he thought sure enough if the money was sent to Master David for that intent, he did not ought to spend it no other ways; and whether or not, Hannah Higgins was a deserving woman; and Master Davie didn’t know what it was like never to have a bit of bacon ne’er a Sunday in the winter. He couldn’t say but it was hard that those poor folks should get nothing but bread and cabbages from week’s end to week’s end, just that Master Davie might spoil bits of deal board with making chips of them.” And when David was sure he shouldn’t spoil his wood, Purday had told him that them toy-shop young gentleman’s tools were made to sell, and not made to cut. Best save up his money, and buy one real man’s tool after another; and then he’d get a set equal to George Bowles’s in time! Though so young, David was long-sighted and patient enough to see the sense of this, and had already made up his mind that he would begin with a gimlet. And though he did not say so, and the first resolution had cost a very tough struggle, his heart seemed to have freed itself in that one great sigh, and he was at peace with himself. Miss Fosbrook was very glad he had gone to so wise and good an adviser as Purday, and was almost as happy as David himself. She gave him and John leave to go with Purday the next day to bargain for the pig, as David was very anxious for one in especial, whose face he said was so jolly fat; and it was grand to see the two little boys consequentially walking on either aide of Purday, who had put on his whitest round frock for the great occasion.