It was a strange thing to the newsboy, whose life had been spent in the streets of the great city, to find himself awaking the next morning in a clean, wholesome bed in a room which, if not elegant, was at least comfortable, neat and redolent of old fashioned country herbs. Of course he did not question the honesty of his host or hostess but from sheer force of habit and as a precautionary measure, too, he examined the roll of bills in his inside pocket and assured himself that they were all there. Then he dressed himself, stole quietly down stairs and found Mrs. Wolcott busy in her big kitchen. Her husband was out in the barn, and there Skinny found him, giving the horses and cattle their morning meal. There was plenty about the farm for a boy to turn his hand to, and Skinny’s first job was driving the cows out to the pasture where there was still to be found a good deal of grass that had defied the cold weather. It was an easy and not unpleasant task strolling along the road, letting down the bars of the pasture lot, watching the cattle as they streamed through, and then putting up the bars and walking back to the farm house where Mrs. Wolcott had just put the breakfast on the table. The boy found, too, that his walk had given him an excellent appetite and he consumed such an amount of country luxuries as fairly surprised himself. Breakfast over he helped the farmer put the two horses in the big wagon, then climbed in and accompanied him to the corn field a mile away. By the exercise of his customary and habitual silence, and by carefully watching the farmer and the hired man, Skinny managed not only to acquit himself with credit in their eyes but to impress them with the idea, that it might be a handy thing to have a boy of his sort about the farm all the time, or at least until the harvesting was over. During that day Skinny did more solid work, ate more good food, and breathed more pure air than in any other one day of his career, and when night came he fell asleep and did not stir again until he was aroused by the farmer early in the morning. Then he repeated his experience of the day before, and by the time Sunday came around he had come to the conclusion that country life was not so bad, after all, and that there were worse people in the world than “jayhawkers,” as he called them. On Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott started, in their best clothes, for church, a proceeding which seemed so remarkable to Skinny that he inquired why they went there. They would have taken him with them, too, if his clothes had been more presentable, but although Mrs. Wolcott had made some repairs in his torn jacket, and provided him with a new and clean shirt, he was still unmistakably a ragged New York street boy, and would have been out of place in the village church, where all the country lads were taken, neatly washed and combed, and with their boots well greased and their clothes carefully brushed.