THE FAMILIES OF JOHN AND JAKE. "Get leave to work In this world—'tis the best you get at all." JUST how the difference between the lives of John and Jake started it is hard to tell. It certainly was not owing to any difference in education-if by education we mean that process of memorizing which characterized the public schools of their city, at that time. For there, they sat side by side, all the way from the early days spent in rehearsing, week after week, the thrilling fact that "Jane has a cat; the cat has a kit," up to the more advanced stage, where patriotism was ingeniously sandwiched in between mental and moral cultivation, by the study of such weighty matters as the exact number of guns the British had when the Americans made them run so many miles; enlivened (3) by suggestive pictures of shooting, fighting, and killing.. It was not owing to any difference of birth or station, for the respective mothers of John and Jake were washerwomen, both equally filled with veneration for "the fine learnin' thim boys was gittin'," as the aforesaid boys chanted their way through the narration of Jane, and the mysteries of the multiplication table, on to the dates of all the battles of all the kings, to say nothing of much talk about "predicate" and "subjugate," and the proper spelling of "Popocatapetl" and "Yangtsekiang." There was a variation, however, in this respect, that, from after results, seems to have had importance. From the time John was a little chap, just out of petticoats, in whatever was going on his mother required him to lend a hand. He carried coal when he was so small he had to move it lump by lump. Mounted on an old soap-box he stood at the table and washed dishes; later on he took his turn many a time at the washtub, turning the wringer, fetching water, hanging up clothes, and learning to mend them after they were ironed. And, however little John and his mother earned, part was always saved. 66 His It is hard to say which viewed this method of 'bringing up" on the part of their neighbors with greater contempt, Jake, or his mother. mother belonged to that large class of men-worshipers, whose adoration seems to increase in proportion as the male idol is helpless and "do-less " about the house. So it seemed quite right to both of them that Jake should lie a-bed till his breakfast was ready, and should loaf in the streets after school while the mother carried all the household burdens on her own bent shoulders. We will slip over the years after John and Jake left school. Years during which John worked his way in a rolling-mill, first as a persistent hangeron at whatever he could get to do, then from one thing up to another, until he became a leading man in the mill, saving and learning as he struggled up. Jake, in the meantime, was always looking for something to do, but with this reservation, that |