The Monday after school was out found Abbot in a pair of old overalls, hoeing away in his garden as if his life depended on getting rid of the last weed.  Several of the boys stopped at the back fence to beg him to go fishing with them, but he gave them a laughing refusal.

“I’m after bigger fish than your little brook trout,” he said, in a mysterious way.  “I’ve got my line set for a whaling big fish that will make you all green with envy.  You just wait and see what I get on the end of my line.”

He chuckled as he spoke.  The line he meant was in a sealed envelope on Judge Parker’s desk, and he was sure that it would draw the prize which would be envied by every boy in the neighbourhood.

“I’ll bet it’s tied to a bean-pole,” was the mocking answer.  “Come along, boys, no use wasting time on an old dig like Ab.”

He stood leaning on his hoe-handle a moment, watching the boys file down the alley with their fishing-poles over their shoulders, and thought of the shady creek bank where they would soon be sitting.  How much pleasanter to be where the willows dipped down into the clear, still pools than here in the rough furrows of the garden, with the hot sun beating down on him.  It was only for a moment he stood there, longing to follow, then he fell to work again.

Every thud of the hoe, as it struck into the rich earth, kept time to the refrain which repeated itself over and over in his mind:  “The hand of the dil-i-gent ma-keth rich!” That was the tune to which he set everything during the two months that followed.  He hurried through his Aunt Jane’s chores in an impatient way, doing as little as possible in order to get back to his own work.  She wondered why he was so absorbed in his garden.  When he was not weeding or watering or planting, he was counting the number of pea-pods on every vine, or the ears of corn as they tasselled out on each stalk.  He had put brains as well as muscle into his summer’s work, asking questions and advice of every gardener in Bardstown, and carefully reading the agricultural papers one of them loaned him.  Every vegetable he attempted to raise was a success, and he carried them all three miles down the road toward the city, to some rich customers that he found in the elegant suburban homes there.  They were willing to pay nearly double the price that the Bardstown people offered him, everything he had was so fresh and good.

It was a long way to trudge with his heavy baskets, and he longed every day for the wheel he was trying so hard to win.  “Won’t I spin along then!” he said to himself on more than one occasion, as he dragged his tired feet homeward.

His Aunt Jane wanted to buy some of his vegetables, and hinted several times that he might supply the table once in awhile for nothing; but beyond an occasional contribution in the way of a few inferior vegetables that he could not sell, he would not part with any at the price she offered.