"BOY WANTED."

PEOPLE laughed when they saw the sign again. It seemed to be always in Mr. Peters' window. For a day or two, sometimes for only an hour or two, it would be missing, and passers-by would wonder whether Mr. Peters had at last found a boy to suit him; but sooner or later, it was sure to appear again.

"What sort of a boy does he want, anyway?" one and another would ask. And then they would say to each other, that they supposed he was looking for a perfect boy, and in their opinion, he would look a good while before he found one. Not that there were not plenty of boys—as many as a dozen used sometimes to appear in the course of a morning, trying for the situation. Mr. Peters was said to be rich and boys were very anxious to try to suit him. "All he wants is a fellow to run of errands; it must be easy work and sure pay." This was the way they talked to each other. But Mr. Peters wanted more than a boy to run of errands. John Simmons found that out, and this was the way he did it. He had been engaged that very morning, and had been kept busy all the forenoon, at pleasant enough work, and although he was a lazy fellow, he rather enjoyed the place.

It was towards the middle of the afternoon that he was sent up to the attic, a dark, dingy place, inhabited by mice and cobwebs.

"You will find a long deep box there," said Mr. Peters, "that I want to have put in order. It stands right in the middle of the room, you can't miss it."

John looked doleful. "A long deep box, I should think it was!" he told himself, as the attic door closed after him. "It would weigh most a ton, I guess; and what is there in it? Nothing in the world but old nails, and screws, and pieces of iron, and broken keys and things; rubbish, the whole of it! Nothing worth touching, and it is as dark as a pocket up here, and cold, besides; how the wind blows in through those knotholes! There's a mouse! If there is any thing that I hate, it's mice! I'll tell you what it is, if old Peters thinks I'm going to stay up here and tumble over his rusty nails, he's much mistaken. I wasn't hired for that kind of work."

Whereupon John bounced down the attic stairs, three at a time, and was found lounging in the show window, half an hour afterwards, when Mr. Peters appeared.

"Have you put that box in order already?" was the gentleman's question.

"I didn't find any thing to put in order; there was nothing in it but nails and things."

"Exactly; it was the 'nails and things' that I wanted put in order; did you do it?"

"No, sir, it was dark up there, and cold; and I didn't see any thing worth doing; besides, I thought I was hired to run of errands."

"Oh," said Mr. Peters, "I thought you were hired to do as you were told." But he smiled pleasantly enough, and at once gave John an errand to do down town, and the boy went off chuckling, declaring to himself that he knew how to manage the old fellow; all it needed was a little standing up for your rights.

Precisely at six o'clock John was called and paid the sum promised him for a day's work, and then, to his dismay, he was told that his services would not be needed any more. He asked no questions; indeed he had time for none, as Mr. Peters immediately closed the door.

The next morning the old sign "Boy Wanted" appeared in its usual place.

Before noon it was taken down, and Charlie Jones was the fortunate boy. Errands, plenty of them; he was kept busy until within an hour of closing. Then, behold he was sent to the attic to put the long box in order. He was not afraid of a mouse, nor of the cold, but he grumbled much over that box; nothing in it worth his attention. However, he tumbled over the things, growling all the time, picked out a few straight nails, a key or two, and finally appeared down-stairs with this message: "Here's all there is worth keeping in that old box; the rest of the nails are rusty, and the hooks are bent, or something."

"Very well," said Mr. Peters, and sent him to the post-office. What do you think? by the close of the next day, Charlie had been paid and discharged, and the old sign hung in the window.

"I've no kind of a notion why I was discharged," grumbled Charlie to his mother. "He said he had no fault to find, only he saw that I wouldn't suit. It's my opinion he doesn't want a boy at all, and takes that way to cheat. Mean old fellow!"

It was Crawford Mills who was hired next. He knew neither of the other boys, and so did his errands in blissful ignorance of the "long box," until the second morning of his stay, when in a leisure hour he was sent to put it in order. The morning passed, dinner time came, and still Crawford had not appeared from the attic. At last Mr. Peters called him. "Got through?"

"No, sir; there is ever so much more to do."

"All right; it is dinner time now; you may go back to it after dinner." After dinner back he went; all the short afternoon he was not heard from, but just as Mr. Peters was deciding to call him again, he appeared.

"I've done my best, sir," he said, "and down at the very bottom of the box I found this." "This" was a five dollar gold piece.

"That's a queer place for gold," said Mr. Peters. "It's good you found it; well, sir, I suppose you will be on hand to-morrow morning?" This he said as he was putting the gold piece in his pocket-book.

After Crawford had said good-night and gone, Mr. Peters took the lantern and went slowly up the attic stairs. There was the long deep box in which the rubbish of twenty-five years had gathered. Crawford had evidently been to the bottom of it; he had fitted in pieces of shingle to make compartments, and in these different rooms he had placed the articles, with bits of shingle laid on top and labeled thus: "Good screws." "Pretty good nails." "Picture nails." "Small keys, somewhat bent." "Picture hooks." "Pieces of iron whose use I don't know." So on through the long box. In perfect order it was at last, and very little that could really be called useful, was to be found within it. But Mr. Peters as he bent over and read the labels, laughed gleefully and murmured to the mice: "If we are not both mistaken, I have found a boy, and he has found a fortune."

Sure enough; the sign disappeared from the window and was seen no more. Crawford became the well-known errand boy of the firm of Peters & Co. He had a little room neatly fitted up, next to the attic, where he spent his evenings, and at the foot of the bed hung a motto which Mr. Peters gave him.

"It tells your fortune for you, don't forget it," he said when he handed it to Crawford.

And the boy laughed and read it curiously: "He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much."

"I'll try to be, sir," he said; and he never once thought of the long box over which he had been faithful.

All this happened years ago. Crawford Mills is errand boy no more, but the firm is Peters, Mills, Co. A young man and a rich man. "He found his fortune in a long box full of rubbish," Mr. Peters said once, laughing. "Never was a five dollar gold piece so successful in business as that one of his has been; it is good he found it." Then after a moment of silence he said gravely: "No, he didn't; he found it in his mother's Bible. 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.' It is true; Mills the boy was faithful, and Mills the man we trust."