` You are to keep your mother 's wood-box full all winter long , and do it yourself . If you fail , school stops . ' James laughed at the queer condition and readily agreed to it , thinking it a very easy one . `` He began school , and for a time got on capitally with the wood-box , for it was autumn , and chips and brushwood were plentiful . He ran out morning and evening and got a basket full , or chopped up the cat sticks for the little cooking stove , and as his mother was careful and saving , the task was not hard . But in November the frost came , the days were dull and cold , and wood went fast . His mother bought a load with her own earnings , but it seemed to melt away , and was nearly gone , before James remembered that he was to get the next . Mrs. Snow was feeble and lame with rheumatism , and unable to work as she had done , so James had to put down the books , and see what he could do . `` It was hard , for he was going on well , and so interested in his lessons that he hated to stop except for food and sleep . But he knew the minister would keep his word , and much against his will James set about earning money in his spare hours , lest the wood-box should get empty . He did all sorts of things , ran errands , took care of a neighbor 's cow , helped the old sexton dust and warm the church on Sundays , and in these ways got enough to buy fuel in small quantities . But it was hard work ; the days were short , the winter was bitterly cold , and precious time went fast , and the dear books were so fascinating , that it was sad to leave them , for dull duties that never seemed done . `` The minister watched him quietly , and seeing that he was in earnest helped him without his knowledge . He met him often driving the wood sleds from the forest , where the men were chopping and as James plodded beside the slow oxen , he read or studied , anxious to use every minute . ` The boy is worth helping , this lesson will do him good , and when he has learned it , I will give him an easier one , ' said the minister to himself , and on Christmas eve a splendid load of wood was quietly dropped at the door of the little house , with a new saw and a bit of paper , saying only , '' ` The Lord helps those who help themselves . ' `` Poor James expected nothing , but when he woke on that cold Christmas morning , he found a pair of warm mittens , knit by his mother , with her stiff painful fingers . This gift pleased him very much , but her kiss and tender look as she called him her ` good son , ' was better still . In trying to keep her warm , he had warmed his own heart , you see , and in filling the wood-box he had also filled those months with duties faithfully done . He began to see this , to feel that there was something better than books , and to try to learn the lessons God set him , as well as those his school-master gave . `` When he saw the great pile of oak and pine logs at his door , and read the little paper , he knew who sent it , and understood the minister 's plan ; thanked him for it , and fell to work with all his might .
Other boys frolicked that day , but James sawed wood , and I think of all the lads in the town the happiest was the one in the new mittens , who whistled like a blackbird as he filled his mother 's XXXXX . ''
James brushwood errands hours minute months morning school-master sleds wood-box