Explore "Worth his While" by Amy Ella Blanchard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was very pleasant to be awakened in the morning by the song of birds, and Benny felt inclined to lie still and listen to them, but he suddenly remembered that he was not there as a picker, and could not be quite so independent in the matter of hours and minutes. He must get up and go down to help Mrs. Bentley. Therefore he jumped up and quickly dressed himself, and had the fire made before Mrs. Bentley appeared. She smiled her satisfaction. It was something, after all, to have a small willing boy in place of a lazy, shiftless woman, and she hardly regretted her slovenly and incompetent servant, although the work of getting breakfast was all her own.
Benny, however, tried to make it easy for her. He brought in water, fed the chickens, went to the dairy, and even set the table, with the help of little Jamie, who showed him where to get dishes and knives and forks. He had finished with satisfaction, for he had given a finishing touch by bringing in a bunch of wild roses he had discovered on his way to the spring, and these he had placed in a glass in the middle of the table.