“This is a story which should prove particularly interesting to boys, setting before them, as it does, the advantage of perseverance and the success that follows it. Bob Hirst's father has been a farm-bailiff, but meeting with an accident he is unable to work any longer, and, as expenses accumulate, it is thought desirable by the parents that Bob should leave school, of which he is very fond, and try and earn some money in order to decrease the family expenses. Bob is a good lad, and agrees willingly to go and work for Farmer Croft, to whom he has been recommended by his schoolmaster, for his board and a shilling a week.

He begins getting into the farmer's good graces by always being early, and pleases him still more by his refusal to fetch some beer from a public-house for a drunken labourer; consequently, at the end of the week, the farmer produces a new half-crown instead of a shilling. Bob is delighted, and rushes home to show it to his parents. His father is much pleased, but his mother is out, and sitting by the fire to wait for her the boy falls asleep. Suddenly he hears the half-crown telling him it is going to make a man of him, and asks what is his ambition. Bob confesses to wishing to be a Minister, of which the half-crown approves, and advises him to persevere. His mother coming in wakes the boy. The parents deciding that he shall keep his first week's money, he buys a Latin grammar, and resumes his studies under his schoolmaster in the evenings.

One day a gentleman, Col. Lewis, sees the farm lad in a smock frock, on a stool, reading a Latin grammar. This surprises him, and finding from the schoolmaster the boy is studious sends him some books. For two years Bob's life goes on smoothly, and he joins the Church choir. Col. Lewis one day offers an opening for Bob in the choir of Norchester Cathedral, where he would reside in the choir house, and, with the other boys, receive a good education. The kindly offer is gratefully accepted, and the story closes as Bob, having gained a scholarship, is about to enter college, with a fair prospect of the realisation of the promise of the 'Wonderful Half Crown.'”