necessary penalty submitted to. The son should stand on better
ground than the father, though the father were himself the
stepping-stone that he might reach it.

It had nothing to do with Winthrop, all this. Nothing was said
of him. To send one son to College was already a great stretch
of effort, and of possibility; to send _two_ was far beyond
both. Nobody thought of it. Except the one left out of their
thoughts.

The summer passed in the diligent companionship of the oxen
and Sam Doolittle. But when the harvests were gathered, and
the fall work was pretty well done; the winter grain in the
ground, and the November winds rustling the dry leaves from
the trees, -- the strongest branch was parted from the family
tree, in the hope that it might take root and thrive better on
its own stock elsewhere. It was cheerfully done, all round.
The father took bravely the added burden with the lessened
means; the mother gave her strength and her eyesight to make
the needed preparations; and to supply the means for them, all
pinched themselves; and Winthrop had laid upon him the
threefold charge of his own, his brother's, and his father's
duty. For Mr. Landholm had been chosen a member of the State
Legislature; and he too would be away from home all winter.
What sort of a winter it would be, no one stopped to think,
but all were willing to bear.

The morning came of the day before the dreaded Saturday, and
no one cared to look at another. It was a relief, though a
hated one, to see a neighbour come in. Even that, Winthrop