And the wheel unclogged, they drove on.


CHAPTER VI.


To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write
and read comes by nature.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.


Little could be done in the winter. The days were short and
full of employment; all the more for Will's absence. What with
threshing wheat and oats, foddering cattle, and dressing flax,
driving to mill, cutting wood, and clearing snow, there was no
time for Virgil during the few hours of daylight; hardly time
to repeat a Latin verb. The evenings were long and bright, and
the kitchen cosy. But there were axe-helves to dress out, and
oars, and ox-yokes; and corn to shell, and hemp to hackle; and
at which ever corner of the fireplace Winthrop might set
himself down, a pair of little feet would come pattering round
him, and petitions, soft but strong, to cut an apple, or to
play jackstraws, or to crack hickory nuts, or to roast
chestnuts, were sure to be preferred; and if none of these, or
if these were put off, there was still too much of that sweet
companionship to suit with the rough road to learning. Winnie
was rarely put off, and never rejected. And the little garret
room used by Winthrop and Will when the latter was at home,
and now by Winthrop alone, was too freezing cold when he went