When not at school, the two fished and played together--inseparable.

Corn was ripe now, and school closed and Chad went with the men into the
fields and did his part, stripping the gray blades from the yellow stalks,
binding them into sheaves, stowing them away under the low roof of the big
barn, or stacking them tent-like in the fields--leaving each ear perched like
a big roosting bird on each lone stalk. And when the autumn came, there were
husking parties and dances and much merriment; and, night after night, Chad
saw Sintha and the school-master in front of the fire--"settin' up"--close
together with their arms about each other's necks and whispering. And there
were quilting parties and housewarmings and house-raisings--one that was of
great importance to Caleb Hazel and to Chad. For, one morning, Sintha
disappeared and came back with the tall young hunter in the deerskin
leggings--blushing furiously--a bride. At once old Joel gave them some cleared
land at the head of a creek; the neighbors came in to build them a cabin, and
among them all, none worked harder than the school-master; and no one but Chad
guessed how sorely hit he was.

Meanwhile, the woods high and low were ringing with the mellow echoes of axes,
and the thundering crash of big trees along the mountain-side; for already the
hillsmen were felling trees while the sap was in the roots, so that they could
lie all winter, dry better and float better in the spring, when the rafts were
taken down the river to the little capital in the Bluegrass. And Caleb Hazel
said that he would go down on a raft in the spring and perhaps Chad could go
with him who knew? For the school-master had now made up his mind finally--he
would go out into the world and make his way out there; and nobody but Chad
noticed that his decision came only after, and only a little while after, the
house-raising at the head of the creek.

When winter came, school opened again, and on Saturdays and Sundays and cold