honest efforts to be decent and comfortable, and for their
knowledge of their own ignorance. There was with them no
affectation. The mother would scold the father for being so
"easy"; Josie would roundly berate the boys for carelessness;
and all knew that it was a hard thing to dig a living out of a
rocky side-hill.

I secured the school. I remember the day I rode horseback
out to the commissioner's house with a pleasant young white
fellow who wanted the white school. The road ran down the
bed of a stream; the sun laughed and the water jingled, and
we rode on. "Come in," said the commissioner,--"come in.
Have a seat. Yes, that certificate will do. Stay to dinner.
What do you want a month?" "Oh," thought I, "this is
lucky"; but even then fell the awful shadow of the Veil, for
they ate first, then I--alone.

The schoolhouse was a log hut, where Colonel Wheeler
used to shelter his corn. It sat in a lot behind a rail fence and
thorn bushes, near the sweetest of springs. There was an
entrance where a door once was, and within, a massive
rickety fireplace; great chinks between the logs served as
windows. Furniture was scarce. A pale blackboard crouched
in the corner. My desk was made of three boards, reinforced
at critical points, and my chair, borrowed from the landlady,
had to be returned every night. Seats for the children--these
puzzled me much. I was haunted by a New England vision of
neat little desks and chairs, but, alas! the reality was rough
plank benches without backs, and at times without legs. They
had the one virtue of making naps dangerous,--possibly fa-