for him? Suppose he should be forced, in the late afternoon, to go
down the homeward road alone? Could it be truly said that his manhood
years had been well spent? Could any number of accumulated facts
satisfy him if the hour was a lonely hour when school closed for the
day? Might it not be that there is a Knowledge to be gained from Life
that is of more value than the wintry Knowledge of facts?

As the man looked back into his Yesterdays, the blackboard and its
condemnation mattered little to him. It was the going home alone that
mattered. What, he wondered, would matter most when, at last, he could
look back upon his grown up school days--the world blackboard with its
approval or its condemnation, or the going home alone?

* * * * *

It was the time of melting snow. The top of the orchard hill was a
faded brown patch as though, on a shoulder of winter's coat, the
season had worn a hole quite through; while the fields of the fall
plowing made spots that looked pitifully thin and threadbare; and the
creek, below the house where the little girl lived, was a long dark
line looking for all the world like a rip where the icy stitching of a
seam in the once proud garment had, at last, given way. But the drift
in the garden on the boy's side of the hedge was still piled high
against the barrier of thickly interwoven branches and twigs and the
cherry tree, in its shivering nakedness, seemed to be pleading, now,
for spring to come quickly.

The woman who knew herself to be a woman did not attempt to walk home
from her work that Saturday afternoon. The streets were too muddy and
she was later than usual because of some extra work.