"Don't forget, Reuben, that Sara is to have an education. I can see
already that she is going to care for books, and she'll need it more
than ever, now--promise me, husband!" and the good man would sooner have
cut off his weather-beaten spear-hand than break his promise to that
dying wife.

In fulfilment of it he had struggled with what, to his fellow-villagers,
seemed most foolish persistence, in order to give his oldest child
immense and needless advantages, though it had been difficult enough to
find the ways and means for these. Even after the usual annual three
months of the "deestric" for several years, he had felt that his solemn
promise still bound him to allow her at least one year at the seminary.

Nor did the loss of his aged mother, who had been housekeeper since his
wife's death, weaken this resolution; and it was, perhaps, partly to
make it possible for Sara to leave home, that he had married the young
woman of the shrill voice, two years ago. She could look after the house
and children while "Sairay got her finishin' off," as he expressed it.

But Sara, like many another scholar, found that her one poor little year
was but a taste of wisdom, but one sip from the inexhaustible stream of
learning, and, back once more in her childhood's home, was constantly
returning to those living waters, with an unquenchable thirst.

It was her stepmother's pet grievance that "Sairay was allers at them
books," which was hardly true; for the girl took all the care of her
younger brother and sister, and much of the baby, while not a few of the
household duties devolved upon her. But she undoubtedly was apt to hurry
through her tasks, and disappear within the little attic room above the