months. The country school at Mossvale had closed for the season early
in the spring--so as to allow the farmer boys to do their work, and
Richard was satisfied that he had about learned all that Mr. Parsons,
the pedagogue, was able or willing to teach, and saw no good reason
for his returning in the fall. He would have liked to continue his
studies, but there was only one other institute of learning in the
neighborhood--a boarding academy, where the rates for tuition were
high, and to this he well knew his parents could not afford to send
him.

Mr. Dare was by trade a house painter and decorator. When a young man
he had served three years in the army, during the great rebellion,
from which he had come away with a bullet in his shoulder, and a strong
tendency towards chronic rheumatism. Shortly after he had married, and
now, twenty years later, his family included four children, of which
Richard, age sixteen, was next to the oldest.

Mr. Dare was a steady, sober man, who disliked excitement, and the
quiet plodding along in Mossvale just suited him. He was only a
journeyman, and it is doubtful if his ambition had ever risen beyond
his present station. By frugality he and his wife had saved enough to
buy a half acre of land in this pretty New Jersey village, on which
they had erected a neat cottage, and here apparently John Dare was
content to spend the remainder of his life.

But Richard Dare partook of but little of his father's retiring
disposition. He was a bright, active boy, with a clear heart and brain,
and he longed to get at some work where energy would be the road to
success. His comprehension was rapid, and beneath an outwardly calm
spirit, lurked the fire of a youth well trained to grapple with noble