people talked of sending him to the town school, but the woman objected.
She had begun to feel so close to Hugh that he seemed a part of her own
flesh and blood and the thought of him, so huge and ungainly, sitting in a
school room with the children of the town, annoyed and irritated her. In
imagination she saw him being laughed at by other boys and could not bear
the thought. She did not like the people of the town and did not want Hugh
to associate with them.

Sarah Shepard had come from a people and a country quite different in
its aspect from that in which she now lived. Her own people, frugal New
Englanders, had come West in the year after the Civil War to take up
cut-over timber land in the southern end of the state of Michigan. The
daughter was a grown girl when her father and mother took up the westward
journey, and after they arrived at the new home, had worked with her father
in the fields. The land was covered with huge stumps and was difficult to
farm but the New Englanders were accustomed to difficulties and were not
discouraged. The land was deep and rich and the people who had settled upon
it were poor but hopeful. They felt that every day of hard work done in
clearing the land was like laying up treasure against the future. In New
England they had fought against a hard climate and had managed to find a
living on stony unproductive soil. The milder climate and the rich deep
soil of Michigan was, they felt, full of promise. Sarah's father like most
of his neighbors had gone into debt for his land and for tools with which
to clear and work it and every year spent most of his earnings in paying
interest on a mortgage held by a banker in a nearby town, but that did not
discourage him. He whistled as he went about his work and spoke often of a
future of ease and plenty. "In a few years and when the land is cleared
we'll make money hand over fist," he declared.

When Sarah grew into young womanhood and went about among the young people