The three McPhersons stood in a doorway leading into a shoe store. The boy
and the mother, white and speechless with humiliation, dared not look at
each other. In the flood of shame sweeping over them they stared straight
before them with hard, stony eyes.

The procession led by John Telfer at the bridle of the white horse marched
down the street. Looking up, the eyes of the laughing, shouting man met
those of the boy and a look of pain shot across his face. Dropping the
bridle he hurried away through the crowd. The procession moved on, and
watching their chance the mother and the two children crept home along
side streets, Kate weeping bitterly. Leaving them at the door Sam went
straight on down a sandy road toward a small wood. "I've got my lesson.
I've got my lesson," he muttered over and over as he went.

At the edge of the wood he stopped and leaning on a rail fence watched
until he saw his mother come out to the pump in the back yard. She had
begun to draw water for the day's washing. For her also the holiday was at
an end. A flood of tears ran down the boy's cheeks, and he shook his fist
in the direction of the town. "You may laugh at that fool Windy, but you
shall never laugh at Sam McPherson," he cried, his voice shaking with
excitement.




CHAPTER III


One evening, when he had grown so that he outtopped Windy, Sam McPherson
returned from his paper route to find his mother arrayed in her black,