hours. At harvest she waited in the meadow for him to toss her up on the
hay-loads, and his great arms received her when she slid off in the barn.
She knelt at his feet on the bumping boards of the farm-wagon while he
braced himself like a charioteer, holding the reins above her head. He
threshed the nut-trees and routed marauding boys from her preserves, and
carved pumpkin lanterns to light her to her attic chamber on cold November
nights, where she would lie awake watching strange shadows on the sloping
roof, half worshiping, half afraid of her idol's ugliness in the dark.

These were some of Paul's illustrations of that pastoral beginning, and no
doubt they were sympathetically close to the truth. He lingered over them,
dressing up his mother's choice instinctively to the little aristocrat
beside him.

When Emmy grew big enough to go to the Academy, three miles from the farm,
it was all in the day's work that Adam should take her and fetch her home.
He combined her with the mail, the blacksmith, and other village errands.
Whoever met her father's team on those long stony hills of Saugerties
would see his little daughter seated beside his hired man, her face turned
up to his in endless confiding talk. It was a face, as we say, to dream
of. But there were few dreamers in that little world. The farmers would
nod gravely to Adam. "Abraham's girl takes after her mother; heartier
lookin', though. Guess he'll need a set o' new tires before spring." The
comments went no deeper.

Abraham was now well on in years; he made no visits, and he never drove
his own team at night. When his daughter began to let down her frocks and
be asked to evening parties, it was still Adam who escorted her. He sat in
the kitchen while she was amusing herself in the parlor. She discussed her
young acquaintances with him on their way home. The time for distinctions