sn't sure but that it was
better for him to learn at an age when such things would offer no real
temptations. With Ruth back of him I didn't worry much about that.
Besides, the boy had let drop a phrase or two that made me suspect
that even among his present associates that same ground was being
explored.

"Ruth," I said, "I'm not worrying about Dick."

"He has been kept so fresh," she murmured.

"It isn't the fresh things that keep longest," I said.

"That's true, Billy," she answered.

Then she thought a moment, and as though with new inspiration answered
me using again that same tender, primitive expression:

"I don't fear for my man-child."

When the boy came home from school that night I had a long talk with
him. I told him frankly how I had been forced out of my position, how
I had tried for another, how at length I had resolved to go pioneering
just as his great-grandfather had done among the Indians. As I
thought, the naked adventure of it appealed to him. That was all I
wished; it was enough to work on.

The next day I brought out a second-hand furniture dealer and made as
good a bargain as I could with him for the contents of the house. We
saved nothing but the sheer essentials for light housekeeping. These
consisted of most of the cooking utensils, a half dozen plates, cups
and saucers and about a dozen other pieces for the table, four
tablecloths, all the bed linen, all our clothes, including some old
clothes we had been upon the point of throwing away, a few personal
gimcracks, and for furniture the following articles: the folding
wooden kitchen table, a half dozen chairs, the cot bed in the boy's
room, the iron bed in our room, the long mirror I gave Ruth on her
birthday, and a sort of china closet that stood in the dining-room. To
this we added bowls, pitchers, and lamps. All the rest, which included
a full dining-room set, a full dinner set of china, the furnishings of
the front room, including books and book case, chairs, rugs, pictures
and two or three good chairs, a full bed-room set in our room and a
cheaper one in the boy's room, piazza furnishings, garden tools, and
forty odds and ends all of which had cost me first and last something
like two thousand dollars, I told the dealer to lump together. He
looked it over and bid six hundred dollars. I saw Ruth swallow hard,
for she had taken good care of everything so that to us it was worth
as much to-day as we had paid for it. But I accepted t