ant
class out of doors in the shade, the class inside filled the space. The
minister school-teacher, Pryor Gaines, called it the "old folks' class,"
although there was not a person over thirty-five years of age in the whole
settlement.

Asher Aydelot was the superintendent, and Virginia took care of the infant
class. Jim Shirley led the singing, and Pryor Gaines taught the "old
folks." He was the same minister school-teacher who had sat at the table
with Dr. Carey and Todd Stewart and John Jacobs on the day that Thomas
Smith ate his first meal at the Jacobs House. With the passing of Carey's
Crossing, he had taken a homestead claim on Grass River.

This morning the lesson was short, and the children, finding the heat of
the shade outside unbearable, were sitting on the earth floor beside their
parents. Nobody seemed ready to go home.

"Times are getting worse every day," one man observed. "No rain since the
tenth of May, and the prettiest stand of wheat I ever saw, burned to a
half-yield or less before cutting time. I'd counted on wheat for my living
this year."

"It's the same if you'd had corn, Bennington," Jim Shirley observed. "I
was polishing my crown for a Corn King Festival this fall. I don't believe
I'll harvest fifteen bushels to the acre."

"Fifteen bushels!" another neighbor exclaimed. "Fifteen ears to the row a
section long would encourage me, Darley Champers told me when I took up my
claim, if I'd plant a grove or two, that in three years the trees would be
so big that rainfall would be abundant. You all know my catalpa woods is a
wonder," he added with a wink.

Darley Champers himself had just come down the trail and was entering the
door.

"Well, come over our way if you are on the hunt for prosperity," Todd
Stewart interposed. "Grass River isn't living up to its name any better
than our creek; isn't any fuller of weeds than our brook is of--shale. I
did lose the trail in your river this morning, though. The weeds are
nearly up to the pony's flanks. Think of the fertility of a river bed that
will grow weeds three feet high and two shades more yellow green than the
dead grass on the bank. If there's a drop of water in our creek for twenty
miles, I'd go get it and have Brother Gaines analyze it to make sure it
wasn't resin."

"You do well to see the humor of the situation, Stewart," Pryor Gaines
began, with the cheery tone of a man who believes in hope.

"I don't see that that helps any," Benning