im. 'Tain't as if we had
him at home during his vacation. If he goes up to your place to work
summers and stays there winters as well, we shall scarcely see him at
all. All we have had of him this last year was an occasional teatime
visit. Folks don't like having their children go out from the family
roof so young."

"But, Father," put in Nancy, "think what such a chance as this will
mean to Ted. You yourself have said over and over again that there was
nothing like having an education."

"I know it," mused the man. "There's nothing can equal knowing
something. I never did and look where I've landed. I'll never go ahead
none. But I want it to be different with my boy. He's going to have
some stock in trade in the way of training for life. It will be a kind
of capital nothing can sweep away. As I figure it, it will be a sure
investment--that is, if the boy has any stuff in him."

"An education is a pretty solid investment," agreed the elder Mr.
Fernald, "and you are wise to recognize its value, Mr. Turner. To
plunge into life without such a weapon is like entering battle without
a sword. I know, for I have tried it."

"Have you indeed, sir?"

Grandfather Fernald nodded.

"I was brought up on a Vermont farm when I was a boy."

"You don't say so! Well, well!"

"Yes, I never had much schooling," went on the old man. "Of course I
picked up a lot of practical knowledge, as a boy will; and in some ways
it has not been so bad. But it was a pretty mixed-up lot of stuff and I
have been all my life sorting it out and putting it in order. I
sometimes wonder when I think things over that I got ahead at all; it
was more happen than anything else, I guess."

"The Vermonters have good heads on their shoulders," Mr. Turner
remarked.

"Oh, you can't beat the Green Mountain State," laughed the senior Mr.
Fernald, unbending into cordiality in the face of a common interest.
"Still, when it came to bringing up my boy I felt as you do. I wasn't
satisfied to have him get nothing more than I had. So I sent him to
college and gave him all the education I never got myself. It has stood
him in good stead, too, and I've lived to be proud of what he's done
with it."

"And well you may be, sir," Mr. Turner observed.

Mr. Clarence Fernald flushed in the face of these plaudits and cut the
conversation short by saying:

"It is that kind of an education that we want to give your boy, Mr.
Turner. We like the youngster and believe he has