e wilderness was subdued and the
cruel toil of his parents' early life was mitigated by the growth of
towns, the spread of civilization. There was a chance for some leisure,
for the higher gratification of the intense American passion for
education. A small library had sprung up in one corner of the general
room of the old farm-house--from the seeds of a Bible, an almanac,
Milton's Paradise Lost, Baxter's Saint's Rest and a Government report
on cattle. But the art collection had stood still for years--a
facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, another of the
Emancipation Proclamation, pictures of Washington, Lincoln and
Napoleon, the last held in that household second only to Washington in
all history as a "leveler."

The only daughter, Arabella, had been sent to boarding-school in
Cincinnati. She married a rich man, lived in the city and, under the
inspiration of English novels and the tutelage of a woman friend who
visited in New York and often went abroad, was developing ideas of
family and class and rank. She talked feelingly of the "lower classes"
and of the duty of the "upper class" toward them. Her "goings-on"
created an acid prejudice against higher education in her father's
mind. As she was unfolding to him a plan for sending Hampden to
Harvard he interrupted with, "No MORE idiots in my family at my
expense," and started out to feed the pigs. The best terms Hampden's
mother could make were that he should not be disinherited and cast off
if he went to Battle Field and paid his own way.

He did not tell Pauline all of this, nor did he repeat to her the
conversation between himself and his father a few days before he left
home.

"Is 'Bella going to pay your way through?" asked his father, looking at
him severely--but he looked severely at every one except Hampden's
gentle-voiced mother.

"No, sir." The son's voice was clear.

"Is your mother?"

"No, sir."

"Have you got money put by?"

"Four hundred dollars."

"Is that enough?"

"It'll give me time for a long look around."

The old man drew a big, rusty pocketbook from the inside pocket of the
old-fashioned, flowered-velvet waistcoat he wore even when he fed the
pigs. He counted out upon his knee ten one-hundred-dollar bills. He
held them toward his son. "That'll have to do you," he said. "That's
all you'll get."

"No, thank you," replied Hampden. "I wish no favors from anybody."

"You've earned it over and above your keep," ret