t hers--"and I've wondered if you'd
get jealous if I said that I want to do something substantial for him.
He'll need good schooling, you know, and a lot o' things to start 'im
out fairly."

"You? Why, Al--why, surely you don't mean it--you don't mean _that_."

"Why, why not, Dixie--Miss Dixie?" he corrected, as his warm, anxious
gaze rested on her lowered lids, for she was turning the pages of the
arithmetic in her lap. "You see, I'm not exactly a poor man; the Lord
has been powerful good to me, and--and you see, now I'm all alone in the
world. I--I got news to-day about--about, well, I'm a free man now,
with no responsibilities on me, and--well, you see how it is."

"I don't know what to say about it--about Joe." She lowered her head
over the book. "It would be wrong for me to stand in his way, and I
won't. He was helpless on the world when I took him, and he is yet, for
I'm over head and ears in debt. I thought I could do wonders by buying
land on a credit, but I'm as near a bankrupt as could be possible. I'd
be down and out now if others got what was coming to them. As proud as I
am, and as hard as I've worked, I'm right now living on charity."

"Shucks! Don't be silly, Dixie!" burst from Henley's lips with
considerable warmth. "You sha'n't set here and talk such foolishness;
you've done more than thousands o' men could have done. You are a plumb
wonder."

"All you say don't alter facts," Dixie sighed. "I know that I've got a
big debt to pay, and it's got to be paid by fair means or foul. Let's
talk about something else. I've been setting here an hour trying to work
this example for Joe. It looks as easy as two and two make four, but it
ain't; it's simply terrible. Listen: 'Sixty is two-thirds of what
number?'"

"Let me see." And Henley crawled to her aide till he could see, as he
rested on his elbow, the page and the lines at which her finger pointed.
"That's easy enough, I reckon. 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?'
Why, it's--" His eyes became fixed in vacancy, as he gazed at the blue
sky above the tree-tops, and then at the ground. "Why, it's a fool
thing--it must be a misprint. You often find mistakes like that in
school-books. I know my teacher used to write the correct thing on the
edge of the page."

"No, I reckon it's all right," Dixie argued. "It's a funny thing, for
every minute I seem to be on the point of catching it, and then it slips
away. You see, it has been so long since I went to school