ed books and knowledge, they would soon
not be content with their condition, and would be banding together to
make themselves free. I knew all this, and I had been brooding over
it; and now when the powerful hand of the overseer came in to hinder
the little bit of good and comfort I was trying to give the people, my
heart was set on fire with a sense of sorrow and wrong that, as I
said, no child ought ever to know.

I think it made me ill. I could not eat. I studied like a machine, and
went and came as Miss Pinshon bade me; all the while brooding by
myself and turning over and over in my heart the furrows of thought
which seemed at first to promise no harvest. Yet those furrows never
break the soil for nothing. In due time the seed fell; and the fruit
of a ripened purpose came to maturity.

I did not give up my Sunday readings, even although the number of my
hearers grew scantier. As many as could, we met together to read and
to pray, yes, and to sing. And I shall never in this world hear such
singing again. One refrain comes back to me now--

"Oh, had I the wings of the morning--
Oh, had I the wings of the morning--
Oh, had I the wings of the morning--
I'd fly to my Jesus away!"

I used to feel so too, as I listened and sometimes sung with them.

Meantime, all that I could do with my quarterly ten dollars, I did.
And there was many a little bit of pleasure I could give; what with a
tulip here and a cup of tea there, and a bright handkerchief, or a
pair of shoes. Few of the people had spirit and cultivation enough to
care for the flowers. But Maria cherished some red and white tulips
and a hyacinth in her kitchen window, as if they had been her
children; and to Darry a white rose-tree I had given him seemed almost
to take the place of a familiar spirit. Even grave Pete, whom I only
saw now and then this winter at my readings, nursed and tended and
watched a bed of crocuses with endless delight and care. All the
while, my Sunday circle of friends grew constantly fewer; and the
songs that were sung at our hindered meetings had a spirit in them,
which seemed to me to speak of a deep-lying fire somewhere in the
hearts of the singers, hidden, but always ready to burst into a blaze.
Was it because the fire was burning in my own heart?

I met one of the two Jems in the pine-avenue one day. He greeted me
with the pleasantest of broad smiles.

"Jem," said I, "why