sad news.

And when he had listened, the lad that had passed unflinching through
two Indian fights, broke down, and sobbed with the rest of us.

"Did that rascal, C----, have anything to do with her death?" he asked,
when the first passion of grief was over.

Julia, who knew no better at the time, replied that Mr. C----was the
kindest of husbands, and was crushed with sorrow at his loss; but spite
of the assurance, Will, when he reached the house, had neither look nor
word for him. He just put his arms about mother's neck, and mingled his
grief with her words of sympathy and love.

Martha was shortly after laid by father's side, and as we stood weeping
in that awful moment when the last spadeful of earth completes the
sepulture, Will, no longer master of himself, stepped up before Mr.
C----:

"Murderer," he said, "one day you shall answer to me for the death of
her who lies there!"

When Will next presented himself at Mr. Majors's office, he was told
that his services had been wholly satisfactory, and that he could have
work at any time he desired. This was gratifying, but a sweeter pleasure
was to lay his winter's wages in mother's lap. Through his help, and her
business ability, our pecuniary affairs were in good condition. We
were comfortably situated, and as Salt Creek Valley now boasted of a
schoolhouse, mother wished Will to enter school. He was so young when
he came West that his school-days had been few; nor was the prospect
of adding to their number alluring. After the excitement of life on the
plains, going to school was dull work; but Will realized that there was
a world beyond the prairie's horizon, and he entered school, determined
to do honest work.

Our first teacher was of the good, old-fashioned sort. He taught
because he had to live. He had no love for his work, and knew nothing of
children. The one motto he lived up to was, "Spare the rod and spoil the
child." As Will was a regular Tartar in the schoolroom, he, more than
all the other scholars, made him put his smarting theory into practice.
Almost every afternoon was attended with the dramatic attempt to switch
Will. The schoolroom was separated into two grand divisions, "the boys
on teacher's side," and those "on the Cody side." The teacher would send
his pets out to get switches, and part of our division--we girls, of
course--would begin to weep; while those who had spunk would spit on
their hands, clench their fists, and "dare 'em to brin