k filled her soul. She recalled
piece by piece the whole conversation--all the commonplace remarks about
the weather; all the insignificant remarks about the crops; all the
unimportant words about the spelling-school. Not for the sake of the
remarks. Not for the sake of the weather. Not for the sake of the crops.
Not for the sake of the spelling-school. But for the sake of the
undertone. And then she traveled back over the three years of her
bondage and forward over the three years to come, and fed her heart on
the dim hope of rebuilding in some form the home that had been so happy.
And she prayed, with more faith than ever before, for deliverance. For
love brings faith. Somewhere on in the sleepless night she stood at the
window. The moon was shining now, and there was the path through the
pasture, and there was the fence, and there was the box-elder.

She sat there a long time. Then she saw someone come over the fence and
walk to the tree, and then on toward Pete Jones's. Who could it be? She
thought she recognized the figure. But she was chilled and shivering,
and she crept back again into bed, and dreamed not of the uncertain days
to come, but of the blessed days that were past--of a father and a
mother and a brother in a happy home. But somehow the school-master was
there too.

CHAPTER VI.

A NIGHT AT PETE JONES'S.

When Ralph got to Pete Jones's he found that sinister-looking individual
in the act of kicking one of his many dogs out of the house.

"Come in, stranger, come in. You'll find this 'ere house full of brats,
but I guess you kin kick your way around among 'em. Take a cheer. Here,
git out! go to thunder with you!" And with these mild imperatives he
boxed one of his boys over in one direction and one of his girls over in
the other. "I believe in trainin' up children to mind when they're spoke
to," he said to Ralph apologetically. But it seemed to the teacher that
he wanted them to mind just a little before they were spoken to.

"P'raps you'd like a bed. Well, jest climb up the ladder on the outside
of the house. Takes up a thunderin' sight of room to have a stairs
inside, and we ha'n't got no room to spare. You'll find a bed in the
furdest corner. My Pete's already got half of it, and you can take
t'other half. Ef Pete goes to takin' his half in the middle, and tryin'
to make you take yourn on both sides, jest kick him."

In this comfortless bed "in the furdest corner," Ralph found sleep out