ties--only they didn't call 'em that. They say 'manners' at the
school. Here it seemed like I'd come home to a human pig-sty--and I was
plumb ashamed of my own folks. When I looked ahead and saw a lifetime of
that--it seemed to me that I'd rather kill myself than go on with it."

"You say"--Boone made the inquiry gravely--"that you felt like that at
first. How do you feel now?"

"Later on I got to feelin' ashamed of myself, instead of my people," she
replied. "I got to seein' that I was faultin' them for not having had
the chance they were slavin' to give me."

Boone bent attentively forward but he said nothing, and she went on.

"You know as well as I do that, so far, there aren't many people here
that have much use for changes, but there are some few. The ground that
the school sets on was given by an old man that didn't have much else to
give. I remember right well what he said in the letter he wrote. It's
printed in their catalogue: 'I don't look after wealth for them, but I
want all young-uns taught to live right. I have heart and cravin' that
our people may grow better, and I deed my land to a school as long as
the Constitution of the United States stands.' I reckon that's the right
spirit, Boone."

CHAPTER XXII

Still the boy sat silent, with his chin in his hand, as sits the
self-torturing figure of Rodin's bronze "Penseur"--the attitude of
thought which kills peace. Boone understood that unless Happy found a
man who shared with her that idea of keeping the torch lit in the midst
of darkness, her life might benefit others, but for herself it would be
a distressing failure.

Happy had fancied him, that he realized, but he had thought of it as a
phase through which she would pass with only such a scar as ephemeral
affairs leave--one of quick healing.

Now the fuller significance was clear. He knew that she faced a life
which her very efforts at betterment would make unspeakably bleak,
unless she found companionship. He saw that to him she looked for
release from that wretched alternative--and he had come to tell her
that, beyond a deep and sincere friendship, he had nothing to offer her.
Such an announcement, though truthfulness requires it, is harder for
being deferred.

Words seemed elusive and unmanageable as he made his beginning. "I'm
right glad that we are neighbours again, Happy," he told her. "I'm not
much to brag on--but I set a value on the same things you do--and I
reckon that means a