three boys. That
makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was
born, when my Benjy was seven months old!"

"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I
b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own
flesh an' blood."

Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly.
"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've
knowed Mis' Kinney."

"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a
heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in."

The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every
forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning
lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room.
Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of
brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let
him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles
and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time
intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to
her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her
at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of,
from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his
presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between
her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at
recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond
of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it.

"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her
dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair
to chin.

Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of
doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the
school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or
taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out.

Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there
with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite
of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as
ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was
at peace.

But the Lord had more work still for this sw