to the depot and bought
the tickets and got the checks, and the next day Laddie drove to
Groveville with father and Shelley, and she was gone. Right at the
last, she didn't seem to want to leave so badly, but all of them said
she must. Peter's cousin, who had gone last year, was to meet her, and
have a room ready where she boarded if she could, and if she couldn't
right away, then the first one who left, Shelley was to have the place,
so they'd be together.

There were eight of us left, counting Candace and Miss Amelia, and you
wouldn't think a house with eight people living in it would be empty,
but ours was. Everything seemed to wilt. The roses on the window
blinds didn't look so bright as they had; mother said the only way she
could get along was to keep right on working. She helped Candace all
she could, but she couldn't be on her feet very much, so she sat all
day long and peeled peaches to dry, showed Candace how to jelly,
preserve, and spice them, and peeled apples for butter and to dry,
quantities more than we could use, but she said she always could sell
such things, and with the bunch of us to educate yet, we'd need the
money.

When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night,
first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took
our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then
father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he
pronounced words--easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me,
harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and
Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian
Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could
spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading
lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of
them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the
proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans,"
"Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of
all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were
not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs.
Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and
they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head
patted in McGuffey's Second.

Then they picked the apples. These had to be picked by hand, wrapped
in