t was not fit to be eaten, and she didn't know what made
the stove act that way. But the milk she knew was good. Oh, she had
forgotten that I didn't drink milk. Guinea smiled at me and clucked at
her mother. "Don't pretend that you like anything just to please her,"
she said, when Mrs. Jucklin had turned about to keep a hoe-cake from
burning. "All you've got to do is to say nothing until she gets
through--that, and simply to remember that she enjoys it."

While we were eating we heard a voice crying: "Hike, there, Sam; get him
down, Bob! Hike there!"

"They are warming up to their work," Guinea remarked, and her mother
sighed; and then she began to talk louder than was her wont, striving to
drown the old man's voice. "It isn't any use, mother," said the girl.
"The gentleman will find it out sooner or later."

"And I suppose," said I, "that you think that you may find out my name
sooner or later. Please pardon me for not introducing myself. My name
is----"

"Hike, there, Bob! Get him down, Sam! Now you are at it! Hike, there!"

"My name is Hawes, William Hawes, and I am from Alabama."

"And you have come to teach the school?" said the girl.

"Yes, if I can make the arrangements."

"But is there anything very satisfying in such an occupation?" she
asked.

I felt then that she placed no very high estimate upon my worth, and on
her part this was but natural, for among country people school-teaching
is looked upon as a lazy calling.

"I have not chosen teaching as my real vocation," I answered.

"Hike, there, I tell you! Hike!"

"It is my aim to be a lawyer, to be eloquent, to stir emotions, to be
strong in the presence of men. My earlier advantages, no matter how I
sought to turn them about, gave me no promise of reaching the bar; I had
good primary training, but in reality I had to educate myself, and in
the work of a teacher I saw a hope to lead me onward."

"Came within one of letting them fight to a finish," said the old man,
stepping into the room.

"Limuel, why will you always humiliate me?" his wife asked, placing a
chair for him.

"Humiliate you! Bless your life, I wouldn't humiliate you. The only
trouble is that you are tryin' to make me fit a garment you've got,
ruther than to make the garment fit me. I ain't doin' no harm, Susan,
and it's my way, and you can't very well knock the spots off'en a
leopard nur skin an Etheopian. Here comes Alf."

The son was a young fellow of good size, shapely, a