i, now a well-grown girl of twelve, very
straight and slim and with big dark eyes. She gave him when he went away
the little Testament she had gotten as a prize, and which was one of her
most cherished possessions. Other boys found the first honor as climber,
runner, rock-flinger, wrestler, swimmer, and fighter open once more to
them, and were free from the silent and somewhat contemptuous gaze of
him who, however they looked down on him, was a sort of silent power
among them. Vashti alone felt a void and found by its sudden absence how
great a force was the steady backing of one who could always be counted
on to take one's side without question. She had to bear the gibes of the
school as "Miss Darby", and though her two brothers were ready enough
to fight for her if boys pushed her too hardly, they could do nothing
against girls, and the girls were her worst tormentors.

The name was fastened on her, and it clung to her until, as time went
on, she came to almost hate the poor innocent cause of it.

Meantime Darby, beginning to fill out and take on the shoulders and form
of a man, began to fill also the place of the man in his little
home. This among other things meant opposition, if not hostility, to
everything on Cove Mills's side. When old Darby died the Millses all
went to the funeral, of course; but that did not prevent their
having the same feeling toward Little Darby afterward, and the breach
continued.

At first he used to go over occasionally to see Vashti and carry her
little presents, as he had done at school; but he soon found that it was
not the same thing. He was always received coolly, and shortly he was
given to understand that he was not wanted there, and in time Vashti
herself showed that she was not the same she had been to him before.
Thus the young fellow was thrown back on himself, and the hostility
between the two cabins was as great as ever.

He spent much of his time in the woods, for the Stanley place was small
at best, only a score or so of acres, and mostly covered with pines, and
Little Darby was but a poor hand at working with a hoe--their only farm
implement. He was, however, an unerring shot, with an eye like a hawk to
find a squirrel flat on top of the grayest limb of the tallest hickory
in the woods, or a hare in her bed among the brownest broomsedge in the
county, and he knew the habits of fish and bird and animal as if he had
created them; and though he could not or would not handl