, I crept up to Church Hill, and looked again over the spiked
wall into the enchanted garden. It was deserted and seemed very sad, I
thought, for its only tenants appeared to be the swallows that flew,
with short cries, in and out of the white columns. On the front door a
large sign hung, reading "For Sale"; and turning away with a sinking
heart, I went on to Mrs. Cudlip's in the hope of catching a glimpse of
baby Jessy, whom I had not seen since I ran away. She was playing on the
sidewalk, a pretty, golden-haired little girl, with the melting blue
eyes of my father; and when she caught sight of me, she gave a gurgling
cry and ran straight to me out of the arms of President, who, I saw to
my surprise, was standing in the doorway of our old home. He was taller
than my father now, with the same kind, sheepish face, and the awkward
movements as of an overgrown boy.

"Wall, if it ain't Benjy!" he exclaimed, his slow wits paralysed by my
unexpected appearance. "If it ain't Benjy!"

Turning aside he spat a wad of tobacco into the gutter, and then coming
toward me, seized both my hands and wrung them in his big fists with a
grip that hurt.

"You're comin' along now, ain't you, Benjy?" he inquired proudly.

"Tith my Pethedent," lisped baby Jessy at his knees, and he stooped from
his great height and lifted her in his arms with the gentleness of a
woman.

"What about an eddication, Benjy boy?" he asked over the golden curls.

"I can't get an education and work, too," I answered, "and I've got to
work. How's pa?"

"He's taken an awful fondness to the bottle," replied President, with a
sly wink, "an' if thar's a thing on earth that can fill a man's thoughts
till it crowds out everything else in it, it's the bottle. But speakin'
of an eddication, you see I never had one either, an' I tell you, when
you don't have it, you miss it every blessed minute of yo' life.
Whenever I see a man step on ahead of me in the race, I say to myself,
'Thar goes an eddication. It's the eddication in him that's a-movin' an'
not the man.' You mark my words, Benjy, I've stood stock still an' seen
'em stridin' on that didn't have one bloomin' thing inside of 'em except
an eddication."

"But how am I to get it, President?" I asked dolefully. "I've got to
work."

"Get it out of books, Benjy. It's in 'em if you only have the patience
to stick at 'em till you get it out. I never had on o'count of my eyes
and my slowness, but you're young an' peart