of it.

Andy tossed his books up into the hollow of a familiar oak near at hand.
Then he fell to serious thinking.

His gaze roving over the landscape, lit on the farmhouse of Jabez Dale.
It revived the recent allusion of the old schoolmaster.

"I didn't steal that calf," declared Andy, straightening up indignantly.
"Graham, who boards over at Millville, told us boys how Dale had sold a
cow to a farmer there. He said they took her away from her calf, and the
poor thing refused to eat. She just paced up and down a pasture fence
from morning till night, crying for her calf. We got the calf, and
carried it to its mother. I'll never forget the sight, and I'll never
regret it, either--and what's best, the man who had got the cow was so
worked up over its almost human grief, that he paid Dale for the calf,
too, and kept it."

The memory of the incident brightened up Andy momentarily. Then, his
glance flitting to the distant roof of a small neat cottage in a pretty
grove of cedars, his face fell again. He choked on a great lump in
his throat.

"Ginger!" he whistled dolefully, "how can I ever face the music over
there!"

The cottage was Andy's home, but the thought had no charm or sweetness
for the lone orphan boy whom its roof had grudgingly sheltered for the
past five years.

Once it had belonged to his father. He had died when Andy was ten years
old. Then it had passed into the legal possession of Mr. Wildwood's
half-sister, Miss Lavinia Talcott.

This aunt was Andy's nearest relative. He had lived with her since his
father's death, if it could be called living.

Miss Lavinia's favorite topic was the sure visitation of the sins of the
father upon his children.

She was of a sour, snappy disposition. Her prim boast and pride was that
she was a strict disciplinarian.

To a lad of Andy's free and easy nature, her rules and regulations were
torture and an abomination.

She made him take off his muddy shoes in the woodshed. Woe to him if he
ever brought a splinter of whittling, or a fragment of nutshell, into
the distressingly neat kitchen!

Only one day in the week--Sunday--was Andy allowed the honor of sitting
in the best room.

Then, for six mortal hours his aching limbs were glued to a
straight-backed chair. There, in parlor state, he sat listening to the
prim old maid's reading religious works, or some scientific lecture, or
a dreary dissertation on good behavior.

She never allowed a schoolmate to visi