ace, for most of the boys of the country round left at sixteen,
just as they were tangled up in fractions and syntax. Now he was close
to the twenties, and the only big boy left in the Frost Creek school,
whose white walls peeped out through a grove of live-oaks where the
creek babbled merrily over the rocks.

Yet with a pluck that had always characterized him, Job stuck to his
books and sat among the crowd of little youngsters who automatically
recited the multiplication table when the teacher was looking, and
threw paper wads when she was not. Jane was there, copying minutely in
dress and manner after Miss Bright, the new teacher, whom she greatly
admired. Job found it very pleasant to still walk home with Jane and
talk of algebra, class meeting, and the trip they must soon take to
the Yosemite--subjects which were mutually interesting. Yet somehow
the wild, natural freedom of former days was missing. Both were
painfully conscious of their awkward age and the fact that they were
no longer children.

Charlie Lewis sat next to Job, a wee, frail little fellow, whose large
eyes looked up endlessly at his tall next neighbor, whom he secretly
worshiped, partly because Job shielded him from the rough bullies,
and partly because he had taken a fancy to the little lad and took him
along when he went up to the mountains or down to Perkins Hollow
swimming. A crowd of dark-eyed Mexicans and one small Chinese boy
filled the right corner, while over on the left were the Dixon
children and little Helen Day. Helen was a new arrival, a prim Miss of
six, who used to live on the plains, where her father was section-hand
on the railroad; which accounted, perhaps, for the fact that the time
when Father Lane, the old preacher from Merritt's Camp, called and
they sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and the teacher asked Helen
what ties were meant, she promptly answered, "Railroad ties, ma'am."

As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at
her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss
Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing
merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing
kindergarten songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the
smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they
stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco,
lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of
philosophy--n