oln insisted on sending the children to school, when
there was any, she had a large share in Abe's early education, just as
she had taught his father to write his own name. She told them Bible
stories and such others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods
life. She and her husband were too religious to believe in telling their
children fairy tales.

The best thing of all was the reading of "The Pilgrim's Progress" during
the long Winter evenings, after the wood was brought in and Father Tom
had set his traps and done his other work for the night. Nancy's voice
was low, with soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the children
enjoyed the story of Christian's pilgrimage from the City of Destruction
to the Celestial City the more because of her love for the story she was
reading to them, as they lay on bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.

Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful boy. He tried to think of some
way to show his gratitude to his mother for giving them so much
pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting wood for the big
fireplace, a happy thought came to him--he would cut off some spicewood
branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete them behind the cabin.
Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father
were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden
branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of
the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added
to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the
"sweet smelling savour" of a little boy's love and gratitude.

No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious memory throughout those
four lives, as the story of Great Heart and Christiana followed
Christian along the path that "shineth more and more unto the perfect
day." While the father and sister were delighted with the crackle,
sparkle and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood, as Abe tossed them
upon the fire, no one could appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so
much as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes did not fill, as she
read to her fascinated family, but that was not the sort of thing the
fondest mother could speak of.

Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her son of the devotion of
Great Heart to his charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little son
that would help him make the noble pilgrimage from their hovel to the
highest home in the land, where another Pr