saw their
carriage passing the Major's gate. When they came to leave the Major
said:

"Well, Chad, when that filly of yours is a year old, I'll buy 'em both
from you, if you'll sell 'em, and I reckon you can come up and go to
school then."

Chad shook his head. Sell that colt? He would as soon have thought of
selling Jack. But the temptation took root, just the same, then and
there, and grew steadily until, after another year in the mountains, it
grew too strong. For, in that year, Chad grew to look the fact of his
birth steadily in the face, and in his heart grew steadily a proud
resolution to make his way in the world despite it. It was curious how
Melissa came to know the struggle that was going on within him and how
Chad came to know that she knew--though no word passed between them:
more curious still, how it came with a shock to Chad one day to realize
how little was the tragedy of his life in comparison with the tragedy
in hers, and to learn that the little girl with swift vision had
already reached that truth and with sweet unselfishness had reconciled
herself. He was a boy--he could go out in the world and conquer it,
while her life was as rigid and straight before her as though it ran
between close walls of rock as steep and sheer as the cliff across the
river. One thing he never guessed--what it cost the little girl to
support him bravely in his purpose, and to stand with smiling face when
the first breath of one sombre autumn stole through the hills, and Chad
and the school-master left the Turner home for the Bluegrass, this time
to stay.

She stood in the doorway after they had waved good-by from the head of
the river--the smile gone and her face in a sudden dark eclipse. The
wise old mother went in-doors. Once the girl started through the yard
as though she would rush after them and stopped at the gate, clinching
it hard with both hands. As suddenly she became quiet.

She went in-doors to her work and worked quietly and without a word.
Thus she did all day while her mind and her heart ached. When she went
after the cows before sunset she stopped at the barn where Beelzebub
had been tied. She lifted her eyes to the hay-loft where she and Chad
had hunted for hens' eggs and played hide-and-seek. She passed through
the orchard where they had worked and played so many happy hours, and
on to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and she
had kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw