ow smile; he had been an orphan for a
long while, and indeed the lonely struggle of his own boyhood was what
was helping to draw him to Chad. This college, he said, was a huge
brown house as big as a cliff that the master pointed out, that, gray
and solemn, towered high above the river; and with a rock porch bigger
than a great bowlder that hung just under the cliff, with twenty long,
long stone steps to climb before one came to the big double front door.

"How do you git thar?" Chad asked so breathlessly that Melissa looked
quickly up with a sudden foreboding that she might lose her little
playfellow some day. The master had walked, and it took him a week. A
good horse could make the trip in four days, and the river-men floated
logs down the river to the capital in eight or ten days, according to
the "tide." "When did they go?" In the spring, when the 'tides' came.
"The Turners went down, didn't they, Melissa?" And Melissa said that
her brother Tom had made one trip, and that Dolph and Rube were "might'
nigh crazy" to go that coming spring; and, thereupon, a mighty
resolution filled Chad's heart to the brim and steadied his eyes, but
he did not open his lips then.

Dusk was settling when the Turner cabin came in sight. None of the
men-folks had come home yet, and the mother was worried; there was wood
to cut and the cows to milk, and Chad's friend, old Betsey the brindle,
had strayed off again; but she was glad to see Caleb Hazel, who,
without a word, went out to the wood-pile, took off his coat, and swung
the axe with mighty arms, while Chad carried in the wood and piled it
in the kitchen and then the two went after the old brindle together.

When they got back there was a great tumult at the cabin. Tom had
brought some friends from over the mountain, and had told the neighbors
as he came along that there was going to be a party at his house that
night.

So there was a great bustle about the barn where Rube was getting the
stock fed and the milking done; and around the kitchen, where Dolph was
cutting more wood and piling it up at the door. Inside, the mother was
hurrying up supper with Sintha, an older daughter, who had just come
home from a visit, and Melissa helping her, while old Joel sat by the
fire in the sleeping-room and smoked, with Jack lying on the hearth, or
anywhere he pleased, for Jack, with his gentle ways, was winning the
household one by one. He sprang up when he heard Chad's voice, and flew
at hi