the school-master had now made up his mind finally--he would go out
into the world and make his way out there; and nobody but Chad noticed
that his decision came only after, and only a little while after, the
house-raising at the head of the creek.

When winter came, school opened again, and on Saturdays and Sundays and
cold snowy nights, Chad and the school-master--for he too lived at the
Turners' now--sat before the fire in the kitchen, and the school-master
read to him from "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," which he had brought
from the Bluegrass, and from the Bible which had been his own since he
was a child. And the boy drank in the tales until he was drunk with
them and learned the conscious scorn of a lie, the conscious love of
truth and pride in courage, and the conscious reverence for women that
make the essence of chivalry as distinguished from the unthinking code
of brave, simple people. He adopted the master's dignified phraseology
as best he could; he watched him, as the master stood before the fire
with his hands under his coat-tails, his chin raised, and his eyes
dreamily upward, and Tall Tom caught the boy in just this attitude one
day and made fun of him before all the others. He tried some
high-sounding phrases on Melissa, and Melissa told him he must be
crazy. Once, even, he tried to kiss her hand gallantly and she slapped
his face. Undaunted, he made a lance of white ash, threaded some loose
yarn into Melissa's colors, as he told himself, sneaked into the barn,
where Beelzebub was tied, got on the sheep's back and, as the old ram
sprang forward, couched his lance at the trough and shattered it with a
thrill that left him trembling for half an hour. It was too good to
give up that secret joust and he made another lance and essayed another
tournament, but this time Beelzebub butted the door open and sprang
with a loud ba-a-a into the yard and charged for the gate--in full view
of old Joel, the three brothers, and the school-master, who were
standing in the road. Instinctively, Chad swung on in spite of the roar
of laughter and astonishment that greeted him and, as Tom banged the
gate, the ram swerved and Chad shot off sidewise as from a catapult and
dropped, a most unheroic little knight, in the mire. That ended Chad's
chivalry in the hills, for in the roars of laughter that greeted him,
Chad recognized Caleb Hazel's as the loudest. If HE laughed, chivalry
could never thrive there, and Chad gave it up; bu