his eyes I already had a very good equipment for the
battle of life, but mother, with a woman's ready understanding, divined
that I had not merely set my heart on graduating at the Seminary, but
that I was secretly dreaming of another and far more romantic career
than that of being a farmer. Although a woman of slender schooling
herself, she responded helpfully to every effort which her sons made to
raise themselves above the commonplace level of neighborhood life.

All through the early fall whenever Burton and I met the other boys of a
Sunday our talk was sure to fall upon the Seminary, and Burton stoutly
declared that he, too, was going to begin in September. As a matter of
fact the autumn term opened while we were still hard at work around a
threshing machine with no definite hope of release till the plowing and
corn-husking were over. Our fathers did not seem to realize that the men
of the future (even the farmers of the future) must have a considerable
amount of learning and experience, and so October went by and November
was well started before parole was granted and we were free to return to
our books.

With what sense of liberty, of exultation, we took our way down the road
on that gorgeous autumn morning! No more dust, no more grime, no more
mud, no more cow milking, no more horse currying! For five months we
were to live the lives of scholars, of boarders.--Yes, through some
mysterious channel our parents had been brought to the point of engaging
lodgings for us in the home of a townsman named Leete. For two dollars a
week it was arranged that we could eat and sleep from Monday night to
Friday noon, but we were not expected to remain for supper on Friday;
and Sunday supper, was of course, extra. I thought this a great deal of
money then, but I cannot understand at this distance how our landlady
was able to provide, for that sum, the raw material of her kitchen, to
say nothing of bed linen and soap.

The house, which stood on the edge of the town, was small and without
upstairs heat, but it seemed luxurious to me, and the family straightway
absorbed my interest. Leete, the nominal head of the establishment, was
a short, gray, lame and rather inefficient man of changeable temper who
teamed about the streets with a span of roans almost as dour and
crippled as himself. His wife, who did nearly all the housework for five
boarders as well as for the members of her own family, was a soul of
heroic pride and most i