thers in a simple fashion. Her book was
always at hand. By and by they classified each specimen, and the best of
their kind were taken to shelves in the sitting-room. Her own enthusiasm
in study was aroused, and, far from a hardship, it now became a delight.
Her spirit was contagious. The boys, always fond of "mother," wondered
what new life possessed her; but they accepted the change all the same.
She found that she could teach, and also could inspire her pupils. They
heard of a gully, five or six miles away, where crystals had been found.
Making a holiday, for which the boys worked like Trojans, they took
their lunch in the farm wagon, and rode to the spot; and if their search
was not altogether successful, it left them the memory of a happy time.

In the meantime the farm prospered. She did all the work in the house
and all the sewing, going out, too, in the garden, where she raised a
few flowers, and helping to gather vegetables. Daniel and the boys were
bitterly opposed to her helping them. "Mother," said Jerry, "if you
won't ever think you must go out, I'll do any thing to make up. I don't
want you to look like those women we see sometimes in the fields."
Generally she yielded; her work was enough for one pair of hands.
Through it all now ran the thought that her children were growing up;
they would become educated men; she would not let them get ahead, not so
as to pass her entirely.

Winter came. Now Daniel could see to the work; but these habits of study
were not to be broken. "Boys, let us form a history club," was the
proposition; "it shan't interfere with your lessons at school." They
took the history of the United States, which the two younger children
were studying. Beginning with the New England settlements, and being six
in number, they called each other, for the time, after the six States,
persuading old Daniel to take his native Rhode Island. "That woman beats
all creation," he was heard to exclaim, "the way she works all day and
goes on at night over her books." The mother used to say she hardy knew
if she were any older than her boys when they were trying to trip each
other with questions. The teacher of the district school came over one
Saturday afternoon. "I never had such pupils," said he, "as your sons,
in history; and indeed they want to look into every thing." Afterward he
heard with delight the story of their evening's work. The deep snows
often shut them in, but the red light shone clearly an