arey going to be your sweetheart?"

His laugh was reassuring.

"Why, Janey, I am just twice her age."

"She is like a little doll, isn't she, David?"

"No; like a little princess."

The next morning Little Teacher came to show them her present from
Joe.

"I am sure he chose a camera so I could take your pictures to send to
him," she declared.

"Miss Rhody wants her picture taken in the black silk Joe gave her. If
you will take it, she won't have to spend the money he sent her," said
the thoughtful David.

Little Teacher was very enthusiastic over this proposition, and
offered to accompany him at once to secure the picture. Miss Rhody was
greatly excited over the event. Ever since the dress had been finished
she had been a devotee at the shrine of two hooks in her closet from
which was suspended the long-coveted garment, waiting for an occasion
that would warrant its debut. She nervously dressed for the
"likeness," for which she assumed her primmest pose. A week later
David sent Joe a picture of Miss Rhody standing stiff and straight on
her back porch and arrayed, with all the glory of the lilies of the
field, in her new silk.

CHAPTER X

When the hot, close-cropped fields took on their first suggestion
of autumn and a fuller note was heard in the requiem of the
songbirds, when the twilights were of purple and the morning skies
delicately mackereled in gray, David entered the little, red, country
schoolhouse. M'ri's tutelage and his sedulous application to Jud's
schoolbooks saved him from the ignominy of being classified with the
younger children.

When he sat down to the ink-stained, pen-scratched desk that was to be
his own, when he made compact piles of his new books and placed in the
little groove in front of the inkwell his pen, pencils, and ruler, he
turned to Little Teacher such a glowing face of ecstasy that she was
quite inspired, and her sympathies and energies were at once enlisted
in the cause of David's education.

It was the beginning of a new world for him. He studied with a
concentration that made him oblivious to all that occurred about him,
and he had to be reminded of calls to recitations by an individual
summons. He fairly overwhelmed Little Teacher by his voracity for
learning and a perseverance that vanquished all obstacles. He soon
outstripped his class, and finally his young instructress was forced
to bring forth her own textbooks to satisfy his avidity. He devoured
them