g. Harold came in with his mother and they
stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that
Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin
in her eyes.

"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't
sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be
ahead of her."

That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat
in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at
it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something
like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh.

"What is the matter?" he asked, gently.

She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she
said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie
can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way,
though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool-- I'm
really a blockhead!"

John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested
his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all
right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast.
You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some
children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for
you have a good mind."

"Do you believe it? Do you _really_?" she faltered, searching his face
eagerly.

"I know it," he answered, "and, take it from me, when you once get
started you will go ahead of stacks and stacks of them. Don't be ashamed
to start at the bottom. Great men and women began that way, and you are
not to blame for the poor chance you've had."

He saw that he had comforted her, and recounted his various adventures
in seeking work. When he spoke of the offer Pilcher & Reed had made him
she suddenly said, "Take them up, brother John."

"Why do you say that?" he inquired.

"Because"--she began, and hesitated--"because I don't want you always to
be a brick-mason. It is dirty work. You can do better. Look at Harold.
He is just a boy, and yet he is determined to be a minister like Mr.
King. Ministers talk nice and look nice."

And as John lay in his bed afterward, trying to decide what to do, he
suddenly said: "It is a go! I'll take the kid's advice. It is a toss-up,
anyway. They may not keep me the week out, but the thing is worth trying
for. Sam always said it was my line and o