her. He compared
everything and everybody to the glory of what he dreamed the Springs
and its inhabitants to be, and all seemed cheap beside.

Then on a day when his spirits were at their lowest ebb, a passing
neighbor handed him a letter which he had found at the little village
post office. It was addressed to Mr. Si Jackson, and bore the Springs
postmark. Silas was immediately converted from a raw backwoods boy to
a man of the world. Save the little notes that had been passed back
and forth from boy to girl at the little log schoolhouse where he had
gone four fitful sessions, this was his first letter, and it was the
first time he had ever been addressed as "Mr." He swelled with a pride
that he could not conceal, as with trembling hands he tore the missive
open.

[Illustration: HIS BROTHER AND SISTER.]

He read it through with glowing eyes and a growing sense of his own
importance. It was from the head waiter whom Mr. Marston had
mentioned, and was couched in the most elegant and high-sounding
language. It said that Mr. Marston had spoken for Silas, and that if
he came to the Springs, and was quick to learn, "to acquire
knowledge," was the head waiter's phrase, a situation would be
provided for him. The family gathered around the fortunate son, and
gazed on him with awe when he imparted the good news. He became, on
the instant, a new being to them. It was as if he had only been loaned
to them, and was now being lifted bodily out of their world.

The elder Jackson was a bit doubtful about the matter.

"Of co'se ef you wants to go, Silas, I ain't a-gwine to gainsay you,
an' I hope it's all right, but sence freedom dis hyeah piece o'
groun's been good enough fu' me, an' I reckon you mought a' got erlong
on it."

"But pap, you see it's diff'ent now. It's diff'ent, all I wanted was a
chanst."

"Well, I reckon you got it, Si, I reckon you got it."

The younger children whispered long after they had gone to bed that
night, wondering and guessing what the great place to which brother Si
was going could be like, and they could only picture it as like the
great white-domed city whose picture they had seen in the gaudy Bible
foisted upon them by a passing agent.

As for Silas, he read and reread the letter by the light of a tallow
dip until he was too sleepy to see, and every word was graven on his
memory; then he went to bed with the precious paper under his pillow.
In spite of his drowsiness, he lay awake for s