ry he was a Christian, nor ashamed of it,
neither."

Isaac had only money enough saved up to take him as far as Boston, and
to board him in the cheapest way for several days.

"If I can't work," he said proudly, straightening to his full height,
"no one can!"

It is just such country lads as this--strong, self-reliant,
religious--who, when poverty has projected them out of her granite
mountains upon granite pavements, each as hard and bleak as the other,
by massive determination have conquered a predestined success.

Too soon, for those who were to be left behind, the day of separation
came. Mrs. Masters's haggard face and Abbie's red eyes told of
unuttered misery.

But Isaac did not notice these signs of distress. He was absorbed in
his future. The last bustle was over, the last breakfast gulped down
amid forced smiles and ready tears, the last button sewed on at the
last moment; and now Mrs. Masters's lunch of mince pie, apples, and
doughnuts was tenderly tucked into the jaws of the carpet-bag; thereby
disturbing a love letter that Abbie had hidden there. A young neighbor
had volunteered to drive Isaac down the mountain to the station.

[Illustration: "MOVE ON, WILL YER!"]

"All aboard! Hurry up, Ike!" cried this young person, consulting his
silver watch, and casting a look of mingled commiseration and envy
upon the giant, locked in the arms of the two women, who hardly
reached to the second button of his coat. Isaac caught the glance,
and started to tear himself away. But his mother laid her gnarled hand
gently upon his arm, and led him into the unused parlor.

"Just a minute, Abbie dear, I want to be alone with my boy," she waved
the girl back. "Then you can have him last. It's my right an' your'n!"

She closed the door, and led him under the crayon portrait of his
father, framed in immortelles. She raised her arms, and he stooped
that they might clasp about his neck.

"Isaac," she said hoarsely, "I ain't no longer young nor very strong.
Remember 'fore you go away from the farm that you're the son of an
honest man, an' a pious woman, and"--dropping with great solemnity
into scriptural language--"I beseech you, my son, not to disgrace your
godly name."

With partings like this the primitive Christians must have sent their
sons into the whirlwind of the world.

Then Isaac broke down for the first time, and with the tears
streaming, he lifted his mother bodily in his arms, and promised her,
and kissed h