uspenders. "The Rev'und Gawge wanted me to go," he said, in
a low tone. "Besides, how can I know what all's in the books he done
left me 'thout I learn to read?"

"That's so," assented Mammy, looking proudly at the shelves now
ornamenting one corner of the little cabin with George's well-worn
school-books. Most of the volumes were upside down, because her
untutored eyes knew no better than to replace them so, when she took
them out to dust them with loving care. They were George's greatest
treasures, and she allowed no one to touch them, not even John Jay, to
whom they had been left.

"What does a little niggah like him want of schoolin'," she had once
said to Uncle Billy, when he had proposed sending the boy to school to
keep him out of mischief. "Why, that John Jay he hasn't got any mo' mind
than a grasshoppah. All he knows how to do is jus' to keep on a jumpin'.
No, brer Billy, it would be a pure waste of good education to spend it
on anybody like him."

John Jay had always cheerfully agreed with this opinion, which she never
hesitated to express in his hearing. He had had no desire to give up his
unlettered liberty until that day on the haymow when he had his
awakening. Having heard Mammy's opinion so often, it was no wonder that
he kept his head turned bashfully aside, and stumbled over his words
when he timidly made his request. It was the sight of George's books
that gave him courage to persist, and it was the sight of the books that
decided Mammy's answer. She could remember the time when Jintsey's boy
had been almost as light-headed and light-hearted as John Jay; so it was
not past belief that even John Jay might settle down in time.

The thought that he might some day be able to read the books that George
had pored over, and that, possibly, some time in the far future he
might be fitted to preach the gospel George had proclaimed, aroused all
her grandmotherly pride. Some fragment of a half-forgotten sermon
floated through her mind as she looked on the ragged little fellow
standing before her.

"The mantle of the prophet 'Lijah done fell on his servant 'Lisha," she
muttered under her breath. "What if the mantle of Gawge Chadwick have
been left to my poah Ellen's boy, 'long with them books?"

John Jay was balancing himself on one foot, while he drew the toes of
the other along a crack in the floor between the puncheons, anxiously
awaiting her decision. Not knowing what was passing through her mind, he
was