“I reckon, Tom, the Lord thinks old Gil no ’count.”
“You are as useful as I am, Uncle Gilbert, and I once asked God for patience, and he gave me enough to last me through a long illness. Look to him, uncle.”
So Uncle Gilbert went away, and after a few minutes’ very grave thought, Tom turned around to take up his hoe and found his master at his elbow. His hand was at his cap in an instant.
“You do your teaching at all hours of the day, Tom?” he said, pleasantly.
“Yes, sir, they are anxious to learn,” replied Tom; and then, gathering courage, he added, “I have been wanting to ask you for a long time whether you had any objection to the school which I hold every evening at Aunt Margaret’s.”
“No, not in the least,” replied Mr. Sutherland, “although I must say I was surprised to find that you had undertaken it, when I knew you had your hands full already.”
“They wanted, sir, and I knew how I used to want when I could not have. I could not refuse.”
“I sometimes think,” said Mr. Sutherland slowly, with his eyes on his fingers, which were chipping off pieces of bark from the tree against which Tom leaned—“I sometimes think that we are just beginning to understand your people.”
He got a very deep look out of the dark eyes in reply, but that was all.
“I came over here,” he continued after a moment, “to say to you that I think you had better leave your field-work altogether, and devote your days to my books and your evenings to your school. You are doing too much.”