Under his arm were two books—a speller and a simple reader. These Jane had given him as he left, after an afternoon spent in lessons on the lawn. It was the first lesson, of course; a lesson, perhaps, which both would remember all their lives; vivid to Dale because the tentacles of his mind were beginning to stir and stretch in their new awakening; vivid to her for many reasons. As the day had progressed she became more and more astounded by his ability to learn, for in an incredibly short time he had mastered the first four columns of her spelling book with an ease which made her wonder if he had not before been over it.
Enthusiastically now he related this to the Colonel, who saw that he was trembling—tingling, like a thoroughbred ready for the start in a big race.
"You must use the library for your studies, sir," the old gentleman declared with warmth. "In there you will find a dictionary—if you know how to use one."
"Show me how!" the new student eagerly turned to him.
Laying aside his own volume, a treatise on the calorific power of fuels—a brain-rasping subject which had been absorbing him since the coal fields were in prospect—he led the way into that spacious, mellow room, walled from floor to ceiling with shelves upon shelves of books. Dale stood transfixed. His head was thrown back and his hands were clenched, as though in very truth the secrets of this silent store-house were already creeping out to enter his attentive brain. Colonel May opened the clumsy dictionary, explaining it with a word the mountaineer had already learned to spell, and left him in this paradise of fancies.
Some time later Uncle Zack opened the library door, announced dinner, and left unheard. A few minutes after this he returned, but again left unheard, and only when a hand pressed Dale's arm did the young man look up. The Colonel was smiling down at him.
"Come, Sam Johnson. Dr. Jared Sparks, Ben Franklin, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and more such indomitable shades rolled into one! Man must eat; it is time for dinner!"
"What does that mean?" he asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Oh, Lord," the Colonel groaned. "I'll tell you another time. Come! You understand 'dinner,' I hope?"
Entering the dining room Dale's mind was like a country pup walking stiff-legged into a crowd of city dogs, its hair belligerently on end and the tip of its tail wagging a friendly compromise. Not that he was at all defiant, and of course not afraid, but his whole mental attitude had become one of alert watchfulness, ready to spring this way or that, to follow this new custom or that new custom, and not intending to lag if the others made a move. So it was that when the Colonel held a chair back for Miss Liz, and Bob was seating Jane, Dale, who never in his life had seen anything of this sort, made a pretense of imitating them for the convenience of Ann;—and even though she were rudely jolted by the violence with which he shoved her into the table, her appreciative smile made him determine to do this thing forever.