THE DENMARK CATTLE.
The thread dropped from the spinning wheel as Elizabeth earnestly leaned forward in the firelight, that late afternoon of May in 1643.
"Uncle Richard, is there any school for boys—"
"Sh! here comes your father!" whispered her uncle.
Francis Norton, absorbed in thought, entered the large east room of Mason Manor house and wandered to the window, where he scanned the ocean distance for a sail. Elizabeth silently picked up her thread.
"Things have become serious, Richard," exclaimed Norton. "Since Mason's death, few supplies have come from England, as you know, and the amounts due the workers here have long been unpaid. I am here to manage the Mason affairs and consequently get the blame, yet my own interests are at stake. My boy must be educated—"
"Oh, I say, Father, six cows are missing!" It was a rugged, healthy boy who burst into the room. "They have wandered off somewhere, and now it's milking time. Shall I hunt them up?"
Norton continued his conversation, quite ignoring his son, who respectfully awaited his father's reply.
"There is a school at Cambridge, near Boston. The only one I know of in New England. A Charlestown minister, John Harvard, left eight hundred pounds for it a few years ago—"
"Don't lose those cows, Francis," interrupted his brother-in-law. "They are a valuable lot, a Denmark breed sent over by Mason, while I was a boy."