"Now see if you don't like yourself better without that brush heap on top of your head," she asked him.
A boy with short neat hair gazed back at Abe from the mirror.
"I still ain't the prettiest boy in Pigeon Creek," he drawled, "but there ain't quite so much left to be ugly. I'm right glad, ma'am, you cleared away the brush heap."
Was he joking? He looked so solemn that Sarah could not be sure. Then he grinned. It was the first time that she had seen him smile.
"You're a caution, Abe," she said. "Now sit yourself down over there at the table, and I'll show you my books."
She opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out four worn little volumes. Although she could not read, she knew the titles: "Here they are: Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Sinbad the Sailor, and Aesop's Fables."
"Oh, ma'am, this book by Mr. Aesop is one the schoolmaster had. The stories are all about some smart talking animals."
He seemed to have forgotten her, as he bent his neat shorn head down over the pages. He chuckled when he read something that amused him. Sarah watched him curiously. He was not like her John. He was not like any boy that she had ever known. But the hungry look in his eyes went straight to her heart.
