"Say—by thunder!—we don't have to set in the shadows. Le's fill the room with the glory of the day," said Uncle Peabody as he lighted the candles. "It ain't a good idee to go slidin' down hill in the summer-time an' in the dark, too. Le's have a game o' cards."
I remember that we had three merry games and went to bed. All outward signs of our trouble had vanished in the glow of the candles.
Next day I rode to the post-office and found there a book addressed to me in the handwriting of old Kate. It was David Hoffman's Course of Legal Study. She had written on its fly-leaf:
"To Barton Baynes, from a friend."
"That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle Peabody.
"Well, let her if she wants to—poor thing!" Aunt Deel answered. "A woman has got to have somebody to like—ayes!—or I dunno how she'd live—I declare I don't—ayes!"
"I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me."
"She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed.
We began reading the book that evening in the candle-light and soon finished it. I was thrilled by the ideal of human service with which the calling of the lawyer was therein lifted up and illuminated. After that I had no doubt of my way.
That week a letter came to me from the Senator, announcing the day of Mrs. Wright's arrival in Canton and asking me to meet and assist her in getting the house to rights. I did so. She was a pleasant-faced, amiable woman and a most enterprising house cleaner. I remember that my first task was mending the wheelbarrow.