“Why?”
“He doesn't help me a bit; he doesn't give me any material to work with.”
There was a moment of silence, in which the girl seemed to be trying to hold her poise. Then she added.
“Either he doesn't care or he is very easily fooled.”
I said nothing, but I heartily agreed with her.
Congress had adjourned, and the Colonel had returned to his native haunts with all his Websterian accessories. There were moral weather prophets in Griggsby who used to say, when the Colonel came back, that they could tell whether it was going to be a wet or a dry summer by the color of his nose and the set of his high hat. “Wet” was now the general verdict as he strode down the main street swinging his gold-headed cane.
On a lovely May day I tramped off into the country to attend Betsey Smead's last day of school and to walk home with her. The latter was the main part of it. She was glad to see me, and I enjoyed the children, and the songs of the birds in the maples of the old schoolyard.
In the middle of the afternoon a stern-faced old man with a hickory cane in his hand entered the schoolhouse, and Betsey hurried to meet and kiss him. Then she helped him to a seat at the teacher's desk. He was stoutly built, and wore a high collar, a black stock, and a suit of faded brown. There was a fringe of iron-gray hair above his ears, with tufts of the same color in front of them. The rest of his rugged, deep-lined face was as bare as the top of his head. His stem, gray eyes quizzically regarded the girl and the pupils.
“Describe the course of the Connecticut River,” he demanded of a member of the geography class.
To my joy, the frightened girl answered correctly.