THE WATER QUESTION SETTLED.
"How fine it will be for your dairy, in summer,—this cold, running water!" said Vinnie.
But Chokie seemed best pleased, because he would no longer be dependent upon precarious rains filling the hogshead, but would have a whole tankful of water—an ocean in the back-room—to sail his shingle boats on.
The boys had also acted on another suggestion of Jack's, and taken the farm to work. This plan also promised to succeed well. The prospect of doing something for themselves, roused energies which might have lain dormant all their lives, if they had been contented to sit still and wait for others to help them.
As Vinnie's school became known, other pupils appeared from up and down the river, and by the first snowfall she had more than a dozen scholars. Among these were Sal Wiggett and two big boys belonging to the paternal Wiggett's "third crap" of children, and Dud and Zeph Peakslow.
The Betterson boys also attended the school, Wad and Link as pupils, and Rufe partly as a pupil and partly as an assistant. Vinnie could teach him penmanship and grammar, but she was glad to turn over to him the classes in arithmetic, for which study he had a natural aptitude.
The Peakslow children, both boys and girls, had a good deal in them that was worth cultivating; and amid the genial associations of the little school they fast outgrew their rude and uncouth ways. It was interesting to see Zeph and Cecie reciting the same lessons side by side, and Rufe showing Dud about the sums that bothered him.
Caroline had very much objected to Vinnie's enlarging her school, and especially to her receiving the big boys. The success of the experiment surprised her. Vinnie had a charming way with the younger children, and a peculiarly subduing influence over the big boys.
"Lavinia dear," said Caroline "what have I always said? You are a most extraordinary girl!"