"It was his greatest pleasure," the girl suggested.
"Yes; but if it hadn't been for books he might have been a successful business man, and we might not have been compelled to leave our home in Tennessee, where I was so contented, and settle in this out-of-the-way place, and, of necessity, take up ignorance for our neighbors."
"His neighbors, the few books which he saved, are not ignorant," the girl replied. "He loved them, found them true, and left them friends to me."
"Yes, child, yes; I know all that; but it was a hardship on me, and since his death the cultivation of the farm has given me no end of trouble. Oh, I like books well enough, but unless we can write them they don't make us a living."
"But," said Potter, "they reduce a dreary and barren hour into a minute of ripe delight."
The girl clapped her hands. "I thank you for so bright a defense," she exclaimed.
"Oh, when you come ter talk erbout books," said Alf, "Mr. Potter he plum dar. Got er big luther-kivered book yere dat he read mighty nigh all de time."
"The Bible I hope," Mrs. Forest remarked.
"The Bible often, Mrs. Forest, but the book to which he refers is the Bible's wise, though sometimes sportive, child—Shakespeare."
John re-entered the room. "There's comin' up a shower," said he, "an' I took the horse to the stable."