It was the wild wailing of Alf's fiddle. The old man was pouring out his grief.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Three years passed. No change had come over the old house where Potter, John, and Alf lived, but the farm was no longer a place half covered with bushes and briers. It was a long time after Jule's death before old Alf regained his wonted cheerfulness; and one night when she had, for more than two years, been in her grave, old Alf got out of bed, and began to walk up and down the room. Potter, who heard him, asked if he was ill. "Oh, no, sah," he replied. "I am jes' walkin' wid de speret o' my chile."
To John there had come a great change. He had studied with unwavering determination, and had during two winters attended school at Sunset. From a charge, he had become a companion to Potter, who, during more than one conversation with Mrs. Forest and Eva, had said: "That boy has a wonderfully strong and original mind. His teacher declares that he never saw his equal. The mark he is going to make will be deeper than any furrow he has ever plowed."
Potter and John had spent many pleasant hours at the Forest house. John had read all of Eva's books. He had not stopped at this; he had bought a number of books which he found in a store at Sunset—old books, which were thought by the storekeeper to be hopelessly out of date. He had laughed when John marched proudly away with a sack full of treasures. "That feller will never make a livin'," said the storekeeper. "Why, he give me $5 for a lot of old rubbish that I've been tumblin' about the store for years." John also laughed, but with quiet joy, for in the sack there were "Burns' Poems," the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Paul and Virginia," "Plutarch's Lives," and "Macaulay's Essays." One afternoon, John and Eva were strolling along a flower-fringed road near Mrs. Forest's house, when the girl remarked:
"It is not strange to me that you are so different intellectually now from your former self. When I first saw you I knew that this time would come."
"It is so strange to me," John replied, "that I can scarcely realize it. Oh, of course, I am by no means learned, and doubtless never shall be, but every day I see the light of perseverance thrown upon mysteries which were once dark and stubborn. Eva, there is no life so wretched as that of the yearning backwoods boy. His hands are tied; the dust from the field of ignorance blinds his eyes. But there is hope for every boy. I believe that as a case of hopelessness mine was at one time without a parallel."
"Yes," she replied, "but you have sat between two remarkable teachers. On one side, a man of books, not a great philosopher, but a man of engaging fancy and bright illustration. On the other side, a child of nature—a man who can feel the pulse of a leaf, who can hear the beating of the heart of a tree."