The white drifts of winter grew gray and then turned black under the March sun that melted them down and drained off their soluble parts, leaving only a residuum of mud along fences and hedges where, a few days before had been shapely piles of snow. April came with its deluges of rain that washed the earth clean and carried off the riffraff of the previous season, making ready for another and more bountiful harvest. What a thrifty housekeeper nature is!
"Dodd" still stayed away from school, and through slush and mud and drenching rain worked like a little man. The fact is, he had secretly made up his mind never to go to school again, a conclusion that it is no particular wonder he had reached after his experience with Amos Waughops, as just chronicled. He observed that his ready work met the approval of both of his parents and grandparents, and he quietly hoped that they would let him alone and permit him to stay out of school so long as he continued to make himself useful on the farm.
He said nothing about this, however. His training had not been such as to inspire confidence between himself and his parents, and already he had begun to think, plan and act for himself, unaided by their counsel or advice.
Nor is it an uncommon thing for many well-meaning and well-wishing parents thus to isolate their children from the holy of holies of their hearts and force them out into the desert of their own inexperience, to die there alone, or compel them to seek help from the heathenish crowd that is always camped around about within easy reach of such wandering ones.
How is it in your own household, beloved? Look it up, if you dare to!
But one day when the boy and his grandfather were burning corn stalks in the field, making ready for plowing, the old gentleman broached the subject of school to "Dodd," and, by dint of much persuasion, gained his reluctant consent to brave once more the trials of the school room and out himself again under the guidance of a teacher. A week later "Dodd" made his third venture in the legalized lottery of licensed school teachers. He had drawn blanks twice and he was more than suspicious of the enterprise. He had no faith in it whatever.
But the counterfeit always presupposes the genuine, and the same system that includes such specimens as Miss Stone and Amos Waughops in its wide embrace, enfolds also thousands who are the worthiest of men and women. After all, Virtue is on top in this mundane sphere; if it were not so, this old planet would have gone to ruin long ago. Let us look up!
Amy Kelly bad been awarded the contract to teach the "spring and summer school" in district four, Dundas township, on this particular year, and with timid, anxious steps she had walked six miles the first Monday morning of the term to take charge of her pupils.
It was her first school, and she was worried about it, as folks usually are about almost anything that is new to them and concerning which they are conscientious. Some people never are worried, though. They are born in a don't-care fashion; they absorb the principle from the first, and it never wears out. Others are anxious to begin with, but grow careless as they grow familiar with their surroundings. Others are always anxious. They never do so well that they do not hope to do better next time, and they would almost decline heaven if they felt it to be a place where they must forever remain as they are.
Amy Kelly was of the pattern last described.