"Well, then, Ray, good-bye until Monday. We shall see you then?" Mr. George Woodhull said, as the boy stepped into a boat at the Long Point Farm wharf, and took up the oars.
"Yes; if nothing happens, you may look for me Monday night after school," Ray replied, dipping the oars into the water, and pulling slowly away toward Afton.
Four months have passed since the events recorded in the last chapter, and Thanksgiving is just at hand. Those months have been marked by faithful toil on the part of Ray. Immediately after his trial he had taken up his work again at Long Point Farm, and had gone steadily on also with his studies. When September came, and the fall term of school began, he went to the principal of the Afton Graded School, and was examined for entrance to the senior class. The examination was so successful that when Mr. Greenough, the principal, found the boy could not enter the school before the winter term, he himself proposed that he should come up to the village once each week for recitation, and under his own immediate supervision keep on with his class. Ray had gladly accepted the offer, and, while he neglected no farm duty, he had through all the fall carried on his studies so assiduously that the week previous to the opening of this chapter he had passed an examination which warranted Mr. Greenough's remark a day or two after to Mr. Carleton: "If my other boys don't look out, that young Branford will take their laurels away from them. His indomitable will has carried him successfully through what few boys would have dared to undertake."
Ray's eight months with Mr. Woodhull were now completed, but he had arranged with his employer to live with him during the winter months, doing chores and working on Saturdays for his board, and going morning and night to and from school. This undertaking would have at the very outset disheartened a less courageous lad; still it was not so hard a task as it at first sight appeared. It was not over three miles across the bay to Afton, and in good weather, until winter closed it up, Ray could go over to the village by boat. When once the bay was frozen over, he could skate across; and at the times when he could not do either of these Mr. Woodhull had promised him a horse, and Mr. Carleton had an extra stall in the parsonage barn where the horse could be kept during school hours. Nor would the gallop of seven miles through the wintry air be otherwise than beneficial to the general health of the lad.
So this new arrangement was to go into effect on the following Monday, when the winter term of school began. Meantime, Ray decided to spend a few days with his old friends at the Black Forge Mills. He had made a few brief visits there during the months he had been away, but this was to be his first extended stay. He had found that, notwithstanding his new associations and arduous cares, there was still in his heart a deep interest for his old friends at the Forge. He had a deep yearning in his soul that many of his old associates might come to Jesus. For them and his immediate home friends he had prayed constantly; but of late he had felt that the gulf between him and them was daily widening.
"I must see them occasionally, and let them see that I neither forget them nor lose my interest in them, if I am to do them good," he thought. And for this reason he had planned this visit to his old home. He little knew how great the spiritual results of that visit were to be.
It was early morning when he bade Mr. Woodhull good-bye at Long Point Farm wharf. The day was crisp and cold, but pleasant, and he rowed briskly, as he got out on to the bosom of the bay, to keep himself warm. The waves were not high, and under his vigorous strokes the light boat shot rapidly forward. Instead of running into the dock at Afton, he pulled along the shore to the mouth of the stream on which the Black Forge Mills were situated. It was high water, and he was able to row up within a few rods of his father's door. Pulling the boat well up on the bank, and fastening it securely to an adjacent tree, he walked on to the house.
He opened the door without knocking, and entered. Betsy was busy at the stove, and turned hastily to see who had come. She gave a glad cry when she saw him.
"Oh, Ray! is it you? And you have come to spend Thanksgiving with us, haven't you?" she eagerly asked.
"Yes," he answered; "are you glad I've come?"