“If father was here,” said eleven-year-old Nate, “you could study evenings and recite to him.  I wish mother could help; but, then I guess mother’s—­”

“Help how?” she heard Jerry ask sharply, before Nate could finish his sentence; and she knew the boy was jealous at once for her.  “Isn’t she the best mother in the world?”

“Yes, she is; and she likes stories, too; but I was just thinking, now that you can’t go to school, if she only knew a lot about every thing, why, she could tell you.”

“Well,” replied Jerry, with all the gravity of a man, “we must just take hold and help all we can; it’s going to be hard enough for mother.  I just hate to give up school and pitch into work.  Thede, you shall go next Winter, any way.”

“Shan’t we be lonesome next winter?” said little Johnnie, who had taken no part in the talk; until now; “won’t mother be afraid?  I want my father back,” and, without a word of warning, he burst into tears.

Dead silence for a few minutes.  The outburst was so sudden, she knew they were all weeping.  It was Jerry again who spoke first:  “Don’t let mother see us crying.  Come, Johnnie, let’s take Bone, and all go down to the trap;” then she heard them pass out of the house.

Desolation fell upon that poor mother for the next hour.  Like a knife, Nate’s remark had passed through her heart, “Father could have helped!” Couldn’t she help her boys, for whom she was ready to die?  Was she only “mother,” who prepared their meals and took care of their clothes?  She wanted a part in the very best of their lives.  She thought it all over, sitting up far into the night.  If she could only create an interest in some study that should bind them all together, and in which she could lead!  Was she too old to begin?  Never had the desire to become the very center of interest to them taken such a hold upon her.

A few weeks after, she said one morning, at the breakfast table, “Boys, I’ve been thinking that we might begin geology this summer, and study it, all of us together.  Your father and I meant to do it sometime.  I’ve found a text-book; by and by, perhaps, Thede can draw us a chart.  Jerry will take hold, I know, and Nate and Johnnie can hunt for specimens.  We’ll have an hour or two every night.”

The children’s interest awoke in a flash, and that very evening the question discussed was one brought in by Nate:  “What is the difference between limestone and granite?” A simple one, but it opened the way for her, and their first meeting proved a success.  She had to study each day to be ready and wide awake for her class.  They lived in a limestone region.  Different forms of coral abounded, and other fossils were plenty.  An old cupboard in the shed was turned into a cabinet.  One day Nate, who had wandered off two or three miles, brought home a piece of rock, where curious, long, finger-shaped creatures were imbedded.  Great was the delight of all to find them described as orthoceratites,