“I know it,” he answered.  “I lie awake nights thinking about it.  I am poor myself, almost as poor as my father before me.  I have found it difficult to keep my poverty these late years but I have not failed.  I’m about as poor as you are, I guess.  I could enjoy riches, but I want to be poor so I may not forget what is due to the people among whom I was born—­you who live in small houses and rack your bones with toil.  I am one of you, although I am racking my brain instead of my bones in our common interest.  There are so many who would crowd us down we must stand together and be watchful or we shall be reduced to an overburdened, slavish peasantry, pitied and despised.  Our danger will increase as wealth accumulates and the cities grow.  I am for the average man—­like myself.  They’ve lifted me out of the crowd to an elevation which I do not deserve.  I have more reputation than I dare promise to keep.  It frightens me.  I am like a child clinging to its father’s hand in a place of peril.  So I cling to the crowd.  It is my father.  I know its needs and wrongs and troubles.  I had other things to do to-night.  There were people who wished to discuss their political plans and ambitions with me.  But I thought I would rather go with you and learn about your troubles.  What are they?”

My uncle told him about the note and the visit of Mr. Grimshaw and of his threats and upbraidings.

“Did he say that in Bart’s hearing?” asked the Senator.

“Ayes!—­right out plain.”

“Too bad!  I’m going to tell you frankly, Baynes, that the best thing I know about you is your conduct toward this boy.  I like it.  The next best thing is the fact that you signed the note.  It was bad business but it was good Christian conduct to help your friend.  Don’t regret it.  You were poor and of an age when the boy’s pranks were troublesome to both of you, but you took him in.  I’ll lend you the interest and try to get another holder for the mortgage on one condition.  You must let me attend to Bart’s schooling.  I want to be the boss about that.  We have a great schoolmaster in Canton and when Bart is a little older I want him to go there to school.  I’ll try to find him a place where he can work for his board.”

“We’ll miss Bart but we’ll be tickled to death—­there’s no two ways about that,” said Uncle Peabody.

I had been getting sleepy, but this woke me up.  I no longer heard the monotonous creak of harness and whiffletrees and the rumble of wheels; I saw no longer the stars and the darkness of the night.  My mind had scampered off into the future.  I was playing with Sally or with the boys in the school yard.

The Senator tested my arithmetic and grammar and geography as we rode along in the darkness and said by and by: 

“You’ll have to work hard, Bart.  You’ll have to take your book into the field as I did.  After every row of corn I learned a rule of syntax or arithmetic or a fact in geography while I rested, and my thought and memory took hold of it as I plied the hoe.  I don’t want you to stop the reading, but from now on you must spend half of every evening on your lessons.”