My mind was in a singular condition of simplicity those days.  It was due to the fact that I had had no confidant in school and had been brought up in a home where there was neither father nor mother nor brother.

That night I heard a whispered conference below after I had gone up-stairs.  I knew that something was coming and wondered what it might be.  Soon Uncle Peabody came up to our little room looking highly serious.  He sat down on the side of his bed with his hands clasped firmly under one knee, raising his foot below it well above the floor.  He reminded me of one carefully holding taut reins on a horse of a bad reputation.  I sat, half undressed and rather fearful, looking into his face.  As I think of the immaculate soul of the boy, I feel a touch of pathos in that scene.  I think that he felt it, for I remember that his whisper trembled a little as he began to tell me why men are strong and women are beautiful and given to men in marriage.

“You’ll be falling in love one o’ these days,” he said.  “It’s natural ye should.  You remember Rovin’ Kate?” he asked by and by.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Some day when you’re a little older I’ll tell ye her story an’ you’ll see what happens when men an’ women break the law o’ God.  Here’s Mr. Wright’s letter.  Aunt Deel asked me to give it to you to keep.  You’re old enough now an’ you’ll be goin’ away to school before long, I guess.”

I took the letter and read again the superscription on its envelope: 

To Master Barton Baynes—­
(To be opened when he leaves home to
go to school.)

I put it away in the pine box with leather hinges on its cover which Uncle Peabody had made for me and wondered again what it was all about, and again that night I broke camp and moved further into the world over the silent trails of knowledge.

Uncle Peabody went away for a few days after the harvesting.  He had gone afoot, I knew not where.  He returned one afternoon in a buggy with the great Michael Hacket of the Canton Academy.  Hacket was a big, brawny, red-haired, kindly Irishman with a merry heart and tongue, the latter having a touch of the brogue of the green isle which he had never seen, for he had been born in Massachusetts and had got his education in Harvard.  He was then a man of forty.

“You’re coming to me this fall,” he said as he put his hand on my arm and gave me a little shake.  “Lad! you’ve got a big pair of shoulders!  Ye shall live in my house an’ help with the chores if ye wish to.”

“That’ll be grand,” said Uncle Peabody, but, as to myself, just then, I knew not what to think of it.

We were picking up potatoes in the field.

“Without ‘taters an’ imitators this world would be a poor place to live in,” said Mr. Hacket.  “Some imitate the wise—­thank God!—­some the foolish—­bad ’cess to the devil!”

As he spoke we heard a wonderful bird song in a tall spruce down by the brook.