However, after Mr. Marston had been gone for over two weeks, and nothing had been heard from the Springs, the hope died in Silas’s heart, and he came to believe that his benefactor had forgotten him.  And yet he could not return to the old contentment with his mode of life.  Mr. Marston was right, and he was “cooped up there with nothing better than rabbits, squirrels, and quail.”  The idea had never occurred to him before, but now it struck him with disconcerting force that there was something in him above his surroundings and the labor at which he toiled day by day.  He began to see that the cabin was not over clean, and for the first time recognized that his brothers and sisters were positively dirty.  He had always looked on it with unconscious eyes before, but now he suddenly developed the capacity for disgust.

When young ’Lishy, noticing his brother’s moroseness, attributed it to his strong feeling for a certain damsel, Silas turned on him in a fury.  Ambition had even driven out all other feelings, and Dely Manly seemed poor and commonplace to the dark swain, who a month before would have gone any length to gain a smile from her.  He compared everything and everybody to the glory of what he dreamed the Springs and its inhabitants to be, and all seemed cheap beside.

Then on a day when his spirits were at their lowest ebb, a passing neighbor handed him a letter which he had found at the little village post office.  It was addressed to Mr. Si Jackson, and bore the Springs postmark.  Silas was immediately converted from a raw backwoods boy to a man of the world.  Save the little notes that had been passed back and forth from boy to girl at the little log schoolhouse where he had gone four fitful sessions, this was his first letter, and it was the first time he had ever been addressed as “Mr.”  He swelled with a pride that he could not conceal, as with trembling hands he tore the missive open.

    [Illustration:  His brother and sister.]

He read it through with glowing eyes and a growing sense of his own importance.  It was from the head waiter whom Mr. Marston had mentioned, and was couched in the most elegant and high-sounding language.  It said that Mr. Marston had spoken for Silas, and that if he came to the Springs, and was quick to learn, “to acquire knowledge,” was the head waiter’s phrase, a situation would be provided for him.  The family gathered around the fortunate son, and gazed on him with awe when he imparted the good news.  He became, on the instant, a new being to them.  It was as if he had only been loaned to them, and was now being lifted bodily out of their world.

The elder Jackson was a bit doubtful about the matter.

“Of co’se ef you wants to go, Silas, I ain’t a-gwine to gainsay you, an’ I hope it’s all right, but sence freedom dis hyeah piece o’ groun’s been good enough fu’ me, an’ I reckon you mought a’ got erlong on it.”