CHAPTER VI.

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.  MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Little could be done in the winter.  The days were short and full of employment; all the more for Will’s absence.  What with threshing wheat and oats, foddering cattle, and dressing flax, driving to mill, cutting wood, and clearing snow, there was no time for Virgil during the few hours of daylight; hardly time to repeat a Latin verb.  The evenings were long and bright, and the kitchen cosy.  But there were axe-helves to dress out, and oars, and ox-yokes; and corn to shell, and hemp to hackle; and at which ever corner of the fireplace Winthrop might set himself down, a pair of little feet would come pattering round him, and petitions, soft but strong, to cut an apple, or to play jackstraws, or to crack hickory nuts, or to roast chestnuts, were sure to be preferred; and if none of these, or if these were put off, there was still too much of that sweet companionship to suit with the rough road to learning.  Winnie was rarely put off, and never rejected.  And the little garret room used by Winthrop and Will when the latter was at home, and now by Winthrop alone, was too freezing cold when he went up to bed to allow him more than a snatch at his longed-for work.  A few words, a line or two, were all that could be managed with safety to life; and the books had to be shut up again, with bitter mortification that it must be so soon.  The winter passed and Virgil was not read.  The spring brought longer days, and more to do in them.

“Father,” said Winthrop one night, “they have got no one yet in Mr. Dolts’ place.”

“What, at Mountain Spring?  I know they haven’t.  The foolish man thought twelve dollars a month wa’n’t enough for him, I suppose.”

“Why was he foolish, Mr. Landholm?”

“Because he greatly misstated his own value —­ which it isn’t the part of a wise man to do. I know he wasn’t worth twelve dollars.”

“Do you think I am worth more than that, sir?”

“I don’t know what you’re worth,” said his father good-humouredly.  “I should be sorry to put a price upon you.”

“Why, Winthrop?” —­ his mother said more anxiously.

“Will you let me take Mr. Dolts’ place, father?”

“His place?  What, in the schoolhouse?”

“Yes, sir.  If I can get it, I mean.”

“What for?”

“The twelve dollars a month would hire a man to do my work on the farm.”

“Yes, and I say, what for?  What do you want it for?”

“I think perhaps I might get more time to myself.”

“Time? —­ for what?”

“Time to study, sir.”

“To study! —­ Teach others that you may teach yourself, eh?” said Mr. Landholm, with a breath that was drawn very much like a sigh; and he was silent and looked grave.

“I am afraid you wouldn’t like it, Winthrop,” said his mother seriously.