Abe paused.

“Amen!” said Tom.

“Amen!” said the others.

“Don’t forget,” Abe went on, “all of this was the Lord’s doing.  Let us praise Him for His goodness.”

He reached down, plucked a fistful of grass, and mopped his forehead.  In much the same way had the preacher used his bandanna handkerchief.  The Lincoln family rose, sang “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow,” and church was over.

The young folks drifted away.  Tom stretched out on the grass for his Sunday afternoon nap.

“Abe tells me that new Mr. Swaney was at church,” Sarah said.

Tom opened his eyes.  Before he had a chance to go back to sleep, she spoke again.

“He’s fixing to keep a school next winter.”

“So I hear,” said Tom cautiously.

“He charges seventy-five cents for each scholar.  Some schoolmasters charge a dollar.”

“Sounds like a lot of money.”

“Several of the neighbors are fixing to send their young ones,” Sarah went on.  “Mr. Swaney doesn’t ask for cash money.  He’ll take skins or farm truck.  We can manage that, I reckon.”

Tom yawned.  “Plumb foolishness, if you ask me.  But Johnny and Mathilda are your young ones.  If you want to send them—­”

“I want Sally and Abe to go, too,” Sarah interrupted.  “Abe most of all.  He is the one school will do the most good.  He’s the one who wants it most.”

Tom sat up.  “I can spare the younger ones, but I need Abe.  With us poorer than Job’s turkey, you ought to know that.”

Sarah listened patiently.  “I ain’t talking about right now.  Mr. Swaney won’t start his school till winter.  Farm work will be slack then.”

“I can hire Abe out to split rails, even in cold weather,” Tom reminded her.  “Maybe I can get some odd jobs as a carpenter, and Abe can help me.”

“Abe ain’t no great hand at carpentry.”

“He can learn.  Why, he’s fourteen, Sairy.  The idea, a big, strapping boy like that going to school.  I tell you, I won’t have it.”

“But I promised him.”

It was the first time that Tom had ever heard a quaver in his wife’s voice.  He looked away uneasily.  “If you made a promise you can’t keep, that’s your lookout.  You might as well stop nagging me, Sairy.  My mind is made up.”

To make sure that there would be no more conversation on the subject, he got up and stalked across the grass.  He lay down under another tree, out of hearing distance.  Sarah sat on the log for a long time.  Abe came back and sat down beside her.  He could tell, by looking at her, that she had been talking to his father about letting him go to school.  He knew, without asking any questions, that his father had said no.

Sarah laid her hand on his knee.  “Your pa is a good man,” she said loyally.  “Maybe he will change his mind.”

10

[Illustration]

“Hurry up and eat your breakfast, Abe,” said Tom the next morning.  “We’re going to cut corn for that skinflint, John Carter.”