Corn was ripe now, and school closed and Chad went with the men into the fields and did his part, stripping the gray blades from the yellow stalks, binding them into sheaves, stowing them away under the low roof of the big barn, or stacking them tent-like in the fields—­leaving each ear perched like a big roosting bird on each lone stalk.  And when the autumn came, there were husking parties and dances and much merriment; and, night after night, Chad saw Sintha and the school-master in front of the fire—­“settin’ up”—­close together with their arms about each other’s necks and whispering.  And there were quilting parties and housewarmings and house-raisings—­one that was of great importance to Caleb Hazel and to Chad.  For, one morning, Sintha disappeared and came back with the tall young hunter in the deerskin leggings—­blushing furiously—­a bride.  At once old Joel gave them some cleared land at the head of a creek; the neighbors came in to build them a cabin, and among them all, none worked harder than the school-master; and no one but Chad guessed how sorely hit he was.

Meanwhile, the woods high and low were ringing with the mellow echoes of axes, and the thundering crash of big trees along the mountain-side; for already the hillsmen were felling trees while the sap was in the roots, so that they could lie all winter, dry better and float better in the spring, when the rafts were taken down the river to the little capital in the Bluegrass.  And Caleb Hazel said that he would go down on a raft in the spring and perhaps Chad could go with him who knew?  For the school-master had now made up his mind finally—­he would go out into the world and make his way out there; and nobody but Chad noticed that his decision came only after, and only a little while after, the house-raising at the head of the creek.

When winter came, school opened again, and on Saturdays and Sundays and cold snowy nights, Chad and the school-master—­for he too lived at the Turners’ now—­sat before the fire in the kitchen, and the school-master read to him from “Ivanhoe” and “The Talisman,” which he had brought from the Bluegrass, and from the Bible which had been his own since he was a child.  And the boy drank in the tales until he was drunk with them and learned the conscious scorn of a lie, the conscious love of truth and pride in courage, and the conscious reverence for women that make the essence of chivalry as distinguished from the unthinking code of brave, simple people.  He adopted the master’s dignified phraseology as best he could; he watched him, as the master stood before the fire with his hands under his coat-tails, his chin raised, and his eyes dreamily upward, and Tall Tom caught the boy in just this attitude one day and made fun of him before all the others.  He tried some high-sounding phrases on Melissa, and Melissa told him he must be crazy.  Once, even, he tried to kiss her hand gallantly and she slapped his face.  Undaunted, he made a lance of white