“Well, she’s the last girl in the world that I’d mope about if I were a man,” was his sister’s emphatic reply.

“You’re not a man; besides I’m not moping.  I’m only cutting my wisdom teeth.  I want to do something in the world, and I’m thinking about it.”

“He’s a-growing,” said his mother with a smile, and on this theory she usually explained all of her son’s vagaries.

He still further misled his unsophisticated sister by making no special effort to seek Mildred’s society.  After one or two rather futile attempts he saw that he would alienate the sad-hearted girl by obtrusive advances, and he contented himself by trying to understand her, in the hope that at some future time he might learn to approach her more acceptably.  The thought that she would soon leave the farmhouse depressed him greatly.  She had suggested to him a new and wholly different life from that which he had led hitherto, and he felt within himself no power or inclination to go on with his old ways.  These thoughts he also brooded over in silence, and let himself drift in a current which seemed irresistible.

During this period he was under the influence of neither apathy nor dejection.  On the contrary, his mind was surging with half-formed plans, crude purposes, and ambitious dreams.  His horizon lifted from the farm and Forestville until there seemed space for a notable career.  His soul kindled at the thought of winning a position that would raise him to Mildred’s side.  So far from fearing to burn his ships, and strike out unsupported, the impulse grew strong to make the attempt at any cost.  He was sure that his father would not listen to the project, and that he would be wholly unaided, but riot many days passed before the thought of such obstacles ceased to influence him.  “I’ll take my way through the world, and cut my own swath,” he muttered a hundred times as he swung the scythe under the July sun.

Moreover, he had a growing belief in his power to climb the heights of success.  His favorite books of travel and adventure that he had devoured in boyhood made almost anything seem possible, and the various biographies that the village library furnished revealed grand careers in the face of enormous obstacles.  His mind was awaking like a young giant eager for achievement.  Even after the toil of long, hot days he took up his old school-books in the solitude of his room, and found that he could review them with the ease with which he would read a story.  “I’ve got some brains as well as muscle,” he would mutter, exultantly.  “The time shall come when Mildred Jocelyn won’t mistake me for Jotham.”

Poor Mr. Atwood would have been in consternation had he known what was passing in his son’s mind; and Mildred even less pleased, for after all it was she who had inspired the thoughts which were transforming him from a simple country youth into an ambitious, venturesome man.

He knew of but one way to please her, but he made the most of that, and worked quietly but assiduously whenever he could without exciting his father’s opposition.  After the day’s tasks were over the time was his own.  He began by cutting all the weeds and grass in the door-yard and around the house.  Palings that had disappeared from the fence were replaced, and all were whitewashed.