Chapter 17

If I were writing a novel merely I should try to fill it with
merriment and good cheer. I should thrust no sorrow upon the
reader save that he might feel for having wasted his time. We have
small need of manufactured sorrow when, truly, there is so much
of the real thing on every side of us. But this book is nothing more
nor less than a history, and by the same token it cannot be all as I
would have wished it. In October following the events of the last
chapter, Gerald died of consumption, having borne a lingering
illness with great fortitude. I, who had come there a homeless
orphan in a basket, and who, with the God-given eloquence of
childhood had brought them to take me to their hearts and the old
man that was with me as well, was now the only son left to
Elizabeth and David Brower. There were those who called it folly
at the time they took us in, I have heard, but he who shall read this
history to the end shall see how that kind of folly may profit one or
even many here in this hard world.

It was a gloomy summer for all of us. The industry and patience
with which Hope bore her trial, night and day, is the sweetest
recollection of my youth. It brought to her young face a tender
soberness of womanhood - a subtle change of expression that
made her all the more dear to me. Every day, rain or shine, the old
doctor had come to visit his patient, sometimes sitting an hour and
gazing thoughtfully in his face, occasionally asking a question, or
telling a quaint anecdote. And then came the end.

The sky was cold and grey in the late autumn and the leaves were
drifted deep in the edge of the woodlands when Hope and I went
away to school together at Hillsborough. Uncle Eb drove us to our
boarding place in town. When we bade him goodbye and saw him
driving away, alone in the wagon, we hardly dared look at each
other for the tears in our eyes.

David Brower had taken board for us at the house of one Solomon
Rollin - universally known as 'Cooky' Rollin; that was one of the
first things I learned at the Academy. It seemed that many years
ago he had taken his girl to a dance and offered her, in lieu of
supper, cookies that he had thoughtfully brought with him. Thus
cheaply he had come to life-long distinction.

'You know Rollin's Ancient History, don't you?' the young man
asked who sat with me at school that first day.

'Have it at home,' I answered, 'It's in five volumes.'

'I mean the history of Sol Rollin, the man you are boarding with,'
said he smiling at me and then he told the story of the cookies.

The principal of the Hillsborough Academy was a big, brawny
bachelor of Scotch descent, with a stem face and cold, grey,
glaring eyes. When he stood towering above us on his