ALL day long the little boy was with the School-teacher. The child and the dog watched for the man to come out of the forest in the morning. When the dog barked, the little boy would say:

“Nim, see Teacher.”

The woman standing before the door watched for the three of them to come out of the forest in the evening. She listened for the laughter, the voices, the barking of the dog. The sense of perfect understanding among the three of them was to her a perpetual wonder. The child had only a few words, the dog had none. How could the man know so well, what they meant? It was a wonder that she turned about, and at last, out of the deeps of her own feelings, she got an answer that she held to.

“If you love a thing enough, it's goin' to understand you.”

The relation of the School-teacher to this tiniest child was also that of his relation to every other one. The sense of it spread throughout the school. This school became a family. What the cheerless home withheld, it gave. No child could have told one what that was.

The teacher understood him, would have been the answer.

The School-teacher required no built-up explanations, he required no justification of one's act by the unfamiliar standards of another, he required no trick, no artifice, no pretending, to get on with.

To the question, “What is he like?” a little boy had answered, “Why, just like me.”

For some time there had been a secret in the school.

The School-teacher had talked with every child apart. The talk had been confidential. The School-teacher had spoken with each one, even the tiniest, as with an equal. He had spoken with him from day to day as the occasion arose. It was the way of this secret to make the child with whom he talked for a time unhappy. But as the School-teacher continued each day to strengthen him, to show him how much he depended on him, and to blow on the embers of his courage, he came at length to carry the secret with equanimity.

On Thursday evening this secret became the common property of all. The School-teacher was going away! There would be no more school!

On this afternoon the School-teacher had again talked with each child apart, told him that the time of which he had spoken had now come, and called upon him for the evidence of his courage. But, in spite of all, when the hour arrived, the school broke down. It left the little benches and gathered around the Schoolteacher. For a moment the Schoolteacher hesitated, before the group of wet faces, then, one by one, he took each child up in his arms, carried him to the window and told him something. Something which he had not told him before. No one, outside of the school, knew exactly what it was. But each child coming from the School-teacher's arms was strengthened, and set out for his home, the tears drying on his sturdy little face. An idea of what this something was, afterwards arose. A little boy had said, “Everybody's a-goin' to live at the School-teacher's house.” But he was in the extremity of illness when he said it, and they thought he spoke in delirium.

It, was mid-afternoon when the Schoolteacher left the schoolhouse. He was accompanied by the two children, Martha and David. The dog Jim went before him and he carried the tiny boy on his shoulder. They went along the road to the river, crossed on the stones and ascended the mountain. The little boy fell asleep, his arms around the Schoolteacher's neck.

The two children walked beside the man.

For the most part they were silent. Finally they came to the little clearing. The children stopped in the road, and the man went up onto the cabin porch, the little sleeping boy in his arms. The woman at work in the kitchen, hearing the footsteps, came out to the door. When she saw who it was, she was surprised.

“School's out early to-day,” she said. “Yes,” replied the School-teacher. “What's the matter?”

“It's the last day of the school.”

“Won't there be any more school?”

“No.”

The woman's lips trembled. “Then, then...” she said, and she began to cry.

“Mary,” said the School-teacher, “have you forgotten what I told you?”

The woman sobbed,

“But it's come so soon.”

Then she looked at the little boy sleeping in the School-teacher's arms and the tears streamed down her face.

“Now, what'll I do?” she said. “Now, what'll I do? He'll set there by the door, him an' Jim, an' he'll look for you every morning, an' whenever Jim barks he'll say 'Nim see Teacher,' but he won't never see you.”

“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “he will see me again.”

“Then you won't be so awful far away?”

“I shall never be very far away from him.”

Then he put the sleeping child into the woman's arms.

“Don't wake him,” he said, “and don't cry. Remember, Mary, that if he should go with me, then he could not stay with you.”

He went down the road, and with the two children beside him, passed on along the path. They went by the spring, with its keg sunk in the earth, and up the mountain to Nicholas Parks' house. There, in the road, they found the woman with the yellow hair, feeding the chickens, a measure of corn in her apron.

“You're back early,” she said.

“It's the last day of the school,” replied the School-teacher.

The woman's whole body was convulsed. The corn spilled out of her apron. Then she fled along the road, and up the path to the house. At the door she stopped, turned about, and then huddled down by the steps, her apron over her head.

The School-teacher bade the children await him, then he went up the path. He passed by the woman and entered the house. Within the house, he went over to the table by the wall, on which lay a little, worn, broken toy, that had once been a wooden horse, a top whittled out of a spool, a brass ring with its cotton ribbon, a Harlow knife, and little bunches of wild flowers. These he took up, one by one, and put into the bosom of his coat. Then he came out and closed the door. As he passed, the woman put out her hand and touched him. And he stopped. For a moment he stood looking down at the woman sobbing at his feet, the apron over her heed. Then he spoke.

“Margaret,” he said, “is this how you will keep your promise to me?”

Then he went down the path, and, accompanied by the two children, followed the road along the ridge to the little path descending the mountain toward the mill. As the School-teacher walked he endeavored to strengthen and encourage the two children. He bade them remember what he had said, and not to cry. They managed not to cry when he left them at the point where the path entered the road below. But when he was gone out of their sight and hearing, in the direction of the schoolhouse, they held to each other and wept.

They stood for a long time, there, in tears, holding to one another. Then they heard sounds approaching and hid themselves. Two men rode past in the direction of the schoolhouse. One of them carried a rifle across the saddle before him.

A great fear fell on the two children and they followed at a distance. They saw the two men dismount before the school-house, knock on the door and enter. After a while they came out with the Schoolteacher.

They got on their horses and, with the School-teacher walking between them, set out along the road in the direction of the town.