Justin Wingate tip-toed softly to and fro in front of the improvised book shelves and looked at the formidable array of books which, together with some furniture, had arrived for Clayton, and had been brought out from the town. The books were of a different character entirely from those which composed the minister’s scanty collection. Justin read the names slowly, without comprehension—“Spencer’s Synthetic Philosophy,” “Darwin’s Origin of Species,” “Tyndall’s Forms of Water,” and hard-worded titles affixed to volumes of the German metaphysicians. There were medical books too, a great many it seemed to the boy, in leather bindings, with gilt titles set in black squares on the backs.

Clayton came in while Justin was tip-toeing before the book shelves. His appearance and manner had changed for the better. He looked at the boy with kindly interest, and was almost cheerful.

“Do you think you would like to become an educated man, Justin?”

The boy’s eyes shone.

“I don’t know. Would I have to read all of those?”

A smile twitched the corners of Clayton’s dark eyes.

“Not all of them at once, and perhaps some of them never. At any rate we wouldn’t try to begin so high up as that.”

He sat down and began to question the boy concerning his acquirements, and found they were not inconsiderable, for the lonely minister had tried to be faithful to his trust. Except in one line, the Scriptural, the faculty of the imagination had alone been neglected; and that seemed strange, for Peter Wingate was so quiveringly imaginative that he lived perpetually in a dream world which he believed to be real. Justin had never heard of the Greek gods and demi-gods; the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, the Arabian Nights, were unknown names to him; he had never visited Liliput and the land of the giants with Gulliver, nor even gone sailing romantic seas and living in blissful and lonely exile with Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Yet he knew all the wonderful and attractive stories of the Bible. The friendship of David and Jonathan was as real to him as the love that existed between himself and the minister. He knew the height of Goliath, and had even measured on the ground, with the minister’s help, the length of that giant’s spear. He had seen the baby Moses drawn from his cradled nest in the bulrushes; had witnessed the breaking pitchers and the flashing lights of Gideon’s band; and had watched in awed wonder when, at the command of Joshua, the sun had stopped over Gideon and the moon had hung suspended above the valley of Ajalon.

Clayton’s dark eyes looked into the blue eyes of the boy as they talked, and the choking ache which had been in his heart when he came to that lonely home in that lonely valley all but ceased.

“You haven’t missed so very much after all, Justin. I guess there aren’t any better stories than those you know anywhere in the world. But you know them so well now that we will begin on something else.”

Stepping to a box he drew out a book. When he came back with it Justin recognized the title, “Robinson Crusoe,” for he had once heard the minister mention it in a sermon.

“Is it a story?” he asked, eagerly.

“One of the best stories ever written, I think. It has made boys run away to sea, I’ve been told, but I don’t believe you will be harmed by it in that way. Seven-league boots would be needed to run away to sea from here. So we’ll risk reading it.”

He sat down and began to read; and the boy, standing close against his knees as on that first night, felt a strange warmth steal through him. He wanted to put his arms around the neck of this man; and when at length Clayton in shifting his position dropped a hand softly on the boy’s shoulder and let it rest there as he read on, the inner warmth so increased in the heart of the boy that he could hardly follow the story, fascinating as it was.

What may be called Justin’s course of instruction under Clayton began that day, after Clayton had talked with Wingate and asked the privilege of ordering certain books for Justin. The mail of a few days later brought “Treasure Island.”

“A wild book and a bloody one,” said Clayton, as he took it from its wrapping, while Justin looked on expectantly, “but a little wildness will be a good thing in this stagnation, and the blood in such a book doesn’t hurt a boy who isn’t bloody-minded. I think there must have been pirates who went about bludgeoning folks in the days of the cave-dwellers, and certainly books about pirates couldn’t have made those fellows what they were.”

It was a delight to instruct such a natural, inquisitive, imaginative boy as Justin. And the lessons were not confined to books. Clayton had a little glass which he slipped in and out of his pocket at intervals as he walked about with the boy. Looking through that glass the greenish stuff that appeared on the stones by the margin of the tepid stream was revealed as a beautiful green moss, the tufted head of a dusty weed was seen to be set with white lilies, and tiny specks became strange crawling and creeping things. Suddenly Justin had found that the very air, the earth, even the water in the tepid pools of the stream, swarmed with life, and it was an astonishing revelation. And everywhere was order, and beauty of form and coloring; for even a common rock, broken and viewed through that glass, showed beautiful diamond-like crystals.

One day Clayton plucked the leaf of a weed and holding it beneath the glass let Justin look at it.

“It’s covered all over with fuzzy hairs!”

Clayton plucked another of a different kind.

“Isn’t it funny? You can’t see them, only through the glass, but the edges are spiked, just as if there were little thorns set all along it!”

Clayton sat down, toying with the weeds and the glass.

“What do you suppose those spikes and hairs are for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps no one really knows, but men may have theories. See that little moth moving now across the weed blade. He is on the under side, and the hairs help him to hold on. When he reaches the edge and wishes to climb over, the hairs and the spikes help him to do that. That shows, to me at least, that nature provides as completely for a moth as for a man, and that God cares as much for the one as for the other; only man, having a very high opinion of himself, doesn’t think so. Aha! Mr. Moth’s wings are wet and he is having some trouble; we’ll see if we can help him.”

He stretched out his hand to turn the grass blade over, and in doing so crushed the moth; it was his half useless left hand, heavy and clumsy. His face flushed as he looked at his crooked arm, and then at the moth, its mail of silver dust smeared over the green, sword-like blade.

“Poor little thing,” he said.

He put away the glass and rose, and there was no further lesson that morning.

Sometimes Justin rode forth with him on a visit to the home of a settler. All knew him soon, and were glad of his coming. That he appeared to have established himself permanently in one of the abandoned houses of the town gave them selfish pleasure, for it was good to have a doctor near.

Often Clayton rode forth alone, spending whole days off in the hills, or on the level lands stretching away from their base. He found Justin always watching for him when he returned, and he never failed to bring home something of interest in the shape of a crystal, a flower, a lichen, or mayhap an abandoned bird’s nest, which furnished either a lesson or food for conversation.

Always on his return from any trip, far or near, Wingate questioned him with anxious yearning. Were the farmers still hopeful, what crops looked most promising, did the deceptive clouds about the mountain promise rain, had he seen any land-hunters or white-topped schooners on the trail? And when Clayton had answered, the dreamer talked of his dream. He was sure of its fulfillment some day.

“A baseless dream,” thought Clayton; “but all dreams are baseless, gaudy, unsubstantial things, wrought by hope and fancy out of foundationless air, and to shatter his dream would be to shatter his heart.”

As he returned one day, Clayton beheld in the trail the vanishing wheels of the mail carrier’s cart and saw Justin running toward him in great excitement. Quickening the pace of his horse he was soon at the boy’s side.

“Father—Mr. Wingate—has—had a fit, or something. He’s lying on the floor and won’t speak to me, and I can’t lift him.”

Clayton leaped from the saddle and rushed into the house, with Justin at his heels. The preacher lay on the floor, with arms spread out. Beneath him was an open letter, across which he had fallen. Clayton made a hurried examination, and with Justin’s aid placed him on the low bed. Picking up the letter he glanced at it. It was from the secretary of the town company, and was apparently an answer to one which Wingate had sent:

“Mr. Peter Wingate.

“My Dear Sir:—We regret that we cannot view the prospects of the town and valley of Paradise as hopefully as you do. In fact we have concluded to abandon it definitely and permanently, and to that end we have sold all the buildings. The agent of the purchaser will visit you at once and make arrangements for their removal.

“Very truly yours,
“Royce Gilbert,
“Secretary Paradise Land and Town Company.”

“Is he—very sick?” wailed the boy anxiously.

Clayton dropped the letter to the floor, and swinging about in his chair drew Justin to him, pressing him close against his heart. There were tears in his eyes and his voice choked.

“Justin,” he said, “you will need to be a very brave boy now; Mr. Wingate is dead.”