“What’s more, she’s getting something that she’ll not want to keep to herself. That’s the way with folk who learn. They want to pass their knowledge on. She’ll be passing it to her children and they’ll come up in the world. You can’t tell anything about _how_ far they’ll come up. They may get to be the best known and most useful men and women in the state. They say children take from their mother, and your children have a good mother, Mr. McIntosh. She’s a woman with a clear, sensible mind, who wants to lift herself up out of poverty and ignorance. That’s the sort of a wife you have, sir, and I congratulate you.” The preposterously pleasant Mr. Rowantree advanced upon the glowering McIntosh and held out his hand. In bewilderment the mountaineer took it and received a grip that surprised him. “Aren’t you proud of her?” demanded Mr. Rowantree. “I know what it is to be proud of a wife, sir. I have one that’s much too good for me, and I realize it. Yes, it’s a great thing for a man to have a wife he can be proud of; one that can do something he can’t.” “I ken do what she’s doing,” said Mr. McIntosh defiantly. “Thar ain’t no reason that I ken see, why I can’t do it as well as her.” “I doubt it,” said Mr. Rowantree, shaking his head, “you might—but I doubt it, Mr. McIntosh.” “I’ll bet you a young shote that I ken!” cried the man. “I’ll bet you a brace of my ducks that you can’t,” retorted Mr. Rowantree. “Done!” said Mr. McIntosh. “Give me a book. Set down and tell me about this here l’arning.” Mr. Rowantree turned to the school. “A brace of ducks against a young shote that Mr. McIntosh cannot learn to read,” he said gravely. “You are the witnesses. Coulter, kindly bring me a primer from that closet. You will all observe that I play fair. I shall do my best to teach him, but I frankly confess I have my doubts. He has looked down on book-learning and that is against him.” Mr. McIntosh made no reply. He had hung his hat on a nail and now he drew his one “gallus” a little tighter as if to prepare for a struggle. At the opposite corner of the room from his wife, he bent over his book. Mr. Rowantree drew a chair up beside him. “We will give our attention, if you please,” he said in his mellow voice, and in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, “to the first letter of the alphabet.”