Young Mrs. McIntosh bent very low over her page and only the children sitting next saw her shoulders shaking with laughter. The children themselves, determined not to spoil sport, kept their mirth till they should be upon the mountain paths. Then they would have their chuckle there over the way McIntosh “was tricked into l’arnin’.” Now they devoted themselves to their own lessons, and away in the backs of their minds a new idea was growing. Why shouldn’t their own fathers and mothers come to school? Why shouldn’t they all know how to read? It was just as Mr. Rowantree said; they couldn’t “match up” with the men and women beyond the mountains. They were different—terribly different. Oh, yes, proud as they were, these children of the mountain clans, they knew that. Their sisters weren’t like Miss Azalea and Miss Carin—not at all like them. Their fathers weren’t like Mr. Rowantree; and though in some ways Mr. Rowantree was not liked by them, and his disinclination to work was noted even by these folk of easy-going ways, still, he was different. He knew about the great world beyond; about what people were doing in the cities; he was acquainted with what other men thought and wrote, and he could talk in a wonderful way. Just see how he had come it over McIntosh, and taken the “meanness” out of him! It was the red-headed boy, Dibblee Sikes, the most sociable child in the school, who put into words the thing that had been stirring in the children’s minds. He came up to Mr. Rowantree at the nooning. “Please, sir,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about something.” “You look as if you had,” said Mr. Rowantree cordially. “Well, I always count it a pleasant day when I have a new idea. What have you thought of, Sikes?” “Why, seeing Mrs. McIntosh take up with books, sir, and Mr. McIntosh set down to beat her out in learning, made me think of having a school for the grown folks. They need it just as much as us young-uns.” “They certainly do, Sikes, and do you know, the same notion has been in my head ever since McIntosh joined us? Just look at him, will you? He’s sitting over there on the ground, studying like a good fellow. Can’t even stop to eat.” “Maybe he ain’t got nothing _to_ eat, seeing he didn’t count on staying when he come.” Sikes grinned at his instructor, and Mr. Rowantree returned the smile, accompanying it with a gentle wink of the left eye. “Yes, his wife offered him half of her luncheon, though she didn’t have much.” “Then I reckon he’s eating with one hand and studying with the other,” said Dibblee blithely. “But how about that school, Mr. Rowantree?” “Well, I suppose it would be impossible for most of them to come in the daytime. They have to attend to their work, don’t they?” Mr. Rowantree asked the question rather vaguely. It was a subject about which he was not very well informed. Dibblee nodded. “Sure they do,” he said in the language he had picked up from some “tourist” boys at Bee Tree.