“Poor old Rover!” was the way Posey commonly spoke of her dumb friend. But there was certainly no occasion for the first adjective, for Mrs. Hagood could truly boast that nothing around her suffered for the lack of enough to eat; and as a reward for his canine faithfulness she even went so far as to give him a discarded mat on which he might lie in the woodhouse. But whine he ever so pitifully, he was not allowed to cross beyond that threshold and join the family circle, a privilege his social dog nature did so crave. And all his tail-wagging and mute appeals were equally without avail to draw from his mistress the caressing touch or word his dog soul so evidently and ardently longed for. Rover was a trusty watch-dog, and for this Mrs. Hagood valued him; at the same time she frowned on his idle existence, and had even considered the matter of having Mr. Hagood make a dog-power that she might use him to churn with. Against this her husband had urged that he wasn’t heavy enough, though privately he confided to Posey that it “wasn’t in nature for dogs to work like humans, an’ he wa’n’t goin’ to make no dog-churn for old Rover to tread, not if he knew himself, he wa’n’t.” CHAPTER VI THE STORM BREAKS The thing, however, which rankled deepest in Posey’s mind, and caused her more bitter feelings than everything else, was that for all Mrs. Hagood’s promise, which she herself standing by had heard, that Posey should go regularly to the near-by school, she had not been allowed to attend even for a single day. At first she had waited expecting something would be said about it every day, and at last had ventured to ask when she was to begin. Mrs. Hagood heard the question with an air of surprise. “School!” she repeated, “and all the house-cleaning, and spring and summer work coming on, I wonder how you think I can spare you to go to school. One would think that with all I’m doing for you, and the work you make, that you’d want to help what little you could.” Posey choked back a lump in her throat; in her own mind she was sure that she was doing more work than she made, and earning all she received or she wouldn’t be kept; at the same time it was plainly evident that school, at least for the present, was not for her. “If I can’t go this spring term, can I in the fall?” she asked somewhat anxiously. Mrs. Hagood was busy making pies, and fall was far in the future. “Yes, I guess so,” she answered, glad to get rid of the matter so easily. “If you are a smart girl to work this summer you can go to school next fall.”