So summer went by, and all through its days Posey bore this promise in mind; many a time it was an incentive to her when she would otherwise have flagged; and a spur to endeavor without which she might have been negligent. Autumn came, apples grew ruddy in the orchards, grapes ripened on the vines, and the woods changed their summer’s dress of green for one of yellow and scarlet. Yet Posey, who all through the spring and early summer had watched with longing eyes the children passing to and fro, saw the opening of the fall term draw near—delayed by repairs on the schoolhouse far beyond its usual time—without a single word or sign as to her going. And the day before it was to begin Mrs. Hagood said to her, “Posey, I want you to pick the green tomatoes to-morrow morning, then after dinner you can chop them for the mixed pickle.” Posey’s heart sank with dismay. The ambition the teacher at the Refuge had awakened, had grown with her own growth; more still, an education seemed her one hope of escape from the life of a charity dependent, and she determined to risk a great deal rather than give it up. “Hadn’t I better pick the tomatoes to-day?” she asked not without an inward trembling of the heart. “You know school begins to-morrow.” Mrs. Hagood paused in the pantry door. “Well, what if it does?” “Why, you promised me, don’t you remember? that I should go to school this fall.” “I don’t remember, no, and I can’t spare you to go, anyway. There’s all the pickles to put up, and apples to dry, and apple butter to stir, and the pig to be killed, with lard to try out, and sausage to make, and potatoes to be sorted over, and Brother Solon’s wife coming for a visit. You don’t much more than earn your salt now, and to go to school you wouldn’t be worth anything. All you care about it anyway is just for an excuse to race and run and get rid of work.” “It isn’t, either,” Posey protested hotly, “I like to study. Ask my teachers at the Refuge if I didn’t have my lessons. Besides I want to go to school so I can be a teacher myself some day.” “A teacher,” with a scornful laugh that sent the blood to Posey’s face, “a pretty teacher you’d make.” “And when I came here with you,” Posey went on, sticking to the point in issue, “you promised that I should go to school.” “I can teach you all you need. And for a poor girl who has to depend on charity for her bringing up, to know how to work is a great deal more account than a little smattering of books, and a lot of high-flown, silly ideas that will never amount to anything.” “Then you don’t mean that I shall go to school at all?” Posey’s voice trembled a little as she put the question. She had grown pale around the mouth, and her eyes had become wide and dark. “I don’t know as it’s any of your business what I intend,” was the answer in Mrs. Hagood’s most decided tone. “I’ve told you that you couldn’t go now, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”