Finally she nodded to her daughter, saying: "Do you hear that, Bitha? She can write for the papers and get paid for it! And she is smart enough to teach! Well! well! that makes me say what I do say, and I stick to it, where there's a will there's a way! and where there's no hearty will, all the ways in creation won't take folks to an education! Some children can't be kicked and kept down; spite of all the world they will manage to scuffle up somehow; and then again, some can't be cuffed and coaxed and dragged up by the ears! Here's Edna, that always had a hankering after books, and she has made something of herself; and here's my girl, that I wanted to get book-learning, and I slaved and I saved to send her to school, and sure enough she has got no more use for reading, and knows as little as her poor mother, who never had a chance to learn. It is no earthly use to fly in the face of blood and nature! 'What is bred in the bone, won't come out in the flesh!' Some are cut out for one thing and some for another! Jerusalem artichokes won't bear hops, and persimmons don't grow on blackjacks!" She put her brawny brown hand on Edna's forehead, and smoothed the bands of hair, and sighed heavily. "Mrs. Wood, I should like to see Brindle once more." "Lord bless your soul, honey! she has been dead these three years! Why, you forget cows don't hang on as long as Methuselah, and Brindle was no yearling when we took her. She mired down in the swamp, back of the millpond, and before we could find her she was dead. But her calf is as pretty a young thing as ever you saw; speckled all over, most as thick as a guinea, and the children call her 'Speckle.' Willis, step out and see if the heifer is in sight. Edna, a'n't you going to stay with me to-night?" "Thank you, Mrs. Wood, I should like very much to do so, but have not time, and must get back to Chattanooga before the train leaves, for I am obliged to go on to-night." "Well, any how, lay off your bonnet and stay and let me give you some supper, and then we will all go back with you, that is, if you a'n't too proud to ride to town in our cart? We have got a new cart, but it is only a miller's cart, and may be it won't suit your fine fashionable clothes." "I shall be very glad to stay, and I only wish it was the same old cart that took me to the depot, more than five years ago. Please give me some water." Mrs. Wood rolled up her sleeves, put away her pretty peppers, and talking vigorously all the time, prepared some refreshments for her guest. A table was set under the apple-tree, a snowy cotton cloth spread over it, and yellow butter, tempting as Goshen's, and a loaf of fresh bread, and honey amber-hued, and buttermilk, and cider, and stewed pears, and a dish of ripe red apples crowned the board.