The little boy returned the smile with a sudden lightening of his serious childish face, and watched his father with happy eyes as the tall figure strode away with the other men. Then the two boys on the log edged nearer and nearer to each other. Doby was thinking of the stranger: "He is tall, but I don't believe he is more than eight years old. I'd just as soon play with a nice small chap if there are no big fellows around." So he grinned cheerfully at his companion. Shyly the little boy moved closer yet. "It will be easy to like him," Doby decided. "He is so friendly." Doby could not think of anything to say. He pulled out his stone knife and fell to carving his initials on the beech log. The little boy gazed at Doby's queer knife. (Boys always noticed that knife. It was the owner's letter of introduction to all chance acquaintances.) Then he opened his own shabby pocket-knife and neatly cut the date--1816--below the bold O H. Then Doby promptly cut all the figures 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 below the date. The little boy valiantly accepted the challenge and started to make the whole alphabet in capitals. This was a big task, but he slashed away at it and finally the letters stood in proper order. He had not missed one. He glowed with interest in his work. "Just like he had a lighted candle inside of him," thought Doby, full of admiration for the youthful student. "I'll have to take the dare." So he followed, rather laboriously, with the curlicued small letters. This took a long time. They, too, were correct. Upon this, both boys broke into satisfied laughter and began to talk. "Do you know how to spell?" asked Doby. "Every word in my book," answered the little boy, "beginning at the front or beginning at the back, I can spell 'em all." Then he added, honestly: "I can't always remember the order the big words come in. Page twelve is the hard page. My mother drills me on that page every day." Now they _were_ friends! Doby knew in a flash how the little boy lived and how he thought. He exclaimed, "That is the way _my_ mother does!" And the two boys, one from New England, one from Kentucky, because their mothers were alike, could look into each other's heart with perfect understanding. Doby said: "The last page in my speller is the hard one. Every day ma teaches me those words and every night I forget 'em." The little boy pursed his mouth and shook his head as one who had also gone through this troublesome forgetting. "I can read Æsop's fables," he said. "I have a New England primer," began Doby, painstakingly quoting from its title-page: