That look and the fears it inspired ruined my day which had begun with eager plans for doing and learning. In the candle-light of the evening Uncle Peabody said: "Grimshaw has demanded his mortgage money an' he wants it in gold coin. We'll have to git it some way, I dunno how." "W'y of all things!" my aunt exclaimed. "How are we goin' to git all that money--these hard times?--ayes! I'd like to know?" "Well, I can't tell ye," said Uncle Peabody. "I guess he can't forgive us for savin' Rodney Barnes." "What did he say?" I asked. "Why, he says we hadn't no business to hire a man to help us. He says you an' me ought to do all the work here. He thinks I ought to took you out o' school long ago." "I can stay out o' school and keep on with my lessons," I said. "Not an' please him. He was mad when he see ye with a book in yer hand out there in the corn-field." What were we to do now? I spent the first sad night of my life undoing the plans which had been so dear to me but not so dear as my aunt and uncle. I decided to give all my life and strength to the saving of the farm. I would still try to be great, but not as great as the Senator. Purvis stayed with us through the summer and fall. After the crops were in we cut and burned great heaps of timber and made black salts of the ashes by leaching water through them and boiling down the lye. We could sell the salts at three dollars and a half a hundred pounds. The three of us working with a team could produce from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty pounds a week. Yet we thought it paid--there in Lickitysplit. All over the hills men and women were turning their efforts and strength into these slender streams of money forever flowing toward the mortgagee. Mr. Dunkelberg had seen Benjamin Grimshaw and got him to give us a brief extension. They had let me stay out of school to work. I was nearly thirteen years old and rather strong and capable. I think that I got along in my books about as well as I could have done in our little school.