He showed the fawn to his mother and told Sarah she could have him for a pet. The mother watched him with shining eyes while he built a pen and then lifted the still trembling wild thing inside. Next morning the pen was down and the captive gone. The Boy didn't seem much surprised or appear to care. When he was alone with his mother she whispered: "Didn't you go out there last night and let it loose when the dogs were asleep?" He was still a moment and then nodded his head. His mother clasped him to her heart. "O my Boy! My own--I love you!" XII The second winter in the wilderness was not so hard. The heavy work of clearing the timber for the corn fields was done and the new cabin and its furniture had been finished except the door, for which there was little use. The new neighbors had brought cheer to the mother's heart. An early spring broke the winter of 1818 and clothed the wilderness world in robes of matchless beauty. The Boy's gourds were placed beside the new garden and the noise of chattering martins echoed over the cabin. The toughened muscles of his strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task. The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no value in its elemental struggle. Character, skill, strength and manhood only counted. Poverty was teaching him the first great lesson of human life, that man shall eat his bread in the sweat of his brow and that industry is the only foundation on which the moral and material universe has ever rested or can rest. Solitude and the stimulus of his mother's mind were slowly teaching him to think--to think deeply and fearlessly, and think for himself. Entering now in his ninth year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown, consciously awkward, homely and ill clad--he grew so rapidly it was impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his age. His mother saw and understood. A child in years and yet he had already learned the secrets of the toil necessary to meet the needs of life. He swung a woodman's axe with any man. He could plow and plant a field, make its crop, harvest and store its fruits and cook them for the table. He could run, jump, wrestle, swim and fight when manhood called. He knew the language of the winds and clouds, and spoke the tongues of woods and field. And he could read and write. His mother's passionate yearning and quenchless enthusiasm had placed in his hand the key to books and the secrets of the ages were his for the asking. He would never see the walls of a college, but he had already taken his degree in Industry, Patience, Caution, Courage, Pity and Gentleness.