"When Blev Straley and his wife camped out and canned blackberries, they hadn't any nag," she commented. "He had to take the things in a wheelbarrow, and it looked like some places he couldn't hardly get acrost; but Miranda said she had the best time she ever had in her life." Kimbro Cleaverage was teaching school over in the Far Cove. For fifteen years he had taught this little summer school; his pupils now were the children of the first boys and girls who came under his rule. His neighbors held toward the gentle soul a patronizing, almost tolerant attitude. True, he managed the winter school nearer home, having [254] little trouble with the big boys, the bullies, the incorrigibles; while it was well understood that the peaceful, who wanted to learn, could get on powerful fast under his tuition. Yet there were those who deprecated the mildness of his sway, and allowed that he was really better suited to the small children, the anxious-faced little boys, too young yet to follow the plow, the small girls who had just finished dropping corn or "suckering the crop." That these dearly loved the master was held to be an unimportant detail, and his aversion to plying the hickory was always cited in regard to Lance's misdoings. When his father was away teaching, the management, and all the labor of the wornout little farm fell on Sylvane's young shoulders. Lance had promised his brother the use of Satan for the week when they should be in camp. The boy came over to help them pack. It was a July morning without flaw, blue and green and golden, and brooded upon by the full-hearted peace of ripe summer. Bedding and kitchen supplies were put in two big bundles arranged pannier fashion on the black horse, and firmly lashed in place by a pair of plow lines. "Why don't you put it up on his back?" Callista asked them, coming out with her eight month's old baby, all in order for the journey. "That's to leave place for you to ride part of the time," Lance told her. "It's a right smart ways [255] we're going, and that son of yours is tol'able heavy, and half the time you won't let me tote him."