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These Sunday excursions did not drop with the sere autumnal leaves. A crisp clear day called them forth surely as sunshine had done, Jabez mounting pick-a-back on the shoulders of Simon or Matt when his little feet could no longer keep up their trot beside the bigger Cooper boys. Frames were invigorated, cheerfulness came back to face and home, and Simon, who had a deep-seated love of Nature in his soul, finding her so good a physician, kept up the acquaintance through rounding seasons and years. And from Nature he drew lessons which he dropped as seed into the boy’s heart, as unconscious of the great work he was doing as was Jabez himself.

The boy throve and grew hardy. Companionship with older and rougher lads, sturdy fellows with wills of their own, made him sturdy too; a lad who would take a blow and give one on occasion; who would run a race and lose, and a second, and third, until he could win. But Bessy’s gentle training was something very different from Sal’s, and Jabez grew up tender as well as strong and bold.