the kitchen, it was indeed a pleasant and attractive home, with its muslin-curtained windows, its floors painted a shining yellow, with rag rugs here and there, the open fire in the sitting-room that blazed so cheerfully on winter days, the well-filled bookshelves in one corner and the stout wooden chairs and settles with their big feather-filled cushions. Mr. Arnold had spent a good part of his time in improving the cabin from the rough state in which they had found it, and had made most of the simple furniture. A vine-covered fence enclosed the yard, where Berry had her own garden. Each spring she began by planting lettuce and radishes, and then peas and carrots and string beans; before these had time to sprout she had bordered her vegetable beds with spring flowers. Mollie learned many things from her new friends, and, in her turn, showed Berry where the wild trillium and Jack-in-the-pulpit24 could be found, and where to look for the nests of cardinal and mocking-bird, birds that the little Yankee girl had never seen before coming to Tennessee. Therefore when Mr. Arnold declared that it was time for Berry to have regular lessons,     “to begin school,” as he termed it, it was quite natural for Berry to say that Mollie Bragg would also have to study.   

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     There was no schoolhouse within miles of these mountain cabins where the little girls could “begin school,” and Berry understood that her father would be her teacher. And on the day after their excursion to Shiloh church Mr. Arnold told Berry that she could go to the Braggs’     cabin and ask Mollie to be her schoolmate.   

     “Tell her school begins at ten o’clock each morning and closes at twelve,” he said as Berry put on her cap and started toward the door.   

     “And say to Mrs. Bragg that we shall expect Mollie to stay for dinner,” added Mrs. Arnold, who realized that the Bragg family seldom had the kind of food that would nourish a delicate child like Mollie, and welcomed the opportunity to give her small neighbor one good meal each day.   

     “All right,” Berry called back, as she ran25 down the path, turning to wave her hand before the thick growing forest trees hid her from sight.   

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     Berry’s way led through the forest, across a wide brook that went dancing down over its rocky bed toward the river, and then the path turned into the highway near which was the rough clearing 

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