Saturdays and Sundays.  Perhaps it was the jealous selfishness of love.  She had found him; he was hers.  In the spring, when school was over, her granny had said that she might marry him.  Till then her dream would not yet have come true, and she must keep him to herself.  And yet she did not wish him to lose this golden key to the avenues of opportunity.  She would not take him to school, but she would teach him each day all that she herself had learned.  He was not difficult to teach, but learned, indeed, with what seemed to Cicely marvelous ease,—­always, however, by her lead, and never of his own initiative.  For while he could do a man’s work, he was in most things but a child, without a child’s curiosity.  His love for Cicely appeared the only thing for which he needed no suggestion; and even that possessed an element of childish dependence that would have seemed, to minds trained to thoughtful observation, infinitely pathetic.

The spring came and cotton-planting time.  The children began to drop out of Miss Chandler’s school one by one, as their services were required at home.  Cicely was among those who intended to remain in school until the term closed with the “exhibition,” in which she was assigned a leading part.  She had selected her recitation, or “speech,” from among half a dozen poems that her teacher had suggested, and to memorizing it she devoted considerable time and study.  The exhibition, as the first of its kind, was sure to be a notable event.  The parents and friends of the children were invited to attend, and a colored church, recently erected,—­the largest available building,—­was secured as the place where the exercises should take place.

On the morning of the eventful day, uncle Needham, assisted by John, harnessed the mule to the two-wheeled cart, on which a couple of splint-bottomed chairs were fastened to accommodate Dinah and Cicely.  John put on his best clothes,—­an ill-fitting suit of blue jeans,—­a round wool hat, a pair of coarse brogans, a homespun shirt, and a bright blue necktie.  Cicely wore her best frock, a red ribbon at her throat, another in her hair, and carried a bunch of flowers in her hand.  Uncle Needham and aunt Dinah were also in holiday array.  Needham and John took their seats on opposite sides of the cart-frame, with their feet dangling down, and thus the equipage set out leisurely for the town.

Cicely had long looked forward impatiently to this day.  She was going to marry John the next week, and then her dream would have come entirely true.  But even this anticipated happiness did not overshadow the importance of the present occasion, which would be an epoch in her life, a day of joy and triumph.  She knew her speech perfectly, and timidity was not one of her weaknesses.  She knew that the red ribbons set off her dark beauty effectively, and that her dress fitted neatly the curves of her shapely figure.  She confidently expected to win the first prize, a large morocco-covered Bible, offered by Miss Chandler for the best exercise.