Free Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt Page A

can’t understand him. But somehow my faith in him always comes back.”
    “I wish I could see him. Sometimes I want to talk to him so bad; I want to explain to him about Bill—”
    “He has to consider men by the thousands who think the way Bill does.”
    “Bill was jest tryin’ to git at the truth, Shad. You know that.”
    “Yes, I know it very well, Jeth.”
    “But he didn‘t, did he? Bill wasn’t right in his thinkin’, was he?”
    “He acted according to what he thought was right. Your father and John, you and I, none of us sees the ‘right’ as he sees it. But that doesn’t make Bill all wrong. You’re going to hear some harsh things said about him; but you remember, Jeth, that it took far more courage for Bill to do what he did than it does for John and me to carry out our plans next week.”
    Jethro studied the rough-hewn floor. “I set such great store by him,” he said finally.
    “I know,” Shadrach answered. “So do I.”
    He put his hand on Jethro’s knee. “We’re letting ourselves get too sad, Jeth. We’d better think about supper. How’s your appetite?”
    “Seems like it’s always in pretty fair shape.”
    “Well, put a couple of potatoes in that bed of coals, and I’ll set out our plates and mugs. I think we’ll have some of Jenny’s peach preserves by way of celebration.”
    His host commenced preparations for their supper with a lively cheerfulness that swept Jethro away from his troubled thoughts and back to the immediate satisfactions of the evening. Shadrach had a flair for mimicry and while he cut long slices of meat from the roasted chicken, he took in turn the role of a classroom bully, an angry woman who had descended upon the school in defense of her dull son’s intellectual attainments, and a pompous director of the school who, at the beginning of Shadrach’s first term, had advised the young teacher before the entire school as to what was and was not acceptable in his position.
    “It’s larnin’ we want in this here school, young feller,” Shadrach drawled, glaring balefully at his delighted guest. “It’s larnin’ and none of yore fine-haired gimcracks.”
    Jethro laughed then, a clear child’s laugh, freed momentarily from the heaviness of the times. He took his place at the table beside the fireplace and, swayed happily by his teacher’s mood, savored the flavor of the food, the beauty of candle and firelight, the joy of close companionship.
    “I’m goin’ to remember this night fer a long while, Shad,” he said, smiling.
    Shadrach put his hand to his throat as if some constriction had suddenly tightened it, but he answered the smile.
    “Sometime, when I come back, you and Jenny and I are going to have evenings like this together. We’ve decided that you’ll live with us and go to school, maybe to one of the fine universities in the East when you’re old enough.”
    Jethro shook his head. “I don’t know how I kin learn enough to be able to go to one of those schools, Shad.”
    “I’m going to leave my books with you. Some of them will be too difficult for a while, but many of them you can read, and you’ll grow into the others. Jenny will help you; I’m setting her the task of reading a lot of them too.”
    “Jenny would copy them all out with a pencil if you was to ask her to do it.”
    “Don’t be too sure. Jenny has a mind of her own; she sees through nonsense like a flash.” He sat quietly, thinking of Jenny for a while. “I hope she doesn’t make up that independent mind of hers to grow to like some other fellow when I’m gone away.”
    “She wouldn’t do that,” Jethro protested angrily. “Jenny’d hev more sense than that.”
    “I hope so. You watch out for me, will you?”
    “Of course.” Both Jenny and Shad embarrassed him a little with their talk of love; he turned his eyes to the bookshelves and tried not to be too obvious in his maneuvering of the conversation. “If it wasn’t fer yore leavin’, I’d be real