Page:Dave Porter at Oak Hall.djvu/19

Rh was removed to another locality and placed under an entirely different management. The three boys at the institution were bound out to such persons as desired them, and Dave was sent to live with an elderly man named Caspar Potts, who had, the year before, purchased one of the hillside farms back of Crumville. By many Caspar Potts was considered to be "a bit off," as they expressed it, but as he appeared to be able to support Dave, the poorhouse management did not hesitate to place the waif in his charge. Dave was nothing to them, and all they wished to do was to get rid of him.

The boy had been very skeptical about going to live with old Caspar Potts, but his doubts soon vanished, and inside of a month he was glad the change had come to him. Much to his surprise, he learned that Caspar Potts had once been a college professor, but over-application to work had broken him down mentally, and then the man—who in his younger days had been brought up on a farm—had given up teaching and gone back to the soil.

"Stick by me, Dave," the old man had said. "Stick by me, and I'll feed and clothe you, and give you an education besides." And Caspar Potts had kept his word as far as he was able, and now Dave had more of an education than most lads of his years. More than that, he had learned many