Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/253

Rh they were old acquaintances; and feed the calves with all the dispatch of an old hand at the work. Mr. Fisher was delighted with him; "a handier little chap" he declared, "he had never come across." And instead of being in the way, as Mrs. Fisher feared he would be, he soon made himself necessary to them.

When winter came, with its long dreary evenings, he found a new source of pleasure, and that was a night school. It was Mrs, Fisher—to whom he had spoken of his thirst for knowledge—who persuaded him to attend. She knew he would not only derive pleasure, but profit. Benny was considerably puzzled at first as to what a "night school" was like; but he soon discovered its purpose, and night after night, through wind and rain, he plodded along the dark country lane to the neighbouring village of Scoutleigh, eager to improve his mind and add to his small store of knowledge. Never had a village school-master a more diligent pupil than he, and rarely one that improved more rapidly.

Nor did he forget in the summer that followed what he had learnt during the winter. There were books in Mr. Fisher's house to which he had free access, for though on the farm he worked side by side with the hired servants, in the house he was treated as one of the family; and when the day's work was done, he found in his books his most congenial companions. And so he grew in body and mind, and thanked God in his heart for the haven he had found at last.