III.
"Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain."--_Psalms 31:30._
Miss Virginia Wilton was engaged to teach the spring term of school at
the Dry Bench schoolhouse. Why that upland strip bordering the mountains
should be called "Dry Bench," Miss Wilton, at first, did not understand.
If there was a garden spot in this big, ofttimes barren Western country,
more beautiful than Dry Bench, she had in all her rambles failed to find
it. But when the secret of the big reservoir up in the hills came to her
knowledge, she wondered the more; and one member of the school board
from that moment rose to a higher place in her estimation; yes, went
past a long row of friends, up, shall it be said to the seat of honor?
Miss Wilton gave general satisfaction, and she was engaged for the next
school year.
For one whole year, the school teacher had passed the Ames farm twice
each day. She called often on Mrs. Ames, and Nina became her fast
friend. During those cool May mornings and afternoons, when the sky was
cloudless and the breeze came from the mountains, the young school
teacher passed up and down the road and fell to looking with pleasure on
the beautiful fields and orchards around her, and especially at the
Ames farm the central and most flourishing of them all.
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