Few people knew the plain, homely, hard-working man, or wholly understood him.
Some thought him stingy, some weak-minded, some only queer, and at first
his benefaction was hardly comprehended; but in time quite a little oasis
began about the little fountain, which the poor farmer's bequest had opened
under the big oaks by the wayside, and gradually its borders extended,
until finally it penetrated as far as the district, and Cove Mills's children
appeared one morning at the door of the little school-house,
and, with sheepish faces and timid voices, informed the teacher
that their father had sent them to school.
At first there was some debate over at Darby Stanley's place,
whether they should show their contempt for the new departure of the Millses,
by standing out against them, or should follow their example. It was hard
for a Stanley to have to follow a Mills in anything. So they stood out
for a year. As it seemed, however, that the Millses were getting something
to which the Stanleys were as much entitled as they, one morning
little Darby Stanley walked in at the door, and without taking his hat off,
announced that he had come to go to school. He was about fifteen at the time,
but he must have been nearly six feet (his sobriquet being wholly due
to the fact that Big Darby was older, not taller), and though he was spare,
there was something about his face as he stood in the open door,
or his eye as it rested defiantly on the teacher's face,
which prevented more than a general buzz of surprise.
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