Mr. Driscoll Proctor had not come in the Davis family coach. He had known it would be crowded, but that had not been his reason. He might need the horse the family had made his to ride, if he decided to stop over longer than they did. Proctor had been at Oaks seven years. He had done his best to teach Adam and James as much as they would take from him, and Adam took quite a lot. He had his Uncle Bonard’s liveliness of mind. Come autumn, he would go off to attend the University of Virginia; it had been so arranged. Adam was thrilled at the prospect of seeing the larger world, at the same time he thought that the university, in Charlottesville, was a fearful distance from those he loved at Oaks and Beulah Land.

The tutor saw Adam’s leaving as a signal for him to leave also, or to think about it; for James was like his father Bruce: his mind and heart were on the land, and the very opening of a book numbed some part of that mind and heart. He was not stupid, no more than Bruce had been. Seeing what the boy was like, Bruce scolded him for his indifference to book learning, at the same time rejoicing in his heart that the boy was truly his son, and would surely be, though the younger son, his successor even as he had been his father Benjamin’s.

The tutor had also given certain lessons to the young females, but when fortunes improved, they were sent into Highboro each day to make the acquaintance of other young ladies at the day school Selma had once attended, and to have lessons with the town’s dancing master, Mr. Midas Mott, who also gave instruction in elocution.

And so, although no one had hinted that he do so, Driscoll Proctor had turned his mind toward leaving Oaks. He had engaged to escort Adam to the university and see him settled there. After that he was free to go on, on his own, or to return to Oaks. He thought he should go on. He had acquaintances in several states along the Eastern coast and had in the adult part of his forty years been employed as far north as Camden, New Jersey, and as far south as he now found himself. His deliberate manner—the ladies said “heavy” with a private, condescending smile—camouflaged an active mind. New books and periodicals arrived for him in nearly every post. His correspondence was large. He knew what was going on in the world and guessed something of what might come. He had friends as far north as Boston.