"
"You can read?" she asked.
"Yes'm, but I haven't any books."
"You can read and you haven't any books. I have books and I can't read."
Abe looked at her, amazed. "You have _books_?"
Sarah nodded, but said nothing more until she had finished cutting his
hair. Then she led him over to the bureau.
"Now see if you don't like yourself better without that brush heap on
top of your head," she asked him.
A boy with short neat hair gazed back at Abe from the mirror.
"I still ain't the prettiest boy in Pigeon Creek," he drawled, "but
there ain't quite so much left to be ugly. I'm right glad, ma'am, you
cleared away the brush heap."
Was he joking? He looked so solemn that Sarah could not be sure. Then he
grinned. It was the first time that she had seen him smile.
"You're a caution, Abe," she said. "Now sit yourself down over there at
the table, and I'll show you my books."
She opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out four worn little
volumes. Although she could not read, she knew the titles: "Here they
are: _Robinson Crusoe_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, _Sinbad the Sailor_, and
_Aesop's Fables_.
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