One night, with the help of Will French who had some wealthy friends, Michael borrowed a large picture of a sunset, and spoke to them about the sunlight and its effects on growing things, and the wonder of its departure for the night.
By this time they would listen in awed silence to anything Michael said, though the picture was perhaps one too many for most of them. Sam, however, heard with approval, and afterwards went up reverently and laid his finger on the crimson and the purple and the gold of the picture. Sam knew, and understood, for he had seen the real thing. Then he turned to the others and said: "Say, fellers, it's aw-right. You wait till yer see one. Fine ez silk, an' twicet as nateral."
One big dark fellow who had lately taken to coming to the gatherings, turned scornfully away, and replied: "Aw shucks! I don't see nodding in it!" but loyalty to Michael prevented others who might have secretly favored this view from expressing it, and the big dark fellow found himself in the minority.
And so the work went on. Spring was coming, and with it the end of Jim's "term," and the beginning of Michael's experiment on the farm.
Meantime Michael was working hard at his law, and studying half the night when he came back from the alley work. If he had not had an iron constitution, and thirteen years behind him of healthy out-door life, with plenty of sleep and exercise and good food, he could not have stood it. As it was, the hard work was good for him, for it kept him from brooding over himself, and his own hopeless love of the little girl who was far across the water.
Some weeks after Christmas there had come a brief note from Starr, his name written in her hand, the address in her father's.
"Dear Michael," it read,-"I am just almost sure that I am indebted to you for the lovely little sprig of holly that reached me on Christmas. I have tried and tried to think who the sender might be, for you see I didn't know the writing, or rather printing. But to-day it fell down from over the picture where I had fastened, it on the wall, and I noticed what I had not seen before, 'A Happy Christmas' in the very tiny little letters of the message cut or scratched on the under side of the stem; and the letters reminded me of you and the charming little surprises you used to send me long ago from Florida when I was a little girl. Then all at once I was sure it was you who sent the holly, and I am sitting right down to write and thank you for it. You see I was very lonesome and homesick that Christmas morning, for most of the girls in the school had gone home for Christmas, and mamma, who had been intending to come and take me away to Paris for the holidays, had written that she was not well and couldn't come after all, so I knew I would have to be here all through the gay times by myself. I was feeling quite doleful even with the presents that mamma sent me, until I opened the little box and saw the dear little bright holly berries; that cheered me up and made me think of home. I kept it on my desk all day so that the bright berries would make me feel Christmassy, and just before dinner that night what do you think happened? Why, my dear daddy came to surprise me, and we took the loveliest trip together, to Venice and Florence and Rome. It was beautiful! I wish you could have been along and seen everything. I know you would have enjoyed it. I must not take the time to write about it because I ought to be studying. This is a very pleasant place and a good school but I would rather be at home, and I shall be glad when I am done and allowed to come back to my own country.