The little eight-sided schoolhouse by the roadside, toward Mahlon Williamson's farm, did not hold Isaiah for long. He soon outgrew it. In keeping with the family tradition for education, his parents made the sacrifice of putting him in the excellent Friends' School at Fallsington, a pay school for more advanced teaching. But before and after school Isaiah was a helper on the farm. He was then about twelve years old and walked daily the eight miles to and from school, lucky enough sometimes to catch a ride on the way. Most likely Peter and John, his brothers, were there also; and the Vansant children, cousins on his mother's side, from another part of the county. There were boys of the Baldison family, too, of whom John, the eldest, was Isaiah's intimate friend. And among the boys and girls of other families, there was one girl in particular, the daughter of Harvey Gillingham, store-
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The Preparation
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