There was a good district school in the village, and Jerome, before his father's disappearance, had attended it all the year round; now he went only in winter.

Jerome rose at four o'clock in the dark winter mornings, and went to bed at ten, getting six hours' sleep.

It was fortunate that he was a hardy boy, with a wirily pliant frame, adapting itself, with no lesions, to extremes of temperature and toil, even to extremes of mental states.

In spite of all his hardships, in spite of scanty food, Jerome thrived; he grew; he began to fill out better his father's clothes, to which he had succeeded.
The first time Jerome wore his poor father's best coat to school--Ann had set in the buttons so it folded about him in ludicrous fashion, bringing the sleeves forward and his arms apparently into the middle of his chest--one of the big boys and two big girls at his side laughed at him, the boy with open jeers, the girls with covert giggles behind their hands.

They were standing in front of the school-house at the top of the long hill when Jerome was ascending it with Elmira.