"Teacher," said he, "I ain't got no money to buy books, but I kin git
up the wood ev'y day for the stove, 'n I kin sweep out the schoolhouse
'n keep it clean--cain't ye loan me a book 'n let me come 'n larn?"

Jake's terms were accepted. No boy was ever prouder of a university
scholarship than Jake was of that chance to "larn" in the little
mountain schoolhouse. Jake went after "larnin'" as a boy goes for pie
at the picnic dinner.

A few months later, the school was visited by the superintendent of
one of the large North Carolina mountain mission schools. When the
teacher told him about Jake, he offered him an opportunity to enter
the mission school and succeeded in persuading his parents to let him
go. Jake was put to work taking care of the farm machinery in the
agricultural department of the mission, but with ample time to pursue
his studies in the schoolroom.

It was noticed that he had special aptitude for fixing the farm
implements and adjusting the parts--even making some of the missing
parts at the old blacksmith forge. The superintendent was so impressed
with this that as soon as Jake's education had made pretty fair
progress, he secured him a position in the dynamo room of a large
manufacturing plant in a near-by town. Jake had accepted Jesus Christ
as his Saviour and Master while at the mission school, owned his
Bible, read it faithfully every day, and was a consistent young
Christian.

It was a triumph for Jake, when he got a discarded dynamo out of its
corner and saved the purchase of a new machine. His employers soon saw
that he was entitled to even a better chance than they could give him,