HOGS AND HORACE
Kit was delighted over the whole spirit of the letter, and went directly
to the Dean with its message. He was deeply engrossed in getting up his
first notes and commentaries on the urn and statue. It had not seemed for
the past two or three weeks as if he resided any longer in Delphi at all.
Kit told Miss Daphne she was positive he was wandering through Egypt all
the time, the Egypt of five thousand years ago. And it was only the shadow
of his self that seemed to sit closeted for hours in the study.
He hardly glanced up now as she came in, but smiled and nodded when he saw
who it was, keeping on with his writing.
"Just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the door.
Second volume, 'Explorations in Upper Egypt.' Look up Seti I in the
index."
Kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one end of
the desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his attention. The
little statuette of Annui smiled grotesquely down upon her from its
pedestal. The urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the desk itself as
the Dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it.
"I hate to disturb you, Uncle Cassius," Kit began, with the directness so
characteristic of her, "but I really think I ought to go back home. You've
been wonderful to give me such a long visit, and I've enjoyed the school
work immensely, but somehow I begin to feel like a soldier who has been
away on a furlough. It's time for me to get back to the firing line,
because mother needs me."
The Dean glanced up in surprise, and came slowly out of his dream of
concentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him.
"Why, my dear child," he exclaimed, "this is very sudden. There has never
been any question about your going back, at least----" He coughed
deprecatingly. "Not since we became acquainted with you. Has anything
happened?"
"Why, nothing special--I mean, nothing tragic. It's only this, Dad's lost
a lot of money all at once. He did have a little income, enough so we
never have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that has been
swept away. I suppose it will come back some time after the war, but as I
understand it, the stock he had has stopped paying dividends."
"Jerry never had any head for business." The Dean tapped one hand lightly
with his tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles in an absent-minded musing way
that nearly drove Kit frantic. "But what can you do about it, my dear?
Surely by returning at such a time you merely add to your father's
burdens."
"No, I won't," Kit answered, decidedly, "because I've got a plan that I've
been thinking about for ever and ever so long. I'm going to try and
persuade Dad to let us put in hogs."
"Hogs," repeated the Dean, in a baffled tone. "Hogs, my dear. Who ever
heard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all? I'm sure
that Horace never tried hogs on his farm."
Now it just happened that Kit had a smattering knowledge of Horace,
gleaned from Billie. In the old days back home, when they had studied
together, they had seemed to always get the personal side of the old
heroes and people of fame. And just now the only thing she could remember
about Horace popped up in her mind.
"Well, I'll bet a cookie there was many a time when he wished he had.
Don't you remember how he wrote,
"'Give me again my hollow tree,
A crust of bread and liberty.'
"We've had our hollow tree, and I'm afraid unless we get right down to
business now, we'll have all the crusts of bread and liberty we fancy. I
just can't stay here in this beautiful place with nothing to worry over,
while the family are practically in a lifeboat with breakers ahead."
If the Dean had known Kit better, he would have realized that in emotional
moments she was prone to exaggerated similes, but as it was, he felt
impressed.
"Why, God bless my heart and soul," he exclaimed, "I had no idea it was as
bad as this. I thought Jerry was very comfortably fixed."
"Oh, we were at the Cove. We had everything we wanted, but father was sick
an awfully long while after his breakdown, and he's never been able to do
any work since."
"But how ridiculous for a man to bury himself and all his capital in a
place like Gilead," the Dean protested, somewhat testily. "He could have
done a great many other things, I should imagine."
Kit leaned over and looked at him, right in the eye.
"Uncle Cassius, what would you do if everything was just swept away from
you, health, money, home and your work; what do you suppose you would do?
If there was any spot of earth that was peaceful and restful, and that you
loved best, wouldn't you want to go to it? That's what Gilead means, 'the
place of healing.'"
There was silence in the old study. The Dean was looking straight at Annui
as if for inspiration, and yet it was not the old image which he saw, but
a vision of Gilead as he remembered it in his boyhood, a vision of green
hills spanning the horizon, of fertile valleys and many watercourses.
Memories stirred in his mind of Jerry Robbins' mother, his sister.
Sometimes Kit reminded him of her, in her buoyant self-reliance and
optimism.
The bonds of relationship had always been somewhat intangible to him,
since he had grown up. He had laid out his own career himself, and had
carried every ambition to completion and reality. The last twenty years
had been years of fruition, of honors freely given, years of fulfillment.
He had not been, like Judge Ellis, intolerant of other men's failures; he
had simply ignored them, never feeling any responsibility towards the
weaker ones who fell in the race. In his way, he prided himself upon a
gentle, aloof philosophy of life which left him the boundaries of the old
study as a horizon of happiness.
Probably not until that moment had he realized the gradual revolutionary
process Kit had been putting him through ever since her arrival. She had
trained him into having an interest in other people and things, until now
it was impossible for him not to see the picture of Greenacres as she did.
"How did you find out about this, my dear?" he asked.
"Well," Kit replied, honestly, "partly from Billie and partly from this
letter from Cousin Roxy. You know Cousin Roxy, don't you, Uncle Cassius?"
The Dean's eyes twinkled reminiscently as he took the letter.
"Oh, yes, I remember Roxana well. She used to bully me outrageously." He
opened the letter and started to read slowly, just as Kit suddenly
remembered Cousin Roxy's remarks on Cassius Cato Peabody. But there was
no turning back now. Straight through to the end he read, and several deep
chuckles broke the silence, real chuckles of delight, such as Kit had
never heard from the Dean. When he had finished, he handed it back to her.
"Perfectly true, my dear," he said. "I can quite see why you feel that you
are needed. You had better take your midwinter examinations, and prepare
to return home about Christmas. In all likelihood your Aunt Daphne and I
will accompany you."