Ernest's final decision was closely interwoven with a ride from
Cambridge in an open horse-car one warm spring evening. Though his mind
during this ride was constantly going over the subject that now lay near
his heart, it afterward seemed to him as if he could recall every step
of the way, so curiously sometimes does the external world weave itself
into our mental processes. Long afterward he remembered that at first
in the dim light he had noticed people, young and old, children or girls
in light dresses, sitting on the piazzas or moving about the wide lawns
of the houses near the Square. Next he saw the business blocks with
their shops, in front of which groups of young men were lounging.
Over-dressed girls and other young men promenaded the sidewalks in front
of the shops, and he caught the occasional note of a loud laugh or a
flippant remark. Farther on, rows of unpretentious dwellings, ending at
last in unmistakable tenement houses, stamped themselves on his mind,
with half-tidy women, men in their shirt sleeves, and little children
crowding the doorways. Across the muddy flats and the broad river they
might see, as he saw, the pretty hilly country beyond. Were they
gossiping and scolding, much as they would gossip and scold in their
narrow room? Perhaps for the time, like Ernest himself, they knew the
peaceful influence of the perfect evening.
The indescribable May softness had, he felt sure, more than a little to
do with his own exultation. His way opened perfectly clear before him.
The arguments that he should use with his aunt stood out plainly
defined. Go on longer as he had been doing!--he shivered at the thought.
Finding Miss Theodora alone in the twilight, he realized as never before
the pathos of her lonely life. In saying what he was going to say he
knew that he must shatter one of her cherished idols.
"In time, of course, she'll know that I have been right," he said to
himself. Yet it required more than a little courage to speak, to argue
with her against things that he knew she held so dear.
Though he hardly knew how it came about, the discussion ended, to
Ernest's own surprise, with the advantage on his side. His skilful
fashion of handling statistics told strongly in his favor, perhaps; for
he proved to his aunt's satisfaction that it would be many, many years
before he could probably support himself on a lawyer's income. He had
figures and facts to show what he was certain to earn as soon as he
began to practise engineering.
"But, Ernest," said Miss Theodora, "if you do not want to be a lawyer
after you are graduated, there are many other things you might do
without sacrificing your position in life." For although Miss Theodora
knew well enough that mining engineers were not the same as the
engineers whom she had seen on locomotives and steamboats, yet she felt
that engineers in general, by reason of grimy hands and faces, were
forever cut off from good society.
"What else can I find to do?" he insisted, "that would be as interesting
and pay as well?"
"Well, I think that you could get into the treasurer's office of the
Nashawapag Mills. Richard Somerset has great influence there."
"Now, Aunt Teddy, you wouldn't want me to be a book-keeper the rest of
my life,--for that is all I'd be; and as for salary, unless I stayed
there thirty or forty years, until those at the top died, I suppose that
I could make a little more than a bare living, but it wouldn't be much
more."
Then Miss Theodora, who could think of very few occupations outside of
the learned professions in which a young man of good family might
properly engage, at last surrendered to Ernest's arguments.
"We have so very little money," said Ernest, after he had let her know
that Richard Somerset had told him how slight their resources were; "we
are so poor, that in a few years I know that I would have to beg or
borrow, and I'm sure you would not wish me to do one any more than the
other."
"No, indeed," exclaimed his aunt.
"You see," he went on, "I am acquiring very extravagant tastes at
Cambridge. There's no place like it for making you want money, if you
once begin to contrast yourself with fellows who have plenty."
"But I thought you were independent," sighed poor Miss Theodora.
"Oh, I should be if I were really interested in my work," replied
Ernest; "but, you see, I can't throw myself into my studies as I ought
to."
It is to be feared that Ernest was worse than a little artful in thus
painting himself as black as he could. He did not tell his aunt, what
really was the truth, that it was harder for him to give up Harvard now
than it would have been six months before. He had begun to have his own
group of special friends; he had begun to enjoy many phases of college
life. Despite certain distasteful studies, he might have gone through
college without special discredit. He might have taken his degree, as
many of his classmates would, with considerable culture and very little
practical knowledge clinging to him. He trembled when he saw that he
could take so kindly to dawdling ways. But his Puritan conscience
interposed. When he knew how really poor they were, his love for his
aunt and his pride all imparted to him a firmness at which he himself
marvelled.
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