Sam awoke to find the sunshine pouring through the window of his room.
Overnight there had been a change for the better in the weather, and
Sunday had dawned clear and bright.
The boy yawned, stretched himself luxuriously, rubbed the lingering
sleepiness out of his eyes. There was a blissful moment, in which
he felt himself in harmony with the unclouded morning, refreshed,
untroubled. Then, of a sudden, came recollection of the events of the
day before, and understanding that there was still a reckoning to be
paid. He might have nothing to fear from courts and officers of the
law; Major Bates, ordinarily warlike, had been brought to prefer peace
to hostilities; but he had yet to reach complete understanding with his
father.
Mr. Parker and Sam had exchanged hardly a word while they walked home
from the Major’s house; but at their own door the father had paused
briefly.
“You’d better turn in, Sam,” he had said. “We’ll have to go over this
matter pretty carefully, but I’m not prepared to do so to-night. And I
fancy your own ideas will be none the worse for a little revision, and
a clearer head in the morning.”
But Sam, going to his room, had found himself very wakeful. Half an
hour later his mother had looked in, and discovered him, fully dressed
and huddled in a big chair; and glad, indeed, to see her, as it
proved. She had had no reproaches to shower upon him--Sam had wondered
if his father’s explanation of his misdeeds had not been extremely
merciful; and she had slipped an arm about him, and “mothered” him most
comfortingly. And, presently, had appeared her handmaiden and his own
loyal ally, Maggie, bearing a tray on which were a bowl of milk and a
plate of crackers. Sam, who might have vowed that he wasn’t hungry,
in a second had become acutely aware of a lack of something under his
belt, and had fallen to with a right good will, his mother watching him
approvingly and Maggie voicing her satisfaction in her own fashion.
“Well, say, ma’am, will you look at that, now? It’s not a morsel of
supper the poor boy’ll have been puttin’ tooth to! And him sayin’
nothing about it--no; nor his father, either! They’re like as two peas
in some ways, ma’am. Oh, them men, them men!”
* * * * *
These were the brighter spots in Sam’s memories. They were pleasant
to dwell upon; but they could not relieve the general gravity of the
case. A very sober youth it was who dressed mechanically and in due
course appeared at breakfast. A deal to his surprise his father and
mother greeted him quite as usual. There was nothing to suggest that
they regarded him either as a repentant offender or as a hero. At
Sunday-school he had another experience of the same sort; for his
friends hailed him with matter-of-fact heartiness. Both Step and Poke
appeared to have lived down their domestic unpopularity, resulting from
the incident of the hungry hound, and to be disposed to regard the
world cheerfully, with no suspicion that he was not entirely of their
way of thinking.
There was interest displayed in the news that Peter Groche, after a
night in the lock-up, had been released from custody; but it occurred
to none of Sam’s chums to connect the circumstance with his adventures
as a deer hunter. Groche, presented with his freedom, had walked
off, mumbling and grumbling. The popular theory was that, sooner or
later, he would try to “get even” with the Major, his old grudge being
heightened by the recent episode.
“Funny how the Major let up on him!” Poke ruminated. “Well, you never
can tell what’ll happen. But I guess there must have been some weak
spot, after all, in the case. If there wasn’t, the Major would have
hung on like a bulldog.”
“Gee, but I wouldn’t have him after me--not for a farm!” quoth Step.
Sam held his peace. He might have shed fresh light upon the
peculiarities of the old soldier, but the present time was not
opportune. He had little share in the talk as the boys walked home
together; and the mood of silence held him through dinner. Then his
father proposed a stroll, and the boy accepted the invitation.
On the top of a hill overlooking the town--not only a sightly place but
also one ensuring freedom from interruption--father and son had their
discussion calmly and deliberately.
“Sam,” Mr. Parker began, “I’m not going to preach a sermon, but I’m
going to take a text. You supplied it when you told me last night that
you didn’t regard lack of direct prohibition as making a very good
excuse for what you did. The trouble is, you reached that opinion after
the fact. In the beginning, I dare say, it seemed quite reasonable to
do the thing which wasn’t forbidden.”
“Well, sir, I--I did it,” said Sam sheepishly.
“Exactly! And, in doing it, you yielded to impulse.”
“I sup-suppose so.”
“You had no wish, no intention, to harm anybody,” Mr. Parker went on.
“You desired to go hunting--I’ve felt the desire; I know what it is.
Then there was my gun, fairly thrusting itself upon you--seemed that
way, didn’t it?”
“You’re telling it, sir, as if you’d stood in my shoes.”
“Many a time! I’ve been a boy myself. Also I haven’t forgotten, Sam,
the scrapes into which I fell. Some of them taught me a lesson--a
lesson you’ll have to learn some day. But to get back to the gun. There
it was, ready to your hand. You took it. You put a supply of cartridges
in your pocket. Your mother was not at home. You were too impatient
to await her return. So off you hurried, taking chances, but meaning
no harm. You were very sure of yourself; you knew something about
firearms; you were confident that you wouldn’t hurt yourself or anybody
else. You thought you were extremely careful in the woods. Yet there
you took another chance, still meaning no harm, but barely escaping
homicide.”
“I know that, sir.”
“You can count yourself most fortunate that the results were not more
serious. But I won’t dwell upon what might have happened. What did
happen was quite enough to give you food for thought, and to point the
moral of your experience. And that is that before you go ahead you
should do your best to be sure you’re right.”
“After this I’ll be sure!”
Mr. Parker smiled a little oddly. “I ask only, Sam, that you do your
best to be sure. Often you have to take risks--the practical point is
to avoid the unnecessary risks. Hear me through! At sixteen you’re not
going to develop the wisdom and foresight of a grown man. I’m not going
to demand the impossible. I am going, though, to urge you to profit by
the mistakes you’ve made--and that, Sam, is the one best use to make of
mistakes.”
“You mean, not to repeat ’em?”
“That is precisely my meaning.”
“Trust me!” cried Sam, with conviction.
“I am going to trust you,” said his father. “In the first place, I am
going to assume that we have no need to talk about punishment; perhaps
you’ve had a reasonable amount of it as it is, for I suspect you have
passed some very trying hours. At the same time, though, I’m not
prepared to treat this affair as a wholly closed chapter. I think it
will be better for all concerned if you regard yourself, for the next
few months, as on probation.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, in other words, you may consider yourself as under test. And the
test will be the extent to which you have profited by what has taken
place.”
“Oh!” said Sam. “Then you’re waiting to see if I’ve really learned the
lesson?”
“You have the idea.”
Sam knit his brows. “It’s awfully kind of you, Father--it’s greater
mercy than I’d hoped for. I--I’ll try my prettiest to deserve it.
And--and will everything go on just as--just as before?”
“As nearly as may be. Only that brings me to my second point. It has to
do with St. Mark’s.”
“Oh!” said Sam again, a bit apprehensively, it must be admitted.
“I think,” said his father slowly, “that for the present we’ll hold in
abeyance any plans for sending you away to school. Don’t regard this as
a punishment; it is merely part of the probation. St. Mark’s, as you
know, allows its students much liberty. It treats them almost as if
they were men. And, frankly, Sam, it remains for you to prove that you
deserve such confidence. As the boys say, it’s up to you.”
The blow to the boy’s hopes was harder than his father realized. For
months Sam had been counting upon an early transfer to the famous
preparatory school. At his books, and in sports, he had striven with an
eye to the St. Mark’s standards; he had read everything concerning the
academy upon which he could lay hands; he had thought of St. Mark’s by
day and dreamed of it at night. And now, of a sudden, he learned that
his goal was not near, but at a distance which seemed to be all the
more unhappy because of its vagueness. Yet, very pluckily, he rallied
from the shock.
“Yes, sir; it’s up to me--I understand,” said he. “I’ve got to show
that I’m not an utter idiot, that I have some common sense. And I will
show it, I will! If I don’t, I won’t be worth sending to St. Mark’s
or--or anywhere else!”