The hum of Tom’s schoolroom had gone steadily on all this time, and
was busier than ever, if possible just now, looking forward to the few
days’ vacation just at hand, after which would come the short closing
term of the year, followed by examination-day, the culmination of all
excitement to the graduating class. Aleck was at the head of that,
and Tom tried not to think of the day when he would go; it seemed to
him school would be like a boxing-match without gloves after that; he
wondered if he ever _should_ get used to rubs and knocks so as to go on
comfortably through the world. As for a world where people did not like
giving them well enough to keep you in much danger, he never dreamed
of such a possibility. If he could only pluck up enough not to mind it
more than other boys! And yet he was sure, if the truth were told, they
didn’t like snubbing and being crowed over much better than he, but
they had a way of getting over it as he couldn’t.
However, if he stopped for more reflections, his arithmetic examples
would not be done, and he plunged in among them with such zeal, that
the last one was soon unravelled, and stopping to breathe a moment
before taking up his Latin, he caught sight of a little performance
going on between two of his neighbors, Carter, the catcher who had
retrieved fortunes for Tom the afternoon when luck was so against him
on the ball-ground, and Davis, who sat just behind him, and at Tom’s
elbow. They were in a class higher than Tom’s, and had some pretty
tough knots come in their way, as he very well knew, and they were at
work at them just now, but each very much in his own fashion. Carter
sat with one hand drawn through his hair, and pressing it tight with
all his fingers as if that would help pull through his difficulties,
and with knotted brow was working away like a Trojan, with no eyes or
ears for anything off the battle-field, while Davis behind him shuffled
over his pages for some rules or example that should throw a little
light, frowned, put down a few figures, rubbed them out again, and
pushed his slate impatiently aside.
At last, happening to peep over Carter’s shoulder, he saw the result of
his toil. Every example but the last done to a fraction, and lying in
neat figures in its own corner of the slate. A gleam of satisfaction
spread over his face, and drawing a little closer, he quietly and with
rapid strokes, transferred every one to his own slate. All but the
last. Carter was still at work upon that, but it wouldn’t come. Over
and over again the figures were erased, and the example begun again at
the beginning.
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Davis under his breath, “time’s nearly up;” and
writing a note to one of the older boys who sat near, he quietly passed
it over to him, and in a few moments received it again, with the
example clear as daylight on the back, and requiring but a moment to
transfer it to his slate.
None too soon, however, for the bell rang as he put down the last
figure, and the class was called to the blackboard.
Carter was at the head, a place he had held for some time by
persistent, hard work, and accordingly explained the first example
with a precision that showed it lay clear-cut in his own mind. Others
followed rapidly, and the last fell to Davis.
“Have you the last, Davis?” asked the professor.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let us have it, then.”
He made his proposition and began, but there seemed to be some
trouble. He was not apt to get confused, but this certainly made
hodge-podge.
“Where is that example?” asked the professor.
“There, sir,” said Davis, handing up his slate.
He ran his eye rapidly over it, and returned it.
“That is all right,” he said, “and very well done, and so are all
the rest. You must learn to keep what you know a little more at your
command, Davis. How many of you have the example?”
How they had managed poor Carter could not imagine, but every hand
except his own went up.
“You haven’t it, Carter?”
“No, sir, I couldn’t get it.”
“I shall have to send you down, I’m sorry to say.”
The boys made a great deal more haste than was necessary, he thought,
to let him pass down and change places with Davis, adding one or two
very expressive winks to remind him that his hope for a star on the
record of that term was gone.
But the reminders came in much plainer language at recess.
“Here we go up, up, up, and here we go downy, downy!” cried a voice,
followed by a chorus.
“I can’t help it,” said Carter. “I couldn’t get it, and I don’t see how
you did.”
“Don’t you wish you knew?” sneered Davis.
“Isn’t he game, to flunk at a straw like that?” shouted one of the
boys, who had had the example comfortably done for him the night before
under the gaslight at home.
“Never mind, Carter; perhaps the professor will let you go back to
long-division next term.”
Carter looked so distressed that Tom, though furious at the whole
affair, began to take a little courage that he wasn’t so much more of
a fool about such things, after all, than some other fellows, when
Aleck’s voice was heard to come to the rescue.
“What’s that about long-division? If it’s anything that wants a long
head, and a sure one too, Carter is the right one to take it. I’ve
watched him all the term, and he’s had more of those tough examples
right than I ever did when I went over them, and works them out on his
own hook, too, without as much cribbing as some fellows want for a
single lesson. Come round this afternoon, can’t you, Carter? I’m going
to unrig my iceboat, and you can handle a tool much better than I can.”
Off scattered the mousers, the bell rang, and it was every man looking
out for his own again, till the exercises were ended and the tide
poured outward once more.
Aleck walked on very busy with his thoughts, but this time they had
nothing to do with lessons, nor even with examination-day, unless as
an event that was to knock away his stays and launch him forth to make
such headway as he might out of the quiet harbor of his schooldays.
He had no fear of breasting contrary winds, or of ploughing the rough
waves of life with a stout heart; the only trouble was to decide on the
port he wished to clear for; and this question, though it would have
been easy enough if he had had only himself to consult, seemed balanced
and counterbalanced whichever way he turned. But Carter never had a
suspicion that anything worried him as they worked away on the iceboat
that afternoon; he only thought Aleck was the handsomest fellow and the
best company in the world, and wondered how it was everything went so
smoothly where he was, the rough places always melting down, as the ice
and snow were vanishing outside under the shining of the March sun.
He couldn’t help telling him so at last, and Aleck laughed.
“Do they?” he said, “I didn’t know they did; but there’s something
in one’s way of looking at things, I suppose. If the sun were to
pull a cloud of disgust over his face every time he saw a hummock of
ice, they’d be likely to hold on a little longer. Looking straight
at an ugly thing, with a bright face of your own, works pretty well
generally, I think;” but when Carter was gone, and lessons pretty well
out of the way, Aleck had need to try his own maxim, for the question
that had been on his own mind in the morning came up again in full
force, and didn’t look any smoother or rounder for its brief absence.
It wasn’t a brown-stone front, like Hal Fenimore’s, in the library of
which Aleck sat, but a bit of a gothic cottage slipped in between two
large brick houses, with a clear sunset outlook from the rear, and a
bay-window trailing with vines in front, while a tiny wing, that had
begged room for itself on one side, formed a conservatory, from the
windows of which flowers of every hue had refreshed the eyes of the
passers-by through all the long, dreary winter months. If Creepy could
but once have rested his eyes upon them! His most gorgeous dreams of
what this world might be would have paled into gray twilight before
their unimagined beauty.
The brick houses on either side stood guard over the cottage, as if
they had taken it up for a pet, and inside its walls everything seemed
to be petted as well. In every nook and corner stood some delicate,
graceful thing, and every article of furniture, every picture on
the walls, and every ornament about the room, seemed chosen to be
loved. But the fairest ornament of all to Aleck’s eyes was the sister
from whom everything else had taken its coloring and its tone, and
he glanced involuntarily up from his book now and then to watch the
graceful movements of her white fingers as they followed the pattern of
her embroidery.
“I don’t believe there’s a fellow in the city that’s got anything to
compare with her,” he thought as his eye rested on the poise of the
beautiful head, the golden hair drawn back in waves and ripples from
her forehead, the soft eyes drooped over their work, and the half-smile
with which she followed her thoughts, whatever they might be. “I
_know_ there isn’t,” and down he plunged again into syntax, roots, and
terminations.
The brown eyes were raised at him just then, and let the embroidery
wait a moment, while their owner thought what a manly, handsome
fellow Aleck was, and how like his father, and how proud she should
be some day when she should see him taking his father’s place in his
profession, his father’s old friends welcoming him, and new ones of
his own rising up on every side. There were a good many sacrifices to
be made, and a good deal of waiting to be done, before that day should
come, but it would repay them all a thousand times.
Aleck lost all this, deep in the mazes of an irregular verb, but he was
out again by the time the eyes had gone back to their embroidery, and
snatched a minute for another look and thought of his own.
“Poor old Nell!” he said to himself, “she has set her heart on making
a lawyer of me, and I--” up and down went the balances again, and then
the lesson would have attention once more.
“Yes, yes, I see; it’s irregular, and it works under Rule 53. I’ll make
a note of that.” Another glance at Nelly, and down went the balance
again. “And if she does, what is it going to cost? Four years at
college, three at law studies, and as many more, if not twice as many,
before anybody’ll give me enough to do to keep soul and body together;
and by that time, where will she be? All the bloom of her life brushed
off while she’s waiting for me to come to something! Pshaw!” and in he
went again among the Ps and the Qs of the dictionary.
The lesson was done at last; he was master of every word, and closed
the book, but that was only to open the discussion of the future again.
“And I know very well how it’s to be done, too,” he went on. “There’s
just enough, as things are now, to keep up the house for her, if I were
to take care of myself; but when it comes to pulling me through those
seven or eight years, there’s only one way to do it. Think of selling
out everything here, and letting her follow me about in some ugly
boardinghouse or other, with only the chance of my being able to make
things up to her by-and-by!” and for once Aleck seemed to have found
something he could not melt down by looking at it.
“Finished, Aleck?”
“Yes, Nelly, and to-morrow finishes the week, and next week finishes
the term; then three days holiday, then ten weeks more.”
“And then?” said Nelly, and the half-smile brightened into something
radiant.
Aleck hesitated. He knew the picture she was drawing; how was he going
to rub it out, and drag her into all the bothers of a new decision? But
he couldn’t put it off much longer. Perhaps it had better come at once.
“Never mind about then,” he said gayly, “let’s talk about now a little
while. I never thought I should get ahead of you in anything, Nelly;
but I don’t believe you had your first offer before you were sixteen,
and I had mine day before yesterday.”
Nelly laughed.
“I hope you didn’t vow secresy,” she said.
“On the contrary, Uncle Ralph wished me particularly to consult you.”
“Uncle Ralph! What is it, Aleck? I don’t understand.”
“He wants me to go into the store with him, and offers to teach me all
he knows, and to give me a share in the business as soon as I am ready
for it.”
The smile vanished, and a shade of pity came over the beautiful face.
“Poor Uncle Ralph! He is alone in the world, and I suppose he longs to
have some of his own kith and kin with him every day. I am sorry he
asked you, it will be so hard to refuse him.”
“You don’t think I had better go, then?”
“Why, Aleck!”
That was all she said, but the tone and the look said a thousand times
more.
Aleck laughed in his turn.
“Do you say why? Well, I say, why not? I don’t believe I shall ever
make such a prodigy of a lawyer, sister mine, and it’s a horribly long
pull ahead before I show whether I do or not, and here is a chance to
take care of myself right away, instead of dragging on you a dozen
years; and I tell you, Nelly, it would take all the man out of a better
fellow than I am to do that.”
“Hush, Aleck! You know how much papa wished you to have a profession,
and his own above all others.”
“I know it, Nelly,” said Aleck, gently; “but perhaps,” and he glanced
questioningly in her face, “perhaps he sees some things differently
now. At any rate,” he added more lightly, “there are more professions
in these days than there used to be, and I’m sure a druggist’s, or at
least a chemist’s, is counted among the most respectable of them. And
as for Uncle Ralph, every one knows that he makes a profession of his
work. Why, what do you think came to him from England the other day?
A certificate of fellowship in the Royal Academy of Sciences! Imagine
me in that place! Wouldn’t that shine brighter than being called a
brother by the members of some county bar?”
“Aleck, why will you trouble me by talking so?”
“Trouble you, Nelly! I wouldn’t for the world; but Uncle Ralph wants
his answer day after to-morrow.”
“Well, it is ready for him; he need not have waited as long as that.
Tell him we both love him with all our hearts, for his own sake and
dear papa’s, and if he is lonely nothing would give us greater joy than
to have him come right here with us, but that it was papa’s wish you
should study.”
Aleck had left his seat and stood behind his sister’s chair, bending
caressingly over the knot of golden curls.
“Nelly,” he said, in low earnest tones, “papa did not know how little
there would be left; he did not know how it would have to be done. He
was a gentleman himself, every inch, and he wanted me to be one; but
which would he say was most worthy of the name, to take the little
that belongs to my beautiful sister, and use it up, on the chance of
returning it after years and years, or to go into an honorable place
where I can be of more use in a month, saving life and health, than
I could in a year of settling quarrels and splitting hairs? Nelly,
I _can’t_ do it! I _can’t_ take what belongs to you! If I ever get a
profession, I must wait till I can earn the money, and that will put
the happy day so far off that you will be a tired-out old lady, waiting
for it,” and he laughed again, for Aleck never looked on the gloomy
side many minutes at a time.
“And if money were as thick as blackberries,” he went on, “I’d rather
be a doctor, anyhow; and this comes next door to it, and I’m not sure
but a little above, for the doctors can’t move hand or foot without the
druggists. I tell you, Nelly, there’s more in it than you think, and I
might come out so scientific, and such a wise man, that you wouldn’t
venture to speak to me except in the most respectful manner. It isn’t
as it was in old times, when doctors took a spoonful of almost anything
out of their pockets for a patient! I wish you could just see them come
to Uncle Ralph with some difficult, delicate thing that they want done,
and that they can’t do themselves with all their wisdom, to save their
lives and their patients’ too! And I promise you it’s a place where
the greenbacks come in! And I should get my share of them, instead of
starving to death, waiting in my office like a spider in his web, to
catch my first unlucky fly!”
He waited for an answer, but Nelly did not speak. “Nelly,” he began
again, very softly, “I believe papa can see into Uncle Ralph’s heart
now, and if he can, I know what he would say. I only got a glimpse,
just one peep through his eyes, and it almost brought the tears into
mine. They plead pretty hard, Nelly!”
Nelly’s lips were pressed tightly together, and then parted suddenly.
“Day after to-morrow, did you say, Aleck? Don’t speak of it again till
then. I will tell you when that time comes.”
When it came, “Aleck, dear,” she said, with a smile, “do whatever you
like best, and whatever you think best. I shall be satisfied, whatever
it is.”
“All right,” said Aleck, with his gayest glow in his face; “I’ll go and
see Uncle Ralph.”
So it was settled: and Aleck never knew the pang it cost her to give
up the long-cherished plan for his future, or how thankfully she would
have made any sacrifice necessary to its accomplishment; and she had no
suspicion that he had sacrificed the darling dream of his life, rather
than feel himself a weight upon her, and say No to the lonely heart
that was craving what only he could give it.