The Adventures of a Freshman Part 19

Even Mr. Young had been alarmed when he saw his son step off the train.

At least he treated him very considerately and said, as he shook his hand: "I guess you've been studying too hard there at school, ain't you?

'All work and no play'--you know the rest of it."

Will dropped his eyes as he thought of the kind of playing he had been doing. Then he said, abruptly: "Well, I'll have plenty of time to get well in," looked up the street and remarked that everything seemed the same.

"Yes, everything's the same with us," his father replied, unhitching the horse.

"h.e.l.lo, Molly," Will said to the mare, "do you remember me?"

He was embarra.s.sed in his father's presence, and Mr. Young seemed to notice it, for as they got into the buggy he said, in an uneasy manner: "Mother got your telegram, but I had to come to town anyway, so I thought I might just as well drive you out home myself. Had a pleasant trip?"

Indeed, his father, who had never once written him a letter during the nine months' absence, was the last one Will expected to meet at the station, but that was not what caused Will's constraint. It was the queer searching way he looked at him every now and then.

"Could he have heard about it!" Will kept asking himself. "No, he _can't_ know. If he knew--if he knew, he would be taking me to jail instead of home. He would say it served me right for going against his wishes."

At supper-time his father and his brother Charlie came in from the cornfields together. "Hope you'll bring us rain," said Mr. Young. "We need it." Charlie was brown and big, and he gave Will's hand a hearty grip and said, "Glad to see you back, Will, blamed if I ain't."

Charlie never had ambitions for higher education. "Lucky Charlie!"

thought Will, remembering how he used to look down on him.

"They must make you study a lot, though!" Charlie added, looking at Will's face.

Mr. Young disappeared for a few minutes into the next room; when he returned he interrupted the conversation with, "By the way, mother, Will says he don't think he'll go back there to school any more."

Mrs. Young did not want the matter discussed just now, for she saw a pained look come over Will's face at the mention of it. "Whatever he does," she said, in her bright, quick manner, "he must get well and strong and happy again. Cheer up, Will, cheer up, look happy--my goodness! just see his face," she went on laughing. "Don't you know you're home, anyway, boy?"

Yes, he was home, anyway. But what a way it was; not very much like the proud homecoming he had pictured long ago.

Mr. Young did not like to be switched off the subject. He went on, in a queer tone: "Yes, I thought you'd come around to my way of thinking. I thought you'd get tired of putting yourself through college, as you called it. I ain't surprised, not a bit."

Will did not feel piqued or indignant. He only asked himself how much longer he would wait before telling them all that he, William Young, son of his father, member of the church, and the boy who had his tuition remitted in consequence of a "high moral character," was a gambler and a thief, and was liable to be exposed as such at any moment. Even now at this hour somebody there in the East might be making inquiries as to his whereabouts.

This load was becoming more than he could bear. Why not tell them all, right then and there, and have it over with? "Listen, father," said Will, his voice breaking a little. "You little understand the meaning of my actions. Listen, everybody. I have something important to say."

"s.h.i.+ssh, Will, keep quiet, you're nervous," interrupted his mother.

"Father, don't let the poor boy try to talk. He's sick. He's all wrought up; look at him."

"But I must explain--I _will_ explain. You all must know. Now listen: the reason I'm not going back--the reason I had to study so----"

"Keep still, Will," said his father, in a grave tone; "you needn't go on. I know all about it."

Will's heart stood still.

"You know all about it, father?"

"Yes, the minister told us how hard you were working for the prize. And we read in the Chicago papers that another boy won it----"

"Oh, you don't understand; you don't know why I needed to win it. You don't know anything about it--anything about it."

"Yes, yes, I do, Will," said Mr. Young, fumbling in his pocket for something, "yes, I do."

Mrs. Young put in excitedly: "It was because you had to have the money to go back next year. That was the reason you worked yourself nearly into the grave and wrote such short, irregular letters home and----"

"Now, mother, keep still," interrupted Mr. Young, "I have something to say." He dropped his eyes as though ashamed. He had taken out of his pocket a slip of paper. There was some printing on it and some blank places filled in with writing. He cleared his throat in the way he was accustomed to do when he got up in prayer-meeting. "You had to have the money. It was a necessity. You worked hard for it, but you missed it.

And I thought, seeing you missed the prize there at school, I would show my appreciation of your efforts there at school, that--now, Will, take this and stop looking at me in that way. You done your best. Now you won't have to change your plans. I hate to see people change their plans."

His father had put the slip of paper in his hand. Will looked at it. It was a check drawn on the Farmers' National Bank. It said, "Pay to the order of William Young Two Hundred Dollars ($200)." What did it all mean?

It meant that the obstinate will of good old Farmer Young, that could not be budged by the arguments of the minister or bent by the coaxing of his wife, had finally been melted away by his own full heart at seeing this poor sick boy of his, who bore the marks of having struggled so pluckily and so discouragingly to earn for himself what his father had refused to grant. Also it meant that Will Young could lift his head once more, a free man.

"Why, where are you going, Will?" asked his mother. He had got up from the table.

"I'm not hungry," he said, in a strange voice; "I'm going up to my room.

I'll be down soon." Then as he opened the door he said, without turning around: "I don't deserve this, father. I can't tell you just now how little I deserve it, but I'm going to take it." The door closed.

"What on earth's the matter with the boy?" said Mrs. Young, sighing. "I suppose it's because he takes losing that prize so to heart. He's too conscientious. Don't deserve it!--nonsense!"

When Will came down he looked better.

"Did Charlie say he was going to drive to town," he asked.

"Yes," said his mother. "But you don't want----"

"No, but I've got some letters here I'd like to go East the first thing in the morning." And the next morning they were going East as fast as the United States mail-cars could carry them.

One of them was to the Princeton Bank, and it contained the check for $200, and an apology for overdrawing his account the month previous, which was "not likely to happen again," he said.

The other contained checks also, drawn on that very bank for various amounts to the order of Carey H. Lee and the rest, whose home addresses he had looked up in the college catalogue.

And then he had the first calm full night's sleep in over a month and came down to breakfast singing "The Orange and the Black," and all the family thought it a "real pretty song," and did not know that Will sang it to a tune of his own.

He felt like a new man. Perhaps he was.

"Father," said Mrs. Young, "look at Will; he's better already. I knew my cooking and a little home comfort would do worlds for him. And I guess,"

she added, in Mr. Young's ear, "you cheered him up more by giving him that money, father."

Mr. Young felt that he had been pretty generous, but he only growled.

They did not know the real reason Will was so exuberant this bright sunny morning.

Was it necessary for them to know? That was one thing left to worry about: whether it would be right to overwhelm his parents by telling them of what their son had been through, or would it be wrong to keep on taking their love and sympathy (as it seemed he had received his father's check) on false pretences? He kept on being perplexed until he finally confessed his whole story to the minister and asked him what to do about it.

The minister, in his straightforward way, asked, "Have you confessed it to G.o.d, Will?"

"Yes, sir," said Will, dropping his eyes.

"And has He forgiven you?"