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Page 66
"Don," he said one night when the dishes were washed, the shack swept
and the lamp lighted, "I've been thinking a lot about you and what
you're going to do this winter."
The boy, who had been sparring with a kitten that had strayed into the
shack the day before, rose abruptly.
"You say you won't write to your sister until you've made good?"
"It isn't just that," stammered Donald, changing color. "I--I don't
dare. She'd beg me to come back--"
Brian nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I know the feeling."
"And I won't go back!" flung out Donald passionately. "I won't go
back. I simply can't."
"It's better," said Brian sensibly, "if you don't. For a number of
reasons. But you must do something. I mean something with the future
in view."
"Yes."
"As far as I can make out," went on Brian, puffing at his pipe, "you're
wildly unhappy and discontented at the farm and that worries your
sister. Of course your absence worries her too but the two letters we
wrote that night you tumbled into my camp fire must have made her feel
a lot better, particularly since we both expressed our intention of
making the best of ourselves. You say she won't leave your uncle
because he's an invalid. That leaves you without any string to your
bow but your own inclination. In a sense you've followed that too
long. I mean, Don, shirking the course of study the old minister
mapped out for you when your sister kept on plugging. You need it."
"Nothing mattered," said the boy bitterly. "I knew I wouldn't stay. I
didn't dare. Once," he added in a low voice, "when Uncle cursed my
sister and threw a bottle of brandy at her, I made up my mind to kill
him."
"Good Lord!" said Brian, shocked.
"That's one of the reasons I don't dare go back. I'm afraid. You
can't guess what it is," he choked. "He taunts and jeers and curses in
a breath and he gets drunk every night. I wish to God he would die!"
The wish was horrible in its sincerity. Brian ignored it.
"If you were older," said Brian, "and your chief need wasn't school,
I'd take you abroad with me, free lancing. But in the circumstances,
with your welfare somewhere else, that's impossible."
Donald hung his head.
"I--I wish it wasn't," he blurted. "I want to go wherever you go."
"That first night when I asked you to tramp along with me," said Brian
gently, "I said, in my letter to your sister, that I'd see you through.
That I'm going to do. But you've got to help me. I want you, after
I'm gone, to stay up here at the quarry, study nights, and next year
work your way through college."
The boy stared, blank terror in his eyes.
"A year's work will put you on your feet--your kind of work when the
mood is on you--and you can enter in the fall. I know a chap who's
working his way through Yale. He'd show you the ropes."
"Here!" said Donald. "Alone!"
"Here," said Brian quietly, "alone. I know you can do it."
Don brushed his hair back heavily from his forehead. It was but little
browner than his face. The gesture reminded Brian irresistibly of
Kenny, Kenny in rebellion.
"It isn't the college part," Don said hopelessly. "There I think I'd
get through. And I'd like to be an engineer. It's the year here. An
entrance examination would be stiff, wouldn't it, Brian?"
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