CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Papa," Allyn said bravely; "I'd like to have a talk with you, before the day is over."
Dr. McAlister looked up in surprise, for the boy's tone was weighted with meaning. During the two or three weeks that they had spent at the shore, Dr. McAlister had been congratulating himself upon the change in his young son. Allyn had seemed brighter, happier, more like the normal boy of his age, and his father had been hoping that some mental crisis was past, that the old moodiness had vanished. For the last day or two, however, Allyn's face had been overcast, and the doctor's anxiety had returned to him once more. Nevertheless, there was no trace of this in his voice, as he answered,—
"I wanted to go for a drive on the moors, this afternoon, and I had wondered whether I could get somebody to go with me. Will you be ready, right after dinner?"
Down on the beach, that morning, there was a general question about Allyn and Cicely; but neither of them put in an appearance. Cicely, indeed, had been ready to start for the awning; but she saw Allyn going towards the road, and she ran after him to ask whither he was bound.
"Just for a walk, out to Kidd's Treasure or somewhere."
"Who with?" she demanded, regardless of grammar.
"Alone."
She looked into his face inquiringly.
"Anything wrong, Allyn?"
He shook his head.
"Why don't you come down to the beach?"
"Don't want to. Cis, I'm going to have it out with my father, this afternoon."
She nodded slowly.
"Yes, you may as well. It's about time."
He turned away and started down the narrow road through the town. She stood looking after him for a moment; then she called,—
"Mayn't I go, too, Allyn?"
"If you want to. I sha'n't be back in time for the bathing hour, though," he answered; but his eyes belied the scant cordiality of his words.
For more than an hour, they sat on the high bluff that juts seaward at the south of the town. On the one hand, the sea stretched away, its deep sapphire blue only broken by the diagonal white line that marked the rips; on the other were the treeless moors looking in the changing lights like a vast expanse of pinkish brown plush. Directly at their feet, the little bowl of Kidd's Pond lay among its rushes like a turquoise ringed about with malachite; beyond it was the grey village, and beyond again, the lighthouse whose tall white tower by day and whose flashing light at night are the beacons which seem to welcome the wanderers of the summer colony, whenever their steps are turned back to Quantuck.
At length, Cicely rose to her feet.
"We must go, Allyn. Here is the noon train now, and we shall be late to dinner."
But the boy did not stir. He sat with his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on the back of his clasped fingers, while his eyes followed the slow approach of the primitive little Quantuck train. Cicely waited for a moment. Then she came back to his side once more and dropped down on the coarse moorland grass.
"Allyn," she said gravely; "it isn't always easy to know what to do; at least, I don't think it is. The future seems so far off, when we try to plan about it. But papa used to tell me that, as long as I did the next thing in order and did it hard and carefully, without trying to save myself any work or to sneak, the rest of things would take care of themselves. It sounds pretty prosy; but I rather think after all it may be true. It is a good deal more romantic to plan what great things we'll do when we are grown up; but I never noticed that planning helped on much. When I began on my music, I used to dream lots of dreams about the concerts I'd give; but all the good it did was to make me lose count in my exercises, so I gave up dreaming and took to scales instead, and then I began to get on a little better." She paused for a minute; then she went on gayly, "And the moral of that is, stop worrying and come home to dinner, for I am as hungry as a bluefish."
"Mr. Barrett spent half the morning with us, Cicely," Hubert said, as she came to the table. "Where were you, to miss your chances?"
"Gallivanting with another young man," she said. "But was he really and truly there? What did he talk about?"
"Soft-shell crabs."
"How unromantic! What else?"
"Welsh rarebit, if you must know."
"Was that all? Didn't he talk any music?"
"No; only the music of his own speech. It's not manners to talk shop, Cis."
"Oh, but I do wish I could meet him!" she sighed. "Is he ever coming here to the Lodge?"
"Perhaps, if we hang Babe out for bait. He appears to have her on the brain. He asked, to-day, apropos of nothing in particular, whether Miss McAlister were not very intellectual."
"I hope you assured him that she was," Billy remarked.
"I did. Trust me for upholding the family reputation. I told him that she had a receptive mind and would be an ornament to any profession."
"Hubert!" his sister remonstrated.
"Well, why not? Babe is able to hold her own, whether she turns her attention to the ministry or to coaching athletic teams, and it is only fair to give her the honest meed of praise."
"Cousin Ted," Cicely said earnestly, after a pause; "I wish you would ask
Mr. Barrett here to supper, some night. I want so much to meet him."
"Why, Cicely, I never supposed you were such a lion-hunter." Theodora's tone, though gentle, conveyed a distinct rebuke.
"It isn't just silly wanting to meet him," she said, as her color came. "I do want to know him, to hear him play and talk, because there isn't anybody else whose work I love as I do his. I used to feel that way about yours, Cousin Ted, and want to know you on account of your books; but now I forget all about them. It's different with Mr. Barrett. He doesn't seem especially interesting. He looks conceited and he toes in; but his work is wonderful. Besides, I want to have him hear me play. He looks as if he wouldn't mind telling disagreeable truths, and I want somebody to tell me whether I am wasting all my time, trying to do something that is impossible. I don't care whether he eats crabs or clams; he may eat with his knife, if he wants to. All I'm after is his music."
Theodora laughed at her outburst.
"I will do what I can for you, Cis; but I am afraid it is a forlorn hope. I don't believe he is a man who can be coaxed into talking shop, and I fear he hasn't the least idea of accepting any invitations, while he is down here. I will try to get him; but you may be driven into taking a piano down on the beach and discoursing sweet music to him, while he bathes."
"Bathes!" Cicely's tone was a faint echo of Phebe's. "He doesn't bathe; he paddles. No matter! Some day, I'll get what I want." But happily she had no foreknowledge of the circumstances under which she would talk of music with Gifford Barrett.
An hour later, Allyn and his father were driving away across the moors. It takes good seamanship to bear the motion of a Quantuck box cart; it requires still better seamanship to navigate one of them along the rutted roads. For some time, it took all of Dr. McAlister's energy to keep from landing himself and Allyn head foremost in the thickets of sweet fern and beach plum. By degrees, however, he became more expert in avoiding pitfalls and in keeping both wheels in the ruts, and he turned to Allyn expectantly.
"Well, Allyn, what was it?"
For two days, Allyn had been preparing himself on various circuitous routes by which he might approach his subject and slowly prepare his father's mind for the plea he wished to make. Now, however, his father had taken him by surprise, and accordingly he blurted out the whole plain truth.
"Papa, I don't want to go to college. I want to be an engineer."
Back in the depths of Dr. McAlister's eyes, there came an expression which, under other conditions, might have developed into a smile. The boy's tone was anxious and pleading, out of all proportion to the gravity of his subject; but Dr. McAlister wisely forbore to smile. All his life, he had made it his rule never to laugh at the earnestness of his children, but to treat it with the fullest respect.
"A civil engineer?" he asked, thinking that Allyn was attracted by the profession of his brother-in-law.
"No; just a plain, everyday engineer that runs machinery. I wish you'd let me. There's no use in my going through college; I'm too stupid about lots of things, and I never could make a decent doctor."
"What makes you think you could make a decent engineer?" the doctor questioned keenly.
"Because I love it. I like wheels and beams and valves so much better than I like syntax and subjunctives," he urged. "I'd be willing to work for it, papa; it's interesting and it really counts for something, when you get it done."
"Perhaps. Is it a new idea, Allyn?"
The boy shook his head.
"It's nearly as old as I am, I believe. Ever since I remember, I have liked such things. I've watched them, whenever I had a chance, and when I couldn't do that, I've looked at pictures of them. I don't suppose I ought to have said anything about it, for I know you want to have me go through college; but I hate my school, and I don't seem to get on any."
"But your marks were higher, last month, than they had been for a year."
"That was Cicely."
"Cicely?"
"Yes, she helped me. I was warned, and would have been conditioned; but she found it out and went at me till she pulled me through. That was how she found out about it."
"About what?"
"This."
"Then Cicely knows?"
"Yes; but nobody else. I let it out to her, one day, and she made me show her my drawings. Then she told me that, if I wanted you to listen to me, I'd have to do a good deal better work in school than I had been doing."
The doctor nodded approvingly.
"Cicely has a level head of her own," he said; "but how do I know you aren't trying to shirk school, Allyn?"
Allyn faced him proudly.
"I never lie, and I promise you I'll do my best."
"Well, that's all right." The doctor was coming down to the practical side of the question, and all of a sudden he found that it was not going to be an easy thing for him to relinquish the hope of having one of his sons follow him in his profession. "Do you know what it means, though, Allyn, to be an engineer?"
"I think so." The boy spoke with a quiet dignity which was new to him.
"What?"
"To work eight or ten hours a day in a factory; to begin at the bottom and work up; maybe, at last, to invent a machine of my own."
"Yes." In spite of himself, the doctor's voice was encouraging, for he could not help realizing that the boy had weighed the situation carefully. "But do you know that your work would be in heat and dirt and noise, among men who are not your equals in family and training?"
"Is Jamie Lyman my equal in family?" Allyn demanded. "Or Frank Gavigan, or Peter Hubbard? You don't seem to mind putting me into school with them."
"That is only for a short time. The other would be for life."
"Not if I work up."
"Perhaps not; but there is no upper class in a shop. But you said something about some drawings. Have you made some?"
"Yes."
"What are they?"
"These." And Allyn offered a half-dozen sheets of paper to his father.
Dr. McAlister glanced at them; then he put the reins into Allyn's hand.
"Here," he said; "you can drive. I want to look at these."
For some moments, there was a silence, while the doctor turned over the papers and Allyn's heart thumped until it seemed to him as if it could be heard distinctly. Then deliberately the doctor took off his glasses, shut them into their case and put the case into his pocket.
"Allyn," he said slowly; "I don't know much about such things; but I rather think that you have found your work. Some of these drawings are well done. Where did you get your machines?"
"I made them up."
"Oh." The doctor's tone was more dry than he realized; but he was unwilling, for the boy's own good, to show the pride he felt in his son. "Suppose we talk this over, then, and see what plans we would better make. I did want you to be a doctor, Allyn; it would have made me very happy, but I think it isn't best for you. It doesn't seem to be just in your line, and I don't believe in forcing you into the wrong profession. Even if an engineer's life meant hard work and disagreeable people and things around you, would you like to try it?"
"Yes."
"You would be happy in it?"
"Yes."
"You think you would stick to it through thick and thin?"
"Yes."
There was no gush, no enthusiasm; yet something in the quiet affirmative carried conviction to the father's mind.
"My boy," he said, as he rested his hand on Allyn's knee for a moment; "you are my youngest child, and very dear to me, dearer because for years your life has had to make up for the one that ended as yours began. It has been my constant hope to make you into a broad and happy man, and a good one. The rest doesn't count for much in the long run. If you really are sure that you care for machines, then let it be machines; only make up your mind to put your very best self into them, whether you oil up old ones or invent new ones. It doesn't make much difference what the work is; it makes a great deal of difference how you do it. Now listen to me, for I am going to make a bargain with you."
He paused and looked down into the brown eyes, and they looked back at him unfalteringly.
"If I give up my pet dream for you—you will never know how often I have dreamed it, Allyn—and let you throw over the idea of being a doctor, I shall expect you to keep on for two more years in your school and to take a good stand there. A mechanic should be as well-balanced mentally as a doctor. I want you to know some classics, some history. Then, after that, if you still feel the same way about this, you may fit for any of the good technological schools you may choose, and I will do all I can to help you carry out your plans for your work. Is it a bargain?"
Allyn's hand met his father's for a moment, and he nodded briefly. That was all; but his father, as he watched him, was content without further demonstration.
"Then we'll call it all settled," he said briskly, as he took the reins once more. "I'll speak to the others about it, if you want. Sometimes discussions of such things are a trial. Next time, though,—Has this been worrying you, Allyn?"
"A little. I was afraid you wouldn't like it."
"I'm sorry. Next time, come to me in the first of it, and we'll talk it over together. That's what we fathers are for; and all we want for our sons is to see them strong and honest and content, determined to get the very best out of life as they go along. The only question is, where the best lies, and that we must each one of us decide for himself. That's enough moral for one afternoon," he added, laughing.
"N—no," Allyn answered meditatively; "I hate morals, as a general thing; but I don't seem to mind this. It's too sensible."