“Father’s all right except that he’s been working too hard; a rest will fix him up,” David declared. “And mother’s all right, too, except that she worries.”
“Oh, yes, it’s all all right,” Maggie agreed with gloomy significance. “All I can say is, they’re lucky to have me to fall back on. I can deal with trouble when it comes.”
David disliked to admit to himself that this interview disturbed him. But there was no escape from the fact that it did have a depressing effect. He tried to assure himself that Maggie always delighted in forebodings of trouble, but in spite of that he was half the time wishing that he might withdraw from the adventure on which his father was launching him. Every day the expression in his mother’s eyes affected him as much as her tears could have done, every day he was troubled by his father’s haggard look. He had of course learned something about the burden in dollars and cents he was to be to the family, and he wondered if there could really be wisdom in his father’s decision. “It throws a big responsibility on me,” David thought gravely.
He suspected that in some ways his father was an impractical man and that he was often visionary in his enthusiasm. He had never forgotten how hurt he had felt once as a small boy when he had overheard his mother say to her sister, “It’s no use, Hattie; if Henry once has his mind set on a thing, the only thing to do is to give him his head.” David did not know what had prompted the remark, but he had not liked hearing his father criticized even by his mother.
In those days he noticed in his father a nervous exuberance over the prospect, which, if it failed to quiet David’s doubts, served to convince him of the futility of questioning. Dr. Ives talked gayly of the interest and happiness David would find in his new surroundings and of the increased pleasure they would all take in his vacations, told Ralph that he must so conduct himself as to qualify for St. Timothy’s when he grew older, and declared that for himself merely looking forward to the trip East with David was making a new man of him.
One morning Dr. Ives went downtown with David in the shabby little automobile to purchase the railway tickets. As they drew up to the curb a tall man in a gray suit came out of the ticket-office; he was about to step into a waiting limousine when Dr. Ives hailed him.
“O Dr. Wallace!”
“How are you, Dr. Ives?” Dr. Wallace nodded pleasantly and waited, for Dr. Ives clearly had something to say to him.
David, following his father, looked with interest at the distinguished surgeon whose career was to be an example to him. Dr. Wallace was a younger and stronger man than Dr. Ives, and, so far as prosperity of appearance was concerned, there was the same contrast between the two men as between the shabby runabout and the shining limousine.