“O Dave, isn’t that great! Somehow I felt it must be all a mistake that you weren’t coming back. All the fellows will be so glad.”
From Wallace’s manner David could not be sure whether he had any knowledge or intimation of his father’s generosity or not. He seemed, at any rate, not at all interested in the question how the means for David’s return had been provided. So into that question David did not go. He prevailed on Wallace to come into the new apartment for a few minutes and meet his mother; she, with the thought of Dr. Wallace foremost in her mind, could hardly refrain from uttering words of gratitude that pressed to her lips. Altogether, Wallace’s brief visit imparted a pleasant glow of cheerfulness and hopefulness to Mrs. Ives on that trying first day in her new surroundings.
Maggie did not disapprove of David’s return to St. Timothy’s so much as he had expected. “Well,” she said, “I guess you’d better be there than strammin’ round a small place like this. I’m sure it will mean less than half as much work for me. I must say, though, if I was that rich I had to be giving money away, I wouldn’t be doing it to take a boy from his mother—whoever I was.”
That, to be sure, was just what David’s benefactor was doing, and it came home to the boy when on the last day his mother accompanied him to the station. Ralph, who had been excused from school, was with them, and in the trolley car and afterwards on the bench in the waiting-room sat snuggled close to his brother—demonstrative in this way of his affection. Mrs. Ives was silent most of the time, but often surreptitiously squeezed David’s hand. While they waited, Wallace, accompanied by his father and mother, entered; they came up to David and Mrs. Ives; and Mrs. Wallace said, “It’s hard when we have to send them back, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Ives, mindful even in that moment of the obligation to which she must not refer, answered, “Yes, it’s hard, but I am trying not to be sorry. David is so glad.”
Dr. Wallace grasped David’s arm with one hand and his son’s arm with the other and held the two boys for a moment while he said genially, “Help each other along all you can, you two fellows.” And David felt how splendid it must be to be able to give help, instead of just receiving it—to be giving such help as his father all his life had given to others; he felt that it was to enable him to do that very thing that Dr. Wallace was sending him back to St. Timothy’s, and he resolved to be worthy of the opportunity.
In the train David had the few last moments alone with his mother and Ralph, just as Lester had with his mother and father. They were silent moments, so charged with feeling that David sat with tear-blurred eyes, aware only of his mother pressing his hand and Ralph crowding against him softly.
“Write to us often, David,” his mother said. “And—and think of your father every day.”
David nodded, too choked to speak. He kissed each of them—a long, long kiss for his mother—hugged them close; and the next moment they were gone.