“I don’t mean that he shall,” replied David. “I want to pay my own way.”
“I’m a-goin’ to send you tew college and send 133 you right. No starvin’ and garret plan fer you. I’ve let Joe and the Jedge do fer you as much as they’re a-goin’ to, but you’re mine from now on. It’s what I’d do fer my own son if he cared fer books, and you’re as near to me ez ef you were my son.”
“It’s too much, Uncle Barnabas.”
“And, David,” he continued, unheeding the interruption, “I hope you’ll really be my son some day.”
A look of such exquisite happiness came into the young eyes that Barnabas put out his hand silently. In the firm hand-clasp they both understood.
“I am not going to let you help me through college, though, Uncle Barnabas. It has always been my dream to earn my own education. When you pay for anything yourself, it seems so much more your own than when it’s a gift.”
“Let him, Barnabas,” again counseled Uncle Larimy. “Folks must feed diff’rent. Thar’s the sweet-fed which must allers hev sugar, but salt’s the savor for Dave. He’s the kind that flourishes best in the shade.” 134
Janey wrote to Joe of David’s plan, and there promptly came a check for one thousand dollars, which David as promptly returned. 135
CHAPTER II
A few days before the time set for his departure David set out on a round of farewell visits to the country folk. It was one of those cold, cheerless days that intervene between the first haze of autumn and the golden glow of October. He had never before realized how lonely the shiver of wind through the poplars could sound. Two innovations had been made that day in the country. The rural delivery carrier, in his little house on wheels, had made his first delivery, and a track for the new electric-car line was laid through the sheep meadow. This inroad of progress upon the sanctity of their seclusion seemed sacrilegious to David, who longed to have lived in the olden time of log houses, with their picturesque open fires and candle lights. Following some vague inward call, he went out of his way to ride past the tiny house he had once called home, and which in all his ramblings he had steadfastly avoided. He 136 had heard that the place had passed into the hands of a widow with an only son, and that they had purchased surrounding land for cultivation. He had been glad to hear this, and had liked to fancy the son caring for his mother as he himself would have cared for his mother had she lived.