He waved an exultant hand over his head and departed at a long and rapid stride, leaving his father and mother to stare at one another with pathetic inquiry; but after a moment or two of this Mr. Oliphant laughed vaguely, sighed, shook his head, and said: “Why, he means it!”
“You don’t think he’s just covering up what he feels? Pretending——”
“Pretending? No!” her husband returned. “All your mother’s will means to him is that he can go on with his Addition!”
“But he can’t. Thirty-five hundred dollars won’t——”
“No, not long,” Mr. Oliphant admitted. “But it looks like a million to him to-day, because it pulls him around this particular corner. Of course in a little while there’ll be another corner that he can’t get pulled around, but he doesn’t see that one now. All he’s thinking about——”
“But he expects to begin a factory!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t a doubt he’ll try to.”
“Neither have I; and that’ll bring the corner he can’t turn just so much nearer.”
“It seems so pitiful,” the mother lamented. “I’ll help him all I can. There’s the income of what she’s given me——”
“It won’t go very far,” Oliphant informed her, ruefully amused. “Not with the kind of plans Dan’ll be making now that he’s got hold of thirty-five hundred dollars!”
“Well, but then,” she said brightly, yet with a little timidity, “you see, there’s Harlan. Harlan could——” She hesitated; and both of them turned, though not confidently, toward their younger son who still continued to sit motionless in his chair, in the bay window, staring at the opposite wall. He seemed unaware that they were looking at him, until his mother addressed him directly. “Harlan, you would, wouldn’t you?”