She turned around on the piano stool to listen to his sober statement, and to look at the great fellow, towering up over her.
"Yes, you're grown up now, Neale, aren't you?" she said faintly, putting a hand out towards him and he knew he had hurt her by his bluntness. And yet it was the truth he told her, and also what she wanted to hear. He could not take it back. But he did stoop to her and take her in his big arms for a little-boy hug.
Father came in then and they lighted the lamp and tried to talk a little about what Neale was going to do to earn his living when he graduated. They had often tried to talk of that. But they never got very far, and no farther this time than any other. Neale had no ideas on the subject, and being Neale, he would not imaginatively play up to what was expected of him, and say he had. No, he did not feel that he would like to be a doctor. No, certainly not a lawyer! He wouldn't mind engineering, but the old grads in his Frat. who were engineers seemed to have a way of turning up, out of a job every once in so often. He didn't think much of a profession where you were so entirely at the mercy of people with money. It was too much like being a turtle that had to wait for somebody to turn it over before it could go on its way. Father looked at him rather queerly and remarked that he'd find it difficult to get any work in the modern world, where he wouldn't be at the mercy of people with money.
Neale said, he thought very pertinently, "Grandfather never has been."
Father looked as though he considered this mere arguing for the sake of arguing, and said something drily, looking around at the plain, old countrified room, about Neale's not being willing to live as his grandfather had, two generations ago.
The upshot of the talk was, as it always was, that they agreed once more to let things run on and perhaps something would turn up.
The next morning Father and Mother went back to New York, to finish the preparations for their adventure. Mother cried a little when she kissed Neale good-by, but Grandmother kissed her son without a quiver, though she clung to Grandfather's arm. She and Grandfather and Neale and old Si and Jennie stood in the front yard looking after the carriage. It was almost like seeing a newly married pair go off after the wedding. Neale's mother kept turning to look back at them, her April face like a bride's, colored through tears by excitement and anticipation. Neale stood up, taller than his tall old grandfather now, broad, massive, his tanned face like a man's. But, to his amazement, there awoke in his heart for the last time, a little boy, a little boy who was frightened and grieved at being left alone.
Half-way down the hill, the carriage stopped and they saw Neale's mother spring out and run back up the hill, beckoning to Neale.
"Forgot something," conjectured Grandfather.
Neale bounded down towards her. They met half-way between the carriage and the house. Mother's face was still wet with her tears but she was not crying now. A glory was on her tremulous face. Neale never forgot how she looked at that moment.