CHAPTER XVII
A QUARREL
“Oh, Tom! How fine you look! How tall and straight you are! What a—why, what a man you have become!”
Thus our hero’s mother greeted him as she met him at the Chester station on the occasion of Tom’s first home-coming.
“Tom, you are so—so big!”
Her eyes were shining, as only a mother’s eyes can shine, while she held out her hands to welcome her son.
“Well, Mother,” Tom said, as he kissed her, “West Point makes a specialty of helping boys grow up. I hope they didn’t make any mistake in my case.”
“I’m sure they didn’t!” she said. “You certainly are taller and straighter.”
“It’s a pity if I shouldn’t be, mother, with all the bracing-back I’ve been doing in the last two years. For a time I thought I wouldn’t have anything but shoulders, but I’m getting used to it now. How are you, and what’s the news?”
“As if I could tell you all the news of two years in a moment!” she objected.
“Well, tell me about yourself. Are you getting along all right?”