“Oh, just because I want to go to West Point, and become an army officer, doesn’t mean there’ll be war, Mother. In fact, war is ceasing to be the custom. But the best way not to have a war, is to be in the finest possible shape to meet it if it does come.”
“I can’t bear to think of it, Tom. The shooting—the killing! Oh, it’s terrible!”
“But the United States Army does a lot of things besides shooting and killing,” Tom said. “Look at the officers and men—see what they’ve done in the Panama Canal zone. Why, in spite of the fact that they’re trained in the arts of war, they have, of late, been using their special knowledge in the interests of peace. I certainly would give anything for the chance to go to West Point. But there! No use thinking about it!”
Tom seemed to blow the matter away as though it were some trifle, light as air, and he assumed a manner of indifference that he did not altogether feel.
“Come on, Mother,” he begged, tossing the money into her lap through the open window. “Take a half-hour off. You’ll be all the better for it. You haven’t been eating well lately. A walk to the woods will give you an appetite.”
“I believe I will go with you, Tom,” she said, with sudden decision. “I can finish this dress after supper, but it must be delivered, and——”
“I’ll take it over,” said the lad. “I haven’t many lessons to-night.”
A little later mother and son were walking across the field that lay between their cottage and a little patch of wood in the cool and shady depths of which they were wont often to stroll.
Mrs. Taylor was the widow of Charles Taylor, who was once well-to-do. He had lost his fortune in unfortunate speculation, however, and the shock and disappointment of this, coupled with a not too strong constitution, caused his death when Tom was about twelve years old.
From the wreck of her husband’s estate Mrs. Taylor received a small income, and she and Tom, moving from the well-appointed house in the best residential section of the small city of Chester, took up their abode in a small cottage, once owned by Mr. Taylor, but now mortgaged to a Mr. Aaron Doolittle, who had, in some unexplained manner, become possessed of much of Mr. Taylor’s former property.