“Sixteen in September.” He hung his head, as if ashamed of his advanced years. And at Peggy’s laugh, his face flushed hotly.
“The reason that sounds so funny,” Peggy explained, “is because I was thinking of a friend of my father’s. He’s a college professor, and sometimes he comes to visit us in his vacation. He was twenty when he first learned to read and write. How’s that for a late start? And see where he’s got to!”
Jerry leaned toward her confidentially. “It’s this way,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind going to school if it ’twasn’t for ringing in with a lot of kids. I couldn’t stand that, you know.” He looked at Peggy, expectant of her ready sympathy. But to his surprise, her lip had curled slightly. “Oh, of course,” she said, “if you’re afraid–”
“Afraid!” Jerry flung back his head. “Me! I’m not afraid of nothing. Did I ever show you the rattle I got off that big snake I killed? That doesn’t look much as if I was easy scared.”
“I didn’t know,” returned Peggy, quite unmoved, “but that you might be afraid of being made fun of.”
Jerry had nothing to say. Peggy proceeded to occupy the interval of silence.
“A boy graduated at one of our high schools a year ago, who had plenty of pluck, I thought. He came from Russia, a Jew, you know, and when he got here he couldn’t speak a word of English. He was fourteen then, and they started him in the first grade. That was the only thing to do, I suppose. Well, it really was a funny sight to see him going into school with those first-grade tots. He was a big boy for his age, and he had to curl himself up to sit at one of those tiny desks, so he must have been awfully uncomfortable. And, of course, it looked queer. If he’d been a cowardly sort of boy,” observed Peggy significantly, “I suppose he would have given up.”
Jerry made no comment, unless an uneasy movement might have been interpreted as such.
“But he didn’t give up, and after a few months he was promoted to the second grade. And it took him even less time to get into the third. And then it got so that we’d ask every morning what grade David had been promoted to. Instead of laughing at him, everybody was proud of him.”
Still no comment on Jerry’s part.