“I’ll have to start away back,” said David. “My father was an army officer—a captain in the Air Corps. He went through the war without a scratch until the day before the Armistice. There was a big raid, and—well, dad crashed. Shot down. He had nothing but his pay, and only ten thousand dollars war risk insurance. We were in Washington when it happened. Mother took us back to Denver, where she had some relatives, and invested the insurance money in a little business. She has a shop where she sells things for women—a Specialty Shop, they call it. She makes enough to keep herself and the girls and give me just a little help once in a while. I don’t know when I haven’t worked at something to help pay my way and, as you know, I’ve been lucky enough to meet all my own expenses here.”
David chuckled as his memory took him back over the past four years. What hadn’t he tackled! Band man, coach, bookkeeper, tutor, telephone operator, handy man around the house—anything and everything. He had made his tuition and clothes, and hadn’t cost his mother a cent. Of course, he had worked summers too, but he had always found a job near home so he could be near the family.
“Now as you know,” he continued, “I was all set for college, with jobs enough cinched to get me through all right, especially as I was to share your quarters, but I have just found out that the girls have given up their plans for college, so that I can go! I had a letter from my little sister, and she spilled the beans. Poor kid, she didn’t know it! I’m going to work; going to earn real money. There’s a wholesale grocer in Denver who will give me a job, I think.”
“But the big balloons, David; what about them?”
“They will have to fly without yours truly. Gosh! Well, I can always read about ’em; that will be some comfort. And it takes quite a knack to count bags of sugar.” He smiled wryly.
“Well, we are all darned sorry,” said the tall boy. “Guess you know that, Dave, without our blubbering.”
David got up.
“Yes, I know it. But I’ve got to face hard facts. Don’t think I’m squealing. Honest, I’m glad to do it, even if it is disappointing.” He squared his shoulders. “Well,” he said reluctantly, “I’d better go by-by now; my train leaves at six-thirty. I’ll stick my head in your rooms on my way off. So long!”
An hour later, sitting by his open window, David listened to the strains of the band over in the gymnasium and watched the stars. He had the feeling that he was swinging in a void. Every task and duty connected with the school was finished. He had just jumped on his trunk and locked it. It was ready to be dragged out into the hall for the expressman to take at dawn. Another boy was filling his place in the band. Football, basketball, tennis—they were all dreams, never to touch reality again, even when he should look at the team photographs cherished between stiff cardboards in his trunk.
A small apologetic rap sounded on his door. No one ever knocked in the natural course of events. Surprised, David opened it, snapping on the light as he did so. The three boys stood there, leaning heavily on one another’s shoulders.