Lavender flushed. “Sometime, I s’pose. But not here. Mr. Dugald understands how it is and he’s helped me. And he says I know more than the other fellows in the grade I’d be in if I had kept on going. He sends me books all winter long and Miss Letty hears me and she got some examination papers from the teachers at school and I tried them and gee, they were a cinch. Only don’t tell anyone—Mart, anyway,” he admonished, in sudden alarm. “It’s a secret between me and Mr. Dugald and Miss Letty. Let ’em think I’m a loafer.”
The sullen look that had made Lavender’s face so ugly disappeared under Sidney’s understanding. And she in turn forgot her own sorrow in her joy of Lavender’s confidences. Now the golden sun and the dancing water gladdened her and lifted her spirit; all was well in the world.
“I won’t tell a soul—not a soul, Lav. Oh—” gasping, “is that what you and Mr. Dugald do when you go off like you did yesterday?”
Lavender nodded with a sheepish grin. “Yep, that’s our school.”
“Oh, what fun! To study like that. I’d learn a lot, too. Mart and I were dreadfully curious and Mart said she knew that Mr. Dugald was painting you and didn’t want to do it where anyone might see you on account of—” Poor Sidney stopped, abruptly in sorry confusion.
“Oh, that’s all right! I don’t care what you say because you don’t feel sorry for me. That’s why I like to have you ’round. You think I can do something. Sidney, Mr. Dugald says there was a man who was an electrical wizard and knew everything and what he didn’t know he worked over until he found out and he—he—was—like me—only worse. I’ll work—gee, how I’ll work—if I get a chance—” Lavender clenched his long fingers together and his dark eyes glared fiercely. “I’d cut and run now from here—if it wasn’t for Aunt Achsa.”
“Oh, yes,—Aunt Achsa.” That brought Sidney sharply back to her own troubles.
“She’s been awful good to me and I can’t leave her now even though I don’t do much. Mr. Dugald says that just now my job’s right here and I must show folks that my back can carry its job even if it is—”
“Don’t, Lav—” cried Sidney, near to the pity that Lavender despised, but he was too engrossed in his own feelings to notice it.
“Of course you can’t leave Aunt Achsa. Lav, I feel so cheap and—and—horrid. I was very rude to Aunt Achsa yesterday and hurt her feelings which was ungrateful of me after her letting me come and doing everything here to make me happy. It was about my hair. I—I—oh, I won’t even repeat what I said—it was so silly. And that’s really why I must go home. Trude didn’t exactly tell me I had to go—she just said perhaps I ought to go and that I must decide. But of course I know now—after yesterday—Aunt Achsa would not want me to stay—”