THE MEETING
"I don't know, mother," he said slowly, "I don't know...."
They were walking up the path. Will looked down at her. The tears were forming in the little mother's eyes. He looked away again. "I don't know, mother," he said, slowly, "I don't know why I didn't take better care of myself."
"There, don't talk. You must rest after your long journey. Keep still now. You can tell me all about everything later on." They opened the screen door and went in.
Even Mr. Young had been alarmed when he saw his son step off the train. At least he treated him very considerately and said, as he shook his hand: "I guess you've been studying too hard there at school, ain't you? 'All work and no play'—you know the rest of it."
Will dropped his eyes as he thought of the kind of playing he had been doing. Then he said, abruptly: "Well, I'll have plenty of time to get well in," looked up the street and remarked that everything seemed the same.
"Yes, everything's the same with us," his father replied, unhitching the horse.
"Hello, Molly," Will said to the mare, "do you remember me?"
He was embarrassed in his father's presence, and Mr. Young seemed to notice it, for as they got into the buggy he said, in an uneasy manner: "Mother got your telegram, but I had to come to town anyway, so I thought I might just as well drive you out home myself. Had a pleasant trip?"
Indeed, his father, who had never once written him a letter during the nine months' absence, was the last one Will expected to meet at the station, but that was not what caused Will's constraint. It was the queer searching way he looked at him every now and then.
"Could he have heard about it!" Will kept asking himself. "No, he can't know. If he knew—if he knew, he would be taking me to jail instead of home. He would say it served me right for going against his wishes."