Crippy was also happy on that day, if food could make him so, and it is safe to say that, if he survives the wonderfully big dinner Dan proposes to give him this year, he will live to a green old age.
HIS THREE TRIALS.
I.
AS CARPENTER AND CHEMIST.
For three years Hal had been trying to decide what should be his business in life; and now at the age of fifteen, and in his last school year, he was as far as ever from any fixed plan. A profession, he argued, required too much study; a trade meant ten hours a day of hard labor; he was too old for an office-boy; and he had no capital to put into business. Well, if he could only even find out now for what he was fitted, it would save time in the end.
"How do people ever sit still and think!" he exclaimed aloud. "I'll go over and consult Ned."
Ned was two years his senior. He had started in life with the idea of being a doctor, and had kept to it. Consequently he had little sympathy with Hal's vagaries, and often chided him for his lack of definite purpose. But as Hal's well-known war-whoop sounded under the window, he came out on his steps.
"What's up?" he asked. "You look as black as a thunder cloud."
"Father says I've got to make up my mind what to do, and that if I don't he'll do it for me," answered Hal laconically, "and that might not suit, you know."