Della had a little way of appearing to listen while her brother expounded on any of his favorite subjects. It had grown to be a habit with her, and she had a way of answering absently, “Yes, dear, I’m quite sure of it,” which always satisfied him that he had her attention. But now, she sat looking out the window and thinking, a perplexed expression on her face.
It had not altogether been her desire that the coming child should be a boy, although not one word had she breathed of this to Dean Peabody. The determination to take one of the Craig children had been a sudden one. The Dean had been reading somebody’s theory about the obligations of age to youth.
“Della, my dear,” he had remarked one evening, as the two sat quietly in the old library, “we have been leading very narrow, selfish lives, and we will suffer for it as we grow older. We have shut ourselves away from youth. I am seventy-four now, and what heritage am I leaving to the world beyond a few books of reference, and my collections? What I should do is to take some child, still in the impressionable stage, and impart to it all I know.”
Della glanced up with a little amused twinkle in her eyes. “But, Bart, what about the child? Surely you would require an exceptional child for such an experiment. One who would have the mentality to grasp all that you were trying to impart to it.”
The Dean thought this over, pursing his lips and tapping his knuckles with his rimless glasses. “Possibly,” he granted, “and yet, Della, surely there would be far more credit attached to planting the seed of knowledge where it needed much cultivating. It has surprised and amazed me up at the college to find that usually the children who appreciate an education are the farmer boys, and very often the foreign element.”
Della rocked to and fro gently. She knew her brother well enough to understand that this had become a fixed idea with him, and the easiest way out was to find him an impressionable child. And then, it happened that she thought of Thomas Craig, their nephew, and all his children. She remembered having one letter after the breaking up of the home on Long Island.
“You know what I think, Bart,” began Della in the bright, abrupt way she had, “I think it would be the right thing if we took one of the Craig children. There are four or five of them—”
“Boys or girls?” interrupted the Dean.
“Well, now I’m not quite sure, but if my memory serves me, I think there’s a boy among them. I know the eldest one is a girl. They’re all of them over ten, I’m sure. Why don’t you just write to Thomas and make known your willingness? I am sure they would take it in the spirit in which it was offered.”
So this was how it happened that the Dean’s letter went forth to Elmhurst, and produced the hour when Kit stood on the platform of the Union Station in Chicago, looking around her to discover anyone who might appear to be seeking a small boy.