“I can never watch for ’em no more,” he said, with a hard, tearless sob.
Presently he stood out on the floor and shook his nightshirt about his feet; he dressed quickly, and did not even wash his face as he was wont to do.
“’Tain’t no use for the likes of me to try,” he said bitterly.
Then he went to his brother’s drawer and stole the bundle of cigarettes he found there, and went out and smoked under the railway bridge till his body was as sick as his heart.
A SQUARE PEG
“I told him plainly beforehand that if he did not get a scholarship this term he must go into business. He has not won a scholarship, and, situated as you are, any other course would be absurd.”
Uncle Henry shut his mouth with a snap, while he stared fixedly over his sister’s head that he might not see the pleading in her eyes as she said timidly:
“But fourteen is so young, Henry, and Rodney is so small for his age——”
“I fail to see that his size has anything to do with it; and you, Felicia, must learn to face things as they are, not as you would have them. If you defer for one moment the chance of Rodney’s making his own living, you are doing an injustice both to him and to his sisters. Pardon my plain speaking, but he is the son of an exceedingly poor widow and must be dealt with accordingly.”
Through the open windows came the sound of a boy’s laughter and the ring of a smartly struck cricket ball. Uncle Henry waved his hand in the direction of the sound, saying: