“Maybe I don’t want to.”
Something in Ernest’s tone made Jane glance up in surprise.
“Don’t want to? Why, you’ve been daffy about it–you haven’t thought about anything else for a year!”
“That’s so, too, but I guess I can change my mind, can’t I?”
Ernest lounged on the edge of the table and looked at his sister teasingly.
He was almost six feet tall, slim and muscular, with the unruly lock of hair sticking up in defiance of all brushing as of old, and a skin that was still girlishly smooth though he shaved religiously every Sunday morning to the family’s secret amusement. The results of this rite were painfully meager. Both Chicken Little and Frank chaffed 39him unmercifully about it. Jane loved to pass her hands over his chin and shriek fiendishly:
“Ernest, I believe I felt one. I think–really, I think you’ll cut ’em by Christmas!” A lively race usually followed this insult.
Frank was even meaner. He came into Ernest’s room one morning while he was shaving and gravely pretending to pick up a hog’s stiff bristle from the carpet, held it out to him.
“Why Ernest, you’re really growing quite a beard!”
But Ernest was a man in many ways if he had but little need of a razor. Seeing other boys so seldom and being thrown so much with men had made him rather old for his years and more than ordinarily capable and self-reliant. He loved horses and was clever in managing them, breaking in many a colt that had tried the patience and courage of his elders. But his day dream for the past twelve months had been college. He had confided all his hopes and fears to Chicken Little. The love between the two was very tender, the more so that they had so few companions of their own ages.