"Thank you, sir. Does the note need an answer?"
"No; it is only to ask him to meet me at the train to-night."
"And, Eben, don't go to a saloon or any such place to get your dinner," added Mr. Antis. "Go to the hotel or to Williams's. There! Good-bye, and have a nice time while you are here. You have saved me a great deal of trouble."
"That boy seems to have a good deal in him," remarked Dr. Henry as the train moved on.
"Indeed he has!" replied Mr. Antis. "You touched his heart when you spoke of his studying medicine."
"So I saw. What is there about it?" Mr. Antis went over the particulars of Eben's history. Dr. Henry listened with great interest, and asked a good many questions.
"It's all nonsense about his going through college," said he when Mr. Antis finished. "Colleges don't make doctors. If he has got it in him, he had better go to work and study medicine directly. Not that any amount of college learning would do him any hurt, of course, if he had time for it, but he has neither time nor money, it seems."
"No, there's the rub. He has get to earn his own living, and he wants to help his family; though, since the old lady has taken to going out nursing, I fancy they do very well."
"Is he a steady boy?" was Dr. Henry's next question. "Does he do what he undertakes, or does he work a little while at a thing and then get tired of it?"
"He does what he undertakes, if it can possibly be done," replied Mr. Antis. "He is not so quick as some, but he is the most perfectly faithful boy I ever saw in my life. If I tell him to attend to anything, I am sure to find it done, if it is a week afterwards. I believe he worked a week at that hen's skeleton, but he seemed to get it all right at last."