"I should have been pretty badly off now if it hadn't been for that coloured man," returned Eben, with more impatience than he had showed hitherto. "What would have become of me if Jeduthun hadn't come in and taken my part as he did?"
"I wish you wouldn't be always going back to that time, Eben Fairchild," said his mother. "I don't see, for my part, what pleasure you find in it. I am sure Mr. Fairchild and I have always treated you exactly as if you were our own, and tried to have you feel so, and yet you are always bringing up the time when you lived with your uncle. I don't see how you can."
"Oh dear!" said Flora, under her breath.
"I am sure I never forget what you and pa have done for me," replied Eben, recovering his good humour, "but you know you would never have known anything about me, only for Jeduthun."
"That's true," said Mrs. Fairchild, "and you always have been a great comfort to us, Eben, I will say that, and Mr. Fairchild said the same, the very day he died, to Mr. Willson. 'Eben has always been a comfort to us from the day we took him in,' says he, 'and he is an uncommonly persevering boy,' says he, 'and the most faithful boy to do what he undertakes. I have always meant that Eben should have a good education.' Those were your dear pa's very words, and I know he wouldn't like you to go to work in the mill under Jeduthun Cooke, though I don't deny that he thought a great deal of Jeduthun, and so do I, a great deal, but, after all, it doesn't seem just the thing for you to be working under him."
"But, ma, just look here," said Eben, sitting down to the table; "don't you see how it is? To go to college I must go to school at least two years longer, and have all my time to study. Then, I couldn't get through college for less than two hundred and fifty dollars a year, at the least calculation. Four times that is one thousand dollars. Pa left us, after the farm and stock were disposed of, just this little house and garden, and a thousand dollars. That is the amount of our property. Now, how is a college education to come out of that?"
"Well, Flora has got her sewing machine. To be sure, it isn't all paid for, but then it will be pretty soon, and then all she makes will be clear gain, and there is the cow!"
"Flora wants all she can earn for herself and you," said Eben. "I shouldn't feel right to be living on her."
"Oh, well, manage it your own way," said Mrs. Fairchild. "I dare say you children think you know best, though Mr. Fairchild always said I had a good mind. Oh, if he had only taken my advice as to signing those notes! But he never said one word to me about it, till the last minute. You must manage it your own way; only I am sorry, when your father's head was so set on your having an education, and I am sure it might be managed somehow."
"There is Mrs. Brown coming in, mother," said Eben. "Hadn't you better take her into the front room? It is warm there, and the machine makes such a noise."