Jabez troubled no one by his frequent comings and goings, for which his studies, to which he had returned with quiet determination, made reason sufficient. He had had a talk with his grandfather about this in the beginning of the winter. He was going to college—that was certain. No, he did not quite know what was to come after. He “was going to be President of the United States maybe,” he said gravely; and at any rate he was going to make himself fit for it.
His grandfather was by no means convinced of the wisdom of the boy’s resolution—indeed, he “worried about it considerable,” as Mrs Ainsworth had occasion to know. He could not refuse to let him attend the winter school, though he had told him it would pay him better to be splitting reeds in Weir’s swamp than in going to a woman’s school—and “only a girl at that,” said the deacon, with good-humoured contempt.
Since his illness Jabez had been allowed to do as he pleased, but his grandfather worried about him still. Few boys had a better chance than Jabez had. There was the farm—not a large one, but as good land as any in Halsey—which might be his as soon as ever the old folks were gone. It might be his now as far as management and profits were concerned. All the old folks would want was a home there while they lived. Jabez did not know his privileges—and so on.
“You go and talk with the doctor about it, and with Miss Eunice,” said his wife, a little weary of the constant theme. So the deacon “freed his mind” to Miss Eunice, making a grievance of his idea that she and Fidelia encouraged Jabez in his determination to turn his back on the old place.
“Not directly, may be,” said he, qualifying his words after a glance at Fidelia’s face. “But you set so much by books, and a chance of getting an education, and all that—nothing else seems to count, and Jabez has always thought so much of you both. Well, I am not blaming you. But when a boy like Jabez begins to talk of going to college and being President of the United States, there does not seem to be much hope of him.”
“Why not?” said Fidelia, throwing down the gauntlet, or, rather taking it up. “All the Presidents of the United States were boys once, and a good many of them were just such boys as Jabez—farmers’ boys or poor men’s sons who had to push their own way.”
“But that is just what Jabez needn’t do. I am not rich, but neither am I so poor that there need be any hardship in getting along right here in Halsey. The fact is, he is a sight too ambitious. He thinks all he’s got to do is to go to college and come out again, and things will fix themselves to suit him. But he’ll fail as like as not; and then where will he be?”
“He can come home then to the farm,” said Fidelia, laughing. “But he is not going to fail.”
“Deacon Ainsworth,” said Miss Eunice gently, “I am sorry you feel so about Jabez. I know it will be a trouble to you if he should go.”