"And that's the reason." Ben threw his head back and took his hands out of his pockets to clench them together hard. "It would be mean as—mean as anything to let Grandpapa do anything more for me, and—"
"There's where you are wrong, Ben," cried his mother, eagerly, and guilty of interrupting, "it is Mr. King's dearest wish to provide an education for you children; you can pay him back afterward. I have accepted for the others; why not for you?"
"Because,—look at Polly. Oh, mother, think what Polly can do with her music!" His whole face was working now, and his eyes shone.
"I know it," cried Mrs. Fisher, proudly. "Polly will be able to pay him back, there is no doubt about that."
"But I'm different," added Ben, quickly, "such a dull, plodding fellow. Oh, Mamsie, what would a college education amount to for me? I'm best to buckle right down to business."
"Ben, Ben!" Mother Fisher's tone was quite reproachful now, and she seized his hand and covered it with her two strong ones. "Any one can accomplish what he sets out to. You can amount to whatever you put your mind on; and you deserve a college education if ever a boy did." She broke down now and was sobbing on his shoulder.
Ben didn't say anything, this being quite beyond him, to see his mother cry. But he patted the smooth black hair with an unsteady hand.
"To think of your giving up your chance," at last Mrs. Fisher said brokenly; "it isn't right, Ben. Can't you see you ought not to do it?"
"But it is right," said Ben, sturdily recovering himself when he saw that his mother could really talk about it. "I'm to be a business man, and I'm going to begin at the very bottom, as an errand boy, or an office boy, and work up." Here he straightened his square shoulders as if already pretty near the top of things.
"Ah, Ben, my boy," Mrs. Fisher raised her head to look at him, "all you can get in the way of education helps you on just so much."