He had a pretty good time as a boy, Kenneth thought, when he stayed in bed till breakfast was ready on cold winter mornings, while he, Kenneth, was up before light, helping his father with the fires and chores, and sometimes hanging out the Monday’s washing for his mother, when the wind was so sharp as to penetrate through her mittens and the thick hood upon her head. Kenneth was decidedly a mother’s boy, an unselfish, helpful boy, doing for every one whatever his hands found to do, and never dreaming that any necessary labor was beneath him. Every dumb beast on the place, from Sorrel, the horse, and the big rooster who ruled the hen-yard, down to the lambs feeding in the sheep pasture, knew him and came at his call as readily as the watch dog, Chance, or the house cat, Fan, with her family of six kittens just opening their eyes, and six more gambolling about the premises and getting their daily rations from the trough Kenneth had scooped out from a log, and into which, morning and night, he always poured a part of old Limeback’s milk. She was the cow set apart for the cats, and Kenneth saw that they had their rights religiously, and bore meekly Harry’s jeers at what he called Ken’s soft-heartedness for dogs and cats and animals generally. Sometime he meant to have a blooded horse and put him on the racecourse with large bets behind him, but as for farm animals, they were like country people, and he hated them, and the only serious quarrel he and Kenneth ever had was when he tied two kittens together by their hind legs and then set a rat terrier belonging to a neighbor to worry them. The dog was dealt a blow with a hoe which sent him yelping home, the little cats were untied, and then Harry had a thrashing such as he never forgot. His lip was cut and swollen, his eyes black for a week, but he bore no malice against Kenneth for the castigation. On the contrary, he rather respected him for it.
“Upon my word, I didn’t s’pose you had so much grit, or could strike so hard; there’s some strength in your big, rough hands. I b’lieve you’ll be a prize fighter yet,” he said good-naturedly, when Kenneth tried to apologize, saying he must have hit harder than he meant to, he was so mad. “Never mind, Ken, I deserved to have my eyes and teeth knocked out. I’m a kind of blackguard anyway,” he added, while the two boys shook hands, and Harry never again tried the experiment of tieing cats together and setting the dog upon them.
He was a very handsome boy, with soft dark eyes and a winsome smile and white hands, which never did any harder work than to run the mower over the lawn, tie up a rose bush or shell peas for his aunt when she was in a hurry. For the rest of the time, when not in school, he read novels mostly, or books of travel and adventure. He had a boat on the pond which he named “Ken” for his cousin, who rarely found time to go out in it, so busy was he with the many duties devolving upon him as a farmer’s son.
Kenneth liked books for the books’ sake, and unlike Harry, was always glad when school commenced and sorry when it ended. Some day he meant to go to the Academy in Millville, and perhaps to the dancing-school opened there every winter, and learn some of the manners which were natural to Harry; then, if he worked hard and saved a great deal, he might possibly go to college, and afterwards study medicine with Dr. Catherin, the famous physician at Rocky Point. It surely must be a grand thing to alleviate pain, only he could never bear to lose a patient and witness the grief of friends. That would be dreadful and unnerve him for days, he thought. Kenneth was very sympathetic, and showed it in every act. Weak as water, Harry said, and laughed when he cried because old blind Roan, who had been in the family for years, broke his legs and had to be shot. He did not look very weak with his broad shoulders and chest and sinewy arms, which could handle Harry as if he were a child.
“Wait till I have been through all the athletic sports in college; then see if I can’t lick you,” Harry said, when a boy of fifteen, he was about to start for Andover, where he was to begin his preparatory course for college and the sports which would enable him to lick his cousin, Kenneth.
His fortune was sufficient to give him Andover and college, for neither of which he cared a straw except as they might advance him in the career he had marked out for himself in the future.
“No more rough farming for me,” he said, on the morning when he was leaving for Andover, forgetting that he had never so much as hoed a row of potatoes or weeded a garden bed, let alone what he called rough farming. “I am going to have a good time after I am through college, and perhaps shall fix up the old house and spend a few weeks there in the summer with some high bloods, whose acquaintance I shall make. That will be a tony thing to do. Or, I may bring a wife there for the summer,—a rich one, if I have any; none of your poor country girls for me. I leave them to you. Maybe I shall fancy that Connie, What’s-her-name?—your father’s ward, you know. How much do you s’pose she’s worth?”
He was sitting on the kitchen table, swinging his legs back and forth and watching Kenneth strapping his trunk by the door, and paying very little attention to him until Connie What’s-her-name was mentioned. Then Kenneth looked up quickly, and said: “Do you mean Connie Elliott? Why, she’s only a little girl, five or six years old, and you are nearly fifteen.”
“Phoo! Nine years’ difference is nothing if you fancy the girl and she has the ready,” Harry replied. “Father was ten years older than mother. It’s the thing to do. But, halloo, there’s Sorrel and the buggy. I s’pose it’s time to go. Good-by, Ken. You are a good sort of fellow after all, and I shall miss you awfully. Good-by, Aunt Mary. You have always been nice to me. I’m sorry I have not been a better boy, more like Ken. Good-by.”
There were tears in his dark eyes as he kissed his Aunt Mary and shook hands with Kenneth, both of whom, under the spell he cast over them, would have forgiven far more than they had to forgive in the handsome boy, who, as long as they could see him, stood up in the buggy and waved his hat and hands to them as they stood watching him in the door, and thinking, not of his faults, but how lonely they should he without him. In Kenneth’s heart there was no feeling of envy. It had always seemed right that the good things should come to Harry and the bad things, if there were any, should come to himself. This arose partly from his unselfishness, and partly because Harry claimed everything as his right. Kenneth would have liked Andover, but as it did not seem within his reach, he was content with the Millville Academy, where he soon became the most popular boy, as well as the first in his class. At the dancing-school, which he attended every Saturday afternoon, he did not succeed quite as well. His movements were a little clumsy, but he learned many things which he had heard Harry say were essential to the manners of a gentleman, and felt himself quite accomplished, though of course not equal to Hal, who always seemed to know the right thing to say and do.