[CHAPTER XIV]
TOM SWIMS IN THE OCEAN AND DIPS INTO POETRY
They were sitting on the big broad veranda of the hotel reading their letters. It was eleven o’clock of an ideal September day, and the guests, of whom there were many left despite the fact that the season was almost at its close, were strolling or lounging in the sunlight and making the most of what was likely to be summer’s last appearance. Beyond the road and the broad crescent of dazzling white beach lay Great South Bay blue and tranquil, the points of the little waves touched with gold. Three miles away, a line of gleaming yellow dunes, Fire Island stretched athwart the horizon.
The boys had donned clean clothes and, in their Sunday attire, looked quite respectable. After breakfast they had inquired the way to the post office and had reached it just in time to get their mail before it closed. Then, having purchased Sunday papers, they returned to the hotel veranda and settled down to read. Presently Nelson glanced up from the letter in his hand.
“Look here, fellows, this doesn’t sound very promising, does it?”
“What’s that?” asked Bob, looking up from his own epistle.
“Why, it’s a letter from dad. You know I wrote him about Jerry, and here’s what he says. Let me see.... Oh!... ‘Now, about that protégé you tell of. The matter of seventy-five or a hundred dollars doesn’t scare me, Nelson, but do you think your plan is feasible? Three hundred would probably carry the boy through one year at school, supposing he was able to pass the examinations, but what’s going to happen the next year? Of course he might get a scholarship to help him along, and it’s possible he might make some money doing some sort of work in the village, but he couldn’t count on these things. We might do the boy more harm than good, it seems to me. Presumably he is fairly content with his present lot, and it is a question in my mind whether it would not be advisable to let him go his own gait. If it was certain that he would not have to give up after a year or two and return to the farm and the life he is leading now, it would be different. But I don’t suppose the fathers of your friends would care to undertake to provide for him for the next four years. Certainly a good deal depends on the boy. You’ve seen him and I haven’t. Perhaps he’s got it in him to get the better of difficulties and work out his own salvation after the first year or two. That would make a difference. Supposing you think this over and let me hear from you again. Or we might talk it over after you return. And let me know what the other gentlemen say. Mind, this isn’t a refusal, and I shall be glad to donate a hundred or two if I can be sure that it is going to accomplish some good; but I don’t think it wise to go into anything of this sort without looking over it pretty thoroughly. There is a great deal of harm done by ill-advised charity.’”
“That’s just about what my father says,” said Tom.
“You’d almost think they’d got together and talked it over,” said Dan ruefully. “My dad gives me just about the same song and dance. How about yours, Bob?”