"Seems to me," said Clint, "it's your step-mother's duty to look after you and pay for your schooling. It's your father's money she's using, isn't it?"
"Yes, but there's not a great deal of it, I suppose. I never knew how much he did leave. And ma's fond of nice things and it costs a good deal to live, I guess. Oh, if I can get that scholarship I'll be all right. You see, though, don't you, why I didn't want to scrap with Dreer? It might have just queered everything for me."
"Yes, I see," asserted Clint. "You did the right thing. You'd have been mighty silly to risk it, Durkin. What about playing? You--you play pretty well, don't you? Couldn't you make any money that way?"
"No." Penny shook his head. "I don't play well enough. You see, I've kept thinking that some day I'd be able to get instruction, but I never have yet; except a few lessons a fellow in Parkerstown gave me one Summer. I just scrape; that's all."
"I've always thought," fibbed Clint stoutly, "that you played finely!"
"I've always thought I could if I'd had instruction," replied Penny wistfully. "I sort of love it. Maybe some day--" His voice dwindled into silence, and for several minutes the two boys, each busy with their separate thoughts, stared through the bare branches up to the blue afternoon sky. They were aroused from their dreaming by the sound of voices and rustling of leaves under the feet of the speakers. Clint, peering around, saw Harmon Dreer, and another boy whom he didn't know by sight, climbing the slope toward them.
CHAPTER XXII
DREER LOOKS ON
"There's Dreer now," said Clint softly.