“And in June you’re all through college?” asked Margaret. “Are you sorry?”
“Yes, I think so. I’m glad that I’m through with it and sorry I’ve got to go away. One gets to know so many good fellows, and grows to like Cambridge so well that he rather hates to pack up for good. My roommate—his name’s Meadowcamp; perhaps Phil has spoken of him? After he finished last year he began a graduate course. I’ve always told him that it was because he was too lazy to move away. But now, just lately, I’ve begun to think that it was chiefly because Davy hated to leave college; a fellow gets so used to it all in the four years. I know that I shall feel rather lost and out of it when September comes and I find I’m not back in Cambridge.” He paused and looked thoughtfully across the lawn. “Davy—Meadowcamp, you know—wants me to take a graduate course, and I’m almost tempted to do it. But—well, there would be little use in it. It isn’t as though I was preparing myself for something definite, you see. I suppose I could study law. That’s a good excuse for staying there; but I haven’t the slightest desire to become a lawyer. I’d never win a case, I know.”
“What are you going to be?” Margaret asked. John smiled, then frowned and gave a shrug.
“That’s the question,” he answered. “My father would like me to take hold of his business with him. He makes wire nails in an immense ugly brick building that covers acres of ground in Worcester. Perhaps I shall. I don’t like it, though. Besides, my father isn’t really as keen about it as he used to be. A few years ago he owned the whole thing himself and thought of nothing else but wire nails—almost lived in his office and just about ruined his health; he’s been abroad now for three years as a result. Then the trust came along and gobbled up the factory. Father’s vice-president of the trust now and makes much more money than he used to; but he isn’t specially happy and he has rather lost interest. It isn’t the same as being the whole thing yourself, you see, Miss Ryerson. And I don’t believe he’d feel very badly if I balked at wire nails.”
“But what do you want to be?” Margaret leaned forward, her chin in her hand, and observed him curiously.
“I don’t know,” replied John vexedly. “I wish I did. I’ve often wished that we had just enough money to live on quietly; then, I guess, I’d have to be something, and I should probably know what. Just now it looks as though I should be a loafer. Do you like loafers, Miss Ryerson?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Then I shan’t be one,” he said, smilingly. “I——” He stopped and studied his hands for a moment. “When I said I don’t know what I want to be I wasn’t quite telling the truth. I do know what I want to be and what I want to do. Only it seems so idiotic that I’m rather ashamed to tell you.” He looked up for encouragement and found it in the little grave smile she gave.
“Well, since I came down here and have seen this country, and seen the jolly, quiet, healthful sort of life you Virginians lead, I—I’ve wanted to come here, too, and live among these hills and fields. I’d like to buy land here and farm it, and ride and hunt and shoot now and then, and wear out my old clothes, and live quietly and contentedly and respectably all my life and die of gout at a good old age.”
Margaret laughed quietly and shook her head. “I’m glad you like our country and the way we live,” she said gravely, “but I don’t think it would do for you. You’d like it well enough at first, I don’t doubt; but then you’d get tired of our humdrum life and tired of farming, and you’d long to get back to the world you know. Besides, there’s more in farming than appears on the surface, Mr. North, and I fear you couldn’t learn it in a year, or even five.”