But to the older Jennings thinking had always been harder than physical toil. Brought up right after the Civil War in a section left poverty-stricken, he could just read and write—that was all; for when he was twelve his service between the plough handles had begun, and there he had served ever since.
Now, from necessity, he began to think and plan. He asked the agricultural college for information, and they sent not only pamphlets but a representative from an experiment station to consult with him and advise him. He sold a bit of land and bought farm machinery. He built a tenant house and installed help. And all the time Frank (who did not know of the leaking heart) also advised him by letters, and when he came home in the summer, helped wonderfully—both by hard work and by mental initiative.
No great prosperity followed. But Tom Jennings did a shade better than he had done before, and the children stayed at college. Not even Martha knew the extent of what the doctor had told him that day. Only to Mac did he talk freely.
"When yo' eyes was put out, ol' codger, you whetted yo' nose," he would say; "and when my muscles lost their engine power I whetted my ol' rusty brain."
His children all did well at college. Frank finished an academic course (Tom and Martha saw him graduate), then went off to a medical college. Mary, the older girl, was studying library work; the younger girl had come to no conclusion yet. The three of them came home in summer for at least part of the season, and always came at Christmas. They brought with them a different atmosphere—the atmosphere of a wider world. But the girls helped the mother in the kitchen and Frank advised with the father about the farm. There was no feeling of shame on one side, or of apology on the other. It was the kind of thing that has happened on thousands of American farms.
Sometimes at night Tom spoke of his children to Martha: "They are goin' to pass us by, Mother. They are goin' to amount to more than we have."
And then he would go to the window and raise the sash.
"Old man?" he would say.
And from the kennel would come a tap-tap that told he was heard.