Grandfather Fernald rubbed his hands.
"Bully for you, Laurie! Bully for you!" he ejaculated. "That's the true Fernald spirit. It was that stuff that took me away from my father's farm in Vermont and started me out in the world with only six dollars in my pocket. I was bound I would try my muscle and I did. I got some pretty hard knocks, too, while I was doing it. Still, they were all in the day's work and I never have regretted them. But I didn't mean to have your father go through all I did and so I saw that he got an education and started different. He knew what he was fighting and was armed with the proper weapons instead of going blind into the scrimmage. That is what we are trying to do for you and what we mean to do for Ted Turner. We do not intend to take either of you out of the fray but we are going to put into your hands the things you need to win the battle. Then the making good will depend solely on you."
"I mean to try to do my part."
"I know you do, laddie; and you'll do it, too."
"I just wish I was stronger—as well as Ted is," murmured the boy.
"I wish you were," his grandfather responded gently, touching his grandson's shoulder affectionately with his strong hand. "If money could give you health you should have every farthing I possess. But there are things that money cannot do, Laurie. I used to think it was all-powerful and that if I had it there was nothing I could not make mine. But I realize now that many of the best gifts of life are beyond its reach. We grow wiser as we grow older," he concluded, with a sad shake of his head. "Sometimes I think we should have been granted two lives, one to experiment with and the other to live."
He rose, a weary shadow clouding his eyes.
"Well, to live and learn is all we can do; and thank goodness it is never too late to profit by our errors. I have learned many things from Ted Turner; I have learned some more from his father; and I have added to all these certain things that those unlucky wretches, Sullivan and Cronin, have demonstrated to me. Who knows but I may make Freeman's Falls a better place in consequence? We shall see."
With these parting reflections the old gentleman slowly left the room.