“Where are you going?” was the response.
“To Pautapoug, to see Uriah Hayden, sir.”
“You’d better hire out at ship-building with him. Your college learning’s of no earthly use in these days,” said the father of David Bushnell, returning from the door, and sinking slowly down into his high-backed chair.
Then spoke up a sweet-voiced woman from the kitchen fire-side, where she had that moment been hanging an iron pot on the crane:
“Have a little patience, father (Mrs. Bushnell always called her husband, father), David is only 76 looking about to see what to do. It’s hardly four weeks since he was graduated.”
“True enough; but where can you find an idle man in all Saybrook town? and you know as well as I do that it makes men despise college-learning to see folks idle. I’d rather, for my part, David did go to work on the ship Uriah Hayden is building. I wish I knew what he’s gone over there for to-day.”
A funny smile crept into the curves of Mrs. Bushnell’s lips, but her husband did not notice it.
Mr. Bushnell moved uneasily in his chair, as he sat leaning forward, both hands clasped about a hickory stick, and his chin resting on the knob at its top. Presently he said:
“Anna, I fear David is getting into bad habits. He used to talk a good deal. Now he sits with his eyes on the floor, and his forehead in wrinkles, and I’m sure I’ve heard him moving about more than one night lately, after all honest folks were in bed.”
“Father, you must remember that you’ve been very sick, and fever gives one queer notions sometimes. I shouldn’t wonder one bit if you dreamed you heard something, when ’twas only the rats behind the wainscot.”