“Surely you don’t think there is only one way to serve Him,” added the old man gently. “The fields white for the harvest are of many kinds and often, often they lie close to the reaper’s hand.”
He said much more about the impossibility of knowing in what direction Cyrus’ talent might lie, while he was still so young, of the development that resulted from doing one’s simple duty, and of the Guiding Hand that never failed.
And I was comforted a little, if I was not altogether convinced.
“Would it make Cyrus like Mr. Grover to be a minister?” inquired Estelle, when we had walked half way homeward in silence. “I shall find out whether the blackberries are ripe in the Notch pasture to-morrow, and I shall get old Mrs. Trull to let me pick her geese at Christmas to earn money.”
The child’s little peaked face was aglow with eagerness. But I was not thinking of her then.
I went to Uncle Horace that very afternoon. He was the trustee of grandpa’s estate and the guardian of us all. I asked him just how things were and if it were necessary for Cyrus to give up going to college.
Uncle Horace looked at me with a quizzical smile from under his great shaggy eyebrows.
“I went to college,” he said. We were in his office at the stock farm, and he pointed to his diploma hanging among the prints of fine horses and cattle.
“But Cyrus is different,” I said with only half-smothered indignation. “He wants to be a minister. Grandpa meant that he should be a minister.”
Uncle Horace’s face darkened and he drummed on the table with his long, heavy fingers.