“I don’t see how it could be managed, just as things are,” he said. “And he has a head for business; that is, he knows that two and two make four, which is more than can be said of most boys of his age. And he has mastered the details already, so that he would be a real loss. He isn’t very quick at his books, either; he would never make his mark as a scholar or a preacher. Oh, yes, I know about the Latin verses, but they don’t prove much of anything. There is no market for Latin verses.”
A market for them, as if they were beeves or swine!
I was so full of indignation that I went away without a word. Uncle Horace called after me from the doorway:
“I’ll tell you who will have to be sent to college, because he’ll never be good for anything without it. Cyrus knows it as well as I do. It’s that little Dave.”
CHAPTER III
A LITTLE ALIEN’S WOES
It was Dave who was to go to college. Cyrus was resolutely determined to sacrifice himself to the little “aliens” and to the carrying on of grandfather’s business. And since he was aided and abetted by Uncle Horace, and even dear old Parson Grover, who had sympathized with Cy’s desire to be a minister, declared that “the boy was quite right,” there was clearly nothing for the rest of us to say.
Grandma had grown somewhat childish by this time—as well as being childlike and lovely, as she always was—and wept for joy that Cyrus was not going away where his food might not be wholesomely prepared or his flannels properly aired. We had planned to break the shock of disappointment to her by telling her that it was thought that Cyrus had great business abilities and the shipbuilding might prosper, as it had done in the old times. But neither the ministry, for which she had so longed for Cyrus, nor the business were of so much consequence to grandma now, as was the fact that Cyrus would be at home and could play checkers with her in the evenings. He was so patient!—leaving his books without a murmur, although he had but little time for them now, and exercising an ingenuity to allow her to beat him, which I am sure would have constituted him a “champion” player.
Octavia was utterly dismayed. She had thought Cyrus was like our father, for whose memory she cherished a deep reverence, and on that account it was a matter of course that he should be a minister. Octavia had family pride and she thought it fitting that the family which gave its first minister to Palmyra should continue to furnish ministers rather than shipbuilders to the world.
She was deeply religious, too, and she seemed to fear that the god of this world had blinded Cyrus’ eyes to his duty, and blinded ours as well, that we could be resigned to his defection.
“Dave or Rob may be a minister,” I said hopefully. “Cy is planning already, to send Dave to college, and Rob will go, too, although just now Uncle Horace sneers at colleges.”