He passed his college examination successfully. We even whispered a hope to one another that Dave would become a minister. There was no sarcasm about it now; even Cyrus forbore to be a wet blanket when I ventured to express the hope to him.
All through Dave’s first year in college we had encouraging accounts of him. If there was nothing especially brilliant about his scholarship, and if he were paying a little more attention to athletic sports than Cyrus approved of, at least he was behaving well, and even showing something of the religious instinct that might be expected to be his inheritance from a long line of devout ancestors—on his mother’s side.
So it was, that what happened only two months after the beginning of his sophomore year was a blow that came upon us like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.
Rob had been sent to a preparatory school in the same town with Dave’s college. We had heard that Rob was ill and had feared to hear worse tidings from him. But it was the unexpected that happened.
CHAPTER IV
THE FAMILY DISGRACED
It was on Thanksgiving Day—of all times!—that the blow fell.
We thought a great deal of Thanksgiving on Groundnut Hill. No grief, or change, or low estate was ever allowed to interfere with our joyous feasting, nor I hope with our thankfulness. If the latter ever did fail it was not because our dear ones had gone away to the better land, or because the wolf—that dreadful, traditional wolf—was nearing our door; it was when Dave came home at that Thanksgiving time!
At first we were delighted, although we younger ones soon recognized the fact that his explanation of his change of plans was embarrassed and unsatisfactory. Cyrus’ face had darkened as soon as Dave opened the door, although he was genial with the good-will of the season and, we more than half suspected, from the fact that Alice Yorke was spending the Thanksgiving holidays with Estelle. It quite took away one’s breath to think that Cyrus would look twice at a girl, but we all saw, or fancied we did, that he thought Alice Yorke different altogether from other girls.
Cyrus didn’t think that Dave had any right to come home without asking leave anyway. And perhaps he ought not, since he had arranged to stay with Rob, who was not strong enough to bear the journey home, having just recovered from a severe bout with his old enemy, asthma, which we had hoped, and the doctor thought, he had outgrown.
Thanksgiving eve was rainy and blustering. After nightfall the rain changed to sleet and was flung against the windows by angry gusts of wind. Dave had walked from the station, and he looked as if he were clad in a glittering coat of mail when he opened the back door directly into the great kitchen. I thought the glitter was what made his face look so pale.