“Why not, Davis? He looks like a bright lad.”
“He’s got good parts, sir,” returned the father, “but—”
“But what?” asked the gentleman, seeing that the man hesitated.
“Times are rather hard now, sir, and I have a large family. It’s about as much as I can do to keep hunger and cold away. Ned reads very well, writes a tolerable fair hand, considering all things, and can figure a little. And that’s about all I can do for him. The other children are coming forward, and I reckon he will have to go to a trade middling soon.”
“How old is Ned?” inquired Mr. Winslow.
“He’s turned of eleven.”
“You wont put him to a trade before he’s thirteen or fourteen?”
“Can’t keep him home idling about all that time, Mr. Winslow. It would be his ruination. It’s young to go out from home, I know, to rough it and tough it among strangers”—there was a slight unsteadiness in the poor man’s voice—“but it’s better than doing nothing.”
“Ned ought to go to school a year or two longer, Davis,” said Mr. Winslow, with some interest in his manner. “And as you are not able to pay the quarter-bills, I guess I will have to do it. What say you? If I pay for Ned’s schooling can you keep him at home some two or three years longer?”
“I didn’t expect that of you, Mr. Winslow,” said the poor man, and his voice now trembled. He uncovered his head as he spoke, almost reverently. “You aint bound to pay for schooling my boy. Ah, sir!”