John Goodnow was just sixteen. He was a manly boy, strong, straight, and good-looking. He had plenty of spirit and energy, and liked what he was doing well enough; but he had some ideas in his head which made him think he could do something else much—very much—better.
John's father did not happen to think about John as John thought about himself. This very often happens between parents and their children. Your parents are older and wiser than you, but then you boys and girls often think a great deal more, and with more good sense, than you get credit for. When your parents do not think as you do about what you are to be and do in life, it is hard to tell which is wisest, and there is no sure rule to help you out; but I will tell you one little thing that I think it will be good for you to remember; it is very much in your own power to decide for yourself, to get your own way by giving it up, as John did.
"I wish father could see this as I do," John thought.
He had put the whetstone in his pocket, and was once more leaning to the scythe.
"Of course I can be a farmer, and of course farmers are as necessary as Presidents; and a farmer can be a President, and eat potatoes and corn in the White House, instead of hoeing and hilling them in the field. But I want to be a lawyer, and that settles it for me. I just wish it would do as much for father. He did look queer when I told him I didn't believe a lawyer that was always hankerin' after a farm would amount to much in lawyerin'. Mother said, 'Do let the boy have his way; it's his life he's got to live, you know, not yours.'
"She's so sensible, and just the best mother in the world. I made up my mind, when she said that, that if I did get my way, I'd just like to be the one to fix Uncle Si. Stingy old fellow! I'd make him pay mother what he owes her. Guess he knows it, an' that's why he looks at me so sour, and tells father to 'keep him at the plough; he'll never come to nuthin' moonin' over them lyin' lawyer books.'"
John smiled, with a bright, mischievous look, as if he had already won the case against his uncle.
Then he whistled till he came to the end of the swath. He liked the sweet, fresh smell that rose from the cut grass.
"I know farming is good, useful work," he thought, "and pleasant, when any one likes it; but I want to do what I can do best, and I'm sure it's law. When things happen, I want to know how they happen, and who was wrong, and how to fix things so that they'll happen right. It just makes me tingle all over when I can get hold of a case, and read up all about it, and I can talk it over with, mother. She's smarter'n a steel-trap, and might have been a lawyer herself. But I can't show off to father at all. He shuts right down on me so—almost makes me think I don't know anything, after all. He's a real good father, though, and I hate to disappoint him."
John set his lips, and his young face looked troubled. He cut the swath very neatly to the edge of the brook as he went along.