“Sure!” said Bennie. “You’ve said a mouthful!”
“Bennie!” his mother cut in sharply. “I won’t have you talking that way at my table, and to your own father.”
“Aw, Ma, it’s just slang—what’s the harm?”
“One harm is, that it doesn’t show proper respect for your father,” she answered.
“Sorry,” said Bennie. “Gee, I respect Pa all right. And say, Pa, can’t I go somewhere this summer vacation where there are real mountains? Gee, I want to climb a real mountain! Will you let me go out to Oregon and see Uncle Bill?”
Mr. Capen didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he laid down his knife and fork, looked sharply at his son, and replied, “Why should I?”
“Well, why shouldn’t you?” was all Bennie could think of at first. Then he added, “Uncle Bill said he’d take me on a trip in Oregon some time, if we’d come out there, and a feller ought to see his own country. Everybody says that—see America first. Guess it’s the best way there is to study geography and history and—and things.”
“H’m,” said his father slowly. Then again, “H’m. Well, young man, do you know what you are asking? Do you know what it costs to get to Oregon and back? It costs a lot of money, I can tell you, and if you went, your mother and I would have to stay at home while I earned it, so you’d have to travel alone.”
“Let him go across the continent alone?” exclaimed Mrs. Capen. “I guess not!”
“Oh, gosh, you’d think I was a baby,” Bennie protested.