Part 9 (1/2)

Michael gripped his hand and blundered out some words of thanks. Then the train was upon them, and Endicott had to go.

The two younger ladies in the car, meantime, were plying Starr with questions. ”Who is that perfectly magnificent young man. Starr Endicott?

Why didn't you introduce him to us? I declare I never saw such a beautiful face on any human being before.”

A moment more and the private car was fastened to the train, and Starr leaning from the window waved her tiny handkerchief until the train had thundered away among the pines, and there was nothing left but the echo of its sound. The sun was going down but it mattered not. There was suns.h.i.+ne in the boy's heart. She was gone, his little Starr, but she had left the memory of her soft kiss and her bright eyes; and some day, some day, when he was done with college, he would see her again. Meantime he was content.

CHAPTER VI

The joy of loving kindness in his life, and a sense that somebody cared, seemed to have the effect of stimulating Michael's mind to greater energies. He studied with all his powers. Whatever he did he did with his might, even his play.

The last year of his stay in Florida, a Department of Scientific Farming was opened on a small scale. Michael presented himself as a student.

”What do you want of farming, Endicott?” asked the president, happening to pa.s.s through the room on the first day of the teacher's meeting with his students. ”You can't use farming in New York.”

There was perhaps in the kindly old president's mind a hope that the boy would linger with them, for he had become attached to him in a silent, undemonstrative sort of way.

”I might need it sometime,” answered Michael, ”and anyway I'd like to understand it. You said the other day that no knowledge was ever wasted.

I'd like to know enough at least to tell somebody else.”

The president smiled, wondered, and pa.s.sed on. Michael continued in the cla.s.s, supplementing the study by a careful reading of all the Agricultural magazines, and Government literature on the subject that came in his way.

Agriculture had had a strange fascination for him ever since a noted speaker from the North had come that way and in an address to the students told them that the new field for growth to-day lay in getting hack to nature and cultivating the earth. It was characteristic of Michael that he desired to know if that statement was true, and if so, why. Therefore he studied.

The three years flew by as if by magic. Michael won honors not a few, and the day came when he had completed his course, and as valedictorian of his cla.s.s, went up to the old chapel for his last commencement in the college.

He sat on the platform looking down on the kindly, uncritical audience that had a.s.sembled for the exercises, and saw not a single face that had come for his sake alone. Many were there who were interested in him because they had known him through the years, and because he bore the reputation of being the honor man of his cla.s.s and the finest athlete in school. But that was not like having some one of his very own who cared whether he did well or not. He found himself wis.h.i.+ng that even Buck might have been there; Buck, the nearest to a brother he had ever had. Would Buck have cared that he had won highest rank? Yes, he felt that Buck would have been proud of him.

Michael had sent out three invitations to commencement, one to Mr.

Endicott, one to Starr, and one addressed to Buck, with the inner envelope bearing the words ”For Buck and 'the kids,'” but no response had come to any of them. He had received back the one addressed to Buck with ”Not Called For” in big pink letters stamped across the corner. It had reached him that morning, just before he came on the platform. He wished it had not come till night; it gave him a lonely, almost forsaken feeling. He was ”educated” now, at least enough to know what he did not know; and there was no one to care.

When Michael sat down after his oration amid a storm of hearty applause, prolonged by his comrades into something like an ovation, some one handed him a letter and a package. There had been a mistake made at the post office in sorting the mail and these had not been put into the college box.

One of the professors going down later found them and brought them up.

The letter was from Mr. Endicott containing a businesslike line of congratulations, a hope that the recipient would come to New York if he still felt of that mind, and a check for a hundred dollars.

Michael looked at the check awesomely, re-read the letter carefully and put both in his pocket. The package was tiny and addressed in Starr's handwriting. Michael saved that till he should go to his room. He did not want to open it before any curious eyes.

Starr's letters had been few and far between, girlish little epistles; and the last year they had ceased altogether. Starr was busy with life; finis.h.i.+ng-school and dancing-school and music-lessons and good times.

Michael was a dim and pleasant vision to her.

The package contained a scarf-pin of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p. Starr had pleased herself by picking out the very prettiest thing she could find. She had her father's permission to spend as much as she liked on it. It was in the form of an orchid, with a tiny diamond like a drop of dew on one petal.

Michael looked on it with wonder, the first suggestion of personal adornment that had ever come to him. He saw the reminder of their day together in the form of the orchid; studied the beautiful name, ”Starr Delevan Endicott,” engraved upon the card; then put them carefully back into their box and locked it into his bureau drawer. He would wear it the first time he went to see Starr. He was very happy that day.

The week after college closed Michael drove the college mule to the county seat, ten miles away, and bought a small trunk. It was not much of a trunk but it was the best the town afforded. In this he packed all his worldly possessions, bade good-bye to the president, and such of the professors as had not already gone North for their vacations, took a long tramp to all his old haunts, and boarded the midnight train for New York.

The boy had a feeling of independence which kept him from letting his benefactor know of his intended arrival. He did not wish to make him any unnecessary trouble, and though he had now been away from New York for fourteen years, he felt a perfect a.s.surance that he could find his way about. There are some things that one may learn even at seven, that will never be forgotten.