Part 18 (1/2)

He smiled.

”Uncle Barnabas and the Judge are anxious to pay my expenses at college, and--you _must_ let me. I would like to think, don't you see, that you are living here in my old home. It will seem to me as if I were doing it for _my_ mother--as I would want some boy to do for her if she were left--and it's my country's service he died in. I would rather buy this little place for you, and know that you are living here, than to buy anything else in the world.”

The old face was quite beautiful now.

”Then I will let you,” she said tremulously. ”You see, I am a hard-working woman and quite strong, but folks won't believe that, because I am old; so they won't hire me to do their work, and they say I should go to the poorhouse. But to old folks there's nothing like having your own things and your own ways. They get to be a part of you. I was thinking when you rode up that it would kill me not to see the frost on the old poplar, and not to cover up my geraniums on the chill nights.”

Something stirred in David's heart like pain. He stooped and kissed her gently. Then he rode away, rejoicing that he had worked to this end. Four hours later he rode back to the little home.

”The Judge has paid over the money to Old Skinflint p.r.i.c.kley,” he said blithely, ”and the place is all yours. The deacon had compounded the interest, which is against the laws of the state, so here are a few dollars to help tide you over until the Judge gets the pension for you.”

”David,” she said solemnly, ”an old woman's prayers may help you, and some day, when you are a great man, you will do great deeds, but none of them will be as great as that which you have done to-day.”

David rode home with the echo of this benediction in his ears. He had asked the Judge to keep the transaction secret, but of course the Judge told Barnabas, who in turn informed Uncle Larimy.

”I told the boy when his ma died,” said Uncle Larimy, ”that things go 'skew sometimes, but that the sun would s.h.i.+ne. The sun will allers be a-s.h.i.+nin' fer him when he does such deeds as this.”

CHAPTER III

The fare to his college town, his books, and his tuition so depleted David's capital of one hundred dollars that he hastened to deposit the balance for an emergency. Then he set about to earn his ”keep,” as he had done in the country, but there were many students bent on a similar quest and he soon found that the demand for labor was exceeded by the supply.

Before the end of the first week he was able to write home that he had found a nice, quiet lodging in exchange for the care of a furnace in winter and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of a lawn in other seasons, and that he had secured a position as waiter to pay for his meals; also that there was miscellaneous employment to pay for his was.h.i.+ng and incidentals.

He didn't go into details and explain that the ”nice quiet lodging”

was a third-floor rear whose gables gave David's six feet of length but little leeway. It was quiet because the third floor was not heated, and its occupants therefore stayed away as much as possible.

His services as waiter were required only at dinner time, in exchange for which he received that meal. His breakfast and luncheon he procured as best he could; sometimes he dispensed with them entirely.

Crackers, milk, and fruit, as the cheapest articles of diet, appeared oftenest on his menu. Sometimes he went fis.h.i.+ng and surrept.i.tiously smuggled the cream of the catch up to his little abode, for Mrs.

Tupps' ”rules to roomers,” as affixed to the walls, were explicit: ”No cooking or was.h.i.+ng allowed in rooms.” But Mrs. Tupps, like her fires, was nearly always out, for she was a member of the Woman's Relief Corps, Ladies' Aid, Ladies' Guild, Woman's League, Suffragette Society, Pioneer Society, and Eastern Star. At the meetings of these various societies she was constant in attendance, so in her absence her roomers ”made hay,” as David termed it, cooking their provender and illicitly performing laundry work in the bathtub. Still, there must always be ”on guard” duty, for Mrs. Tupps was a stealthy stalker.

One saw her not, but now and then there was a faint rustle on the stair. David's eyes and ears, trained to keenness, were patient and vigilant, so he was generally chosen as sentinel, and he acquired new caution, adroitness, and a quietness of movement.

There had been three or four close calls. Once, she had knocked at his door as he was in the act of boiling eggs over the gas jet. In the twinkling of an eye the saucepan was thrust under the bed, and David, sweet and serene of expression, opened the door to the inquisitive-eyed Tupps.

”I came to borrow a pen,” she said shamelessly, her eyes penetrating the cracks and crevices of the little room.

David politely regretted that he used an indelible pencil and possessed no pens.

In the act of removing all records and remains of feasts, David became an adept. Neat, unsuspicious looking parcels were made and conveyed, after retiring hours, to a near-by vacant lot, where once had been visible an excavation for a cellar, but this had been filled to street level with tin cans, paper bags, b.u.t.ter bowls, cracker cases, egg sh.e.l.ls, and pie plates from the House of Tupps.

His miscellaneous employment, mentioned in his letter, was any sort of work he could find to do.

David became popular with professors by reason of his record in cla.s.ses and the application and concentration he brought to his studies. His prowess in all sports, his fairness, and the spirit of _camaraderie_ he always maintained with his a.s.sociates, made him a general favorite. He wore fairly good clothes, was well groomed, and always in good spirits, so of his privations and poverty only one or two of those closest to him were even suspicious. He was entirely reticent on the subject, though open and free in all other discourse, and permitted no encroachment on personal matters. One or two chance offenders intuitively perceived a slight but impa.s.sable barrier.

”Dunne has grown a little gaunt-eyed since he first came here,” said one of his chosen friends to a cla.s.smate one evening. ”He's outdoors enough to counteract overstudy. But do you suppose he has enough to eat? So many of these fellows live on next to nothing.”