Miss Theodora/Chapter 16



Miss Theodora gave in, partly because she herself had begun to see that she might wrong Ernest by insisting on his carrying out her ideas. His poor rank in the classics showed a mind unlike that of his father or his grandfather. When she saw his brow darken at mention of the work he must do to get off his condition in Greek, she remembered how cheerful he had once been whistling over his work in his basement room. She longed to see him again engaged in congenial work or studies. Therefore, without vigorous defence, the castle in Spain which she had founded on Ernest's professional career fell under Ernest's direct assault. But she was disappointed, and although she did not go out of her way to look for sympathy, she accepted all that Miss Chatterwits and Diantha offered her. The former really believed that Harvard was the only institution in the United States in which a young man could get the higher education.

"I don't know," she said, "as I ever heard of a great man—that is, a scholar, for I don't forget some of the Presidents—that hadn't graduated at Harvard. Not but what a man might be great, I suppose, that wasn't what you would call a scholar; but I did think that Ernest would follow right after his grandfather, not to speak of his father. And all the books you've saved for him, too, Miss Theodora!—it does seem too bad."

"Oh, I still expect Ernest to be a great man," said Miss Theodora, a trifle dubiously. "I am sure that he has shown considerable talent already for inventing things."

"Ye-es," was Miss Chatterwits' doubtful response. "Ye-es,—but it seems as if most of the things has been invented that's at all likely to give a man a great reputation,—the telegraphs and steamboats and steam engines, not to mention sewing machines, which I must say has made a great difference in my work."

"Oh, well, sometimes men benefit the world by inventing some little thing, or making an improvement—well, in steam engines or something of that kind."

"I dare say,—I haven't any doubt but Ernest'll be smarter than any boy in the school where he's going. But it always did seem to me that studies of that kind were well enough for Ben Bruce—and such; but Ernest,—he seems to belong out at Harvard."

This was unkind—for Miss Chatterwits really liked Ben Bruce very much. But lately she had had one or two rather wordy encounters with Mrs. Bruce when they had met by chance at a neighbor's house. The little dressmaker was fond of "drawing the line," as she said, and relegating people, in conversation, at least, to their proper places. Mrs. Bruce had similar proclivities; but with less accurate data on which to base her classification of her neighbors, she sometimes made mistakes on which Miss Chatterwits was bound to frown.

"If I went about sewing from house to house," said Mrs. Bruce, "I suppose I might know more about people than I do; but being in private life, it isn't to be supposed I know much but what has been handed down to me in my own family."

"Well, if you went about sewing from house to house," said Miss Chatterwits, "you'd be more use to your family than you are now." With which last word Miss Chatterwits had flounced away, and for a time spoke somewhat depreciatingly of the Bruces, although in her heart she envied them their Revolutionary ancestor.

Miss Theodora had no petty pride. She liked Ben; she knew that he was a good friend for Ernest, and the one thing that reconciled her to the change in Ernest's career was the fact that, for a year at least, he would be able to have much help and advice from Ben. After the latter should get his scientific degree, he would probably leave Boston; but for the present she knew that his friendship would mean much to Ernest.

Ernest spent six weeks of the summer after his decision about college at a quiet seashore village with Ben. Ben tutored Ernest in various branches in which he was deficient, and proved an even better friend to him than Miss Theodora had hoped. Sometimes, as they sat in a little cove at the edge of the water, letting their books fall from their hands, gazing at the crescent-shaped Plymouth shore, they would talk of many things outside of their work. Ben was an enthusiast about the early history of New England. He loved to theorize over the country's possibilities, and to trace its present greatness from the principles planted by the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies. Once as they sat there talking, Ernest exclaimed: "Those men were workers, Ben! Sometimes I think that we are all wrong today,—we attach so much importance to books. Now, I believe that I should have been much better off now and happier if I could have gone at once to work two or three years ago, instead of undertaking—"

But Ben interrupted him. "Oh, no! you are wrong. You do not realize your privileges. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I envied you your chance of going to Harvard. It would have been my choice to go there if I could. But the Institute was more practical, and I dare say was the best for me. Only—don't make too little account of your advantages, Ernest."

What Ben said was true enough. His own mind was essentially that of the scholar. He could have gone on forever acquiring knowledge. He had no desire to put it at once to the practical use to which necessity compelled him. Yet, understanding Ernest's temperament, he had not discouraged him from leaving college, and he stood ready to help him to the utmost in his scientific work.

Many a time, however, with no envious mind, he had wished that it had been his to change places with Ernest. What delightful hours, he thought, he could have passed within the gray walls of the college library! He would have been no more inclined than Ernest, perhaps, to follow Miss Theodora's plans for a lawyer's career. No; he would have aimed rather to be a Harvard professor. Had fortune favored him, he would have spent a long time in post-graduate study, not only at Cambridge, but at some foreign university. "What folly!" he would then suddenly cry; "life is practical." But while doing the duty that lay nearest, he knew well enough that Harvard would have meant infinitely more to him than his chosen course.

During two years only of Ernest's Technology course were he and Ben together. When the latter was graduated he went West at once to begin his contest for the honors and the wealth which were to work that wonderful change in the affairs of his family. But Ernest had started well, and even without his friend's guidance he kept on in the path he had marked out. To give an account of the four years of his work would be to tell a rather monotonous story. This was not because he allowed his life to be a mere routine—far from this. While he worked energetically during the winter, he managed to find time for recreation. Society, so-called, did not interest him. But he had a group of friends, of fixed purpose like his own, who were still sufficiently boyish to enjoy life. With them he took long walks in search of geological specimens, inviting them home on winter evenings to share Miss Theodora's simple tea.

From some of these Western friends of Ernest's, with a point of view so unlike her own, Miss Theodora gained an entirely different outlook on life. Ernest had impressed on her the fact that the West was to be his home, at least, until he had made a lot of money. She began, therefore, to take an interest, not only in these Westerners, with their broad pronunciation, but in the Western country itself. She re-read "The Oregon Trail"; she read one or two other books of Western travel. She studied the topography of Colorado and Nevada in her old atlas, and she always noted in the newspapers chance scraps of information about that distant region.

Nahant knew Ernest no more in summer. His long vacation was always spent elsewhere in practical field work. He almost dropped out of the lives of those who had known him so well as a little boy. At the same time, he had enough social diversion. In the new set of which he now formed one there was always more or less going on. The sisters of some of his friends invited him to their dances. He seemed so heartily to enjoy his new popularity that Kate realized, with a certain pain, that he was drawing away from her; that he was departing far from that pleasant old West End life. There was an irony of fate in remembering that by using her influence in the direction of the new work which Ernest had undertaken, she had helped to send him farther away.