Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/97

 the new technique. He memorized the magic pass-words which are accepted as a proof of understanding many subjects. He began to draw breath, to tread water less frantically and still not to fear the closing over his head of smothering floods. The third year he felt earth beneath his feet again, and relaxed enough from his mental concentration to spend occasionally an hour or two on the school athletic field. He was fifteen years old now, wore long trousers and suits with vests, a stand-up collar, ties he tied himself, and carried a fountain pen. Underneath all this grown-up bravery of exterior, there was a brain that had learned to acquire and pigeon-hole information, and a perfectly dormant personality.

Life at the Crittenden home was, as far as he was concerned, exactly the same life he had always known, except that instead of playing on the streets, he went out on the school athletic-field, and instead of playing with his tin soldiers, he usually went up to his room to grind over his lessons. At breakfast and supper his father and mother talked peaceably to one another just as they always had, and although Neale was able now to understand the subjects of their chat, their talk was, as a matter of fact, often quite as incomprehensible to him as it had been when he was a small boy. They had grown so much together, had so shared life with each other and no one else, that they possessed almost a language of their own, made up of references, only half-expressed, to things they had said long ago, or to experiences they had had together, or to opinions they both knew so well there was no need to formulate them in words. Neale was not surprised at this, nor yet resentful. On his side he was absorbed in his studies and the life at school. It was true that every once in a while they talked directly to Neale; asked him questions—what studies he liked best—how the teachers treated him—what he had to eat at lunch. Whatever they asked Neale always tried to answer in accordance with the facts; that he was getting along all right he guessed, that everything was satisfactory as far as he could see, that he hadn't any idea what he should like to do later on to earn his living.

Occasionally, instead of taking the trolley cars, Father