Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/67

 His uncle looked at him keenly; he swallowed and stood up to it. "How much?"

He shook his head; he could not trust his voice.

His uncle flicked an imaginary speck of dust off his coat front. "Hmmm. Go ahead with your examinations." He took off Don's cap for him, and patted him on the shoulder. "Go ahead and do your work." And when Don had stammered through his thanks and got himself out of the room again, his uncle said: "That—that brother of yours! What's the matter with him anyway? Educate a boy that way—and then put him in a bank! What use would anything he knows be in a bank?" He added, after a moment's thought: "I'll send Conroy with him, too. He can take some special course. He ought to be allowed to see for himself about how much good this college business is."

They had noticed a change in the timid Don; and his father also noticed it at the evening meal: for though Don did not speak, neither did he sulk; he was thoughtful, without being depressed; and he left the table before his father in violation of the parental rule. He said nothing of the scene with his aunt—except to his mother. Her, he told, dry-eyed and resolute, and she listened with an invalid's helplessness, and wept over him. "Your father means it for the best, Don," she pleaded. "I know he does. He thinks you would be better at work."

"I have to go to college," Don said; and that was all he would say.

He went to his room, and remained there, waiting.