Killykinick by Mary T. Waggaman (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📕

to be going with mates like that. It's what I'm praying for as I sit here sad and lonely, Dan, that God will give ye His blessing, and help ye up, up, up, high as mortal man can go."

"And you with me, Aunt Win," said Dan, who, seated on the footstool of the chair, was smoothing her wrinkled hand.

"Ah, no, my lad, I don't ask that! I'm not asking that at all, Danny. I'll not be houlding to ye, and dragging ye down while ye're climbing. And whisper, lad, while there's no one listening: it's naither wise nor best for ye to be coming here."

"Why not?" asked Dan, for he knew that he was the light of poor Aunt Win's eyes and the joy of her old heart.

"Because--because," faltered Aunt Winnie, "though it's fibs I've been telling about yer grandeur and greatness--God forgive me that same!--the old busybodies around will be wondering and prating about why ye lave me here, Dan,--because I might be a shame to ye before all the fine gentlemen's sons that have taken ye up,--because" (Aunt Win's voice broke entirely) "a poor old woman like me will only hurt and hinder ye, Dan."

"Hurt and hinder me!" echoed Dan, who, with all his cleverness, could not understand the depths and heights of good old Aunt Winnie's love.

"Aye, lad, hurt and hinder ye; for ye're on the way up, and I'll not be the one to hould ye back. I do be dreaming grand dreams of ye, Danny lad,--dreams that I don't dare to spake out."

"Whisper them, then, Aunt Win," urged Dan, softly. "Maybe I'll make them come true."

"Ye couldn't," said the old woman, her dim eyes shining. "Only God in heaven can do that. For I dream that I see you on His altar, the brightest place that mortal man can reach. I'll ne'er live to see that dream come true, Danny; but I believe it would make my old heart leap if I was under the sod itself."

"O Aunt Win, Aunt Win!" Dan lifted the wrinkled hand to his lips. "That is a great dream, sure enough. Sometimes, Aunt Win, I--I dream it myself. But, then, a rough-and-tumble fellow like me, always getting into scrapes, soon wakes up. But one thing is sure: you can't shake me, Aunt Win. Dreaming or waking, I'll stick to you forever."

"Ah, no, lad,--no!" said the old woman, tremulously. "I'd not have ye bother with me. Sure it's the fine place I have here, with my warm room and nice bed, and the good Little Sisters to care for me, and the chapel close to hand. But I miss our own little place, sure, sometimes, Danny dear! I miss the pot of flowers on the window (it's against the rule to grow flowers here), and me own little blue teapot on the stove, and Tabby curled up on the mat before the fire."

Aunt Winnie broke down and sobbed outright, while Danny was conscious of a lump in his throat that held him dumb.

"Poor Tabby!" continued Aunt Winnie. "I hope the Mulligans are good to her, Dan. D'ye ever see her as ye pass their gate?"

"I do," answered Dan. "Molly Mulligan has tied a blue ribbon around her neck, and she is the pride of the house."

"And she has forgotten me, of course!" sighed Aunt Winnie. "But what could I expect of a cat!"

"Forgotten you? Not a bit! Molly says she steals into your room upstairs and cries for you every night."

"Ah, it was the sore parting for us all, God help us!" said Aunt Winnie, brokenly. "But as long as it brings you luck, lad, I'll never complain. This is the holy place to die in, and what could a poor sick ould woman ask more?"

"A lot--a lot more!" burst forth Danny, passionately. "You should have a place to live and be happy in, Aunt Win. You should have your own fire and your own teapot, and your own cat in your own home; and I mean to get it back for you just as quick as I can."

"Whisht! whisht!" said Aunt Win, nervously, as the old lady nearby roused up, startled from her nap.

"It's time ye were going, Danny; for ye're a long way from college, and I wouldn't keep ye against rules. I hope ye'll have a fine time at the seashore, with the fishing and boating and all the other sports. Good-bye and God bless ye, lad, until we meet again! Good-bye, Danny dear!" And, realizing from the wide-open eyes of the old lady near him that all confidential communications were over, Dan kissed Aunt Win's withered cheek, and, his heart swelling with feelings he could not speak, took his way back to Saint Andrew's, all his dreams, hopes, ambitions for the future strangely shaken.

Aunt Win,--gentle, loving, heartsick, homesick Aunt Win! Aunt Win, begging him to give her up lest she should hurt and hinder him in his opening way! Aunt Win sighing for the little place she had called home, even while she was ready to give it up forever and die silent and lonely, that her boy might climb to heights of which she could only dream and never see! Dear, faithful, true-hearted, self-forgetting Aunt Win! Dan felt his own eyes blurring as he thought of all she had done, of all she was ready to sacrifice.

And--and--the other thought followed swiftly: he could give it all back to her,--the little attic rooms over Mulligans', the flowerpot in the window, the blue teapot on the stove, Tabby on the hearth-rug,--he could give it all back to Aunt Win and bring her home. It would be long, long years before the higher paths into which he had turned would yield even humble living; but the old ways were open to him still: the "ditch-digging" with which Dud Fielding had taunted him, the meat wagon, the sausage shop, that he had been considering only a few hours ago. What right had he to leave the good old woman, who had mothered him, lonely and heartsick that he might climb beyond her reach? And yet--yet to give up Saint Andrew's, with all that it meant to him; to give up all his hopes, his dreams; to turn his back on those wide corridors and book-lined rooms for counter and cleaver; to give up,--to give up! Quite dizzy with his contending thoughts, Dan was striding on his way when a hearty voice hailed him:

"Hello! That you, Dan? Jump in and I'll give you a lift." And Pete Patterson's ruddy face looked out from the white-topped wagon at the curb. "I was just thinking of you," said Pete, as Dan willingly sprang up to the seat at his side; for Pete had been a friendly creditor in the days of the little attic home when credit was sometimes sorely needed. "Are you in with the 'high brows' for good and all?"

"I--I don't know," hesitated Dan.

"Because if you're not," continued Pete--"and what tarnation use a sturdy chap like you will find in all that Latin and Greek stuff, I can't see,--if you're not in for it, I can give you a chance."


V.--A "CHANCE."


"I can give you a chance," repeated Pete, as he turned to Dan with his broad, ruddy face illuminated by a friendly smile. "It's a chance I wouldn't hold out to everybody, but I know you for a wide-awake youngster, as honest as you are slick. Them two don't go together in general; but it's the combination I'm looking fur just now, and you seem to have it. I was thinking over it this very morning. 'Lord, Lord,' sez I to myself, 'if Dan Dolan hadn't gone and got that eddycation bug in his head, wouldn't this be the chance for him?"

"What is it?" asked Dan; but there was not much eagerness in his question. Wide and springy as was the butcher's cart, it did not appeal to him as a chariot of fortune just now. A loin of beef dangled over his head, a dead calf was stretched out on the straw behind him. Pete's white apron was stained with blood. Dan was conscious of a dull, sick repulsion of body and soul.

"Well, it's this," continued Pete, cheerfully. "You see, I've made a little money over there at my corner, and I'm planning to spread out,--do things bigger and broader. There ain't no sort of use in holding back to hams and shoulders when ye can buy yer hogs on the hoof. That's what I'm in fur now,--hogs on the hoof; cut 'em, corn 'em, smoke 'em, salt 'em, souse 'em, grind 'em into sausage meat and headcheese and scrapple, boil 'em into lard. Why, a hog is a regular gold mine when he is handled right. But I can't handle it in that little corner shop I've got now: there's no room fur it. But it's too good a business there fur me to give up. So I'm going to open another place further out, and keep both a-going. And I can't afford no high-class bookkeeper or clerk, that will maybe jump my trade and gobble all my profits. What I want is a boy,--a bright, wide-awake boy that knows enough about figguring to keep my accounts, and see that no one 'does' me,--a boy that I can send round in the wagon to buy and sell 'cording to my orders,--a boy that will be smart enough to pick up the whole business from _a_ to _izzard_, and work up as I worked up till I kin make him partner. That's the chance I've got, and I believe you're the boy to take it."

"I--I would have to give up college of course," said Dan, slowly.

"Give up college!" echoed Pete. "Well, I should rather say you would! There ain't no time fur books in a biz like mine. Now, Dan, what's the good of college anyhow fur a chap like you? It ain't ez if you were one of these high mug-a-mugs with a rich father to pay yer way through, and set you up in a white choker and swallow-tail coat afterwards. What's the good of a strong, husky fellow fooling along with Latin and Greek, that will never be no use to him? You'd a heap better spiel plain strong English that will bring you in the spondulics. Why, look at me! I never had two years' schooling in my life. It's all I can do to scrawl 'P. J. Patterson,' so folks can read it, and thump out the rest on a secondhand typewriter. But that 'ere same scrawl will bring five thousand dollars out of the bank any time I want it. If I had as much eddycation as you have, Dan, nobody couldn't keep me in any school in the land another minute. It's all nonsense,--a dead waste of time and money."

"What would you pay me?" asked Dan, as the big loin of beef above joggled against his shoulder.

"Well, let me see!" considered Pete. "I ain't paying any fancy price at start, fur I don't know how things will work out; but I won't be mean with you, Dan. What do you say to four dollars a week and board?"

"No," answered Dan, promptly. "I don't want your board at all."

"Ye don't?" said Pete in surprise. "It will be good board, Dan: no fancy fixings but filling, I promise you that,--good and filling."

"I don't care how filling it is," answered Dan, gruffly. "I'd want my own board, with Aunt Winnie. That's all I'd come to you for,--to take care of Aunt Winnie."

"Ain't