Hills of the Shatemuc Part 44

"No. Why?"

"You seem to be adopting his end of life."

"I tell you, Winthrop," said Rufus stopping short again, "whatever else you may have is of very little consequence if you haven't money with it! You may raise your head like Mont Blanc, above the rest of the world; and if you have nothing to shew but your eminence, people will look at you, and go and live somewhere else."

"You don't see the snow yet, do you?" said Winthrop, so dryly that Rufus laughed again, and drawing to him his book sat down and left his brother to study in peace.

The peace was not of long lasting, for at the end of half or three quarters of an hour Winthrop had another interruption.

The door opened briskly and there came in a young man, -- hardly that, -- a boy, but manly, well grown, fine and fresh featured, all alive in spirits and intellect. He came in with a rush, acknowledged Rufus's presence slightly, and drawing a stool close by Winthrop, bent his head in yet closer neighbourhood. The colloquy which followed was carried on half under breath, on his part, but with great eagerness.

"Governor, I want you to go home with me Christmas."

"I can't, Bob."

"Why?"

Winthrop answered with soft whistling.

"Why?"

"I must work."

"You can work there."

"No I can't."

"Why not?"

"I must work here."

"You can work afterwards."

"Yes, I expect to."

"But Governor, what have you got to keep you?"

"Some old gentlemen who lived in learned times a great while ago, are very pressing in their desires to be acquainted with me -- one Plato, one Thucydides, and one Mr. Tacitus, for instance."

"You'll see enough of them, Governor; -- you don't like them better than me, do you?"

"Yes, Bob, -- I expect they'll do more for me than ever you will."

"I'll do a great deal for you, Governor, -- I want you to come with me to Coldstream -- I want you to see them all at home; we'll have a good time. -- Come!" --

"How do you suppose that old heathen ever got hold of such a thought as this?" -- said Winthrop composedly; and he read, without minding his auditors --

"tis d'oiden, ei to zen men ei to katthanein, to katthanein de zen ;" *

[* Bunyan used to say, "_The Latin I borrow_." I must follow so ill.u.s.trious an example and confess, _The Greek is lent_.]

"_Who knows if to live is not to die, and dying but to live_."

"I should think he had a bad time in this world," said Bob; "and maybe he thought Apollo would make interest for his verses in the land of shades."

"But Plato echoes the sentiment, -- look here, -- and he was no believer in the old system. Where do you suppose he got his light on the subject?"

"Out of a dark lantern. I say, Winthrop, I want light on my subject -- Will you come to Coldstream?"

"I don't see any light that way, Bob; -- I must stick fast by my dark lantern."

"Are you going to stay in s.h.a.garack?"

"Yes."

"It's a deuced shame! --"

"What do you make of this sentence, Mr. Cool? --"

But Bob declined to construe, and took himself off, with a hearty slap on Winthrop's shoulder, and a hearty shake of his hand.

"He's so strong, there's no use in trying to fight him into reason," he remarked to Rufus as he went off.

"What do you suppose Bob Cool would make of your Platonic quotation?" said Rufus.

"What do you make of it?" said Winthrop after a slight pause.

"Eremitical philosophy! -- Do you admire it?"

"I was thinking mamma would," said Winthrop.

That year came to its end, not only the solar but the collegiate. Rufus took his degree brilliantly; was loaded with compliments; went to spend a while at home, and then went to Mannahatta; to make some preparatory arrangements for entering upon a piece of employment to which President Tuttle had kindly opened him a way. Winthrop changed his form in the grammar school for the Junior Greek cla.s.s, which happened to be left without any teacher by the removal of the Greek professor to the headship of another College. To this charge he proved himself fully competent. It made the same breaches upon his time, and gave him rather more amends than his form in the grammar school. And amid his various occupations, Winthrop probably kept himself warm without a new overcoat; for he had none.

It was difficult at home, by this time, to do more than make ends meet. They hardly did that. The borrowed hundreds were of necessity yet unpaid; there was interest on them that must be kept down; and the failure of Rufus and Winthrop from the farm duty told severely upon the profits of the farm; and that after it had told upon the energies and strength of the whole little family that were left behind to do all that was done.

There was never a complaint nor a regret, even to each other; much less to those for whom they toiled; but often there _was_ a shadowed look, a breath of weariness and care, that spoke from husband to wife, from parent to child, and nerved -- or unnerved them. Still, Rufus had graduated; he was a splendid young man; all, as well as the parents' hearts, knew that; and Winthrop, -- he was never thought of, their minds and speech never went out to him, but the brows unbent, the lips relaxed, and their eyes said that their hearts sat down to rest.

Winthrop? He never could do anything but well; he never had since he was a child. He would take his degree now in a few months and he would take it honourably; and then he would be off to the great city -- that was said with a throe of pain and joy! -- and there he would certainly rise to be the greatest of all. To their eyes could he ever be anything else? But they were as certain of it as Winthrop himself; and Winthrop was not without his share of that quality which Dr. Johnson declared to be the first requisite to great undertakings; though to do him justice the matter always lay in his mind without the use of comparatives or superlatives. And while they sat round the fire talking of him, and of Rufus, the images of their coming success quite displaced the images of weary days and careful nights with which that success had been bought.

It was not however to be quite so speedily attained as they had looked for.

The time of examination came, and Winthrop pa.s.sed through it, as President Tuttle told his father, "as well as a man could;"

and took honours and distinctions with a calm matter-of-fact manner, that somehow rather damped the ardour of congratulation.

"He takes everything as if he had a right to it," observed a gentleman of the company who had been making some flattering speeches which seemed to hit no particular mark.

"I don't know who has a better right," said the President.

"He's not so brilliant as his brother," the gentleman went on.

"Do you think so? That can only have been because you did not understand him," said the President equivocally. "He will never flash in the pan, I promise you."