The Black Fawn Part 19

"Seven hundred dollars!" Bud gasped.

"It isn't a million."

"It might as well be!"

"You can earn that much on summer jobs."

"Gramps has been sick. He can't spare me in summer."

"What will he do when you go to college?"

"It looks as though I'll be spared that worry," Bud said miserably. "If I need seven hundred dollars, I'm not going."

"You asked for my advice and I gave it, Allan, and I'd have rendered you no service if I hadn't been realistic," Mr. Demarest said gently. "If I had a magic wand to wave you into college with, believe me, I'd wave it.

But I have no such thing. All you can do is to keep trying and never abandon hope."

Bud could say nothing, and finally Mr. Demarest said, "The bus has left.

How will you get home?"

"I'll walk."

"I'll take you," Mr. Demarest said.

Bud rode in heartbroken silence up the snow-bordered highway. Mr.

Demarest, who knew so much about so many things that Bud had almost believed he knew all about everything, hadn't been able to tell him how to get a college education. And so it was hopeless. Mr. Demarest drew up at the foot of the Bennetts' drive and put out his hand.

Mr. Demarest drove off and Bud tried to put a spring in his step and a tilt to his chin as he walked up the drive. The whole world, after all, had not fallen apart--just half of it. And Gramps was not only better but excited as a six-year-old over the prospect of hunting Old Yellowfoot tomorrow. Bud took off his overshoes, patted Shep and went into the kitchen.

Gram had just taken a tray of ginger cookies from the oven and put them on the table. Their odor permeated the whole kitchen. Gramps sat against the far wall happily oiling his rifle. Since Dr. Beardsley had given Gramps permission to go deer hunting this season, Gramps had been inspecting his rifle ten times a day. By now he had sighted it in so finely that he could almost drive nails with it at a hundred yards.

"Tomorrow's the day," Gramps said as Bud came in, "and I'm betting Old Yellowfoot will be hanging out in Dockerty's Swamp. You'd best get your own rifle in working order."

Bud said, "I already have."

Gram was more observant. "You're late, Allan," she said.

"I stayed to talk with Mr. Demarest," Bud said, in what he hoped was a casual tone. "He brought me home."

"What's the trouble?" she said, and Gramps looked up sharply.

"There's no trouble," Bud said.

"You can tell me, Allan. We're here to help you."

"If you're in a jam, Bud, we're on your side," Gramps said. "What'd you do? Sock the princ.i.p.al?"

"Honestly there's no trouble," Bud said. "Mr. Demarest and I talked about agriculture college."

"How nice," Gram said. "Every one of our boys and girls has gone to college. Now the twelfth will go, too."

"No he won't," Bud said. "Mr. Demarest said I hardly need a degree in agriculture if I'm going to stay here and take over Bennett's Farm. He said I can learn what I must know about poultry husbandry and berry culture as I go along."

"You're a right handy young feller at a lot of things," Gramps said.

"But you're 'bout the poorest liar I ever laid eyes on. Joe Demarest never told you that."

"Well," Bud stammered, "not exactly. We had quite a talk."

"About what?"

"College."

"You make nine times as many circles as Old Yellowfoot with fifteen hunters hot on his tail," Gramps said. "He told you to go to college, didn't he?"

"Yes," Bud admitted. "But I'm not going."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to waste that much time. I can pick up what I must know as I go along."

"That is about the foolishest notion I ever heard," Gramps declared. "In my time I've met lots of men who didn't know enough, but offhand I can't remember any who knew too much. Sure you're going. May be you can't live like a millionaire's son on what we got in the bank, but you can get through."

"I can't take your money!" Bud blurted.

"Pooh," Gram sniffed. "What's money for? Of course you'll take it and we'll be mighty proud to have a college graduate running Bennett's Farm.

Won't we, Delbert?"

"Yeah," said Gramps who had begun to oil his rifle again. "Now you'd best get out of your school duds. I fed and bedded your hifalutin'

chickens though I'm sort of uneasy around that one high-steppin'

rooster. He's got so much blue blood that most any time at all I expect him to whip out one of those fancy gla.s.ses on sticks. That rooster sure ought to have one. He figures I'm not fit to be in the same chicken house with him. You beat it along now, Bud. I didn't milk the cows."

"Take a couple of cookies with you," Gram said.

Bud grabbed a handful of cookies and went up to his room. As he went about changing into work clothes, Bud kept his jaws clamped tightly.

Gram and Gramps were wonderful, but they were so hopelessly out of touch with the world that they understood neither the value of money nor why Bud couldn't take the savings they had acc.u.mulated almost penny by penny over nearly half a century. They still added to it, but still almost penny by penny, and there was not even a possibility of sudden wealth.

Anyway, Bud said to himself, he had another year of high school before he could even hope to enter college. Perhaps something would turn up before then. But in his heart he knew nothing would and he decided to say no more about college. There was no point in arguing with Gram and Gramps.

As Bud milked the cows, took care of the stock and ate the evening meal with Gram and Gramps, he all but forgot his lost hope for a college education. Tomorrow's hunt for Old Yellowfoot was too exciting for him to brood over what could not be helped.

The tinny clatter of his alarm clock jarred him out of deep sleep the next morning well before the usual time. Bud shut the alarm off, leaped to the floor, and padded across it to revel for a moment in the frigid blast that blew in his open window. With snow on the ground and weather cold enough to keep it from melting without being too cold for comfort, it was a perfect day for hunting deer.

When he returned to the kitchen after doing the morning ch.o.r.es, Gram was making pancakes and cooking sausage and Gramps was sitting in a chair.

"Why didn't you call me?" he growled. "We'd have been in the woods sooner if I'd helped with the ch.o.r.es."

"Now don't be grouchy," Gram said. "Old Yellowfoot's been roaming about Bennett's Woods for a good many years. I think he'll last another fifteen minutes."

"A body would figure I'm a crippled old woman," Gramps said. "Maybe you should ought to wrap me up in cotton and put me to bed so I won't get scratched or something. Pah! I never did see the beat of such a business!"

"If you're feeling as mad as all that," Gram said sharply, "you won't have to shoot Old Yellowfoot. Just bite him and he'll die from hydrophobia."