The Soul of a Child Part 36

Then he turned to Keith and said more kindly: "I ask you to go for my sake."

"I will," the boy blurted out with a little catch in his voice.

His pride was broken, and once more those everlasting tears were dimming his eyes.

He felt weak and helpless, but through his dejection broke now and then a sense of pleasant warmth. His father had asked him to go "for his sake."

Such a thing had never happened before.

XXI

The cla.s.s was discreetly preoccupied when Keith showed up as usual next morning. Only Young Bauer evinced a slight inclination to taunt him, but was curtly hushed up.

During one of the afternoon hours the door of the cla.s.sroom opened unexpectedly and Keith's father appeared on the threshold.

"Will you pardon me for just one moment, Sir," he said to the astonished teacher. Then, without coming further into the room, he addressed himself to Keith: "I have had a talk with the Rector and with Lector Booklund. I have heard all about your behaviour in school, and I warn you now that unless you do better, I shall give you the treatment you deserve. Bear that in mind."

Then he vanished as abruptly as he had appeared.

A couple of the boys snickered. The teacher rapped sharply on the table with the book he held in his hand.

Keith sat absolutely still with bowed head. He couldn't think. He didn't dare to think of ever facing one of those other boys again. And suddenly it occurred to him that his father had looked quite common, like a workman almost, while he stood there at the door, talking across the room to Keith.

But a tiny voice somewhere within himself denied it.

XXII

The term dragged to an end.

Commencement Day was no longer a cause of joyful antic.i.p.ation. It had to be borne like many other things. But it did mark the end.

Keith learned without much heartbreaking that he had got a "C" not merely in Latin, which he expected, but in behaviour as well--he who all through his school period had never had less than "A" on his personal conduct.

Well, it merely clinched the decision he already had formed. One could not pa.s.s any examination in behaviour. And after what had happened, the thought of going back to the same cla.s.sroom in the fall gave him a sensation of outright physical discomfort. Anything was better than school.

Not even his mother had put in an attendance that day. He had to walk home by himself, all the other boys being accompanied by pleased or resigned parents. But it was in keeping with the rest of what he had to go through.

Out of the midst of the shapeless throng of dark thoughts filling his head, a quite irrelevant memory pushed to the front as if in answer to an unspoken question. It consisted of the words spoken by Aunt Brita:

"Keith will have to start it all over again from the beginning."

XXIII

The first few days after the closing of the school were wonderfully restful. The parents proved remarkably forbearing. Neither one spoke a word of reproach. Nothing was said about the future. It was as if some sort of fear had checked them.

The home seemed unusually quiet and pleasant. There was any amount of time for reading, and no suggestions were forthcoming as to what should or should not be read. Yet Keith remained satisfied only a few days.

No one knows what might have happened if they had gone into the country for the summer as they used to do. But again the whole family had to stay in town for some reason not divulged to Keith. And with the heat and the sunshine came the usual restlessness.

Keith had made up his mind not to go back to school. He was equally determined not to let himself be forced into any sort of manual work.

Besides having no knack for it, he had come to look upon it as a social disgrace. Some other work must be found, for well enough he knew that his father would not let him stay home indefinitely doing nothing.

It was easy, however, to make up one's mind about what not to do, but mighty hard to discover the right kind of thing to do. Keith had no clue to start with at all, and to begin with all his efforts led him into the blindest of blind alleys.

He plagued his mother with inquiries to which she had few or no answers to give. He even deigned to consult Johan and found that he already had found a place as errandboy in a store. A few questions convinced Keith that such a life might be good enough for Johan but not for a boy who, after all, had reached Lower Sixth in a public school.

The situation was becoming desperate and Keith was watching his father with steadily increasing concern, when at last a helpful hint reached him from the most unexpected quarter.

"Why don't you look in the paper," Granny asked him one day.

"What for," was Keith's surprised counter-question.

"For work, of course. Look at the advertis.e.m.e.nts on the back page."

"Do you think, Granny...." Keith hesitated.

"I don't think," retorted Granny. "I know."

XXIV

Three weeks had gone. It was still early morning, and he was studying a newspaper very carefully.

"What is it you find so interesting," his mother asked at last.

"The advertis.e.m.e.nts," he explained without taking his eyes off the paper.

"What advertis.e.m.e.nts?"

"Help wanted."

"Nonsense," she cried, putting down her sewing. "Are you still thinking of leaving school?"

"Here is one about a volunteer wanted in a wholesale office," was his indirect reply. "It is on West Long street--in the same house where Aunt Gertrude has her jewelry store. Do volunteers get paid?"

"I don't know," his mother said absent-mindedly, her hands resting on her lap in unwonted idleness. Then she woke up as from a dream: "You should ask papa first."

"What's the use until I know whether I can get," Keith parried.

Ten minutes later he bustled into Aunt Gertrude's store, where she sat in a corner near the big show-window working at a strip of embroidery that never got finished. She was a spinster with large black hungry eyes in a very white face. She and Keith's mother had been girl friends. Now she was running one of the two jewelry stores owned by her brother.