Rilla stared wistfully at Pat’s extravagant invitation, gave a quick little gasp of delight, and then went blank, the joy fading out of her eyes.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” she faltered. “I would love to go, butyou seeI have another engagement. No, I can’t possibly get out of it.” Then Rilla watched her chance and slipped away up the back stairs.
And while Thurlow’s mother and sister wept apart for his disappointment, the young man was gravely telling his friends that what they asked was quite impossible.
It came to a moment when they paused in their eager urging and looked at one another, slightly dismayed, questioning. Then a lifting of eyebrows, an almost imperceptible nodding of heads, and one said to Pat, “Better tell him what it’s all about, Pat. Then he’ll understand.”
Thurlow looked from one to another with a puzzled, sad expression and waited.
“All right, Whirl. We’ll explain. Didn’t mean to do it yet till everybody was present, make a grand ceremony of it, see? But since you will be so dumb, perhaps it’s better to be out in the open. It’s this way, Whirl. See, we wantta put you up for head of the student exec. They don’t often take juniors, but it’s allowed, and our fraternity is one in this, to a man. And we wantta make our plans. Work out some of our policies for next winter, and all that, you know. So now I hope you see that you’ve got to put aside all else and come with us. No question about it!”
Thurlow’s face went white with feeling. His eyes grew dark with wonder and pain and swept the little group of college men with tender love, humility, and triumph in their gaze. They were the most outstanding men in his fraternity, and indeed in the whole college, and they had chosen him for this great honor. For an instant, the greatness of it overwhelmed him with feeling. His voice grew husky and refused to function when he tried to speak, and he felt a sense of great mingled weakness and power go through him. Just for an instant, his face blazed forth in the glory of a great joy and then went grave again. He thanked them all with his eyes even before he could speak. Then his gaze dropped, and he spoke slowly, hesitantly, drawing deep breaths between his words.
“Fellows … I can’t say … what I feel … that you should have wanted to … do this! I think … I shall always feel … that this is the biggest honor … that ever came to me! I’m not worthy … of course. There are far better fellows … for this job. That’s why it stirs me so deeply. I wish with all my heart … I could accept thisthis honor … that you have offered me. I’d try with all my strength to do it well. But … fellows”his voice broke and he drew another deep breath and went on“I can’t. Much as I would like to … I can’t! Because”he finished desperately“you see … I’m not coming back to college.”
There was an awful silence, a silence so still that it reached with impressive intensity to the back kitchen window where Mrs. Reed stood wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron and to Rilla’s upstairs room where she had taken refuge in tears.
Then the clamor arose again.
“Whaddya mean, Reed? Watcha givin’ us? You’re not turned yella, are you? You’re not selling your football to another institution?”
“No!” flashed Thurlow, “Never! I wouldn’t go anywhere else. This was my father’s college, and it would always be my choice even if it hadn’t been his. But, fellows, my dad died a month ago today, and the bank went fluey, and I’ve got to work!”
There was instant sympathy in every face and a hush of deference to disaster.
“Say, old man, that’s tough luck!” Pat’s voice wore genuine sympathy. There was deep concern expressed in every face, and the voices rang true as each expressed condolences, while the boys rapidly adjusted their calculations. Then Twink Collins spoke up.
“That won’t make any difference, kid. There’ll be ways of getting around that.”
“Our frat’ll see you through somehow, fella!” said Jeff.
“There are such things as loans, you know, and scholarships,” said Harding Roberts, with a wave of his hand that seemed to disperse all difficulties.
“You don’t understand!” said Thurlow, a note almost of weariness in his voice, a note that seemed to set him infinitely apart from them all in another sphere. “It isn’t just a matter of money, you know. The money may come back if the bank reopens. But we’ve lost our home! Everything is gone! I’ve got to stick by and carry on.”
“You can do that a great deal better with your education properly completed, son!” said Harding Roberts loftily.
“There are sometimes things you have to do without, no matter how much better it would be to have them,” said Thurlow with a sad smile. “This happens to be one of them.”
“Nonsense, Whirl! We’ll fix it all up for you!” said Pat in his cheerful cocksure way. “Get a hustle on you and pack that bag, or we’ll take you without it. Education or no education, you’ve got to come with us and counsel about fraternity matters and student exec. We won’t take no for an answer!”
They all rushed upon him and tried to force him up the stairs, but smiling, resolute, he resisted them and spoke firmly.
“Sorry, fellows, I’d like to go, but it can’t be done!”
And at last they believed him and went reluctantly away.
“This isn’t the end!” called back Pat.
“No, kid, this isn’t the end. We’ll get you back! Wait till we tell Prexy and the football coach!” the others chorused.
Thurlow stood at the gate and waved them away, smiling to the last. And then he stood there staring into a future full of pain and sorrow and perplexity.
Yet there was something exultant about it after all. They had come after him! They had planned to give him this great honor! It was something to have won that from them before he left.
He looked wistfully for an instant into what might have been if things had been different. What he would have done as president of the student exec! What his standing and associations would have been! What his outlook for the future. He had an instant’s breathless thought of telling Barbara about it and of how great it would have been in her eyes, and then suddenly his landscape darkened. He had had no word from Barbara yet. She might have sent at least a postcard back. Rilla had one from Chandler and Betty. It had been a sharp hurt in his soul every time he had thought of it. But perhaps she had waited to write a real letter. Surely, surely she would write him one of her long, delightful letters sometime soon. One had so much time on board a ship. He thought of the handbag on which he had spent so much time and thought, yes, and money, for money had to be thought of now. It seemed almost as if it had been purchased with his heart’s blood.
Rilla, at her upper window, watched him standing there, saw him turn back toward the house with bowed head. Poor Thurl! She had heard it all from her vantage point of the upper window just above the porch where they had said their lingering farewells. Poor Thurl! It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right! And Father would feel so badly if he knew how his plan had failed. Something ought to be done about it. Surely something could be done. Surely she and her mother could manage somehow and let Thurl finish out his college courses.
She washed her face, powdered the signs of weeping from her nose, and hurried down the back stairs to clear up the dishes from their impromptu party. She met her mother coming away from the back window, brushing away her tears, and knew that her mother also had heard it all.
“Mother,” she began, “I think somehow we ought to make Thurl go back to college.”
“Yes, of course!” said the mother with a choking sound in her voice. “We must!”
And then the door swung open from the butler’s pantry, and there stood Thurl.
“Now, come on, girls!” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “Let’s take a walk and see our new domicile!”
“Not