The Flag Part 19

And Pen strode back across the field, prouder and happier than he had ever been before in all his life.

But he still had Grandpa Walker to settle with.

At supper time, on the evening after his talk with Robert Starbird, Pen had no opportunity to inform his grandfather of the success of his application for employment. For, almost as soon as he left the table, Grandpa Walker got his hat and started down to the store to discuss politics and statecraft with his loquacious neighbors. But Pen felt that his grandfather should know, that night, of the arrangement he had made for employment, and so, after his evening ch.o.r.es were done, he went down to the gate at the roadside to wait for the old man to come home.

The air was as balmy as though it had been an evening in June.

Somewhere in the trees by the fence a pair of wakeful birds was chirping. From the swamp below the hill came the hoa.r.s.e croaking of bull-frogs. Above the summit of the wooded slope that lay toward Chestnut Hill the full moon was climbing, and, aslant the road, the maples cast long shadows toward the west.

To Pen, as he stood there waiting, came his mother. A wrap was around her shoulders, and a light scarf partly covered her head. She had finished her evening work and had come out to find him.

"Are you waiting for grandpa?" she asked; though she knew without asking, that he was.

"Yes," was the reply. "I want to see him about leaving. I had a talk with Mr. Starbird this afternoon, in the road, and he's given me the job he spoke about. I wasn't going to tell you until after I'd seen grandpa, and the trouble was all over."

"You dear boy! And if grandpa objects to your going?"

"Well, I--I think I'll go anyway. Look here, mother," he continued, hastily; "I don't want to be mean nor anything like that; and grandpa's been kind to me; but, mother--I can't stay here. Don't you see I can't stay here?"

He held his arms out to her appealingly, and she took them and put them about her neck.

"I know, dear," she said; "I know. And grandfather must let you go. I shall die of loneliness, but--you must have a chance."

"Thank you, mother! And as soon as I can earn enough you shall come to live with me."

"I shall come anyway before very long, dearie. I worked for other people before I was married. I can do it again."

She laughed a little, but on her cheeks tears glistened in the moonlight.

Then, suddenly, they were aware that Grandpa Walker was approaching them. He was coming up the road, talking to himself as was his custom when alone, especially if his mind was ill at ease. And his mind was not wholly at ease to-night. The readiness with which Pen had, that day, accepted a suggestion of employment elsewhere, had given him something of a turn. He could not contemplate, with serenity, the prospect of resuming the burdens of which his grandson had, for the last two months, relieved him. To become again a "hewer of wood and drawer of water" for his family was a prospect not wholly to his liking. He became suddenly aware that two people were standing at his gate in the moonlight. He stopped in the middle of the road, to look at them inquiringly.

"It's I, father!" his daughter called out to him. "Pen and I. We've been waiting for you."

"Eh? Waitin' for me?" he asked.

"Yes, Pen has something he wants to say to you."

The old man crossed over to the roadside fence and leaned on it. The announcement was ominous. He looked sharply at Pen.

"Well," he said. "I'm listenin'."

"Grandpa," began Pen, "I want you to be willing that I should take that job that Mr. Starbird spoke about to-day."

"So, that's it, is it? Ye've got the rovin' bee a buzzin' in your head, have ye? Don't ye know 't 'a rollin' stone gethers no moss'?"

"Well, grandpa, I'm not contented here. Not but what you're good enough to me, and all that, but I'm unhappy here. And I saw Mr.

Starbird again this afternoon, and he said I could have that job."

"Think a job in a mill's better'n a job on a farm?"

"I think it is for me, grandpa."

"Work too hard for ye here?"

"Why, I'm not complaining about the work being hard. It's just because farm work does not suit me."

"Don't suit most folks 'at ain't inclined to dig into it."

Then Pen's mother spoke up.

"Now, father," she said, "you know Pen's done a man's work since he's been here, and he's never whimpered about it. And it isn't quite fair for you to insinuate that he's been lazy."

"I ain't insinuatin' nothin'," replied the old man, doggedly. "I ain't findin' no fault with what he's done sence he's been here; I'm just gittin' at what he thinks he's goin' to do." He turned again to Pen.

"Made up yer mind to go, hev ye?"

"Yes, grandpa."

"When?"

"Next Monday morning."

"Wuther I'm willin' or no?"

"I want you to be willing."

"I say, wuther I'm willin' or no?"

In the moonlight the old man's face bore a look of severity that augured ill for any happy completion to Pen's plan. A direct question had been asked, and it called for a direct answer. And with the answer would come the clash of wills. Pen felt it coming, and, although he was apprehensive to the verge of alarm, he braced himself to meet it calmly. His answer was frank, and direct.

"Yes, grandpa."

"Well, I'm willin'."

"Why, grandpa!"

"Father! you old dear!" from Pen's mother.

"I say I'm willin'," repeated the old man. "I hed hoped 't Pen'd stay here to hum an' help me out with the farm work. I ain't so soople as I use to be. An' Mirandy's man's got a stiddy job a-teamin'. An' the boy seemed to take to the work natural, and I thought he liked it, and I rested easy and took my comfort till Robert Starbird put that notion in his head to-day. Sence then I ain't had no hope."

"I'm sorry to leave you, grandpa, and it's awfully good of you to let me go, and you know I wouldn't go if I thought I could possibly stay and be contented."

"I understand. It's the same with most young fellers. They see suthin'

better away from hum. And I ain't willin' to stand in the way o' no young feller that thinks he can better himself some'eres else. When I was fifteen I wanted to go down to Chestnut Hill and work in Sampson's planin' factory; but my father wouldn't let me. Consekence is I never got s.p.u.n.k enough agin to leave the farm. So I ain't goin' to stand in n.o.body else's way, you can go Monday mornin' or any other mornin', and I'll just say G.o.d bless ye, an' good luck to ye, an' start in agin on the ch.o.r.es."

Then Pen's mother, like a girl still in her sympathies and impulses, flung her arms around her father's neck, and hugged him till he was positively obliged to use force to release himself. And they all walked up the path together in the moonlight, and entered the house and told Grandma Walker and Aunt Miranda of Pen's contemplated departure, to which Grandpa Walker, with martyrlike countenance, added the story of his own unhappy prospect.

When Monday morning came Pen was up long before his usual hour for rising. He did all the ch.o.r.es, picked up a dozen odds and ends, and left everything s.h.i.+p-shape for his grandfather who was now to succeed him in doing the morning work. Then he changed his clothes, packed his suit-case and came down to breakfast. Grandpa Walker had offered to take him into town with Old Charlie, but Pen had learned, the night before, that Henry Cobb was going down to Chestnut Hill in the morning, and when Mr. Cobb heard that Pen also was going, he gave him an invitation to ride with him. He and the boy had become fast friends during Pen's sojourn at Cobb's Corners, and both of them antic.i.p.ated, with pleasure, the ride into town.

After breakfast Grandpa Walker lighted his pipe and put on his hat but he did not go to the store, as had been his custom; he stayed to say good-by to Pen, and to bid him G.o.dspeed, as he had said he would, and to tell him that when he lacked for work, or wanted a home, there was a latch-string at Cobb's Corners that was always hanging out for him.