CHAPTER IXSTUDYING A BOY
“It is good, very good, indeed. It isn’t often a young pitcher can do so well as that, but I fancy he didn’t have any very skillful batters to face,” laughed Mr. Borden.
“I don’t know what ‘struck out’ means,” said Mrs. Borden. “It doesn’t mean that Dan struck anybody, does it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, I’m sure he is a good boy and I’m proud of Walter that he wants to help Dan obtain an education. For my part I think it shows a decidedly generous nature.”
“I thought he wanted me to help Dan.”
“You know perfectly well what he meant.”
“Yes, I fancy I do,” said her husband good-naturedly.
“You are going to help him, aren’t you?”
“It depends.”
“Upon what?”
“Upon what I find in the boy. I don’t know of any better way to invest my money than to put it into men. But there isn’t any use in trying to make a successful man out of an incompetent or lazy boy.”
“Dan isn’t lazy—I’m sure of that,” said Mrs. Borden warmly. “Everybody around here knows how hard he and Tom work on the farm.”
“Who is Tom?”
“He is Dan’s brother.”
“And does he too want to go to school and college?”
“I haven’t heard that he did. What Walter said about Dan to-night is the first I’ve heard that Dan wanted an education.”
“And he struck out fifteen in the game to-day,” said Mr. Borden mockingly.
“I don’t understand what you mean, but you say it isn’t anything bad.”
“On the contrary, it is quite remarkable.”
“Then why do you laugh?”
“Did I laugh?” asked Mr. Borden soberly.
“You know you did. It doesn’t seem to me quite fair to Walter. I’m sure if he takes an interest in helping Dan get an education you ought not to discourage him.”
“Perish the thought, mother.”
“I never can tell whether you are serious or not.”
“I’m serious about one thing—I wish supper was ready.”
“I’m sure it must be, for I heard Martha say she would have it by the time Walter came.”
“Well, Walter has come, but I don’t see any signs of supper.”
“There! There’s the gong!” exclaimed Mrs.Borden as the musical sound of a Japanese gong was heard from the dining-room. “You won’t have to wait any longer. Here comes Walter.”
All hastened at once to the room where supper was served and the food Martha had prepared speedily began to disappear from the table.
“This is better than the city,” said Mr. Borden after a brief time had elapsed. “It was very warm there this morning. Here, the very view I have from the window rests me. I sometimes think I’d like to give up work and come up here and stay.”
“You wouldn’t think of giving up work at your age,” exclaimed his wife.
“Not with one boy in the Tait School and another that Walter is thinking of sending,” laughed Mr. Borden.
“You helped one of the boys in your office to go to college,” suggested Walter.
“He was worth it—worth all I put into him.”
“So will Dan be.”
“That remains to be seen. I suppose I’ll have a chance some time to see this prodigy—let me see, was it eighteen he struck out to-day?”
“Fifteen,” replied Walter promptly. “Dan is coming over here after supper.”
“Have you said anything to him?” asked Mr. Borden sharply.
“No, sir; not a word.”
“That is wise. Well, we’ll soon find out whether it’s another Daniel come to judgment or justanother case of mistaken identity. You say he struck out twenty men to-day?”
“No, fifteen.”
“So it was. How much do you pay this Dan when you hire him to take you fishing on Six Town Pond?”
“Two dollars a day.”
“Does he earn his money?”
“He does that!” exclaimed Walter with enthusiasm. “The other day we got a pickerel that weighed almost ten pounds and we saw a snake almost as big as a fence rail.”
“You say ‘we’ got a ten-pound pickerel. Who got it—you or Dan?”
“I caught it—though I don’t believe I’d have landed it if it hadn’t been for him.”
“Quite likely. What did he do?”
“He just told me what to do.”
“Has he been studying any at night?” abruptly asked Mr. Borden.
“Every night,” replied Walter promptly.
“I’ll go over to his farm with you to-morrow morning.”
“Dan said he might come over here to-night.”
“That is all right,” said Mr. Borden quietly.
An hour later when the entire family was seated on the piazza Dan appeared. He was quiet, almost shy in his bearing, and as he accepted Mrs. Borden’s invitation to a seat with the family hefound himself sitting between Walter and his father. Mr. Borden took little part in the conversation, but Walter was positive that his father was quietly observing his friend and consequently was eager to have him make a good impression. But Dan too was unusually silent even for him and Walter was compelled to do most of the talking, though it cannot be said that the task, for him, was a difficult one.
At last Mr. Borden inquired, “Dan, how many acres are in your farm?”
“Fifty-one, sir,” replied Dan.
“All under cultivation?”
“No, sir. We have a nine-acre wood-lot and there are about twelve acres we use as pasture. It’s rock land and the soil is thin.”
“What do you raise mostly?”
“Some wheat, considerable corn, and more potatoes.”
“Why do you raise potatoes?”
“Because I have a ready market and they pay best. The soil is just right for them.”
“How do you know it is?”
“If you saw our potatoes I don’t think you’d ask that question.”
“Did your father raise many potatoes?”
“No, sir.”
“What made you try it then?”
“One of the Otis boys took the agricultural course at college. When he was in college I askedhim to analyze some of the soil. It was when he was a student and I don’t suppose his analysis was absolutely correct. But he talked with his professors, told them about our farm, how it was located and all, and they advised trying potatoes as a crop. We did—and we are satisfied.”
“You say you have a good market. Where is it?”
“All over is about the best answer I can give you, Mr. Borden. A good many people come up here every summer from the city. I make arrangements with a few of them to ship a barrel or two directly to each family every fall.”
“Do you get the market price?”
“Yes, sir; after taking out the freight.”
“Market price here or of the wholesalers or retailers in the city?”
“The retail price in the city.”
“Don’t you think that is a little too much?” laughed Mr. Borden.
“No, sir.”
“How is that?”
“They pay us just what they’d have to pay at a grocery store, and our potatoes are better.”
“Is that what your customers say?”
“Yes, sir; and we don’t have any small potatoes in the bottom of the barrel.”
“That’s something worth thinking of. My boy tells me you played a great game of ball to-day.”
“Yes, sir; the nine did well.”
“Walter says you made up the nine.”
“Did he tell you that? Walter himself began a triple play in the ninth inning that probably saved my record.”
“I don’t recall if he did.”
“What is a triple play?” inquired Mrs. Borden.
“It’s when you get three out right together,” explained Walter.
“Of course. I ought to have known that,” said Mrs. Borden. “How far ‘out’ do they have to go? I could hear the boys this afternoon. They were not very far out from the village.”
“Not very far, mother,” said Walter.
“I must come over and see your potatoes, Dan,” said Mr. Borden. “Are they doing well this season?”
“Yes, sir,” Dan replied, “though we’ve had a hard fight with the bugs. I never saw them worse than they are this summer.”
For an hour or more the party remained on the piazza, Mr. Borden taking only an occasional part in the conversation, which Walter did not suffer to lag. Dan, absolutely unaware that Mr. Borden was listening and watching with a purpose, was quiet in his manner, speaking less frequently than his friend and then in fewer words. It was plain that he enjoyed the evening, for Walter’s mother, as well as the other members of the family, by their manifest friendliness and interest, made him less consciousof himself, and the quiet boy entered after his own manner into the spirit of the group.
After Dan’s departure Mrs. Borden said to her husband, “Well, what do you think of Dan? To me he seems to be an unusually fine boy.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Borden.
“Are you going to help him through school?”
“I thought Walter was planning to do that,” laughed Mr. Borden quietly.
“I am proud that my boy is so generous,” said Mrs. Borden warmly. “He wants to help his friend.”
“How many was it that Dan struck out?” asked Mr. Borden soberly as he turned to his boy. “Twenty-one, wasn’t it?”
“No, sir; fifteen,” replied Walter promptly.
“So it was,” assented Mr. Borden. “That is a good record.”
“But Dan is more than a good ball-player,” asserted Walter. “He is a hard worker and he has the best head on him I ever saw. He never loses his head in a game, he doesn’t dispute the umpire or yell at the fellows——”
“Do you ever do that, Walter?” broke in Mr. Borden.
“I’m afraid I do,” admitted Walter shamefacedly.
“All boys shout, I hear them every day,” spoke up Mrs. Borden. “I am sure Walter does no more than other boys of his age.”
“Not in your ears, mother,” laughed her husband. “Ask Walter what he thinks about it. He ought to know.”
“What I want to know is whether or not you are going to help Dan.”
“I cannot say as yet.”
“Why not?”
“I must see more of him first. It would be no real kindness to Dan to take him away from the farm, where I fancy he is doing fairly well, and put him into some other work in which he might fail.”
“But I thought you believed in education,” protested Mrs. Borden.
“I do,” said her husband simply.
“Then I don’t see——” began Mrs. Borden.
“Education and school and college are not always the same thing.”
“But schools are to provide education.”
“They provide opportunities,” said Mr. Borden quietly. “If a boy goes to school and doesn’t use his opportunities, the fact that he has attended or even been graduated from a certain institution doesn’t make him an educated man, does it? Education is like the water in a trough—if a horse doesn’t drink it, it doesn’t make any difference how many times he has been led to it or what a fine trough the water is in. No horse quenches his thirst except by drinking.”
“What is an education then?”
“Perhaps I can best answer that question bytelling what a certain great college president explained it to be. He said there are four great processes or operations of a boy’s mind which education ought to develop if it is to fulfil its best purpose—the first is observing accurately, the second is recording correctly, the next is the ability to compare and group and draw a correct inference, and the last is the ability to express clearly and forcefully what he has learned.”
“Don’t you think Dan can do all that? I’m sure Walter can,” affirmed Mrs. Borden.
“Can he?” said Mr. Borden quizzically. “Well, if he can then he is educated already and I shall not need to send him to school any more. As for Dan, I must see more of him. The most I know now is that he struck out fifteen men to-day.”