Chapter 3

"It's time ye were going, Danny; for ye're a long way from college, and I wouldn't keep ye against rules. I hope ye'll have a fine time at the seashore, with the fishing and boating and all the other sports. Good-bye and God bless ye, lad, until we meet again! Good-bye, Danny dear!" And, realizing from the wide-open eyes of the old lady near him that all confidential communications were over, Dan kissed Aunt Win's withered cheek, and, his heart swelling with feelings he could not speak, took his way back to Saint Andrew's, all his dreams, hopes, ambitions for the future strangely shaken.

Aunt Win,--gentle, loving, heartsick, homesick Aunt Win! Aunt Win, begging him to give her up lest she should hurt and hinder him in his opening way! Aunt Win sighing for the little place she had called home, even while she was ready to give it up forever and die silent and lonely, that her boy might climb to heights of which she could only dream and never see! Dear, faithful, true-hearted, self-forgetting Aunt Win! Dan felt his own eyes blurring as he thought of all she had done, of all she was ready to sacrifice.

And--and--the other thought followed swiftly: he could give it all back to her,--the little attic rooms over Mulligans', the flowerpot in the window, the blue teapot on the stove, Tabby on the hearth-rug,--he could give it all back to Aunt Win and bring her home. It would be long, long years before the higher paths into which he had turned would yield even humble living; but the old ways were open to him still: the "ditch-digging" with which Dud Fielding had taunted him, the meat wagon, the sausage shop, that he had been considering only a few hours ago. What right had he to leave the good old woman, who had mothered him, lonely and heartsick that he might climb beyond her reach? And yet--yet to give up Saint Andrew's, with all that it meant to him; to give up all his hopes, his dreams; to turn his back on those wide corridors and book-lined rooms for counter and cleaver; to give up,--to give up! Quite dizzy with his contending thoughts, Dan was striding on his way when a hearty voice hailed him:

"Hello! That you, Dan? Jump in and I'll give you a lift." And Pete Patterson's ruddy face looked out from the white-topped wagon at the curb. "I was just thinking of you," said Pete, as Dan willingly sprang up to the seat at his side; for Pete had been a friendly creditor in the days of the little attic home when credit was sometimes sorely needed. "Are you in with the 'high brows' for good and all?"

"I--I don't know," hesitated Dan.

"Because if you're not," continued Pete--"and what tarnation use a sturdy chap like you will find in all that Latin and Greek stuff, I can't see,--if you're not in for it, I can give you a chance."

V.--A "CHANCE."

"I can give you a chance," repeated Pete, as he turned to Dan with his broad, ruddy face illuminated by a friendly smile. "It's a chance I wouldn't hold out to everybody, but I know you for a wide-awake youngster, as honest as you are slick. Them two don't go together in general; but it's the combination I'm looking fur just now, and you seem to have it. I was thinking over it this very morning. 'Lord, Lord,' sez I to myself, 'if Dan Dolan hadn't gone and got that eddycation bug in his head, wouldn't this be the chance for him?"

"What is it?" asked Dan; but there was not much eagerness in his question. Wide and springy as was the butcher's cart, it did not appeal to him as a chariot of fortune just now. A loin of beef dangled over his head, a dead calf was stretched out on the straw behind him. Pete's white apron was stained with blood. Dan was conscious of a dull, sick repulsion of body and soul.

"Well, it's this," continued Pete, cheerfully. "You see, I've made a little money over there at my corner, and I'm planning to spread out,--do things bigger and broader. There ain't no sort of use in holding back to hams and shoulders when ye can buy yer hogs on the hoof. That's what I'm in fur now,--hogs on the hoof; cut 'em, corn 'em, smoke 'em, salt 'em, souse 'em, grind 'em into sausage meat and headcheese and scrapple, boil 'em into lard. Why, a hog is a regular gold mine when he is handled right. But I can't handle it in that little corner shop I've got now: there's no room fur it. But it's too good a business there fur me to give up. So I'm going to open another place further out, and keep both a-going. And I can't afford no high-class bookkeeper or clerk, that will maybe jump my trade and gobble all my profits. What I want is a boy,--a bright, wide-awake boy that knows enough about figguring to keep my accounts, and see that no one 'does' me,--a boy that I can send round in the wagon to buy and sell 'cording to my orders,--a boy that will be smart enough to pick up the whole business from _a_ to _izzard_, and work up as I worked up till I kin make him partner. That's the chance I've got, and I believe you're the boy to take it."

"I--I would have to give up college of course," said Dan, slowly.

"Give up college!" echoed Pete. "Well, I should rather say you would! There ain't no time fur books in a biz like mine. Now, Dan, what's the good of college anyhow fur a chap like you? It ain't ez if you were one of these high mug-a-mugs with a rich father to pay yer way through, and set you up in a white choker and swallow-tail coat afterwards. What's the good of a strong, husky fellow fooling along with Latin and Greek, that will never be no use to him? You'd a heap better spiel plain strong English that will bring you in the spondulics. Why, look at me! I never had two years' schooling in my life. It's all I can do to scrawl 'P. J. Patterson,' so folks can read it, and thump out the rest on a secondhand typewriter. But that 'ere same scrawl will bring five thousand dollars out of the bank any time I want it. If I had as much eddycation as you have, Dan, nobody couldn't keep me in any school in the land another minute. It's all nonsense,--a dead waste of time and money."

"What would you pay me?" asked Dan, as the big loin of beef above joggled against his shoulder.

"Well, let me see!" considered Pete. "I ain't paying any fancy price at start, fur I don't know how things will work out; but I won't be mean with you, Dan. What do you say to four dollars a week and board?"

"No," answered Dan, promptly. "I don't want your board at all."

"Ye don't?" said Pete in surprise. "It will be good board, Dan: no fancy fixings but filling, I promise you that,--good and filling."

"I don't care how filling it is," answered Dan, gruffly. "I'd want my own board, with Aunt Winnie. That's all I'd come to you for,--to take care of Aunt Winnie."

"Ain't they good to her where she is?" asked Pete, who knew something of the family history.

"Yes," answered Dan; "but she is not happy: she is homesick, and I want to bring her--home."

And something in the tone of the boyish voice told Pete that, with Aunt Winnie and a home, Dan would be secured as his faithful henchman forever.

"I don't blame you," he said. "I've got an old mother myself, and if I took her out of her little cubby-hole of a house and put her in the marble halls that folks sing about, she'd be pining. It's women nature, specially old women. Can't tear 'em up by the roots when they're past sixty. And that old aunt of yours has been good to you sure,--good as a mother."

"Yes," answered Dan, a little huskily, "good as a mother."

"Then you oughtn't to go back on her sure," said Pete, reflectively. "Considering the old lady, I'll make it five dollars a week, if you'll agree for a year ahead, Dan."

"A year ahead!" echoed Dan, thinking of all that year had promised him.

"Yes," said Pete, decidedly. "It must be a year ahead. I can't break you in at such a big figger, and then hev you bolt the track just as I've got used to you. I wouldn't give five dollars a week to any other boy in the world, though I know lots of 'em would jump at it. It's only thinking of that old mother of mine and how I'd feel in your place, makes me offer it to you. Five dollars a week will bring your Aunt Winnie back home. And, between you and me, Dan, if she ain't brought back, she'll be in another sort of home before long, and past your helping. Mrs. Mulligan was telling me the other day that she had been out to see her, and she was looking mighty peaked and feeble,--not complaining of course, but just pining away natural."

"When will you want me?" blurted out Dan, desperately. "Right off now?"

"Oh, no, no!" was the hasty answer. "I haven't got the other place open yet, and this 'ere hot weather ain't no time fur it. I'm just laying plans for the fall. What were you thinking of doing this summer?"

"Going off with a lot of fellows to the seashore. But I'm ready to give it up," answered Dan, gulping down the lump that rose in his throat.

"No, don't,--don't!" said Pete. "I haven't got things fixed for a start yet. Won't have them fixed for a couple of months or so. I ain't a-hurrying you. Just you think this 'ere chance over, and make up your mind whether it ain't wuth more than all that Greek and Latin they're stuffing into your head at Saint Andrew's. Then come around somewhere about the first of September and see me 'bout it. I won't go back on my offer. It will be five dollars cash down every Saturday night, and no renigging. I turn off here," concluded Pete, drawing up as they reached a busy corner. "You'll have to jump down; so bye, bye, Dan my boy, until I see you again! Remember it's five dollars a week, and a home for Aunt Winnie."

"I'll remember," said Dan, as, half dazed, he jumped from the wagon and took his way back to Saint Andrew's.

He entered the cross-crowned gateway that guarded the spacious grounds, feeling like one in a troubled dream. He could shape nothing clearly: his past, present, and future seemed shaken out of place like the vari-colored figures of a kaleidoscope. To give up all his hopes, to shut out the beautiful vista opening before him and settle down forever to--to--"hogs on the hoof!" And yet it was his only chance to cheer, to gladden, perhaps to save gentle Aunt Win's life,--to bring her home again.

But would she be happy at such a sacrifice? Would she not grieve even at the fireside she had regained over her broken dreams? And Dan would come down from his dreams and visions (which, after all, are very vague and uncertain things for boys of thirteen) to Tabby and the teapot, to the fluttering old hand in his clasp, the trembling old voice in his ear.

The sun was close to its setting; supper was over, he knew; and Jim Norris was waiting impatiently for his promised game. But he could not think of tennis just now; still less was he disposed for a meeting with Dud Fielding, whose voice he could hear beyond the box hedge at his right. So, turning away from tennis court and playground, Dan plunged into the quiet shelter of the walk that skirted the high, ivy-grown wall, and was already growing dim with evening shadows, though lances of sunlight glinting here and there through the arching pines broke the gloom.

Pacing the quiet way with feeble step was an old priest, saying his Office. Father Mack's earthly work was done. He could no longer preach or teach; he was only lingering in the friendly shadows of Saint Andrew's, waiting his Master's call home; his long, busy life ending in a sweet twilight peace. Sometimes at retreats or on great feasts, when there was a crowd of juvenile penitents in the college chapel, Father Mack, gentle and indulgent, had his place in a quiet corner, where he was rather avoided by young sinners as a "dying saint."

But Dan, whatever might be his month's record of wrong-doing, had taken to Father Mack from the first. Perhaps it was something in the Irish voice that recalled Aunt Winnie; perhaps some deeper sympathy between souls akin. Though they seldom met, for the old priest had his room in a building remote from the students' quarters, Father Mack and Dan were fast friends. His presence here was most unlooked for; and Dan was about to retire without further intrusion, when the old priest closed his book and turned to him with a kindly nod.

"You needn't run off. I'm done, my boy. These long, hot days are a bit hard on me; but I like to stay out here in the evening to say my Office and watch the sunset. Did you ever watch the sunset, Danny?"

"Yes, Father," answered Dan. "It's great."

"What do you see in it, Danny?" was the low question.

"Oh, all sorts of things, Father,--domes and spires and banners of gold and red and purple, and pillars of cloud and fire--"

"And gates," broke in Father Mack. "Don't you see the gates, Danny,--gates that seem to open in the shining way that leads to God's Throne? Ah, it's a wonderful sight, the sunset, when your day is near done and you are tired and old,--too old to be picturing and dreaming. I'll soon see--beyond the cloud and the dream, Danny,--I'll soon see."

The old man paused for a moment, his dim eye kindling, his withered face rapt. Then suddenly, as if recalled from some cloudy height to earth, his look and voice changed into fatherly interest.

"Were you looking for me,--were you wanting to talk to me, my son?"

"No--yes--no," faltered Dan, who had not thought of such a thing. "Well, yes, I believe I do. I'm all muddled up, and maybe you can set me right, Father Mack. For--for," Dan blurted out without further hesitation, "I can't see things clear myself. Aunt Winnie is grieving and pining and homesick at the Little Sisters. She is trying to hide it, but she is grieving, I know. She broke down and cried to-day when I went to see her,--cried real sobs and tears. And--and" Dan went on with breathless haste, "Peter Patterson, that keeps the meatshop at our old corner, has offered me five dollars a week to come and work for him. To give up Saint Andrew's--and--and--all it means, Father Mack, and work for him."

VI.--FATHER MACK.

"Give up Saint Andrew's!" repeated Father Mack in a low, startled voice. "You, Dan! Give up! Oh, no, my boy,--no!"

"Aunt Winnie will die if I don't," blurted out Dan, despairingly. "Pete Patterson says so. And I can take her home and give her back her little rooms over Mulligans', and the blue teapot and Tabby, and everything she loves. And Pete says I can work up to be his partner."

"His partner,--his partner! In what?" asked Father Mack, anxiously.

"Meat business," answered Dan. "He's made money, and he's going in for it big,--corning, smoking, sausage, everything. I--I could take care of Aunt Winnie fine."

"Meat business, sausage? I don't think I understand," said Father Mack, in bewilderment. "Sit down here, Dan, and tell me all this over again."

Dan took his seat on a broken slab that had been a gravestone before the old college cemetery had been condemned and removed beyond the limits of the growing city. It was a very old slab, bearing the Latin title of some Brother or Father who had died fifty years ago. The sunset fell through a gap in the pines that showed the western sky, with its open gates, their pillars of cloud and fire all aglow.

"Tell me slowly, calmly, Dan. My ears are growing dull."

And Dan told his story again, more clearly and less impetuously; while Father Mack listened, his bent head haloed by the setting sun.

"I can't let Aunt Winnie die," concluded Dan. "You see, I have to think of Aunt Winnie, Father."

"Yes, I see,--I see, my boy," was the low answer. "And it is only of Aunt Winnie you are thinking, Dan?"

"Only of Aunt Winnie," replied Dan, emphatically. "You don't suppose anything else would count against Saint Andrew's, Father. I'd work, I'd starve, I'd die, I believe, rather than give up my chance here?"

"Yes, yes, it's hard lines sometimes," said Father Mack. "You may find it even harder as the years go by, Dan. I heard about the trouble yesterday."

"Oh, did you, Father?" said Dan, somewhat abashed. "Dud Fielding did stir the old Nick in me for sure."

"Yes," said Father Mack. "And that same fierce spirit will be stirred again and again, Dan. Despite all your teachers can do for you, there will be pricks and goads we can not help."

"I know it," answered Dan, sturdily. "I'm ready for them. Saint Andrew's is worth all the pricks and goads I'll get. But Aunt Winnie, Father,--I can't forget Aunt Winnie. I've got to take Aunt Winnie back home."

"Would she--wish it, at such--such a cost, Dan?" Father Mack questioned.

"Cost," repeated Dan, simply. "It wouldn't cost much. The rooms are only a dollar a week, and Aunt Winnie can make stirabout and Irish stews and potato cake to beat any cook I know. Three dollars a week would feed us fine. And there would be a dollar to spare. And she could have her teapot on the stove again, and Tabby on the hearth-rug, only--only" (the young face clouded a little) "I'm afraid great as it all would be, she'd be grieving about her dreams."

"Her dreams!" echoed Father Mack, a little puzzled.

"Yes," said Dan. "You see, I am all she has in the world, and she is awful soft on me, and since I got into Saint Andrew's she's softer still. She thinks there's nothing too great or grand for me to do. My, it would make you laugh, Father, to hear poor old Aunt Winnie's pipe dreams about a tough chap like me!"

"What does she dream, Dan?" asked the old priest softly.

"I suppose she'd get out of them if she were home where things are natural like," said Dan; "but now she sits up there in the Little Sisters' dreaming that I'm going to be a priest,--a rough-and-tumble fellow like me!"

"Stranger things than that have happened, Dan," said Father Mack, quietly. "I was a rough-and-tumble fellow myself."

"You, Father!" exclaimed Dan.

"The 'roughest-and-tumblest' kind," said Father Mack, his worn face brightening into a smile that took away twenty years at least. "I ran away to sea, Dan, leaving a gentle mother to break her heart for me. When I came back" (the old face shadowed again) "she was gone. Ah, God's ways are full of mystery, Dan! I think it was that made me a priest."

Father Mack was silent for a moment. His dim eyes turned to the sunset, where the cloud curtains were swept asunder, the pillared gates a glory of crimson and gold. Something in his old friend's face hushed Dan's questioning until Father Mack spoke again.

"That was a long time ago,--a long time ago. But the thought of it makes me understand about Aunt Winnie, Dan, and how hard it is to give you up. Still--still--even of old God asked the firstlings of the flock. Sacrifice! sacrifice! It is the way to heaven, Dan. Heart, hopes, tears, blood,--always sacrifice." And again the old speaker paused as if in troubled thought. "How soon must you make your choice, Dan?" he asked at length.

"My choice? About leaving, you mean, Father? Oh, Pete Patterson doesn't want me until the fall. And I haven't any place to go this summer, if I give up now. Father Regan is going to send us off to-morrow with Brother Bart for a summer at the seashore."

"A summer at the seashore! Ah, good, good,--very good!" said Father Mack, his old face brightening. "That will give us time to think, to pray, Dan. A summer! Ah, God can work wonders for those who trust Him in a summer, Dan! Think what He does with the seed, the grain, the fruit. It is not well to move or to choose hastily when we are in the dark as to God's will. So say nothing about all this to any one as yet, Dan,--nothing this summer."

"I won't, Father," agreed Dan.

"And I promise that every day you will be remembered in my Mass, Dan."

"Thank you, Father! That ought to keep me out of trouble sure."

"And now where is this seashore place?" asked Father Mack, quite cheerfully.

"An island called Killykinick, Father."

"Killykinick?" echoed Father Mack, startled. "You are going to Killykinick? God bless me, how wonderful!"

"You know the place, Father?" asked Dan, with interest.

"I know it indeed," was the answer. "I was wrecked there in the wild days of which I told you, Dan, sixty years ago. The 'Maria Teresa' (I was on a Portuguese ship) went upon the rocks on a dark winter night, that I thought was likely to be my last. For the first time in my reckless youth I really prayed. My dear mother, no doubt, was praying for me, too; for I learned afterwards that it was on that night she died, offering with her last breath her life for her boy. Well, we held together somehow until morning, and got off to the shore of Killykinick before the 'Maria Teresa' went down, loaded with the golden profits of a two years' cruise."

"And did they never get her up?" asked Dan, quite breathless with interest at this glimpse of a "dying saint's" past.

"Never," answered Father Mack,--"at least never that I heard of. It was soon afterward that I turned into other ways and lost sight of my old mates. But I always have remembered the friendly haven of Killykinick. It was a wild place,--only a few deserted fishermen's huts on the rocky shore, where we lived on fish and clams until taken off by a passing ship. But that same rocky shore meant safety, shelter, life. And so in the after years I have always blessed Killykinick. And you are going there to-morrow! You will find it all changed,--all changed, I am sure," said Father Mack, as he slowly rose to his feet, for the sunset was fading now. "But I will think of you there, Dan,--think of you frolicking over the rocks and sands where I wandered so long ago a shipwrecked boy. Now it is time for me to go in, for my old blood chills in the twilight; so I must say good-bye,--good-bye and God bless you, my boy!"

And, laying his hand for a moment on the boyish head, the old priest turned away into the deepening shadow of the pines, leaving Dan, who was beginning to feel vividly conscious that he had missed his supper, to make a rapid foray into the refectory, where Brother James could always be beguiled into furnishing bread and jam in and out of time,--having been, as he assured the belated ones, a boy himself.

There was another belated one this evening. Seated before a tempting spread of milk toast, demanded by his recent convalescence, was Freddy Neville, a little pale and peaked perhaps, but doing full justice to a third creamy slice, and ready for more.

"Why, hello, Fred!" greeted Dan, dropping into the chair beside him. "You down?"

"Yes," said Fred, spooning his dish vigorously. "I'm well, all right now. Temperature gone, Brother Tim says. Can't I have a little more toast, Brother James, please? I'm not half filled up yet. Supper tastes twice as good down here. I've been out with Brother Bart buying shoes and things to go to Killykinick, and I'm hungry as a bear."

"Wait a bit then, and I'll bring ye both in some strawberry jam and biscuits," said Brother James, good-humoredly. "It's the black fast Brother Tim puts on sick boys, I know. When they came down after the measles I couldn't get them enough to eat for a month. There now!" And the good man set forth supplies liberally. "I know what it is. I've been a hungry boy myself."

"Jing, it's good to be up and out again!" said Freddy, as both boys pitched into biscuits and jam. "I felt down and out this morning sure, Dan, and now everything is working fine. We're going to have the time of our lives this summer, after all. Even Dud Fielding is cooling off, Jim Norris says, now that his nose has gone down, and he has heard about Killykinick."

"Who told him?" asked Dan, who did not feel particularly cheered at these tidings; for Dud's "cooling off" was by no means to be trusted, as he knew.