The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
no matter what he does later on."
"Well, if background is all you're getting out of it," the Little Doctor said indignantly, "I'll agree with your dad that it's time we took you out of school and put you to work at something. Background is all very well, but it's the foreground that interests us just now, young man."
"Looks to you pretty much of a smear, I suppose," the Kid suggested.
"Very much a smear!"
"All right, if that's the way you feel. I suppose I'm free to think what I please of the foreground. Is that all, Mother? Dad's waiting to unburden himself on the subject, you know." The Kid turned and picked up his hat, holding it so that his mother could not see how his hands were shaking.
"Claude Bennett, what in heaven's name has come over you in the last year or two? Aren't you even sorry you've acted like an insufferable cad?"
The Kid stiffened, his mouth pressed shut in the stubborn look his mother knew of old.
"Can't you say you're sorry? Answer me, Claude!"
"Yes," said the Kid, giving her a sudden stern look, "I am sorry. I'm sorry my mother can condemn me unheard and take it for granted I'm an insufferable cad."
"Unheard? What possible excuse—"
"Oh, it doesn't matter—now." The Kid turned, found the door knob with a blind, groping movement of his hand and went out. As he left the house his father joined him and the two walked together down the path, shoulders almost touching as they went, but worlds apart in spirit.
What passed between them when they reached the privacy of the big barn no one knew, except that Slim, coming from one of the corrals, overheard and reported the end of the conversation. The Kid was speaking rapidly, not very loud but with every word as clear-cut and distinct as hammer blows upon an anvil.
"I won't apologize to the boys, and I won't apologize to you or Mother. You didn't wait to hear why I stayed away, but formed your own opinion before I showed up. And that's okay with me—but I won't apologize."
"You will, if you expect to stay on this ranch," blazed Chip, his face hard as granite. "It's come to a point where I'm going to find out who's boss, you or me. I've paid out good money sending you to school—and all it's done so far is to give you the idea you're cock of the walk. Talk about college education! It's knocked all the sense out of you you ever did have. There won't be any more of it, I can tell you that. You march back to the house and tell your mother you're ashamed of yourself and you'll try to be half human from now on!"
"I will not! I'm not ashamed of myself, and I'm not going to lie about it."
"Then pack your belongings and drift," snapped Chip. "When you're ready to haul in your horns, you can come back; not before."
"Say!" The Kid's face matched Chip's for hardness. "Do you think you could tie me and keep me here, after this? You and Mother treat me as if I were about six years old. You fail to realize that I'm grown up!"
"Well," said Chip with much sarcasm, "if the rest of you ever grows to match the size of your head, you can hang your hat on a telephone pole!"
"And yet," retorted the Kid in a tone that stung, "you rave because a head like that wants to do its own thinking!" He turned away to his horse, mounted and stared down at his father who stared back. For a moment he seemed on the verge of speech; then, with a touch of his spurs, he wheeled the bay horse and went galloping furiously down the pasture trail, weaving in and out among the willow clumps and never once looking back.
Chapter V. Parts Unknown
The Happy Family was inclined to make light of the storm. Kids took funny streaks sometimes, they averred, and the only danger lay in taking them too seriously. Chip, whose blood still boiled from the encounter, openly bewailed the fact that the Kid was too big to take a licking, which was plainly what he deserved. Even the Little Doctor for once failed to champion his cause. He was at that difficult age, she declared, when a boy's disposition underwent a change to match his voice and became uncertain and not to be endured except that one knew it was a temporary affliction. Claude would be all right if he were left alone for awhile.
It was with the tacit agreement to leave him alone that they decided to drive over to Cal Emmett's place, all of them, in the two closed cars. Chung, the Chinese cook, would look after J. G. for a couple of hours, and the Kid would have a chance to calm down.
But the Kid had no intention of calming down, in the sense they meant. The Kid was for once doing exactly what his father told him to do, and showing an unwonted zeal in the doing. He was just finishing the packing of his belongings on Sunup when he heard the two cars go laboring up the hill in second gear and guessed where they were going. It suited him very well, because now he would not need to take a roundabout course out of the coulee so as to avoid being seen, as he had intended to do. Furthermore, he could do something before he left which the presence of his father and mother would have made impossible. So he mounted and rode back up to the stables, his two packed horses swinging into the trail behind him and trotting docilely along at Stardust's heels. The Kid turned them into an empty corral and walked up to the house.
"Well, good-by, Uncle J. G.," he said with forced cheerfulness. "I'm pulling out for parts unknown, and I don't know when I'll see you again, so—"
"Parts unknown, ay?" The Old Man looked at him from under his grizzled eyebrows. "That means you don't know yourself, or that you ain't going to tell?"
The Kid colored and turned his gaze aside.
"That I don't want to tell, I guess. I don't want the folks to know and put up a holler about it." He glanced questioningly into the Old Man's eyes. "I suppose you heard about the row."
"Didn't get the straight of it," grumbled the Old Man. "Don't s'pose they did either, for that matter. What happened?"
"O-h—" the Kid spoke reluctantly "—I got into a nest of blind canyons, down here toward the river, and couldn't get out for about twenty-four hours, is all. Mother and Dad had me down for a major break—"
"Hey?"
"They think I stayed away just to be mean, and Dad and I can't seem to agree anyway, so I'm pulling out."
"Where to? No reason why you shouldn't tell me, is there?" The Old Man's shrewd eyes bored for the truth. "Ashamed to tell, ay?"
"No, it isn't that. But the folks seem to hate the idea of letting me grow up. They want to keep me depending on them for everything, even my opinions. Because I insist on doing my own thinking and planning my own life, they're in a blue funk. They can't or won't follow my mental processes, so they think I must be going straight to the devil. Dad's idea is to keep me out of school and make me work here on the ranch to learn what he calls sense. Mother wants me to be a doctor, and if I won't be a doctor school is going to spoil me. They stand together on one point: If I won't do what they want me to do with my life, they're not going to educate me. I don't know where they get that stuff—well, yes, I do, but it's all out of date, choosing your child's career while your child is in the cradle. It's the bunk. People of their intelligence ought to be ashamed to hold such archaic theories.
"Well, the point is, I'm going on and finish my University course, and I'm going to pay my own way. I meant to go into all this with the folks and tell them my plans, but this row kind of changes things. I'm perfectly willing to look after myself from now on, so I'm going to rustle the money to carry me through till next year."
"Far as the money's concerned—"
"No, I can't let you dig up enough to—no, not a dime, Uncle J. G. I can handle this alone, thanks just the same. That wouldn't get me anywhere in the long run. I'd still be letting some one else carry me when I'm well able to use my own legs. No, I'm going to pay my own way from now on. I can, all right—"
"How?" demanded his uncle, eyeing him curiously. "Goin' to