Читать книгу The Greatest Romance Novels of Grace Livingston Hill - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 104

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Nathan came home from New York a new creature. He walked the old familiar streets, and met the neighbors he had known since ever he could remember, as in a dream. It was as if years had passed and given him a new point of view. Behold the former things had passed away and all things had become new. He knew that he was new. He knew that the aspirations and desires of his life had changed, and he bore himself accordingly.

The neighbors looked at him with a puzzled, troubled expression; paused and turned again to look as he passed, and then said reflectively:

"Well, I'll be gormed! Ain't that that young Whitney?"

At least that was what Squire Heath said, as he braced himself against his own gate-post and chewed a straw while Nathan walked erectly down the street away from him. It reminded one of those people long ago who asked:

“Is not this he that sat and begged?”

In former times nobody had been wont even to look at Nathan as he passed.

The boys, his companions in wicked pranks, fell upon him uproariously on his return, inclined to treat his vacation as a joke, and then fell back from him in puzzled bewilderment. He was as if not one of them. Already he gave them the impression that he looked down upon them, although he had no such notion in mind, and was heartily glad to see them; but his mind was in a confusion and he hardly knew how to reconcile all the new motions that strove for prececdence in his breast. These foolish, loud-voiced children, once a part of himself, did not somehow appeal to him in his new mood. In his heart of hearts he was loyal to them still, and glad to see them, but he wondered just a little why they seemed so trifling to him. It was not altogether the more grown-up suit of clothes that David had encouraged him to buy in New York with his advance wages. This of course made him look older; but he had seen a great deal in his short stay and carried responsibilities not a few, besides having come in contact with the great questions and some of the great people of the day. He had had a vision of what it meant to be a man, and his ideals were reaching forth to higher things. He came and went among them gravely with a new and upright bearing, and gradually they left him to himself. They planned escapades and he agreed readily enough to them, but when the time arrived he didn't turn up. He always had some good excuse. There was extra work at the office or he had a lesson with Mr. Spafford. At first they regarded these interruptions sympathetically and put off' their plans. But they waited in vain, for when he did happen to come he did not take the old hold on things, his thoughts seemed far away at times, and they gradually regarded his disaffection with disgust and came finally to leave him out of their calculations altogether.

When this happened Nathan walked the world singularly alone, except for his friends the Spaffords. It was an inevitable ciscumstance of the new order of things, of course, but it puzzled and gloomed the boy’s outlook on life. Yet he would not, could not, go back.

It is true that the attitude of the town toward him had slightly, even imperceptibly, changed. Instead of ignoring him altogether, or being actually combative toward him, they assumed a righteous tolerance of his existence which to the proud young nature was perhaps just as hard to bear. There was a certain sinister quality of grimness in their eyes, too, as they watched him, which he could not help but feel, for he was sensitive as a flower in spite of his courage and strength of character. They were actually disappointed, some of them, that he was seeming to turn out so differently from their prophecies. Had they really wanted him to be bad so they could gloat over him?

Nevertheless, there were great new joys opening up to the boy that fully outbalanced these other things. His work was an intense satisfaction to him. He took pleasure in doing everything just as well as it could be done, and often stayed beyond hours to finish up some bit of writing that could just as well have waited until next day, just to see the pleased surprise in David’s eyes when he found out. Also he was actually getting interested in Latin. Not that he was a great student by nature. He had always acquired knowledge too easily to have made him work very hard for it until now; and he had also always had too much mischief to give him time to study. But now he desired above all things to please his teacher and stand well in his eyes. A man could not do as much for Nathan as David had done and not win everlasting gratitude and adoration from him. So Nathan studied.

David was a good teacher, enjoying his task, so great progress was made; and the winter sped by on fleet wings.

Miranda, hovering in the background with opportune cookies and hot gingerbread when the evening taeks were over, enjoyed her part in the education and transformation of the boy. He was going to college and she was going to have at least a cookie’s worth of credit in the matter.

Miranda, as she cooked and swept and made comfort generally for all those with whom she had to do, was turning over and over in her mind a plan, and biding her time. There was something she longed to do, but did not yet see her way clear to it. The more she thought the more impossible it seemed, yet the more determined she became to do it one day.