The awe of years yielded before this display, and finding him just
human like the rest of us, the courage which I had always lacked
in approaching him took instant possession of me, and I determined
with a boy's unreasoning impulse to subject him to a personal
appeal not to add his influence to the distaste you at present
felt for the career upon which I had set my heart. Nothing could
have been more foolish and nothing more natural, perhaps, than the
act which followed. I ran down into the ravine with the wild
intention, so strangely duplicated in yourself a few minutes
later, of meeting and pleading my cause with him at the bridge,
but unlike you, I took the middle of the ravine for my road and
not the secluded path at the side. It was this which determined
our fate, father, for here I ran up against the chestnut tree, saw
the stick and, catching it up without further thought than of the
facility it offered for whittling, started with it down the
ravine. Scoville was not in sight. The moment was the one when he
had quit looking for Reuther and wandered away up the ravine. I
have thought since that perhaps the glimpse he had got of his
little one peering from the scene of his crime may have stirred
even his guilty conscience and sent him off on this purposeless
ramble; but, however this was, I did not see him or anybody else
as I took my way leisurely down towards the bridge, whittling at
the stick and thinking of what I should say to Mr.
Pages:
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331