kit was delighted over the whole spirit of the letter, and went directly to the dean with its message. he was deeply engrossed in getting up his first notes and commentaries on the urn and statue. it had not seemed for the past two or three weeks as if he resided any longer in delphi at all. kit told miss daphne she was positive he was wandering through egypt all the time, the egypt of five thousand years ago. and it was only the shadow of his self that seemed to sit closeted for hours in the study.
he hardly glanced up now as she came in, but smiled and nodded when he saw who it was, keeping on with his writing.
"just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the door. second volume, 'explorations in upper egypt.' look up seti i in the index."
kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one end of the desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his attention. the little statuette of annui smiled grotesquely down upon her from its pedestal. the urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the desk itself as the dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it.
"i hate to disturb you, uncle cassius," kit began, with the directness so characteristic of her, "but i really think i ought to go back home. you've been wonderful to give me such a long visit, and i've enjoyed the school work immensely, but somehow i begin to feel like a soldier who has been away on a furlough. it's time for me to get back to the firing line, because mother needs me."
the dean glanced up in surprise, and came slowly out of his dream of concentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him.
"why, my dear child," he exclaimed, "this is very sudden. there has never been any question about your going back, at least——" he coughed deprecatingly. "not since we became acquainted with you. has anything happened?"
"why, nothing special—i mean, nothing tragic. it's only this, dad's lost a lot of money all at once. he did have a little income, enough so we never have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that has been swept away. i suppose it will come back some time after the war, but as i understand it, the stock he had has stopped paying dividends."
"jerry never had any head for business." the dean tapped one hand lightly with his tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles in an absent-minded musing way that nearly drove kit frantic. "but what can you do about it, my dear? surely by returning at such a time you merely add to your father's burdens."
"no, i won't," kit answered, decidedly, "because i've got a plan that i've been thinking about for ever and ever so long. i'm going to try and persuade dad to let us put in hogs."
"hogs," repeated the dean, in a baffled tone. "hogs, my dear. who ever heard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all? i'm sure that horace never tried hogs on his farm."
now it just happened that kit had a smattering knowledge of horace, gleaned from billie. in the old days back home, when they had studied together, they had seemed to always get the personal side of the old heroes and people of fame. and just now the only thing she could remember about horace popped up in her mind.
"well, i'll bet a cookie there was many a time when he wished he had. don't you remember how he wrote,
"'give me again my hollow tree,
a crust of bread and liberty.'
"we've had our hollow tree, and i'm afraid unless we get right down to business now, we'll have all the crusts of bread and liberty we fancy. i just can't stay here in this beautiful place with nothing to worry over, while the family are practically in a lifeboat with breakers ahead."
if the dean had known kit better, he would have realized that in emotional moments she was prone to exaggerated similes, but as it was, he felt impressed.
"why, god bless my heart and soul," he exclaimed, "i had no idea it was as bad as this. i thought jerry was very comfortably fixed."
"oh, we were at the cove. we had everything we wanted, but father was sick an awfully long while after his breakdown, and he's never been able to do any work since."
"but how ridiculous for a man to bury himself and all his capital in a place like gilead," the dean protested, somewhat testily. "he could have done a great many other things, i should imagine."
kit leaned over and looked at him, right in the eye.
"uncle cassius, what would you do if everything was just swept away from you, health, money, home and your work; what do you suppose you would do? if there was any spot of earth that was peaceful and restful, and that you loved best, wouldn't you want to go to it? that's what gilead means, 'the place of healing.'"
there was silence in the old study. the dean was looking straight at annui as if for inspiration, and yet it was not the old image which he saw, but a vision of gilead as he remembered it in his boyhood, a vision of green hills spanning the horizon, of fertile valleys and many watercourses. memories stirred in his mind of jerry robbins' mother, his sister. sometimes kit reminded him of her, in her buoyant self-reliance and optimism.
the bonds of relationship had always been somewhat intangible to him, since he had grown up. he had laid out his own career himself, and had carried every ambition to completion and reality. the last twenty years had been years of fruition, of honors freely given, years of fulfillment. he had not been, like judge ellis, intolerant of other men's failures; he had simply ignored them, never feeling any responsibility towards the weaker ones who fell in the race. in his way, he prided himself upon a gentle, aloof philosophy of life which left him the boundaries of the old study as a horizon of happiness.
probably not until that moment had he realized the gradual revolutionary process kit had been putting him through ever since her arrival. she had trained him into having an interest in other people and things, until now it was impossible for him not to see the picture of greenacres as she did.
"how did you find out about this, my dear?" he asked.
"well," kit replied, honestly, "partly from billie and partly from this letter from cousin roxy. you know cousin roxy, don't you, uncle cassius?"
the dean's eyes twinkled reminiscently as he took the letter.
"oh, yes, i remember roxana well. she used to bully me outrageously." he opened the letter and started to read slowly, just as kit suddenly remembered cousin roxy's remarks on cassius cato peabody. but there was no turning back now. straight through to the end he read, and several deep chuckles broke the silence, real chuckles of delight, such as kit had never heard from the dean. when he had finished, he handed it back to her.
"perfectly true, my dear," he said. "i can quite see why you feel that you are needed. you had better take your midwinter examinations, and prepare to return home about christmas. in all likelihood your aunt daphne and i will accompany you."
