"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.
"father regan, of course. he couldn't send the boys unless they wanted to go. but when they heard about the old house uncle made out of his ship, and the row-boats and the sailboat, and the bathing and fishing, they just jumped at the chance to go. and jim says there is a fine place not far off, where dud spent the season two years ago with some tip toppers, and he's counting on getting in with them again. so he is tickled all around. but i'm not caring about dud or what he likes, so long as i've got you, dan, i wouldn't want to go without you."
"wouldn't you, kid?" asked dan, softly, for, after all the troubles and perplexities of the day, his little chum's trusting friendship seemed very sweet to him.
"n-o-o-o!" answered freddy, most decidedly. "but i sort of wish brother bart was not going. he'll keep me such a baby!"
"no, he won't. i'll see to that," said dan, with a twinkle in his eye. "if there's any way of giving you a good time, i'll do it. and i won't let you get hurt again either,--no sir! i've had my scare about that. i'm going to look out for you right. it may be for the last time, but--"
"the last time," interrupted freddy quickly. "why will it be the last time?"
"i mean i may never have a chance at such a jolly holiday again," answered dan, suddenly remembering his promise to father mack. "but we'll make this one a hummer. if killykinick is half what i think it is, we'll make this chance a hummer you'll never forget."
