get
Daniel and me to school. And schooling was just nuts to me, and not a
single nut so hard or so green that I wouldn't have chawed and bitten
my way clear into it. But Daniel--Daniel somehow couldn't seem to see
just how to enter a mushy Bartlett pear without a knife or a fork--in
some other person's fingers. He was all right, you know--but he just
couldn't seem to find his own way alone into anything. So when the
time came--" the grin on the Traveling Salesman's mouth grew just a
little bit wry at one corner--"and so when the time came--it was an
awful nice, sweet-smelling June night, I remember, and I'd come home
early--I walked into the kitchen as nice as pie, where Pa was sitting
dozing in the cat's rocking-chair, in his gray stocking feet, and I
threw down before him my full year's school report. It was pink, I
remember, which was supposed to be the rosy color of success in our
school; and I says: 'Pa! There's my report! And Pa,' I says, as bold
and stuck-up as a brass weathercock on a new church, 'Pa! Teacher says
that one of your boys has got to go to college!' And I was grinning
all the while, I remember, worse than any Chessy cat.

"And Pa he took my report in both his horny old hands and he spelt it
all out real careful and slow and respectful, like as though it had
been a lace valentine, and 'Good boy!' he says, and 'Bully boy!' and
'So Teacher says that one of my boys has got to go to college? One of
my boys? Well, which one? Go fetch me Daniel's report.' So I went and
fetched him Daniel's report. It was gray, I remember--the supposed
color of failure in our school--and I stood with the grin still half
frozen on my face while Pa spelt out the dingy record of poor Daniel's
year. And then, 'Oh, gorry!' says Pa. 'Run away and g'long to bed.
I've got to think. But first,' he says, all suddenly cautious and
thrifty, 'how much does it cost to go to college?' And just about as
delicate and casual as a missionary hinting for a new chapel, I
blurted out loud as a bull: 'Well, if I go up state to our own
college, and get a chance to work for part of my board, it will cost
me just $255 a year, or maybe--maybe,' I stammered, 'maybe, if I'm
extra careful, only $245.50, say. For four years that's only $982,' I
finished triumphantly.

"'_G-a-w-d!_' says Pa. Nothing at all except just, '_G-a-w-d!_'

"When I came down to breakfast the next morning, he was still sitting
there in the cat's rocking-chair, with his face as