a fight began. The desecration of my
beloved poetry gave me such angry strength that I struck out lustily and
dropped both of them....

Rushing in on the uproar and blaming me for it, my father seized me by
the collar. He booted the other boys off, who were by this time on their
feet again, took me up into the water-tower, and beat me with one of the
heavy sticks, with metal clips on it, that was used for hanging the
composite on.

Still trembling with the fight, I shook with a superadded ague of fear.
My father's chastisement brought back to me with a chill the remembrance
of the beatings Uncle Landon had given me.

* * * * *

"By God, Johnnie, this is the only thing there's left to do with you."
He flung me aside. I lay there sobbing.

"Tell me, my boy, what _is_ the matter with you?" he asked, softening.
Unlike Landon, he was usually gentle with me. He seldom treated me
harshly.

"Father, I don't want to work any more."

"Don't want to work?... but you quit school just to _go_ to work, at
your own wish!"

"I want to go back to school!"

"Back to school?... you'll be behind the rest by now."

"I've been studying a lot by myself," I replied, forgetting the feel of
the stick already and absorbed in the new idea.

By this time we were down the stairs again, and I was sitting by my
father's desk. He took up the unlighted cigar he always carried in his
mouth (for smoking was not allowed among such inflammable material as
composite). He sucked at it thoughtfully from habit, as if he were
smoking.

"Look here, my son, what _is_ the matter with you ... won't you tell
your daddy?"

"Nothing's the matter with me, Pop!"

"You're getting thin as a shadow ... are you feeling sick?"

"No, Pop!"

"You're a queer little duck."

There was a long silence.

"You're always reading ... good books too ... yet you're no more good in
school than you are at work ... I can't make you out, by the living God,
I can't ... what is it you want to be?"

"I don't know, only I want to go back to school again."

"But what did you leave for?"

"I hated arithmetic."

"What do you want to study, then?"

"Languages."

"Would you like a special course in the high school?

"Principal Balling of the Keeley Heights High School might be able to
work you in. He is a brother Mason of mine."

"I know some Latin and Greek and Ancient History already. I have been
teaching myself."

"Well, you _are