"How?"

"I don't quite know, but I'll try. There are several things I could be, a clerk--or even a message-boy. I shouldn't like it, but I'd do anything rather than do nothing."

Mrs. Boyd sat down on the side of the bed. If she felt inclined to cry she had too much sense to show it. She only took firm hold of her boy's hand, and waited for him to speak on.

"I've been thinking, mother, I was to have a new suit at Christmas; will you give it now? And let it be a coat, not a jacket. I'm tall enough--five feet seven last month, and growing still; I should look almost a man. Then I would go round to every office in Edinburgh and ask if they wanted a clerk. I wouldn't mind taking anything to begin with. And I can write a decent hand, and I'm not bad at figures; as for my Latin and Greek--"

Here Donald gulped down a sigh, for he was a capital classic, and it had been suggested that he should go to Glasgow University and try for "the Snell" which has sent so many clever young Scotsmen to Balliol College, Oxford, and thence on to fame and prosperity. But alas! no college career was now possible to Donald Boyd. The best he could hope for was to earn a few shillings a week as a common clerk. He knew this, and so did his mother. But they never complained. It was no fault of theirs, nor of anybody's. It was just as they devoutly called it, "The will of God."

"Your Latin and Greek may come in some day, my boy," said Mrs. Boyd cheerfully. "Good work is never lost. In the meantime, your plan is a good one, and you shall have your new clothes at once. Then, do as you think best."

"All right; good-night, mother," said Donald, and in five minutes more was fast asleep.

But, though he was much given to sleeping of nights--indeed, he never remembered lying awake for a single hour in his life--during daytime there never was a more "wide awake" boy than Donald Boyd. He kept his eyes open to everything, and never let the "golden minute" slip by him. He never idled about--play he didn't consider idling (nor do I). And I am bound to confess that every day until the new clothes came home was scrupulously spent in cricket, football, and all the other amusements which he was as good at as he was at his lessons. He wanted "to make the best of his holidays," he said, knowing well that for him holiday time as well as school time was now done, and the work of the world had begun in earnest.

The clothes came 

 Prev. P 37/95 next