His father had poured forth upon him his fears and apprehensions in a
manner which implied a censure on his son, as being willing to accept a
life of scholarly ease while his father and mother were, as he expressed
it, "working their lives away."
"But I tell you, father, as God is my witness, I _mean_ to pay all; you
shall not suffer; interest and principal--all that my work would bring--I
engage to pay back."
"You!--you'll never have anything! You'll be a poor man as long as you
live. Lost the Academy this Fall--that tells the story!"
"But, father, it wasn't my fault that I lost the Academy."
"It's no matter whose fault it was--that's neither here nor there--you
lost it, and here you are with the vacation before you and nothing to do!
There's your mother, she's working herself to death; she never gets any
rest. I expect she'll go off in a consumption one of these days."
"There, there, father! that's enough! Please don't say any more. You'll
see I _will_ find something to do!"
There are words spoken at times in life that do not sound bitter though
they come from a pitiable depth of anguish, and as James turned from his
father he had taken a resolution that convulsed him with pain; his strong
arms quivered with the repressed agony, and he hastily sought a distant
part of the field, and began cutting and stacking corn-stalks with a
nervous energy.
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