Chapter XX Aunt Millie’s Interpretation
of Education. The
Right Sort of an Adviser Gets
Hold of me
I HURRIED—with a feeling of pride—in the direction of the tenement where my aunt and uncle were living. It was nearly noon. I would surprise my aunt! I knocked on the door. My Aunt Millie stood before me.
“Hello!” I cried. “How are you?”
She gazed on me with evident surprise, and with a mixture of suspicion, which she put in her first words:
“I thought you were out getting made into a gentleman—at one of those schools?”
“Why, aunt, I’ve had two years of education—so far. I mean to have more.”
“But where’s that fortune you’ve made?”
I gasped.
“Fortune? I’ve only got thirty-five cents and I’m in debt for that!”
“It’s a failure, then?” she asked, maliciously.
“Of course it isn’t a failure!” I insisted, desperately. “Two years of it have helped me very much. I mean to get more of it, aunt!”
“But you look poorly dressed, and you tell me that you’re poorer than the day you went. I always thought education meant getting along in life!”
“It does mean getting along in life,” I argued, “but not necessarily getting along in money—or even good clothes. It has to do with the mind—with the thinking powers—eh—”
She burst into mocking laughter and said:
“Oh, that’s it? Then maybe you’ll not be needing bed and board now that you’ve had two years of education,—is that the state of things?”
“Oh, you don’t understand, aunt. Of course you can’t do much in the world with only two years of it. It needs several years of it before you can really get a position in which money or prestige may be made. I’m only just on the way: in the first stages.”
“Then why aren’t you in it? What have you come back to us for? I suppose you are short of money and want us to help you along in your brainless undertaking, eh?”
“Have I asked a cent from you during the last two years, aunt?” I asked with some show of spirit. “Haven’t I earned my own living even when I have been at home? Is it likely that I’ll ask you to help me through now?”
“It wouldn’t do any good if you were to ask us,” she said, firmly. “We have debts enough in the house now to drive us to distraction.”
“Of course,” I said, “it will be some weeks, probably, before I can shape my plans. You will let me stay here?”
“There,” she sniffed, “he’s coming the soft soap act on, now! I thought you had something up your sleeve. So you want me to board you free of charge for some weeks, eh, while you lord it around without working?”
“I shall have to plan just what to do next!” I announced, feeling that this last touch to my already heavy load would break me. “That’s all. I shall be going off to some sort of a school if it’s possible.”
“Two days free: that’s as long as you can stop without board,” she announced. “I never was for this hair-brained business. It’s taken your earnings away. After two days you must pay board.”
I knew it was fruitless to argue with her any further and I longed for the noon to arrive when I could have Uncle Stanwood’s more comforting greetings.
My uncle came in and was extremely pleased to greet me, and my return so unexpectedly considerably upset him.
“Two years of learning, steady,” he commented. “That’s good. You are the first Priddy to get such a chance. Make the most of it. Two years is a good beginning. I can notice a difference in your speech and your manner already. Keep on, Al!”
“His learning hasn’t given him any silk shirts or gold-headed canes, has it?” scoffed my Aunt Millie.
“Don’t heap it on the lad,” chided my uncle, “it’s taken a lot of courage and perhaps suffering for him to get through as he has. We haven’t done anything towards it, Millie; so we shouldn’t have much to say!”
Then my uncle asked a perfectly natural and innocent question.
“What are you aiming to be, Al, when you’re through with the schools?”
Tremblingly I whispered:
“A preacher, I think!”
If the world had cracked or the moon had leaped into the middle of our kitchen, my aunt could not have been more startled than she appeared to be at that announcement. She instantly rallied her powers of ridicule and sarcasm and indulged in the following monologue that had little savor of love in it:
“Oh, oh! That’s the lay of the land, is it? A parson! A Priddy a parson! A fawning, hypocritical parson! A tea-drinking, smirking thing in black. Why, at least, didn’t he choose to be a lawyer or a doctor or something worth while? I thought he had brains!”
“Millie!” thundered uncle. “Shut up! Do you want to crush the lad?”
But she was not to be stopped. She grew almost hysterical in her tirade.
“I suppose he’ll be hurling his sermons at us, so sanctimonious and pious!”
“Hush, aunt, please,” I pleaded, “don’t shout so loud, people will hear and wonder what’s wrong!”
“There,” she went on with a dry laugh, “just hear that low voice: it’s just the voice for a parson!” Then she posed before me in dreadful mimicry, with her finger tips touching in front of her and an affected, upward cast in her eyes, while she cried, ingratiatingly:
“‘Be good, be very, very good, my dears! Do right like me and get to heaven!’” and then releasing herself from this display she suddenly roared, “You old hypocrite, you! The idea, you a parson!”
“God knows,” muttered uncle, “it is to be wondered how a lad brought up with us could ever turn his eyes in that direction!”
At that my Aunt Millie cast on her husband a frown and said, snappishly:
“Aye, you old sinner. Your conscience is working now. No wonder you talk like that!”
During the dinner, while my aunt was in the pantry, uncle bent towards me and whispered:
“Come out with me after dinner, Al. We’ll talk there!”
At half-past twelve we left the house together and sat down on some logs on an empty lot near the mill where uncle said, after I had recounted to him my two years’ experiences:
“But what can you do now? It seems that you have cut yourself off from everything by leaving that school. You have nothing to go to now!”
“Oh,” I replied, “there are scores of places that I might go to in the East here, if I only knew where to look. Rather than be idle, I might go to the local high school and work during the spare time for my board and clothes. Then there are free academies and preparatory schools where I might get a chance. I will begin to look around. Mr. Woodward, the minister, might know of some things. I mean to see him this afternoon. I shall try to keep on with my studies somehow.”
“Why don’t you go into the mill for awhile and then get some money by you, Al. It would make it easier for you?”
“But I can’t spare the time, uncle. I ought to keep right in with an unbroken school career. It can be done if only the right place be found. I am all at sea, just now, but I shall inquire. I know I shall find something.”
We talked until the one o’clock whistle sounded, and then I went in the direction of the minister’s house to consult with him concerning my future.
Mr. Woodward was minister over a little church of mill people, one of those underpaid men who not only preach faith but express it in many kindly but unheralded services to society. He obtained congenial work for overworked factory girls, sent tired mothers into the country in the summer season, sent invalids to hospitals, inspired mill lads in self-culture, and kept his own busy mind furnished with the latest and most scholarly information in social science and theology.
When I rang his door-bell my heart nearly failed me with the thought that as he had never had the privilege of attending a college or a theological seminary, he might be unable to give me any advice on my immediate problem.
But after we had sat in his study for an hour, and he had sounded me on my past experiences, and when I had concluded with a very pessimistic exclamation,
“But I guess I’ve thrown away my chance by leaving Evangelical University, Mr. Woodward. I don’t know what took possession of me, I’m sure. It was such a whim, especially when I was doing so well out there!”
The big Scotchman stood up, laid his heavy hand on my shoulder and exclaimed,
“Albert, I think I see you continuing the fight from now on, if I can possibly do anything. You must have courage and faith; they are more to you than money.” He swept his hand across his eyes as if to sweep back the years and said, reminiscently,
“Oh, if I’d had your chance, lad! You don’t know what it cost me to lose my chance! Listen!” He then recounted to me his own experience in search of an education and unfolded dramatic incident after dramatic incident for my encouragement. He showed me himself by a peat-bog fire, in the north of Ireland, amidst poverty, struggling with his few books. He showed me himself, an immigrant landing in New England, where he began to work in the flare of a furnace. Next he showed me how his chance for going to college had been cut off by his marriage. That was followed by the picture of him, sitting in a room through the day learning Greek and theology, while his wife went into the mill to earn the money for rent and clothes and books. The memory of those severe struggles which had cost nerve and health brought tears swimming into his kindly eyes. He said, in conclusion,
“Why, if I were in your place, lad, I’d black boots to get to a college, I would. Don’t lose a day. I know a theological seminary in high standing where you can get as good a training for the ministry as may be secured anywhere in the United States, where your mind will awaken and where you may not feel ashamed after graduating from it. From there you can go to a college, entering the Junior year. That will mean five years more, Albert, five years of blessed privilege, which I shall envy you, lad!”
“But I have no money, and it must cost money to enter the theological seminary,” I insisted. “I should have to get there, and there would occur several expenses for books and things when I get there.”
“I can get fifty dollars for you on a note, which I will secure. Trust me,” replied Mr. Woodward. “I mean that you shall go ahead. The world can’t afford to let one of its ambitious lads slip up. It’s not good economy. Fifty dollars will start you off. The expenses at the seminary are trivial. There will occur opportunities for self-help. In the summer you may get a church. Come to me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll get busy with the telephone and telegraph right away. The Seminary opens this week. Come tomorrow, lad, and I hope to have good news for you. I feel that you’ve got your chance!”
As I left him standing at the door, gazing after me, I hurried home whistling; thinking, too, what an overturn of emotion can occur in a single day.