Kindred of the Dust | Page 8

prayed his God to help him not to make a fool of Donald--to keep Donald from making a fool of himself.
When Donald entered Princeton, his father decided upon an experiment. He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a snob and a drone?
With characteristic courage, The Laird decided to give him ample opportunity to become either, for, as old Hector remarked to Andrew Daney: "If the lad's the McKaye I think he is, nothing can harm him. On the other hand, if I'm mistaken, I want to know it in time, for my money and my Port Agnew Lumber Company is a trust, and if he can't handle it, I'll leave it to the men who can--who've helped me create it--and Donald shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Tools," he added, "belong to the men that can use them."
When Donald started East for college, old Hector accompanied him as far as Seattle. On the way up, there was some man-talk between them. In his youth, old Hector had not been an angel, which is to state that he had been a lumberjack. He knew men and the passions that beset them--particularly when they are young and lusty--and he was far from being a prude. He expected his son to raise a certain amount of wild oats; nay, he desired it, for full well he knew that when the fires of youth are quenched, they are liable to flare disgracefully in middle life or old age.
"Never pig it, my son," was his final admonition. "Raise hell if you must, but if you love your old father, be a gentleman about it. You've sprung from a clan o' men, not mollycoddles."
"Hence the expression: 'When Hector was a pup,'" Donald replied laughingly. "Well, I'll do my best, father--only, if I stub my toe, you mustn't be too hard on me. Remember, please, that I'm only half Scotch."
At parting, The Laird handed his son a check for twenty-five thousand dollars.
"This is the first year's allowance, Donald," he informed the boy gravely. "It should not require more than a hundred thousand dollars to educate a son of mine, and you must finish in four years. I would not care to think you dull or lazy."
"Do you wish an accounting, father?"
The Laird shook his head.
"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, my son. I'll read the accounting in your eye when you come back to Port Agnew."
"Oh!" said young Donald.
At the end of four years, Donald graduated, an honor-man in all his studies, and in the lobby of the gymnasium, where the athletic heroes of Princeton leave their record to posterity, Hector McKaye read his son's name, for, of course, he was there for commencement. Then they spent a week together in New York, following which old Hector announced that one week of New York was about all he could stand. The tall timber was calling for him.
"Hoot, mon!" Donald protested gaily. He was a perfect mimic of Sir Harry Lauder at his broadest. "Y'eve nae had a bit holiday in all yer life. Wha' spier ye, Hector McKaye, to a trip aroond the worl', wi' a wee visit tae the auld clan in the Hielands?"
"Will you come with me, son?" The Laird inquired eagerly.
"Certainly not! You shall come with me. This is to be my party."
"Can you stand the pressure? I'm liable to prove an expensive traveling companion."
"Well, there's something radically wrong with both of us if we can't get by on two hundred thousand dollars, dad."
The Laird started, and then his Scotch sense of humor--and, for all the famed wit of the Irish, no humor on earth is so unctuous as that of the Scotch--commenced to bubble up. He suspected a joke on himself and was prepared to meet it.
"Will you demand an accounting, my son?"
Donald shook his head.
"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I'll read the accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew."
"You braw big scoundrel! You've been up to something. Tell it me, man, or I'll die wi' the suspense of it."
"Well," Donald replied, "I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in college and led a happy life. I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by me so fast that I didn't at least get a tail-feather. My college education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also. With the remaining ninety thousand,