The Blossoming Rod | Page 4

the mother inexorably. "Go and make yourself clean!"
"May I put on my white silk tie?" George's white tie was the banner of festivity.
"Yes."
"You rouse my curiosity. This seems to be a great occasion," said Langshaw.
"Oh, it is!" agreed the mother happily. She murmured in his ear as they went downstairs: "I hope you'll show that you're pleased, dear. You know sometimes when you really are pleased you don't show it at once--and George has been trying so hard. If you'll only show that you're pleased--"
"Yes--all right!" returned the husband a little impatiently. Clytie had a sensitive consideration for her son's feelings which struck him at times as exaggerated. He thought of the delightful secret back in his own mind; there was no reason for talking any more about the rod until he bought it; he would manage to replace the dollar abstracted from the reserve fund.
If he gave absent answers during the meal Clytie seemed to be preoccupied also. Little Mary, who sat by him, tucked her hand into his as she prattled.
"Now, George!" said his mother at last suddenly when the rice pudding had been finished. George rose, clean and red-cheeked, looking more than ever like a large edition of Baby, in spite of his jacket and knickerbockers, as he stepped over to his father with a new dignity and handed him a folded sheet of paper.
"What's this?" asked Langshaw genially opening it. He read aloud the words within, written laboriously in a round, boyish hand:
To George Brander Langshaw, from father. You Oh me five dolars.
Reseived paiment.
"Hello! Hello! What does this mean?" asked Langshaw slowly, with an unpleasant startled sensation that any such sum in connection with George was out of all reason.
"It means a bill for you from me!" announced George. His cheeks grew redder, his blue eyes looked squarely at his father. "It's for this!" He pulled from his pocket a school report card divided into tiny ruled squares, filled with figures for half its length, and flung it down proudly on the table before his parent.
"It's the Deportment--since September. You said when Miss Skinner sent that last note home about me that if I could get a hundred in Deportment for every month up to Christmas you'd be willing to pay me five dollars. You can see there for yourself, father, the three one hundreds--no, not that line--that's only fifty-five for spelling; nobody ever knows their spelling! Here is the place to look--in the Deportment column. I've tried awful hard to be good, father, to surprise you."
"The way that child has tried!" burst forth Clytie, her dark eyes drowned in sparkles. "And they're so unfair at school--giving you a mark if you squeak your chair, or speak, or look at anybody; as if any child could be expected to sit like a stone all the time! I'm sure I love to hear children laughing--and you know yourself how hard it is for George to be quiet! We had a little talk about it together, he and I; and now you see! It's been such work keeping his card from you each month when you asked for it. One day he thought he had a bad mark and he couldn't eat any dinner--you thought he was ill; but he went to Miss Skinner the next day and she took it off because he had been trying so hard to be good. Joe, why don't you speak?"
"George, I'm proud of you!" said Langshaw simply. There was a slight huskiness in his voice; the round face and guileless blue eyes of his little boy, who had tried "awful hard to be good," seemed to have acquired a new dignity. The father saw in him the grown-up son who could be depended upon to look after his mother if need were. Langshaw held out his hand as man to man; the two pairs of eyes met squarely. "Nothing you could have done would have pleased me more than this, George. I value it more than any Christmas present I could have."
"Mother said you'd like it," said the beaming George, ducking his head suddenly and kicking out his legs from behind.
"And you'll pay the five dollars?" supplemented Clytie anxiously.
"Surely!" said Langshaw. The glances of the parents met in one of the highest pleasures that life affords: the approval together of the good action of their dear child. "George can go out and get this ten-dollar bill changed."
"If you can't spare it, father--" suggested the boy with some new sense of manliness, hanging back.
"I'm glad to be able to spare it," said the father soberly. "It's a good deal of money," he added. "I suppose, of course, you'll put it in the bank, George?"
"Now you mustn't ask what he's going to do with it," said Clytie.
"Oh, isn't it much!" cried little Mary.
"Dear