The Brentons | Page 9

case, the example was a flagrant one.
At the starting of the game of "Grandpa Wheeler," Mrs. Brenton had been so charmed with the outworkings of heredity as to balk at nothing Scott might do: sermon, hymn, or even prayer. When she was sure of her r?le and had the leisure, she joined him in his imitative worship, delighting in the unconscious fashion in which the sonorous phrases of convention rolled off from her son's baby lips. And then, one day, Scott's memory failed him in his invocation. There came a familiar phrase or two, and then a babble of meaningless syllables, ending in a long-drawn and relieved Amen. An instant later, Scott lifted up his head.
"Mo--ther," he shrilled vaingloriously; "I forgetted how it ought to go; but didn't I put up a bully bluff?"
And, in consequence, Mrs. Brenton took her prayers into bed with her, that night. Some of them, even, lasted till the dawn.
This was when Scott was only four. By the time he was fourteen, he took himself more seriously. He still played "Grandpa Wheeler" in imagination; but he no longer called it play, but plans. Already, he was looking forward to the hour when, in creaking Sunday shoes and shiny Sunday broadcloth, he should mount the stairs of the old-fashioned pulpit in the village church, gather the hearts of the waiting congregation within the welcoming and graceful gesture which would prelude his opening prayer, and then scourge those same hearts with the lashing truths which lead unto regeneration. He saw himself distinctly in this r?le, more distinctly, even, than in the blurry mirror before which he performed his morning toilet. It was no especial wonder that he did so. Ever since he had been old enough to pay heed to anything, his mother had been holding the picture up before his eyes.
Catie, however, refused to be impressed by the picture.
"What makes you want to be a minister?" she asked him. "I'd rather you kept a store. There's lots more money in it."
"I don't see what difference it is going to make to you?" Scott answered rather cavalierly.
Catie's reply was matter-of-fact, regardless of the sentimental nature of its substance.
"Don't be stupid, Scott. Of course, we shall be married, when we get grown up, and then you'll have me to support."
It was the first time she had announced this rather radical plan of hers, so it was no especial wonder that, for the moment, it took Scott's breath away. Not that he objected especially, however. It was only the novelty of the idea that staggered him. To his slowly-developing masculine mind, it never had occurred that he and Catie could not go on for ever, just chums and playmates and, now and then, lusty foes, without complicating their relations by more formal, final ties. He rallied swiftly, however.
"Well, you'll have to marry a minister, then," he told her sturdily.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
"And wear shabby clothes and a bad bonnet, like Mrs. Platt, and have to go to all the funerals in town! How horrid! Oh, Scott, do be some other kind of a man. A minister's wife can't dance anything but the Virginia reel, nor play anything more than muggins. Why can't you be a dentist, if you won't keep a store?"
For the once, Scott showed himself dominant, aggressive.
"Because I'd rather preach. It's what all my people have always done."
Then Catie made her blunder.
"What about your father?" she asked, and her voice was taunting.
Scott forgot his holy heritage and turned upon her swiftly.
"Shut up!" he bade her curtly, and her cheek tingled under the blow he dealt her.
It was the first time in his life that Scott had turned upon her with decision. Moreover, perchance it would have been better for him, had it not been the last.
For three days afterward, the subject was as a sealed book between them. Then Catie broke the seals, and gingerly.
"I have been thinking about your being a minister," she told him, as she dropped into step beside him, on the way to school. "Of course, you were very rude to treat me the way you did, the other day; and I hope you are sorry."
Scott shut his teeth, although he nodded shortly. He had not enjoyed the three-day frost between himself and Catie; but he was sure that, in the final end, he had been in the right of it, even if he had been a little unceremonious in pressing the matter home on her attention. Moreover, his will had triumphed; Catie had been the one, not he, to break the silence. The casualness of her "Hullo!" that morning, had not deceived him in the least. He was perfectly well aware that she had lain in wait for his passing, her eye glued to the crack of the front-window curtains. The