"Ernest, I believe I felt one. I think--really, I think you'll cut 'em by Christmas!" A lively race usually followed this insult.
Frank was even meaner. He came into Ernest's room one morning while he was shaving and gravely pretending to pick up a hog's stiff bristle from the carpet, held it out to him.
"Why Ernest, you're really growing quite a beard!"
But Ernest was a man in many ways if he had but little need of a razor. Seeing other boys so seldom and being thrown so much with men had made him rather old for his years and more than ordinarily capable and self-reliant. He loved horses and was clever in managing them, breaking in many a colt that had tried the patience and courage of his elders. But his day dream for the past twelve months had been college. He had confided all his hopes and fears to Chicken Little. The love between the two was very tender, the more so that they had so few companions of their own ages.
So Chicken Little, knowing that he had fairly lived and breathed and slept and eaten college during many months, might be pardoned for her amazement at his mysterious words.
"Nothing's the matter--I've got a new idea, that's all."
"From the old captain. Say, you just ought to see his place--it's the queerest lay-out. Snug and neat as a pin. He's tried to arrange everything the way it is on shipboard. He's got a Chinaman or a Jap, I don't know which, for a servant. He is the first one I ever saw, though they say there are lots of them in Kansas City. This chap can work all right. We had the best supper the evening Frank and I went over for hay."
"My, I wish I could see it. Do you suppose Father would take me over some time?"
"I don't know. They say he hates women--won't have one around."
"Pshaw, you're making that up, but what's the idea? Oh, you old hateful, you're just teasing--I can tell by your eyes!"
"Honest Injun, I'm not any such thing, only you interrupt so you don't give me a chance. You know the Captain has been at sea for twenty-five years--never'd quit only his asthma got so bad the doctor told him he'd have to go to a dry climate, and bundled him off here to Kansas. Well, he seemed to take a shine to me, and he asked me a lot of questions about what I was going to do. Finally, he wanted to know why I didn't try to get into the Naval Academy instead of going to college. Said if he had a son--and do you know, he turned kind of white when he said that, perhaps he's lost a boy or something--he'd send him there."