It may have been a truthful explanation, but as an apology it was a limited success.
“My father was a gentleman, at any rate,” snapped Albert. Laban opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again and walked back to his books.
In May, which was an unusually balmy month, the Congregational Sunday School gave an automobile excursion and box-luncheon party at High Point Light down at Trumet. As Rachel Ellis said, it was pretty early for picnickin', but if the Almighty's season was ahead of time there didn't seem to be any real good reason why one of his Sunday schools shouldn't be. And, which was the principal excuse for the hurry, the hotel busses could be secured, which would not be the case after the season opened.
Albert went to the picnic. He was not very keen on going, but his grandfather had offered him a holiday for the purpose, and it was one of his principles never to refuse a chance to get away from that office. Besides, a number of the young people of his age were going, and Gertie Kendrick had been particularly insistent.
“You just MUST come, Al,” she said. “It won't be any fun at all if you don't come.”
It is possible that Gertie found it almost as little fun when he did come. He happened to be in one of his moods that day; “Portygee streaks,” his grandfather termed these moods, and told Olive that they were “that play-actor breakin' out in him.” He talked but little during the ride down in the bus, refused to sing when called upon, and, after dinner, when the dancing in the pavilion was going on, stepped quietly out of the side door and went tramping along the edge of the bluff, looking out over the sea or down to the beach, where, one hundred and fifty feet below, the big waves were curling over to crash into a creamy mass of froth and edge the strand with lacy ripples.
The high clay bluffs of Trumet are unique. No other part of the Cape shows anything just like them. High Point Light crowns their highest and steepest point and is the flashing beacon the rays of which spell “America” to the incoming liner Boston bound.
Along the path skirting the edge of the bluff Albert strolled, his hands in his pockets and his thoughts almost anywhere except on the picnic and the picnickers of the South Harniss Congregational Church. His particular mood on this day was one of discontent and rebellion against the fate which had sentenced him to the assistant bookkeeper's position in the office of Z. Snow and Co. At no time had he reconciled himself to the idea of that position as a permanent one; some day, somehow he was going to break away and do--marvelous things. But occasionally, and usually after a disagreeable happening in the office, he awoke from his youthful day dreams of glorious futures to a realization of the dismal to-day.