“That will be wise. Do you think your father will like this plan?”
“Pretty sure he will. Yesterday, when I told him I must go at something right off, he said, 'Anything honest, Tom, and don't forget that your father began the world as a shop-boy.' You knew that, did n't you?”
“Yes, he told me the story once, and I always liked to hear it, because it was pleasant to see how well he had succeeded.”
“I never did like the story, a little bit ashamed, I'm afraid; but when we talked it over last night, it struck me in a new light, and I understood why father took the failure so well, and seems so contented with this poorish place. It is only beginning again, he says; and having worked his way up once, he feels as if he could again. I declare to you, Polly, that sort of confidence in himself, and energy and courage in a man of his years, makes me love and respect the dear old gentleman as I never did before.”
“I'm so glad to hear you say that, Tom! I've sometimes thought you did n't quite appreciate your father, any more than he knew how much of a man you were.”
“Never was till to-day, you know,” said Tom, laughing, yet looking as if he felt the dignity of his one and twenty years. “Odd, is n't it, how people live together ever so long, and don't seem to find one another out, till something comes to do it for them. Perhaps this smash-up was sent to introduce me to my own father.”
“There's philosophy for you,” said Polly, smiling, even while she felt as if adversity was going to do more for Tom than years of prosperity.
They both sat quiet for a minute, Polly in the big chair looking at him with a new respect in her eyes, Tom on the stool near by slowly tearing up a folded paper he had absently taken from the floor while he talked.
“Did this surprise you?” he asked, as a little white shower fluttered from his hands.
“Well, it did me; for you know as soon as we came to grief I offered to release Trix from the engagement, and she would n't let me,” continued Tom, as if, having begun the subject, he wished to explain it thoroughly.
“So it did me, for Fan always insisted it was the money and not the man she cared for. Her first answer pleased me very much, for I did not expect it, and nothing touches a fellow more than to have a woman stand by him through thick and thin.”