“Nerves,” muttered Norman disdainfully. “I thought they were only fit for fine ladies.”
Dr. May smiled. “Well, will it content you if I promise that as soon as I see fit, I’ll bring you here, and let you march over that bridge as often as you like?”
“I suppose I must be contented, but I don’t like to feel like a fool.”
“You need not, while the moral determination is sound.”
“At it again--I declare, Norman, you are the worst patient I ever had!”
Norman made no answer, and Dr. May presently said, “Well, let me hear what you have to say about it. I assure you it is not that I don’t want you to get on, but that I see you are in great need of rest.”
“Thank you, papa. I know you mean it for my good, but I don’t think you do know how horrid it is. I have got nothing on earth to do or care for--the school work comes quite easy to me, and I’m sure thinking is worse; and then”--Norman spoke vehemently--“now they have put me up, it will never do to be beaten, and all the four others ought to be able to do it. I did not want or expect to be dux, but now I am, you could not bear me not to keep my place, and to miss the Randall scholarship, as I certainly shall, if I do not work these whole holidays.”
“Norman, I know it,” said his father kindly. “I am very sorry for you, and I know I am asking of you what I could not have done at your age--indeed, I don’t believe I could have done it for you a few months ago. It is my fault that you have been let alone, to have an overstrain and pressure on your mind, when you were not fit for it, and I cannot see any remedy but complete freedom from work. At the same time, if you fret and harass yourself about being surpassed, that is, as you say, much worse for you than Latin and Greek. Perhaps I may be wrong, and study might not do you the harm I think it would; at any rate, it is better than tormenting yourself about next half year, so I will not positively forbid it, but I think you had much better let it alone. I don’t want to make it a matter of duty. I only tell you this, that you may set your mind at rest as far as I am concerned. If you do lose your place, I will consider it as my own doing, and not be disappointed. I had rather see you a healthy, vigorous, useful man, than a poor puling nervous wretch of a scholar, if you were to get all the prizes in the university.”