He was always in a bad humor in the morning, and the chilly rain had not improved it. A glance around showed him that something was on hand, and he surmised that it was the college business. He at once thought within himself: "I'll squelch the thing now, once for all." Turning to his son, he said, "Look here, youngster, why hain't you been out doing your chores? D'ye expect me to do your work and mine, too?" "Father," said the impulsive boy with a voice of trembling eagerness, "if you will let me go to college next fall, I'll do my work and yours too. I'll work night and day--" "What cussed nonsense is this?" demanded the man harshly, clashing down his knife and fork and turning frowningly toward his son. "No, but father, listen to me before you refuse. Mr. Rule says I'm fit to enter college and that I can lead my class too. I've been studying for this three years. I've set my heart upon it," and in his earnestness, tears gathered in his eyes. "The more fool you, and old Rule is another," was the coarse answer. The boy's eyes flashed angrily, but the mother here spoke. "You ought to be proud of your son, John; if you were a true father you would be. If you'd encourage and help him now, he'd make a man that--" "Shut up! little you know about it. He'd make one of your snivelling white-fingered loafers that's too proud to get a living by hard work. Perhaps you'd like to make a parson out of him. Now look here, old woman, and you, too, my young cock, I've suspicioned that something of this kind was up, but I tell you once for all it won't go. Just as this hulk of a boy is gettin' of some use to me, you want to spoil him by sending him to college. I'll see him hanged first," and the man turned to his breakfast as if he had settled it. But he was startled by his son's exclaiming passionately: "I will go." "Look here, what do _you_ mean?" said the father, rising with a black ugly look. "I mean I've set my heart on going to college and I will go. You and all the world shan't hinder me. I won't stay here and be a farm drudge all my life." The man's face was livid with anger, and in a low, hissing tone he said: "I guess you want taking down a peg, my college gentleman. Perhaps you don't know I'm master till you're twenty-one," and he reached down a large leather strap. "You strike me if you dare," shouted the boy. "If I dare! haw! haw! If I don't cut the cussed nonsense out of yer this morning, then I never did," and he took an angry stride toward his son, who sprang behind the stove. The wife and mother had stood by growing whiter and whiter, and with lips pressed closely together. At this critical moment she stepped before her infuriated husband and seized his arm, exclaiming: "John, take care. You have reached the end." "Stand aside," snarled the man, raising the strap, "or I'll give you a taste of it, too." The woman's grasp tightened on his arm, and in a voice that made him pause and look fixedly at her, she said: