"Father," said Roger, a little defiantly and sarcastically, "doesn't it strike you that I'm rather tall for a boy? Did you never hear of a small child, almost of age, choosing his own course in life?" "That is not the way to talk," said his mother reprovingly. "We both very naturally feel that it's hard, and hardly right, too, for you to leave us just as we are getting old and need some one to lean on." "Do not believe, mother, that I have not thought of that," was the eager reply; "and if I have my way you and father, and Susan too, shall be well provided for." "Thank you," Mr. Atwood snarled contemptuously. "I'll get what I can out of the old farm, and I don't expect any provision from an overgrown boy whose head is so turned by two city girls that he must go dangling after them." Roger flushed hotly, and angry words rose to his lips, but he restrained them by a visible effort. After a moment he said quietly, "You are my father, and may say what you please. There is but one way of convincing you whether I am a boy or a man, and I'll take it. You can keep me here till I'm twenty-one if you will, but you'll be sorry. It will be so much loss to me and no gain to you. I've often heard you say the Atwoods never 'drove well,' and you found out years ago that a good word went further with me than what you used to call a 'good thrashing.' If you let me have my way, now that I'm old enough to choose for myself, I'll make your old age cozy and comfortable. If you thwart me, as I said before, you'll be sorry," and he turned on his heel and left them. Politic Mrs. Atwood had watched her son closely for weeks and knew that something was coming, but with woman's patience she waited and was kind. No one would miss him so much as she, and yet, mother-like, she now took sides against her own heart. But she saw that her husband was in no mood to listen to her at present, and nothing more was said that day. In the evening Roger drove out in his carriage and returned on horseback. "There's the money you paid for the buggy, with interest," he said to his father. "You aren't gone yet," was the growling answer. "No matter. I shall not ride in it again, and you are not the loser." Roger had a rugged side to his nature which his father's course often called out, and Mrs. Atwood made her husband feel, reluctant as he was to admit it, that he was taking the wrong course with his son. A letter also from his brother in town led him to believe that Roger would probably come back in the spring well content to remain at home; so at last he gave a grudging consent. Ungracious as it was, the young man rewarded him by a vigorous, thorough completion of the fall work, by painting the house and putting the place in better order than it had ever known before; meanwhile for his mother and sister he showed a consideration and gentleness which proved that he was much changed from his old self.