“Don’t heap it on the lad,” chided my uncle, “it’s taken a lot of courage and perhaps suffering for him to get through as he has. We haven’t done anything towards it, Millie; so we shouldn’t have much to say!” Then my uncle asked a perfectly natural and innocent question. “What are you aiming to be, Al, when you’re through with the schools?” Tremblingly I whispered: “A preacher, I think!” If the world had cracked or the moon had leaped into the middle of our kitchen, my aunt could not have been more startled than she appeared to be at that announcement. She instantly rallied her powers of ridicule and sarcasm and indulged in the following monologue that had little savor of love in it: “Oh, oh! That’s the lay of the land, is it? A parson! A Priddy a parson! A fawning, hypocritical parson! A tea-drinking, smirking thing in black. Why, at least, didn’t he choose to be a lawyer or a doctor or something worth while? I thought he had brains!” “Millie!” thundered uncle. “Shut up! Do you want to crush the lad?” But she was not to be stopped. She grew almost hysterical in her tirade. “I suppose he’ll be hurling his sermons at us, so sanctimonious and pious!” “Hush, aunt, please,” I pleaded, “don’t shout so loud, people will hear and wonder what’s wrong!” “There,” she went on with a dry laugh, “just hear that low voice: it’s just the voice for a parson!” Then she posed before me in dreadful mimicry, with her finger tips touching in front of her and an affected, upward cast in her eyes, while she cried, ingratiatingly: “‘Be good, be very, _very_ good, my dears! Do right like me and get to heaven!’” and then releasing herself from this display she suddenly roared, “You old hypocrite, you! The idea, _you_ a parson!” “God knows,” muttered uncle, “it is to be wondered how a lad brought up with us could ever turn his eyes in that direction!” At that my Aunt Millie cast on her husband a frown and said, snappishly: “Aye, you old sinner. Your conscience is working now. No wonder you talk like that!” During the dinner, while my aunt was in the pantry, uncle bent towards me and whispered: “Come out with me after dinner, Al. We’ll talk there!” At half-past twelve we left the house together and sat down on some logs on an empty lot near the mill where uncle said, after I had recounted to him my two years’ experiences: “But what can you do now? It seems that you have cut yourself off from everything by leaving that school. You have nothing to go to now!” “Oh,” I replied, “there are scores of places that I might go to in the East here, if I only knew where to look. Rather than be idle, I might go to the local high school and work during the spare time for my board and clothes. Then there are free academies and preparatory schools where I might get a chance. I will begin to look around. Mr. Woodward, the minister, might know of some things. I mean to see him this afternoon. I shall try to keep on with my studies somehow.”