This boy, of no phenomenal
sort, had one marked quality--when he had made a decision he
acted on it. Tonight through the soreness of a bitter
disappointment he put his finger on the highest note of his
character and resolved. All unknown to himself it was a crisis.
It was long past dinner-time, but he dashed out now and got food,
and when Baby Thomas came in he found his room-mate sleepy, but
quite himself; quite steady in his congratulations as well as
normal in his abuse for "keeping a decent white man awake to
this hour."
Three years later the boy graduated from the Boston "Tech."
As his class poured from Huntington Hall, he saw his father
waiting for him. He noted with pride, as he always did, the tall
figure, topped with a wonderful head--a mane of gray hair,
a face carved in iron, squared and cut down to the marrow of
brains and force--a man to be seen in any crowd. With that,
as his own met the keen eyes behind the spectacles, he was aware
of a look which startled him. The boy had graduated at the very
head of his class; that light in his father's eyes all at once
made two years of work a small thing.
"I didn't know you were coming, sir. That's mighty nice of you,"
he said, as they walked down Boylston Street together, and his
father waited a moment and then spoke in his usual incisive tone.
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