"
"How?"
"I don't quite know, but I'll try. There are several things I
could be, a clerk--or even a message-boy. I shouldn't like it,
but I'd do anything rather than do nothing."
Mrs. Boyd sat down on the side of the bed. If she felt inclined
to cry she had too much sense to show it. She only took firm
hold of her boy's hand, and waited for him to speak on.
"I've been thinking, mother, I was to have a new suit at
Christmas; will you give it now? And let it be a coat, not a
jacket. I'm tall enough--five feet seven last month, and growing
still; I should look almost a man. Then I would go round to
every office in Edinburgh and ask if they wanted a clerk. I
wouldn't mind taking anything to begin with. And I can write a
decent hand, and I'm not bad at figures; as for my Latin and
Greek--"
Here Donald gulped down a sigh, for he was a capital classic, and
it had been suggested that he should go to Glasgow University and
try for "the Snell" which has sent so many clever young Scotsmen
to Balliol College, Oxford, and thence on to fame and prosperity.
But alas! no college career was now possible to Donald Boyd.
The best he could hope for was to earn a few shillings a week as
a common clerk. He knew this, and so did his mother. But they
never complained. It was no fault of theirs, nor of anybody's.
It was just as they devoutly called it, "The will of God."
"Your Latin and Greek may come in some day, my boy," said Mrs.
Boyd cheerfully.
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