, playing poker with
body-snatchers. Pa Rearick simply cut loose and bombarded the
neighborhood with red-hot adjectives. That he should have brought up a
son to do him honor and should have found him dawdling his college
moments away with loafers; fawning on the idle sons of the rich;
tinkling a mandolin instead of walking with Homer; wasting time and
money instead of trying to earn his way to success--"Bah," likewise
"Faugh," to say nothing of other picturesque expressions of entire
disgust--from all of which one would judge almost without effort that
Keg was in bad, and in all over.

I suppose Keg attempted to explain. Possibly some people try to argue
with a funnel-shaped cloud while it is juggling the house and the barn
and the piano. Anyway the explanations weren't audible. Presently Pa
Rearick announced, for most of the world to hear, that he was going to
take his idle, worthless, disgraced and unspeakable nincompoop of a son
back to his home and set him to weighing out dried apples for the rest
of his life. Then up rose Keg and spoke quite clearly and distinctly as
follows:

"No, you're not, Dad."

"Wh-wh-wh-whowhowwy not!" said Pa Rearick, with perfect self-possession
but some difficulty.

"Because I like this college and I'm going to stay here," said Keg. "I'm
standing well in my studies and I'm learning a lot all around."

"All I have to say is this," said Pa Rearick. I really haven't time to
repeat all of those few words, but the ukase, when it was completely
out, was the following: Keg was to have a chance to ride home in the
cars if he packed up within ten minutes. After that he could walk home
or dance home or play his way home with his mandolin. And he was given
to understand that, when he finally arrived, the nearest substitute to a
fatted calf that would be prepared for dinner would be a plate of cold
beans in the kitchen with the hired man.

"You may stay here and dawdle with your worthless companions if you
desire," shouted Pa Rearick to a man in an adjoining county. "The lesson
may be a good one for you. I wash my hands of the whole matter. But
understand. Don't write to me for a cent. Not one cent. You've made your
bed. Now lie on it."

With which he went away, and we tiptoed carefully in to rearrange the
shattered atmosphere and comfort Keg. We found him looking thoughtfully
at nothing, with his hands deep in his pockets, from which about six
dollars and seventy-five cents' worth of jingle