"Isn't it a good thing that I have stuck to my books as I have, and not wasted my time playing ball, or swimming, or doing the things that Glen Matherson and the other fellows seem to consider so important?"

"Well, yes," replied Mr. Gibbs, a little doubtfully, "I suppose it is.

At the same time, Binney, I do wish you were a little stronger. I'm afraid you'll find roughing it pretty hard."

"Oh, yes, I suppose physical strength was the most important thing when you were young, father; but nowadays its brain-work that tells,"

answered Binney, with a slight tone of contempt for his father's old-fashioned ideas. Binney was not a bad-hearted fellow--only spoiled.

The next day Glen did not feel like meeting any of his young companions.

He wanted to think over the several problems that had been presented to him. So he wandered down to the river, where a fine new railroad-bridge, in the building of which he had been greatly interested, was now receiving its finishing touches. As he walked out towards the centre of the graceful structure, admiring, as he had a hundred times before, the details of its construction, its evident strength and airy lightness, he saw the engineer who had charge of the work standing, with a roll of plans under his arm, talking with one of the foremen.

Glen had visited the bridge so often that the engineer knew him by sight, and had even learned his name, though he had never spoken to him.

He was, however, especially fond of boys, and had been much pleased with Glen's appearance. Several times he had been on the point of speaking to him, but had been restrained by the diffidence a man is so apt to feel in the presence of a stranger so much younger than himself. It is a fear that he may do or say something to excite the undisguised mirth or contempt that so often wait upon the ignorance of youth.

Without suspecting these feelings in him, Glen had been strangely attracted towards the engineer, whose profession and position seemed to him alike fascinating and desirable. He wished he could become acquainted with him, but did not know how to set about it. He, too, was diffident and fearful of appearing in an unfavorable light before the other, who was evidently so much older and wiser than he. But he did long to ask this engineer a great many questions.

Now he stood at a respectful distance and watched the young man, whose name he knew to be Hobart, and, wondering whether his position had been reached by study or work, wished he could think of some good excuse for speaking to him.

The floor of the bridge on which they were standing was about twenty-five feet above Brim River, the deep, swift stream that it spanned. Glen had swum and fished in it, and boated on it, until he knew its every current and slack-water pool. He knew it as well as he did the road to the village, and was almost as much at home in the one as on the other.

In order to consult a note-book that he drew from his pocket, Mr. Hobart laid his roll of plans on a floor-beam, at his feet, for a moment. Just then a little whirling gust of wind came along, and in an instant the valuable plans were sailing through the air towards the sparkling waters, that seemed to laugh at the prospect of bearing them away far beyond human reach.

The engineer tried in vain to clutch them as they rolled off the floor-beam, and uttered an exclamation of vexation as they eluded his grasp.

As he looked around to see what could be done towards their recovery, a boyish figure, without hat, jacket, or shoes, sprang past him, poised for an instant on the end of the floor-beam, and then leaped into s.p.a.ce.

Like a flash of light it shot downward, straight and rigid, with feet held tightly together, and hands pressed close against the thighs. A myriad of crystal-drops were flung high in the air and glittered in the bright sunlight as Glen, striking the water with the impetus of a twenty-five-foot fall, sank deep beneath its surface.

Chapter V.

SWIMMING INTO A FRIENDSHIP.

Although Glen found no difficulty in coming to the surface, almost at the spot where the roll of plans floated, and grasping it, he did not find it so easy to bring it safely to sh.o.r.e. To begin with, the roll occupied one hand, so that he had but one for swimming. Then the current was strong, and the banks steep. He was very near the middle of the river. Any other Brimfield boy would have been in despair at finding himself in such a situation. But, then, no other boy in Brimfield would have taken that leap.

For a moment Glen wondered what he should do. Then he remembered the "back-set" at the Bend, a quarter of a mile below the bridge. It would put him right in to the bank, at a place where it was low, too. The anxious watchers on the bridge wondered to see the boy turn on his back and quietly drift away with the current, at the same time holding the roll of plans, for which he had dared so much, clear of the water.

They shouted to him to swim towards one or the other bank and they would fling him a rope; but Glen only smiled without wasting any breath in answering. Most of the men ran to one end of the bridge, because it looked to them as though the boy were nearer that bank than the other; but Mr. Hobart, who had studied the river, remembered the Bend, and hurried to the other end. When he reached it he ran down along the bank, towards the place where he felt certain the boy would attempt to land.

He got there in time to see Glen swimming with all his might to get out of the main current and into the "back-set." With two hands he would have done it easily; but with only one it was hard work. Then, too, his clothing dragged heavily.

Mr. Hobart shouted to him to let go the roll. "Drop it and make sure of your own safety," he cried. "They are not worth taking any risks for."

But Glen was not the kind of a boy to let go of a thing that he had once made up his mind to hold on to, so long as he had an ounce of strength left.

So he struggled on, and at last had the satisfaction of feeling that something stronger than his own efforts was carrying him towards sh.o.r.e.

He had gained the "back-set," and, though its direction was rather up along the bank, than in towards it, the swimmer had still strength enough left to overcome this difficulty.

A tree, growing straight out from the bank, overhung the stream, so that Glen at length drifted under it, and caught hold of a drooping branch.

He had not strength enough to pull himself up; but it was not needed.

With the activity that comes from a life spent in the open air, the engineer had run out on the horizontal trunk, and now, lying flat on it, he could just reach the boy's hand. In another minute the strong arms had drawn Glen up to a secure resting-place, where he might regain his breath and drip to his heart's content.

"Here are the plans, Mr. Hobart," he said, shyly, and at the same time proudly. "I hope they are not spoiled by the water. I held them out of it as much as I could."

"I hope you are not spoiled by the water, Glen Matherson," laughed the engineer, as he took the wet roll from the boy's hand. "You have done splendidly, and I am sincerely grateful to you for rescuing my plans, which are indeed of great value. At the same time I wouldn't do such a thing again, if I were you, for anything less important than the saving of life. It was a big risk to take, and I should have suffered a life-long sorrow if anything had gone wrong with you."

Although it was a warm June day, and Glen laughed at the idea of catching cold, he had been in the water long enough to be thoroughly chilled. So, when they regained the bank, Mr. Hobart insisted that he should take off his clothes, wring them, and let them dry in the hot sun. In the meantime a workman had come down from the bridge with the boy's hat, jacket, and shoes. He lent him his overalls, and, thus comically arrayed, Glen sat and talked with the engineer while his clothes were drying.

How kindly the brown-bearded face was, and with what interest the man listened to all the boy had to say. How pleasant was his voice, and, in spite of his age (he was about thirty-five) and wisdom, how easy it was to talk to him! It was so easy, and he proved such a sympathetic listener, that before Glen knew it he found himself confiding all his troubles and hopes and perplexities to this new friend. It began with his name, which he told the engineer was not Matherson, and then he had to explain why it was not.

Then they wondered together what sort of a man Glen's real father could be, provided he were alive; and if, by any strange chance, he and his son would ever meet and know each other. Mr. Hobart did not think it at all likely they ever would. From this the boy was led to tell of his dislike for study, and into what trouble it had led him. He even told of the decision reached by his adopted father and himself the evening before, and the undesirable choice of work that had been presented to him.

"And so you don't think you would fancy either the mill or the store?"

asked Mr. Hobart.

"No, sir, I do not. Each one, when I think of it, seems worse than the other, and they both seem worse than most anything else."

"Worse than studying?"

"Just as bad, because either of them means being shut up, and I hate to stay in the house. I should like some business that would keep me out-of-doors all the time."

"Ploughing, for instance, or driving a horse-car, or digging clams, or civil-engineering, or something nice and easy, like any of those?"

suggested Mr. Hobart, gravely.

"Civil-engineering is what I think I should like better than anything else in the world!" exclaimed the boy, eagerly. "That's what you are, isn't it, sir?"

"That is what I am trying to be," answered Mr. Hobart, smiling; "and if, by years of hard work, hard study, and unceasing effort, I can reach a generally recognized position as an engineer, I shall be satisfied with my life's work."

"Do you have to study?" asked Glen, in amazement.

"Indeed I do," was the answer. "I have to study continually, and fully as hard as any schoolboy of your acquaintance."

Glen looked incredulous. It is hard for a boy to realize that his school is only the place where he is taught how to study, and that his most important lessons will have to be learned after he leaves it.

"I think I should like to be a civil-engineer, anyhow," he remarked, after a thoughtful pause, "because it is an out-of-door business."

"Yes," admitted the other, "it is to a great extent."

Then they found that Glen's clothing was dry enough to be worn, and also that it was dinnertime. So, after Mr. Hobart had shaken hands with the boy, and said he hoped to see him again before long, they separated.

That afternoon Glen, still wearing a perplexed expression on his usually merry face, walked down to the mill and looked in at its open door. It was so hot and dusty and noisy that he did not care to stay there very long. He had been familiar with it all his life; but never before had it struck him as such an unpleasant place to work in, day after day, month after month, and even year after year, as it did now. How hard people did have to work, anyway! He had never realized it before. Still, working in a mill must be a little harder than anything else. At any rate, he certainly would not choose to earn his living there.

Then he walked down to Deacon Brown's store. The deacon did a large retail business; this was a busy afternoon, and the place was filled with customers. How tired the clerks looked, and what pale faces they had. How people bothered them with questions, and called on them to attend to half a dozen things at once. How close and stuffy the air of the store was. It was almost as bad as that of the mill. Then, too, the store was kept open hours after the mill had shut down; for its evening trade was generally very brisk. It did not seem half so attractive a place to Glen now as it had at other times, when he had visited it solely with a view of making some small purchase. Perhaps going to school, and keeping up with one's cla.s.s, was not the hardest thing in the world after all.

So the poor boy returned home, more perplexed as to what he should do than ever, and he actually dreaded the after-supper talk with his adopted father that he usually enjoyed so much.

When the time came, and Mr. Matherson asked, kindly, "Well, my boy, what have you decided to do?" Glen was obliged to confess that he was just as far from a decision as he had been the evening before.