I'll write later. Stay at college till the term is up, and in the meantime
try to land a job. However, you won't have any trouble to do that. Keep
your nerve, boy, for your mother's sake. It's a hard blow, but we'll
weather it, never fear, and reach port.
Your father,
JOHN THORWALD, SR.
P.S. I am sailing on the Valkyrie today, will write you on my return to
New York, in a few weeks.
Theophilus looked at the massive young Norwegian, who had taken this
solar-plexus blow with that same stolid apathy that characterized his every
action. He wanted to offer sympathy, but he knew not how to reach Thor. He
fully understood how terrific the blow was, how it must stagger the
big, earnest Freshman, just as he, after ten years of grinding toil, of
sacrifice, of grim, unrelenting determination, had conquered obstacles and
fought to where he had a clear track ahead. Just as it seemed that fate had
given him a fair chance, with his father rescued and five thousand dollars
to give him a college course, this terrible misfortune had befallen him.
Theophilus realized what it must mean to this huge, silent Hercules, just
making good his promise to his dying mother, to give up his studies, and go
back to work, toil, labor, to begin all over again, to put off his college
years.
"Leave me, please," said Thor dully, apparently as unmoved by the blow
as he had been by Theophilus' appeal. "I--I would like to be alone, for
awhile.
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