He was shy, almost embarrassed, as he greeted his guardians at the hastily summoned meeting. But this did not prevent him from talking straight to the point.
Its this way, he said. I am not a fool. I know what I want, and I want what I want. I am alone in the world, outside of good friends like you, of course, and I have my own ideas of the world and what I want to do in it. I didnt come home because of a sense of duty to anybody here. I came home because it was time, because of my sense of duty to myself. Im all the better from my three years of wandering about, and now its up to me to go on with my education my book education, I mean.
The Belmont Academy, Mr. Slocum suggested. That will fit you for the university
Dick shook his head decidedly.
And take three years to do it. So would a high school. I intend to be in the University of California inside one year. That means work. But my minds like acid. Itll bite into the books. I shall hire a coach, or half a dozen of them, and go to it. And Ill hire my coaches myself hire and fire them. And that means money to handle.
A hundred a month, Mr. Crockett suggested.
Dick shook his head.
Ive taken care of myself for three years without any of my money. I guess, I can take care of myself along with some of my money here in San Francisco. I dont care to handle my business affairs yet, but I do want a bank account, a respectable-sized one. I want to spend it as I see fit, for what I see fit.
The guardians looked their dismay at one another.
Its ridiculous, impossible, Mr. Crockett began. You are as unreasonable as you were before you went away.
Its my way, I guess, Dick sighed. The other disagreement was over my money. It was a hundred dollars I wanted then.
Think of our position, Dick, Mr. Davidson urged. As your guardians, how would it be looked upon if we gave you, a lad of sixteen, a free hand with money.
Whats the Freda worth, right now? Dick demanded irrelevantly.
Can sell for twenty thousand any time, Mr. Crockett answered.
Then sell her. Shes too large for me, and shes worth less every year. I want a thirty-footer that I can handle myself for knocking around the Bay, and that wont cost a thousand. Sell the Freda and put the money to my account. Now what you three are afraid of is that Ill misspend my money taking to drinking, horse-racing, and running around with chorus girls. Heres my proposition to make you easy on that: let it be a drawing account for the four of us. The moment any of you decide I am misspending, that moment you can draw out the total balance. I may as well tell you, that just as a side line Im
going to get a business college expert to come here and cram me with the mechanical side of the business game.
Dick did not wait for their acquiescence, but went on as from a matter definitely settled.
How about the horses down at Menlo? never mind, Ill look them over and decide what to keep. Mrs. Summerstone will stay on here in charge of the house, because Ive got too much work mapped out for myself already. I promise you you wont regret giving me a free hand with my directly personal affairs. And now, if you want to hear about the last three years, Ill spin the yarn for you.
Dick Forrest had been right when he told his guardians that his mind was acid and would bite into the books. Never was there such an education, and he directed it himself but not without advice. He had learned the trick of hiring brains from his father and from John Chisum of the Jingle-bob. He had learned to sit silent and to think while cow men talked long about the campfire and the chuck wagon. And, by virtue of name and place, he sought and obtained interviews with professors and college presidents and practical men of affairs; and he listened to their talk through many hours, scarcely speaking, rarely asking a question, merely listening to the best they had to offer, content to receive from several such hours one idea, one fact, that would help him to decide what sort of an education he would go in for and how.
Then came the engaging of coaches. Never was there such an engaging and discharging, such a hiring and firing. He was not frugal in the matter. For one that he retained a month, or three months, he discharged a dozen on the first day, or the first week. And invariably he paid such dischargees a full month although their attempts to teach him might not have consumed an hour. He did such things fairly and grandly, because he could afford to be fair and grand.