Page:A Princetonian.djvu/122

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102
A Princetonian.

digging in the garden or working with hammer and nails in the empty chicken-house behind the stable.

He was not pretty as a child; he had a broad flat face, a well shaped head, and a tangle of coarse red hair. When dressed in his velvet suit and leggings—like the children of the country-club people,—he looked awkward and uncomfortable, and, if the truth be told, at such times he was most unhappy. He had one or two odd habits. If he was puzzled, he scratched his head, and he walked in long strides with his arms hanging loose from his shoulders, like a laboring man. His hands and feet were large and heavy; there was no elasticity in his figure.

The day before Patrick's eleventh birthday an accident occurred on the railway, and poor Mr. Heaphy the elder had been a victim of the usual conflagration.

The funeral services were not impressive, nor was the scene at the reading of the will. At the reading it was shown that the Pliny Mills were sold. All the property had been given in trust for Patrick in the care of a well-known New York firm, and the income derived therefrom left—as the words ran—"To my son Patrick