The Seeker by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

true gentlemen’s sons had peered down their noses at the lowly headmaster’s grandson. It didn’t matter to them that his mind had been quicker than many of theirs, or perhaps that was the reason for their disdain. A disdain that he learned to return in spades.
    His grandfather had often caned him for posting irreverent sketches of this or that student. Or perhaps not for the irreverence but just for the sketching. His grandfather wanted to beat the artistic dreamer out of him, but some things can’t be altered in a man’s spirit. Art was one of those things for Adam. That and his streak of independence that made him say no when his grandfather tried to force him into Yale to spend four more years being the charity case of the school. He didn’t need Yale. He only needed his pens and his brushes.
    When he had told his grandfather he would not enroll in college, that instead he would concentrate on improving his art, his grandfather had almost spit out the word. “Art.” His voice was full of contempt, and his hands curled as if he were wishing for the headmaster’s cane to attempt one more time to bring Adam into line. “You’re as much a fool as your father before you. Chasing off after some dream that will never come to fruition.”
    Adam braced his shoulders as though expecting a blow from the old man, but he didn’t back down. “I am an artist.” Those were words he’d practiced for just that moment, and he spoke them with conviction.
    His grandfather had once been tall, like Adam, but years of studying and bending over students to instruct them had rounded his shoulders until he had to peer up at Adam through gray eyebrows that grew in wayward paths. But his light blue eyes were as sharp and as accusing as ever. “Artists starve in garrets.”
    Adam had lived in the man’s house since he was twelve years old, but little affection had grown between them. He had realized early on that his grandfather saw Adam’s father whenever he looked at him and that he could never be good enough, smart enough, or pliable enough to override the anger his grandfather still carried for the man who had ruined his daughter’s life. So Adam never tried. He didn’t try that day either as he answered his grandfather’s near curse. “Then I will starve.”
    He had not exchanged a word with his grandfather since. His grandmother had written him encouraging letters that caught up with him occasionally as he traveled to the West searching for his father. He still carried regret that he had not returned to Boston when his grandmother fell ill. He hadn’t thought she would die so quickly.
    By the time he received word of her death, she’d been underground for days. He saw little need to rush to Boston then. His mother had Phoebe and the boys, his two younger brothers, to hold her hand and pull her through. As for his grandfather, the man needed nothing from Adam. He would simply shut himself away in his library and hardly notice the good woman’s passing.
    The truth was, Adam didn’t have the money for the trip to Boston and to New York both. And it was to New York he had finally been summoned. To interview with Harper’s Weekly . He didn’t believe in angels, but sometimes he wondered if his grandmother had whispered his name in Sam Johnson’s ear as she passed through the air on her way to heaven. He had not looked back since except to send his mother money to help pay the younger boys’ tuition.
    Jake was in his first year at Harvard. A hothead who didn’t have art to turn to. Instead he had fought his way through their grandfather’s school with his fists and had earned a measure of respect from the gentlemen’s sons that allowed him a more accepted place in their society. That had carried through for Harry, who at sixteen was almost ready to matriculate at the college of his choice. He had a love of books and the feeling that teaching was a calling. His calling. Phoebe wrote that Grandfather Tyler was a changed