Aron seemed perfectly calm. He sat in the living room, looking at cartoons in old numbers of the Review of Reviews. From the kitchen the odor of the bursting juices of roasting turkey began to fill the house.

Cal went into his room and took out his present and laid it on his desk. He tried to write a card to put on it. “To my father from Caleb”—“To Adam Trask from Caleb Trask.” He tore the cards in tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet.

He thought, Why give it to him today? Maybe tomorrow I could go to him quietly and say, This is for you, and then walk away. That would be easier. “No,” he said aloud. “I want the others to see.” It had to be that way. But his lungs were compressed and the palms of his hands were wet with stage fright. And then he thought of the morning when his father got him out of jail. The warmth and closeness—they were the things to remember—and his father’s trust. Why, he had even said it. “I trust you.” He felt much better then.

At about three o’clock he heard Adam come in and there was the low sound of voices conversing in the living room. Cal joined his father and Aron.

Adam was saying, “The times are changed. A boy must be a specialist or he will get nowhere. I guess that’s why I’m so glad you’re going to college.”

Aron said, “I’ve been thinking about that, and I wonder.”

“Well, don’t think any more. Your first choice is right. Look at me. I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one of them to make a living in these times.”

Cal sat down quietly. Adam did not notice him. His face was concentrated on his thought.

“It’s natural for a man to want his son to succeed,” Adam went on. “And maybe I can see better than you can.”

Lee looked in. “The kitchen scales must be way off,” he said. “The turkey’s going to be done earlier than the chart says. I’ll bet that bird doesn’t weigh eighteen pounds.”

Adam said, “Well, you can keep it warm,” and he continued, “Old Sam Hamilton saw this coming. He said there couldn’t be any more universal philosophers. The weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb. He saw a time when one man would know only one little fragment, but he would know it well.”

“Yes,” Lee said from the doorway, “and he deplored it. He hated it.”

“Did he now?” Adam asked.

Lee came into the room. He held his big basting spoon in his right hand, and he cupped his left under the bowl for fear it would drip on the carpet. He came into the room and forgot and waved his spoon and drops of turkey fat fell to the floor. “Now you question it, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know whether he hated it or I hate it for him.”