When I'm flying, I think I could give up all earthly pleasures, he thought but did not say.Even give up a young woman I love... you, Gail... to serve Him. "When I'm on the ground," he told her, "the conflict returns. I'm never that certain, on the ground."
Gail thought he was close to saying what she wanted most to hear. Dear God, I'd love to hear him say he loves me! But would she?
That could be even worse, if I knew he really, truly loved me. Even if it were only a fraction of how much I love him. Would not having him hurt even more?
The first of the three deaths came academically to Barbara. She was called into the college administrator's office and wondered what she had done to be called on the carpet.
Barbara stood almost at attention before the desk of a tall, gaunt man in blue serge suit and wearing a professorial salt-and-pepper beard.
"I'm terribly sorry to say this, Barbara," Orville Harrison said after coughing several times out of anxiety before doing an unpleasant task. "The Depression and the economy has hit Fairmount rather hard this past fall. The winter quarter will be a time of severe belt-tightening. I'm afraid that for this reason, your tuition scholarship cannot be renewed. I do hope you can manage the tuition without any help from Fairmount..."
Barbara's heart sank. She waited a moment before speaking, wondering if there were some way she could afford the tuition on her own, and even that with her mother's help. Finally, she just shook her head no.
The administrator suddenly became flushed in the face as he looked up at her from his seat behind the desk. Coughing again several times and clearing his throat, he fumbled with a pencil and she wondered what was on his mind that he was having trouble speaking.
"Of course," he said finally, "there is another avenue."
What can he possibly mean? Barbara wondered.
"I might just possibly... be able..." he stammered, looking at the pencil and not at her... "to renew your scholarship for another quarter if..."
His hesitation and nervousness made Barbara start to realize what he was trying to suggest.
"And if not," he went on, still without looking at her or saying just what his proposition was, "I regret, and I really do regret, that you won't be with us in the new year."
She knew now what price her tuition would be for the next term.