THE MAJOR GIVES ADVICE
Jerry discovered to his dismay that afternoon that his manipulation
of the hedge shears had not improved his baseball playing. His wrists
were lame and his fingers so cramped that it hurt him to even swing a
bat, and when it came to throwing a ball he was fairly out of trim. But
he wasn’t discouraged, for he knew that by to-morrow the complaining
muscles would be accustomed to their work. To-day, however, he came
in for more than one criticism, and he was heartily glad when the
five-inning practice game was over and he could get under a comforting
shower. When he had dressed he looked about for Tom, but that youth was
not in sight and so he went leisurely out to the steps and, as he would
have put it, pondered. He had thought to go back to his hedge-trimming
for the half hour remaining before darkness, but he gave up the idea,
for his arms were much too tired. Presently he went back and deposited
the shears in his locker again, replying good-humoredly to Larry
Thacher’s request for a hair cut. Going out again, he passed Wayne
Sortwell in the corridor, and, having gained the steps, he waited until
Wayne appeared and then, to that boy’s surprise, fell into step beside
him.
“Well, how did it go to-day, Benson?” asked Wayne a bit embarrassedly.
“Poorly,” answered Jerry. “Using those shears sort of lamed me up.”
“I should think it might. Say, what’s the idea, anyway, Benson? Don’t
you know the fellows here don’t do that sort of thing?”
“Meanin’ work out? Reckon I do, neighbor, but you see most of ’em’s got
a right smart more money than what I have. Looks to me like it’s fairer
to earn a little money that way than to make your folks pay it out to
you. Me, I ain’t got any folks to do it, anyway, but if I had I reckon
I’d feel like that just the same. Reckon I know how you fellers look at
it, Wayne, but I can’t afford to be finicky.”
Wayne winced at the use of his first name, but beyond a quick glance of
puzzled surprise he gave no sign. Instead, he walked on in silence for
a long moment. Then, turning to Jerry, he said: “Look here, Benson, I
did say something rather rotten this afternoon, and I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean it, really. I only wanted to get Tom Hartley’s goat. I hadn’t
anything against you. If you want to cut Major Laurence’s hedge for
him I reckon it’s no one’s business but yours. Reckon you’re right
plucky to do it, knowing the way fellows feel about such things here.
I’m sorry I said what I did, Benson, and I ask your pardon.”
“That’s all right,” replied Jerry. “I told Tom I reckoned you didn’t
really mean to be insultin’. It didn’t worrit me none.”
“I didn’t. I just wanted to take Hartley down a peg or two. He’s
spoiling for a scrap, and I reckon I am too.” Wayne laughed. “I
wouldn’t be surprised if we had one before long.”
“What was it he did to you?” asked Jerry innocently.
“Did to me? When?” Wayne turned indignantly. “He never did anything to
me, Benson, and if he says he did――――”
“No, he never told me he did anything,” interrupted Jerry mildly.
“Only, you hating him the way you seem to, I just naturally thought he
had.”
Wayne grunted. “I don’t hate him, I reckon. I just don’t like him.
I never did, Benson. He’s always been like he is now, stuck-up and
sneery. Thinks he’s too good for a lot of us, I reckon, the blamed
Yank!”
“If you wouldn’t mind calling me Jerry, ’stead of Benson, I’d like it,”
returned the other. “I can’t get used to being called Benson. Funny,
though, about Tom,” he went on without waiting for Wayne’s agreement.
“He’s been right nice to me all along. You know, I wasn’t very sightly
when I came here first, Wayne, and I did things all wrong, I reckon.
Lots of fellers’d have yelled like anything if they’d had to take me
in with them, and I don’t know if I’d have blamed ’em much. But Tom
didn’t seem to mind a bit. He was right fine about it, first off and
all along. Seems like maybe you ain’t got him just right. Maybe if you
was to forget about not liking him and start over again――――”
“Oh, he makes me sick,” protested Wayne. “I suppose I haven’t got
anything against him, really, Ben――Jerry, but I just can’t stand him.
Look here, did he ask you to――to――――”
“No.” Jerry shook his head. “No, he don’t know I’m talking to you.
Reckon he’s just about as queer as you are. He told me he didn’t have
nary thing against you, either.”
“Well, he doesn’t like me,” growled Wayne.
“Reckon he don’t know you any better’n you know him,” answered Jerry,
with a laugh. “Well, I got to leave you here.”
“Night,” said Wayne shortly. But after he had taken a few steps toward
McCrea House he stopped and turned. Jerry had paused at the entrance of
Baldwin and was looking thoughtfully across the darkening campus, his
hands deep in his pockets. “Say, Benson――I mean, Jerry!” called Wayne.
“Come up and see me some time.”
“Yes, I’d be pleased to,” Jerry replied cordially. Then he climbed the
stairs to Number 7. Tom had not returned and Jerry settled himself
for a half hour of study before supper. What with working for Major
Laurence and playing baseball, he wouldn’t have any too much time for
studying.
Four days later the hedge clipping was finished and the Major set him
to work with a spading fork on the beds in front of the house and the
vegetable garden behind. That garden looked depressingly large after
three hours of labor had finished the flower beds and almost finished
his back! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the more
work there was the more pay there’d be, and the next morning he arose
almost with the sun and was turning up the rich black loam before the
smoke had begun to curl up from the kitchen chimney. The first Saturday
brought him commendation from his employer and five dollars and fifty
cents in coin of the realm in return for a half-week’s labor.
Major Laurence, so Jerry learned, conducted a law business in
Washington, but Jerry sometimes wondered when he attended to it, for at
least four days in the week the Major was prowling around the grounds
or sitting on the wide porch while the boy was at his labors. Now and
then, to be sure, Jerry saw the big black automobile sweep out of the
drive in the direction of the Capital or glimpsed it on its return,
but he couldn’t help thinking that the law business, at least as
conducted by the Major, provided a deal of leisure. Several times the
Major sought Jerry and stood by and talked to him while he clipped or
spaded, with the result that there very shortly developed something
very much like a friendship between the middle-aged man and the boy. It
wasn’t long before the former had learned about all there was to learn
regarding Jerry, for he was a very easy person to confide in.
“What are you going to be when you get through your schooling?” asked
the Major one afternoon.
Jerry leaned on his fork and pondered. “I don’t know yet, sir,” he
answered finally. “I’m aiming to go to the university after I get
through here, if I ain’t too old by that time.”
“How old are you now? Seventeen, you told me, didn’t you? And you’ve
got two more years here after this? Well, that would make you only
nineteen. You’d be through when you were twenty-three, Jerry. What
college are you going to?”
“North Carolina, I reckon, sir. I’ve been thinking maybe I could get
enough education in three years to do me.”
“A boy that’s as willing to work as you seem to be ought to get a whole
lot out of three years in college, son. Maybe if you buckle down to it
you might get through in that time and graduate. It’s been done often
enough. Ever think of the Law as a profession?”
Jerry shook his head as he patted the lump out of a forkful of loaf.
“No, sir. I reckon I ain’t――haven’t done much thinking yet about what
I’ll be. Reckon there’s heaps of time for that, sir.”
“Yes, maybe, but don’t put it off too long,” replied the Major. “When
you mean to hit something, Jerry, it doesn’t do any harm to get your
aim some while before you shoot. Snapshots often prove misses. The Law
is a fine profession and there’s something about you, my boy, that
makes me think you’ll do well in it. Don’t think that I mean it’s any
easier to succeed in the Law business than in any other, though, for it
isn’t. Whatever you go into, son, you’ll have to work and work hard,
and put your nose right down to the grindstone if you’re to win out.
Well, you and I’ll see a lot of each other in the next two years, I
reckon, and so there’s plenty of time to talk about this. But if I were
you, Jerry, I’d make up my mind by the time I was through school what I
meant to shoot at and begin to aim. You can’t afford to waste time, you
know. Reckon it wouldn’t be wise for me to try to influence you now,
but I’ll say this, Jerry Benson: If you do decide for Law you can count
on me for help and advice. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an
opening for a smart, hard-headed young fellow in my office in six or
seven years’ time.”
The Major sauntered off, swinging his stick, before Jerry could find
the words wherewith to thank him properly, and Jerry, skirting the
asparagus bed with a busy fork, pondered deeply.
Two days later Jerry reverted to the subject. He was spading amongst
the raspberry canes and the Major had paused to look on a moment. “I
been thinking,” began Jerry, straightening and wiping a damp forehead
with one sleeve.
“Have you, Jerry? Well, let me hear the result.”
“Well, I mean,” stammered the boy, “I been thinking about what you
said day before yesterday, sir; about the Law.” The Major nodded
encouragingly. “Of course,” continued Jerry, “I might not be smart
enough for it, but, supposing I was, sir, what sort of studying would
be proper for me?”
“Now, you mean? Just what you’re doing, Jerry. A lawyer has to have
a sound general knowledge to build on. But you won’t do yourself any
harm, whether you go in for Law later on or something else, if you read
all the history you can lay your hands on, particularly the history of
your own country. And you’d better pay some attention to Latin, son.”
Jerry sighed as he dug his fork again. “Yes, sir, that’s what I
supposed. I――I’m having right smart trouble with that Latin!”
The Major laughed. “Never mind, Jerry, you’ll master it. Don’t let it
scare you, son. Don’t ever let anything scare you, no matter how big
or ugly it looks. Walk right up to it. The nearer you get the smaller
it’ll be. Troubles always look bigger from a distance. Just remember
that, my boy.”
“Reckon that’s so, too,” reflected Jerry when the Major had continued
his progress toward the garage where a young colored chauffeur with
a soul above hedge-clipping and garden digging was grooming the car.
“This garden looked mighty big and discouraging when I looked at it
from round front and now it ain’t so big after all!”
North Bank played her first baseball game the Wednesday of that week
at Fenwood, a dozen miles away, but Jerry neither took part in it nor
viewed it. Instead, he worked all the afternoon at the Major’s and
earned the respectable sum of a dollar and seventy-five cents. The same
thing happened the following Saturday, save that North Bank played at
home that day and Jerry earned an even two dollars. The first contest
was a victory for the Light Blue, but on Saturday Mount Saint Anne’s
nosed out in the ninth inning of a loosely played game, the final score
standing 11 to 10. Thereafter Wednesday and Saturday games were in
order, North Bank meeting the less formidable of the opponents of her
season’s schedule and halving the victories fairly evenly.
The Sunday after the Mount Saint Anne’s contest was cloudy but warm,
with a heartening odor of newly turned sod and of green things growing
in the soft, moist air. After dinner, always a hearty meal on Sunday,
Tom stretched himself on the window sill of Number 7 with a book in
his hands and the afternoon breeze creeping in through the wide-open
casement. Jerry tried to study, but the outdoors was calling loudly
to him, and after a few minutes of wasted effort he closed his book,
pushed back his chair and donned his jacket. He had got over the idea
that mental concentration necessitated the removal of most of his
wearing apparel, including his shoes, but he still found it difficult
to study with his coat on. Now, having got himself back into that
garment, he thrust his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets and stared
thoughtfully and in silence at Tom for a long moment.
Finally: “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.
Tom drew his eyes reluctantly from the page. “Wh-what?” he asked.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
Tom looked doubtfully through the window and longingly back at his
book. Then he sighed. “What for?” he inquired.
“Just to be out,” replied Jerry, joining him at the window and gazing
at the far wooded bank of the river. “I got a itching in my feet, Tom.”
“An itching, Jerry. Well, I can’t say I have. Still――how’d you like to
paddle a canoe?”
“I’d rather walk, I’m sort of craving for exercise.”
“Well, canoeing’s exercise, isn’t it? How about rowing? Or what do you
say to riding over to Annapolis on the train? You know you said you
wanted to see more of the Naval Academy, Jerry, and this would be a
fine day for it.”
“Train riding isn’t exercise,” said the other. “I’d rather walk, I
reckon.”
Tom sighed again, deeply, dolorously, and laid down his book. “If you’d
played through that baseball game yesterday, Jerry,” he said sadly,
“you wouldn’t be so keen for exercise.”
“Wish I had. Reckon you didn’t do anything to tire you much, though,
Tom. Two mean little hits ain’t awful wearing to the constitution, are
they?”
“Maybe not, son, but trying to get those mean little hits was awful
wearing! That fellow Bateman who pitched the first seven innings for
them was a tough proposition! Well, all right, Jerry. Where’ll we go?”
“’Most anywheres. I ain’t particular. Let’s have a good tramp, though;
five or six miles. Let’s――――”
“Five or six――say, how do you get that way?” exclaimed Tom indignantly.
“I’ll go for a walk with you, son, but I won’t enter any blooming
Marathon!”
Jerry smiled. “’Twouldn’t hurt you none, Tom. You’re getting fat and
lazy. Say we go up toward the Ridge, through the woods. Seems like,
this time of year, I just got to get into the woods, Tom.”
“Woods!” Tom groaned as he swung his feet to the floor and viewed the
other reproachfully. “Gee, roads are bad enough, Jerry, but woods are
worse. You certainly can think of some rotten ways of spending an
afternoon! Sure you wouldn’t rather go canoeing?”
“Plumb sure,” answered Jerry mercilessly. “Come on and let’s get going.
Golly, wish we had a dog!”
“What do you want a dog for? Better wish for a horse: I could ride
that!”
“A dog’s a heap of company in the woods,” said Jerry musingly. “Back
home――――”
“I like your cheek,” Tom protested. “You ask me to go to walk with you
and then you wish you had a dog for company! I quit you, son! Too much
is enough! Here’s where I stay at home in comfort.”
He reposed himself on the window seat again and reached for his book,
but Jerry pounced on it first. “No, you ain’t staying at home,”
declared the latter, “you’re coming with me. Better put your old shoes
on. We might find some hard walking.”
“If we don’t, I miss my guess,” muttered Tom. “And――I hope you choke,
Jerry! Get away from here and let me up, you tow-haired tyrant!”