"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made
Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said
Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an
eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars.
And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody
that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the
only thing we thought about was getting in first."
"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley.
"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. "We'd have put our
eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked
us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those
days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was
at Blue Haven."
"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley.
"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen
States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in
two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on
their own campus," returned the ghost.
Parley was beginning to be interested.
"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said.
"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment
believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed
against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of
it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those
days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College wasn't filled with
politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then."
"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley.
"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and
glad of it."
"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley.
"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best
to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on
all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks
like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's
hen-coop in your life!"
"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our
chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop."
"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never
hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the
same reason-- Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in
the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I
came here for. I came to help you, and I've seen enough of the way
things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other
respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help
is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?"
"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football."
"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to
do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've
let everything else go."
"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly.
"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science,
there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's
got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as
an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm
going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's
my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out
of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship
as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get
Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was
so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I
didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might
have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be
the gainer. _I'll pass your examinations for you._"
"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears.
"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be
hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class."
"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you
know."
"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd
rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do
is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your
questions."
"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley.
"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you
can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting."
"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know
that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same
fix again."
"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of
your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out
once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I
suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a
canoe, the way we used to."
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley.
"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "_Mister Watkins!_ Look here,
Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys--somewhat far apart in time, it's
true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me
Billie."
"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over
I'll be as much of a boy as I can."
"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he
departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the
day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again.
What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an
interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the
night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor
Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch
had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of
Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake--as, in fact, it was, although poor
old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never
volunteered his services.
Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings.
"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might
have known it was all a dream," he groaned.
"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair,
which had been repaired.
Parley jumped as if stung.
"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the
chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and
burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into."
"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I--"
"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you,
I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a
Waterloo all around."
"If you won't listen--" the ghost began again.
"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there
was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your
low-down trick!"
"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie
Watkins was accused of a low-down trick--and I tried to help him, too."
"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out?
You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've
lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in
you."
"I _was_ within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was
right square in front of you."
"Then why the dickens didn't you answer the questions? I read 'em out
so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it."
"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered
'em if I could. But I couldn't."
"Couldn't?" cried Parley.
"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost.
"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?"
cried Parley, scornfully.
"No," said the ghost.
"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered
Parley.
"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells
nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned
at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You
ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just
about where it used to leave off."
"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?"
"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What
would make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his
first year now. Times have changed."
"Oh, that's it--eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the
fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum--eh? That
it?"
"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley
should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you
fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass
any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you
are."
"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have
found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift,
though."
"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost.
"All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying
colors."
"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but
it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your
Christmas gifts another time."
"I won't, Jack," said the spirit--"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me
and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've
forgiven me."
"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square."
And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to
fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not
aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I
think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie
Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for
Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also
learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can
only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each
has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different
conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them,
and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing
customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after
all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be
seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the
Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it
is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.
So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie
Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had,
and leave them both with my blessing.