THE LAST CHANCE
Many times that huge, dark thing in the background of his thoughts
jumped into the foreground and interrupted his work; but he accomplished
a good deal. He felt a glow of hope. It was only ten days to the
examinations, but it had only been during the past month of madness that
he had neglected his studies. He could soon make that up.
Just as he started for chapel, he suddenly began to wonder if he had
been mistaken about that prize. Wasn't it only $100 after all? He took
down a catalogue and looked it up. He was right, the prize was $200.
"A prize of $200, part of the income of the J. S. K. fund;" but what was
this?--"To be paid in quarterly instalments during the following year"!
He had never noticed that before. For a moment it made him feel sick at
the stomach. Then he decided that it was not so bad after all, for if he
only won the prize he could borrow money on the certificate of it that
would be presented the winner at commencement.
For the first day or two the club guyed him for turning poler, and they
thought his serious and grave demeanor was very funny when he declined
to join with them in their pursuits. At first he paid no attention to
their jeers; he had no time. Then came the day he got angry and said.
"It makes no difference to me what you fellows think. I've quit my
foolishness for good, and that's all there is to it. Now let me alone."
He struck the table a heavy blow, and looked as if he meant everything
he said; and no one felt inclined to guy him again. He looked like the
old Deacon who had done up Ballard.
"The Deacon must have an attack of R. E. Morse," Billy Drew said, as he
left the room.
"I think he's pretty hard hit financially," said Lucky Lee, who had been
pretty hard hit of late himself. "He's working his way through college,
you know. I wish he hadn't lost so much money."
"He had no business playing, then," said Powelton.
"I respect him for stopping, anyway," said Todd, who seldom played
cards; recently he had not played at all; he had been doing some
studying, "just for fun," he said.
"So do I," said Lee, in a low voice, and the others agreed--in lower
voices.
Meanwhile, Young was studying as if his life depended upon it, and the
strain was telling. He had lost twenty-four pounds since the football
season.
The fellows saw nothing of him now except at meals, where he kept his
white face turned down to the book beside his plate. They had left off
guying him, and were worrying about him instead.
They began saying: "See here, old man, you've got to quit this. You'll
kill yourself if you keep on this way. The prize isn't worth it." But it
did no good. Finally a number of them came up to his room one evening
to see what they could do about it. They were headed by Lucky Lee.
"I wish you would let me alone," was all that Young would say. "I've
simply got to win that prize."
"Why have you got to?" asked Lucky, in his nice, refined voice.
At that Young only smiled queerly, and turned to the table where his
books were.
"See here, you old chump," said Lucky. "I believe you've got a
notion--say, fellows, the Deacon's got a notion that just because he
owes some of us a couple of dollars or so we are in a hurry to be paid
back. If he thinks that, he's an old ass, isn't he, fellows?"
"Why, certainly," said Powelton.
"Thank you," said Young, curtly; "but as I said before, I intend to
square up at commencement."
"Why, we can get along just as well till next fall," Lucky went on,
although he had pawned some of his clothes as well as his bicycle last
week. "In fact, if you're worrying about it, why--well--they were
gambling debts, Will, and----"
"Lucky," said Young, flushing, "that's no way to talk. I'm an honest man
and"----then he stopped suddenly; he was not an honest man, and this was
the first time he had been called "Will" since he left home, and home
was what he hated most of all to think of in these days, and this was
Lucky Lee, who never would have had gambling debts, if it had not been
for him, and whose kind mother he had promised---- Altogether he felt
very queer and wrought up, and for a wild moment he had a notion to tell
them all about it, and make a clean breast of it.
If he had done so they might have helped him out and sworn secrecy; but
Young was not the sort that could do it. "Please go away, fellows, and
leave me alone. You're mighty good, but--you don't understand," he said.
They could see something was troubling him greatly. They did go away,
and they did not understand, but they felt very sorry. After that Todd,
without telling the reason, left off studying hard and took to rambling
in the woods again.
"Aren't you going to try for the prize, then?" they asked him.
"I wouldn't stand any chance against Young," he answered. But the others
were not so sure about that.
Meanwhile every hour brought final examinations sixty minutes nearer,
and Young, all alone in his little bake-oven of a room, was studying as
probably no student had ever studied in that old room before. Sometimes
he felt that even his powerful constitution would not stand the strain
much longer; but he could not afford to break down or die until after
commencement, until after disgrace had been averted from his family
name. It was that thought which kept his heavy eyelids open.
Examination week was like a long, hideous nightmare.
There were tasks that seemed superhuman to perform, and with them the
sickening dread that he could not perform them. When the last paper was
finished and handed in he had a horrible conviction that he had lost the
prize. He felt sure of it.
But he could not be sure until commencement day itself, and before that
came four days of preliminary commencement gayety. Each one of these
contained for Young twenty-four hours of suspense, and these were worse
than examination days--there was nothing to take his mind off what he
did not want to think about. He could not sleep. His nerves were used
up; and everybody else was so happy!
The campus was bright with hundreds of attractive girls in summer
costumes, and alive with rollicking old graduates holding noisy
reunions. But even at the baseball game, when the nine was beating Yale
and everyone else was crazy with exultant joy, Young was saying to
himself: "How should I break the news to mother? Should I let matters
take their course, or--what are they all cheering for now? Oh, I see,
Cap has made another hit!"
The worst of it was that he had no one to take him out of himself.
Nearly all his classmates and all his intimates were packing up and
going home, as Freshmen usually do, without waiting for commencement.
Luckily they had not voted to celebrate their Sophomorehood! He wandered
about all alone; and all alone he went in to hear his fate decided on
commencement morning.
Near the door he stood, squeezed in beside some graduates he had never
seen before, who wondered why this long, gaunt undergraduate started so
when the clerk of the Board of Trustees arose and began to announce the
fellowships and prizes.
The awards were read from a long list in the clerk's hand, and after
each announcement there was a cheer from the members of the literary
society to which the victor belonged. It delayed matters so. Sometimes
they cheered several times. Then the clerk cleared his throat and went
on slowly.
At last he came down toward the end of the list.
"Now, then," said Young, bracing himself. "I know I am going to lose."
He did not dare look up. Just in front of him sat a good-looking girl.
He saw her put her pretty orange-and-black-bordered programme to her
lips and suppress a yawn while the loud, monotonous voice of the clerk
said, "The Freshman First Honor prize awarded to J. Milton Barrows, of
Pennsylvania."
Young stood perfectly still. He did not move a muscle. He heard the loud
cheering. He heard a man behind him say, "Well! well!" He heard the band
strike up a lively air. Still looking at the girl, he saw her begin to
beat time to the music with her programme against her pursed lips.
Then he shut his eyes tight for a moment and asked himself: "What was it
I was going to do? I cannot remember somehow. What was it? Shall--shall
I telegraph----"
In a few minutes the valedictorian had finished his oration, then the
benediction was pronounced, and the audience flocked out laughing and
talking while the band played with all its might. Commencement was over,
and the college year was a matter of history.
* * * * *
A few hours later Young was speeding across the country at the rate of
ever so many miles an hour toward the old prairie farm, toward the home
he had disgraced.
He did not know why he was going home, unless it was because the watch
he pawned brought just the right amount of money. Instinct made him do
it, perhaps.
As the train started off down the grade he stood on the rear platform,
and looked back at the green campus and the dear old brown building.
"Perhaps," he said to himself, "perhaps in time they'll forget that
there ever was a fellow named 'Deacon' Young."
Then the car turned the curve, and the college was hidden from view.