CHAPTER I_David Ives

DAVID IVES

[Illustration: “THEY THOUGHT MAYBE YOU’D RATHER BE ALONE”]

DAVID IVES

A STORY OF ST. TIMOTHY’S

ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

FRANKLIN WOOD

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1922

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

I. FAREWELL TO ROSEWOOD 1

II. A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR 22

III. HOSTILITIES 36

IV. FRIENDSHIPS 56

V. THE RETURN 73

VI. PROBATION 91

VII. BLINDNESS 108

VIII. WALLACE’S EXAMINATION 123

IX. DAVID’S ENLIGHTENMENT 137

X. MR. DEAN PROVIDES FOR THE FUTURE 151

XI. THE FAMILY MIGRATION 169

XII. THE NEW NEIGHBOR 183

XIII. HERO WORSHIP 196

XIV. ANTI-CLIMAX 218

XV. THE TORN PAGE 231

XVI. LESTER AND DAVID 242

XVII. THE FIRST MARSHAL 256

XVIII. RELINQUISHMENT 278

XIX. ATTAINMENT 294

ILLUSTRATIONS

“THEY THOUGHT MAYBE YOU’D RATHER BE ALONE” _Frontispiece_

“HOW DID YOU FIND THE EXAMINATIONS?” 30

TACKLED A RUNNER IN THE OPEN FIELD AND GOT A WRENCHED

ANKLE 70

“OH!” CRIED DAVID. HE CLASPED MR. DEAN’S HAND. “IT――IT

CAN’T BE SERIOUS” 114

DAVID IVES

• •

•

CHAPTER I

FAREWELL TO ROSEWOOD

The suburb in which David Ives lived and in which David’s father had

most of his medical practice was by no means one of the wealthy and

prosperous suburbs of the wealthy and prosperous city. It was a new

and raw-looking region; many of the streets were unpaved, littered

and weed-grown; and unfenced lots and two-family tenement houses were

alike its characteristics; there were numerous billboards along the

sidewalks; the trees were few in number and had grown half-heartedly.

But David, returning from the baseball field on a hot July afternoon,

saw nothing depressing in the neighborhood. He walked with his coat

flung over his shoulder and his cap in his hand. He had distinguished

himself at the bat; he was thirsty and thinking of the cold ginger

ale he would drink; he was hungry and thinking of the raspberries he

would eat; he was pleasantly tired and thinking of an evening to be

passed in comfort and interest over “David Copperfield.” A gust of

wind flung dirt and dust into his face and made him wonder why the

watering-carts so seldom visited Rosewood,――for such was the misleading

name of the suburb,――but the next moment he turned into a more shaded

and attractive street and forgot his displeasure in the satisfaction of

drawing near his home. He passed the Carters’ bungalow and the Porters’

Queen Anne cottage and the Jennisons’ mansard dwelling, and then he

turned up the flagstone walk that led between two narrow bits of lawn

to his father’s door.

The house was square and gray and shabby; there was a room thrown out

at one end of the wide front porch, and over the door that admitted

to this room hung a lantern bearing the words, “Dr. Ives.” The door

and the window were both open, and just before passing into the

front hall David had a glimpse of his father seated at his desk in a

characteristic attitude, with his gray head resting on his hand while

an invisible patient recited her symptoms. That the patient was a woman

David knew, because he heard the querulous drone of her voice――it was

just the drone that he associated with his father’s numerous charity

cases.

In the dining-room Maggie, the maid of all work, was setting the table

for supper.

“Where’s mother, Maggie?” David asked.

“Search me!” replied Maggie, who looked red and hot and at war with the

world.

As there was obviously nothing to be gained by complying with Maggie’s

request, David passed on to the parlor and the library, and not finding

his mother in either place, went upstairs three steps at a time. Then

he saw her sitting in her room, looking disconsolately out of the

window. So sad was the expression on her face that David forgot what

had been in his mind and exclaimed:

“What’s the matter, mother?”

Mrs. Ives rose and came toward him, with her arms outstretched.

“Oh, David dear, I can’t bear to have you go, I can’t bear to have you

go!” With her arms round his neck she was sobbing on his shoulder.

“Go where?” David was bewildered and distressed. “What are you talking

about, mother?”

She did not immediately answer, but went on weeping quietly. Then she

said: “I will let your father tell you about it. It is his decision.”

“Then it can’t be anything so very terrible, mother,” David said, and

he stroked and patted her while she clung to him.

“Not for you, perhaps, David, but it seems very hard to me. It may all

be for the best, but I don’t know――I don’t know――”

David could not help reflecting that his father was always the optimist

of the family and his mother usually the pessimist, and that therefore

it would be desirable to await his father’s unfolding of the mystery.

So he set about getting his mother into better spirits, which he did

by tweaking her ears, kissing her, and telling her that he did not

know where he was going or for how long, but that, wherever it was,

they could not keep him from coming back to home and mother. She was

a pretty little woman who looked scarcely old enough to have such a

tall and stalwart son, and as he held her in his arms she seemed to be

a kind of child mother――an anxious, diffident, confiding, appealing

little person, with sensitive lips and timorous, soft brown eyes. David

looked like her and yet not like her; his eyes were brown and shone

affectionately, but there was fearlessness rather than timorousness

in their glance; his lips were sensitive, but their curve showed a

resolute rather than a vacillating character; he had his mother’s wavy

brown hair. Soothing his mother, he smoothed her hair, he took her

handkerchief and dried her eyes with it. “And now does this come next?”

he asked, reaching for a powder-puff. So he got her to laugh, and her

face had brightened when he led her downstairs.

“Found her, did you?” said Maggie as they passed the dining-room.

Her tone was one of good-natured interest, but David did not feel it

necessary to reply. He had reached an age when he was beginning to

dislike Maggie’s familiar manners. Mrs. Ives admitted she was too much

of a coward to try to correct them.

As David and his mother entered the library, his ten-year-old brother

Ralph rushed in breathlessly, declaring his satisfaction at finding

that he was not late for supper. “I guess you will be, if you try

to get yourself properly ready for it,” remarked David, looking the

unkempt and dirty-faced small boy over with disfavor. Ralph thrust out

his tongue, but when David commanded him sternly to go upstairs and get

clean, with some stamping and scuffing he obeyed.

Across the hall rose the violent clamor of the supper bell, which

Maggie always rang as if she were summoning the neighborhood to a fire.

David and his mother had just seated themselves at the table when

Ralph came crashing down the stairs, bounced into the room, and hurled

himself into his chair, snorting and panting.

“Gee, you do make a noise!” David said.

“So do you――with your mouth,” Ralph rejoined promptly.

“Boys, boys!” sighed Mrs. Ives, and David turned red and restrained the

ready retort. It was hard, because Ralph looked across the table at him

jauntily, defiantly.

The entrance of Dr. Ives had a quieting effect on the provocative

younger brother. David, glancing at his father, had the uneasy, vaguely

apprehensive feeling that had frequently taken possession of him of

late. He was always expecting, always hoping that his father would

conform in appearance more nearly to the mental picture to which the

boy constantly returned――the picture of a tall man, straight and ruddy

and broad-shouldered, with laughing eyes and a collar that fitted his

neck snugly. It was disappointing――it was worse than disappointing――to

realize that his father’s shoulders looked thin and angular; that his

cheeks were pale, and his eyes, though kinder than ever, preoccupied

and less sparkling; that his collars were looser about his neck than

comfort required them to be. David often wondered whether his mother

had noticed it, and if so what she thought about it. He did not wish to

mention it first; if she was not worrying about it already, he was not

going to put a new reason for anxiety into her head.

“Well, David,” said Dr. Ives in his usual cheerful voice, “have you had

a talk with your mother?”

“I couldn’t tell him, Henry,” said Mrs. Ives plaintively. “I’ve left it

for you to do.”

“Mother said something about my going away somewhere,” added David.

Ralph looked from one to another while his round eyes grew rounder in

wonder and concern.

“Yes,” said Dr. Ives, evading his wife’s glance and speaking with great

cheerfulness, “I’ve decided to send you away to boarding-school, David.

To St. Timothy’s, in New Hampshire.”

“In six weeks,” added Mrs. Ives tearfully.

David felt a thrill of exultation and excitement, and then, because

of his mother’s sadness and his father’s forced cheerfulness, he felt

sorry. Ralph sat open-mouthed and subdued.

“Why am I going to St. Timothy’s, father?” David asked.

“Just what I wanted to know!” said Mrs. Ives. “Hasn’t David been doing

all right in high school?”

“Yes,” Dr. Ives admitted, “he has. But I think that now he is ready for

a change; it will be broadening and instructive. I think, moreover,

that both he and Ralph will be the better for being separated for

a time from each other. It will do David good to get out into a

world of his own, and it will do Ralph good to take over some of the

responsibilities at home that David has had. Those are some of the

reasons.”

Mrs. Ives shook her head forlornly. “I can’t see that they are

sufficient.”

“Well,” said Dr. Ives, “I want my boys to have the best there is――and

to be the best there are. From all that I can ascertain, St. Timothy’s

is one of the best schools in the country. David already knows what he

wants to be. He feels that he has a bent for surgery; he means to make

that his profession. I should be glad to have him model his career on

that of the best surgeon I know――Dr. Wallace. As far as I can I mean

to give him every opportunity that Wallace had. Wallace went to St.

Timothy’s School, and to Harvard College, and to the Harvard Medical

School. So shall David.”

“But Dr. Wallace’s father was rich, probably, and you are not,” said

Mrs. Ives.

“I feel able to meet all the necessary expenses, and I can trust David

not to be extravagant.”

“New Hampshire is so far away! And it will be so long before we see

David again!”

“We shall hope to see him in the Christmas vacation.”

“Yes, of course. But I can’t help feeling that David will be leaving

home for good; he will be coming back to us now only for visits! You

don’t want to go, do you, David?”

“I don’t know, mother,” David said, torn by various impulses. “Yes, I

think I do.” And then he jumped up and, going behind her chair, put his

arm round her and his face down on hers and kissed her.

That evening Dr. Ives had to go out on some professional calls; he

chugged away in the shabby little second-hand automobile that he had

bought three years before. “Some day, when all my patients pay their

bills, I’ll get a new machine,” he was accustomed to remark to the

family. He also was accustomed to declare that he rather enjoyed

tinkering the old rattletrap.

Now David, sitting in the library and perusing the catalogue of St.

Timothy’s School, suspected that for some time he had been the object

of his father’s many economies. Turning over the pages, he resolved

that he would justify his father’s faith in him, that he would work

hard and not be extravagant, and that he would come home showing

that he had profited by the opportunities given him by the family’s

sacrifice. And as he turned the pages the thrill of eager anticipation

grew stronger in him. He glanced over the long list of names――boys from

all quarters of the country, boys even from far corners of the earth.

David, who had never traveled more than forty miles from the city in

which he had been born and brought up, and who had never known any boys

except those in the immediate neighborhood of his home, felt a tingling

of romance as he read the names.

While he read Ralph sat quiet over a storybook, and Mrs. Ives, with

a pile of mending in her lap, worked at intervals and at intervals

gazed wistfully at her older boy. He was her favorite, though she felt

guilty in admitting it even in her heart; Ralph had always been more

thoughtless, more unmanageable, a more trying kind of boy. It made her

feel quite helpless to think of dealing with Ralph alone after David

had gone. But that was not the worst to which she must look forward,

that was not the saddening thought. What weighed her down was, as she

had said, the premonition that when David went away it would be really

for good and all. It would be years and years before home would be more

than a place to which he made visits. Perhaps what was now, and always

had been, his home would never really be his home again. And his father

and his mother, who had always been so near to him, would never be

so near to him again. Tears filled her eyes and fell unnoticed while

David and Ralph read; she wiped them away furtively and determined to

be brave. Perhaps it was all for the best, and she would not begrudge

anything that was best for David. But it seemed such a doubtful

venture,――and David’s father did not look well,――but she was not going

to imagine that any more; it produced such a heaviness about the heart.

She was going to try to be cheerful; she had never been cheerful enough.

She anticipated the usual rebelliousness and struggle when at nine

o’clock she said, “Bed-time, Ralph.”

“All right, mother.” To her astonishment he spoke with the utmost

docility; he closed his book at once and came over and kissed her. With

the same unusual docility he went across the room and kissed David.

“I’m sorry you’re going away, Dave,” he whispered, and then he fled

upstairs.

David looked at his mother.

“He’s a pretty good kid,” he said. “He won’t give you much trouble――not

more than I’ve done.”

“You’ve never given any trouble, David.”

“Haven’t I?” He sprang up and went over to sit beside her. “Then don’t

let me begin doing it now. Stop looking so troubled about me. That’s

right, smile.”

She did her best, remembering that she had resolved to be cheerful.

Anyway, as the days passed and the time of David’s departure drew near

there was one development on which his mother liked to dwell and from

which she hoped and even dared to expect much. Dr. Ives had yielded to

her persuasion and, as the first vacation that he had taken in years,

was to accompany David on his journey. “A rest is all he needs,” his

wife kept assuring herself. “A rest and a change――and when he comes

back I won’t have to worry about him any more.” Dr. Ives had wanted her

to take the trip, too, but she had refused. She knew that he could

ill afford such an additional expense, and besides there was Ralph to

look after; no doubt Maggie was competent to care for him, and his Aunt

Hattie would be willing to take him in, but Mrs. Ives felt that the

absence of his father would give her the most favorable opportunity of

getting on the right terms with her younger boy. His sense of chivalry

would be more likely to awaken when he was not under the surveillance

of a masculine disciplinary eye.

David’s mother went with him to the shops and helped him to purchase

his slender wardrobe. A careful purchaser she was, leading him from

shop to shop in search of bargains, feeling with distrustful fingers

the material of the suit at last selected, insisting on underwear of

the thickest woolens and on pyjamas of flannel, for doubtless New

Hampshire winters were even colder than those at home. David felt that

he was rather old for his mother to be buying his clothes for him,――he

was sixteen,――but he had not the heart to assert any independence in

the matter, to intimate that he had outgrown the need of her guidance.

Likewise he restrained the desire to intimate to Maggie that her

criticism and comments were unwelcome. Maggie attacked him one day when

he was alone in the library.

“What’s all this, David, about your goin’ away to boardin’-school?” she

asked truculently, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Well, it’s true,” David answered.

“Ain’t there no good schools near home?”

“Yes, but not so good.”

“Funny thing that nothing but the best is ever good enough for some

folks.”

David, disdaining to reply, held his book up in front of his eyes and

pretended to read.

“It’s none of my business,” continued Maggie in a somewhat more pacific

tone, “but I think your pa and your ma both need looking after, and

you’d ought to stay home to do it. Of course what it means is, it’ll

all fall on me; things always does.”

“Nothing’s going to fall on you; what do you mean, Maggie?”

“Oh, it’s all very well to talk. But everybody can see your pa’s been

failin’ of late and is in for a spell of sickness, and your ma gets

upset so easy it’s always a matter of coaxin’ and urgin’ her along.”

“Father’s all right except that he’s been working too hard; a rest will

fix him up,” David declared. “And mother’s all right, too, except that

she worries.”

“Oh, yes, it’s all all right,” Maggie agreed with gloomy significance.

“All I can say is, they’re lucky to have me to fall back on. I can deal

with trouble when it comes.”

David disliked to admit to himself that this interview disturbed him.

But there was no escape from the fact that it did have a depressing

effect. He tried to assure himself that Maggie always delighted in

forebodings of trouble, but in spite of that he was half the time

wishing that he might withdraw from the adventure on which his

father was launching him. Every day the expression in his mother’s

eyes affected him as much as her tears could have done, every day he

was troubled by his father’s haggard look. He had of course learned

something about the burden in dollars and cents he was to be to the

family, and he wondered if there could really be wisdom in his father’s

decision. “It throws a big responsibility on me,” David thought gravely.

He suspected that in some ways his father was an impractical man and

that he was often visionary in his enthusiasm. He had never forgotten

how hurt he had felt once as a small boy when he had overheard his

mother say to her sister, “It’s no use, Hattie; if Henry once has his

mind set on a thing, the only thing to do is to give him his head.”

David did not know what had prompted the remark, but he had not liked

hearing his father criticized even by his mother.

In those days he noticed in his father a nervous exuberance over the

prospect, which, if it failed to quiet David’s doubts, served to

convince him of the futility of questioning. Dr. Ives talked gayly of

the interest and happiness David would find in his new surroundings and

of the increased pleasure they would all take in his vacations, told

Ralph that he must so conduct himself as to qualify for St. Timothy’s

when he grew older, and declared that for himself merely looking

forward to the trip East with David was making a new man of him.

One morning Dr. Ives went downtown with David in the shabby little

automobile to purchase the railway tickets. As they drew up to the curb

a tall man in a gray suit came out of the ticket-office; he was about

to step into a waiting limousine when Dr. Ives hailed him.

“O Dr. Wallace!”

“How are you, Dr. Ives?” Dr. Wallace nodded pleasantly and waited, for

Dr. Ives clearly had something to say to him.

David, following his father, looked with interest at the distinguished

surgeon whose career was to be an example to him. Dr. Wallace was a

younger and stronger man than Dr. Ives, and, so far as prosperity of

appearance was concerned, there was the same contrast between the two

men as between the shabby runabout and the shining limousine.

“Dr. Wallace,” said Dr. Ives, speaking eagerly, “I won’t detain you a

moment, but I want to introduce my son David to you. David’s going to

St. Timothy’s; I know you’re an old St. Timothy’s boy, and I thought