THE RETURN
The day of the 20th of November was one that David never forgot――a raw,
windy, overcast day, somber and threatening. And yet it began happily
enough. All through the school there ran a livelier current of interest
and excitement, a keener thrill of expectancy, for in the afternoon the
first elevens of the Pythians and the Corinthians were to meet in their
championship encounter.
To David it seemed afterwards a strange and terrible thing that he
could have spent that afternoon as he did, shouting and whooping
gleefully on the side lines. It proved to be the Pythians’ day; they
scored three touchdowns and kicked as many goals while the Corinthians
struggled and fought without avail. After the game David took part in
the jubilant Pythian cheering in front of the athletic house. Walking
up to the study with Wallace afterwards, he felt that he had never been
happier, or better satisfied with life.
The recitation hour before supper was devoted to Latin; the fifth
form met Mr. Dean in one of the large rooms on the top floor of the
building. The master made allowance for the raggedness of some of the
translations; it was to be expected, for example, that Garland, who
had made two of the three touchdowns, and who was decorated with a
large cocoon over the left eye, should stagger and stumble, and it
was no new thing that Wallace should have to be helped through the
passage assigned him. David had been as fluent and accurate as usual;
now, with the half-hour gone, Mr. Dean was calling to their feet,
one after another, the rear guard of the class. Barrison was making
his hesitating way through the lines that he had been requested to
translate when a fourth-former, young Penfield, entered the room and,
walking up to the platform, handed Mr. Dean a note.
Barrison stopped his recitation; Mr. Dean glanced at the note, and
his face became grave. “All right, Penfield,” he said; and the
fourth-former left the room.
Mr. Dean stepped down from the platform and walked along the aisle
between the rows of desks. Barrison and the other fellows looked at him
wonderingly. He put his hand on David’s shoulder; David sat next to the
aisle.
“David,” he said, “the rector has sent for you. You will find him in
his study.”
Then David, startled, not understanding, yet vaguely fearful, rose. Mr.
Dean with his hand on his shoulder walked with him to the door and gave
him a parting, affectionate little caress.
David hurried along the corridor with fast-beating heart. He knew
instinctively from the manner of Mr. Dean’s dismissing him that he
was not being summoned because of any evil-doing. He felt that it was
something worse than that.
The door of the rector’s study was open, and Dr. Davenport was walking
back and forth inside. Coming forward to meet David, he put his hands
on his shoulders.
“My boy,” he said gently, “very bad news has come for you. Your mother
has telegraphed that your father is very ill, and you are to go home.”
Tears welled into David’s eyes, and he asked in a breaking voice, “Is
he dead, Dr. Davenport?”
“The telegram said that he is dying.” The rector drew the sobbing
boy to him and held him close. “Let us hope that you will reach home
in time, David. You can get a train to Boston at seven o’clock, and
you can get a midnight train from there to New York. While you are
packing, I will arrange by telephone about reservations for you.”
But David was not heeding. “O Dr. Davenport!” he cried. “Isn’t there
any hope? Mother wrote that he was better; isn’t there some mistake?”
“I’m afraid not, David.” The rector showed the telegram.
David held it a moment, and the tears flowed down his cheeks. “Poor
mother! Poor little Ralph!”
“Yes, they are needing you, my boy. And we’ll get you to them just
as soon as it’s possible.” The rector was silent a moment, stroking
David’s shoulder, giving him time to recover his composure. “I’ll see
that you are provided with money enough. There will be a carriage to
take you to the station at half-past six. It’s now a quarter past
five.” The rector turned to a safe in the corner of the room, and took
out some money. “Here,” he said, “is fifty dollars. You must not be in
any hurry about returning the amount. Good-bye, David, my boy, and God
bless you.”
David went down the stairs blinded with tears. Outside it was dark
except for the scattered lights along the road and the illuminated
windows of the buildings. David saw the dormitory ahead and thought of
the day when he had stood on the steps and received his father’s last
embrace, and as he stumbled on and the lights were breaking and dancing
through his tears he wished with all the passionate love of his young
heart that he could have that day, just that one day, over again.
The janitor of the building brought the boy’s trunk down from the loft,
and soon David was at work, not merely emptying the drawers of his
wardrobe, but dismantling his room. He would never come back to this
place again; that he knew.
There came presently a knock on the door. He opened it and found
Wallace standing there.
“O Dave!” said Wallace and clasped his friend’s hand. He continued
after a moment, “Mr. Dean sent me to see if I could do anything for
you. He’s coming himself in a few minutes. Is there anything I can get
for you――anything at all?”
“No, thanks, Lester. I’m pretty nearly packed. Just sit with me awhile.”
“The fellows feel awfully badly about it. Lots of them wanted to come,
but they thought maybe you’d rather be alone.”
“Yes, I think I would, except for you.”
Wallace sat and looked on in dumb sympathy while David continued his
packing. At last it was all finished, and David sat down and looked
out of the window into the darkness. While he waited thus he spoke only
once.
“I wish you’d known him, Lester,” he said.
Soon he saw the lights of a motor-car coming down the avenue; the
driver appeared and took the trunk; Wallace picked up the bag. At the
foot of the stairs Mr. Dean was waiting. David caught Wallace’s hand
and pressed it, unable to speak, and Wallace, equally inarticulate,
returned the pressure. The next moment David and Mr. Dean were hidden
within the automobile.
During most of the drive Mr. Dean occupied himself with advising David
about the practical details of his journey. But, after all, his talk
was chiefly to turn the current of David’s thoughts, for he had put
down on a paper all the important items for the boy’s guidance. As
David pocketed the memorandum that Mr. Dean finally gave him, he felt
that he must seem unresponsive and untouched by so much kindness.
“O Mr. Dean, you don’t know how good to me I think you are! I――I wish
my father could know!”
“My dear boy, it’s just that we all want to help when we see our
friends in trouble.”
“Yes, but it’s the way you help. I shall always remember it.”
“I shall always remember your father, David. I have seen a great
many fathers here with their sons, but never one whose interest and
affection made quite such an appeal to me as his. It’s a long, long
way back, but he made me think of my own father; I was about your age,
David, when my father died.”
The automobile sped from the country road to the paved streets of the
town and drew up before the station.
“You’ll come back to us after Christmas, I hope, David,” said the
master.
“I shall probably not be able to. I don’t know just what there will be
for me to do,” David answered.
“I hope you will find it possible to continue in the career that your
father had planned.”
“I should like to, for his sake.”
“Whatever happens, David, our friendship mustn’t end here. You must
look on me as always your friend.”
The train drew into the station for its brief stop. David and Mr. Dean
shook hands at the steps and parted.
That night David had a few hours of broken sleep in his stuffy berth;
the next day he spent gazing out of the window at the brown farming
lands of New Jersey and Pennsylvania and the bare, stark forests and
the little villages that seemed to glance up at the train with a start
of wonder and to relapse into rumination after it fled by. At ten
o’clock the next morning the train drew into the station of the city
that was his home.
There was no one to meet him at the station. He took a Rosewood car and
in half an hour alighted at the familiar old street corner. With his
bag banging against his leg and his heart pounding in his breast, he
ran along the sidewalk. And then suddenly, though he had been trying to
prepare himself for this all through the journey, his legs weakened and
threatened to collapse under him, and tears flooded his eyes. He passed
through the gate with uncertain steps and a sense that the world was
reeling round him. The blinds were down, and a black streamer fluttered
beside the door.
From somewhere within the house they had been watching, for the door
opened as he mounted the steps; the next moment he had his mother in
his arms, and Ralph was standing by, with face upturned to kiss him.
“He died yesterday afternoon at three o’clock,” said Mrs. Ives. “He
didn’t suffer; all that seemed to trouble him was that he couldn’t see
you.”
Trying to comfort his mother, who seemed now wholly to give way, David
controlled his own emotion. Presently she took him upstairs to the room
in which she had been sitting all the morning――the room into which only
slits of light came from behind the drawn shades; and there David stood
and looked upon his father’s face.
A week after the funeral David, returning the money that had been lent
him, wrote to Dr. Davenport that it would be impossible for him to
return to St. Timothy’s School. His mother’s resources were extremely
slender; indeed, David found that the income on which the family must
depend would be barely sufficient to sustain them if they practiced the
most rigid economy. Maggie must go, the house must be sold or let, and
they must move into narrower and less expensive quarters.
Maggie, however, refused to accept dismissal.
“I’ve been with you altogether too long to be deserting you in your
trouble,” she said to Mrs. Ives.
“But, Maggie, we can’t afford――”
“Sure, and I shouldn’t think you could, the way the doctor was that
easy-going! But I’ve been thrifty――”
It was no use to argue with Maggie, and after some further ineffectual
remonstrance Mrs. Ives succumbed.
Maggie stayed, and a sign “To Let or For Sale” was planted in front
of the house beside the flagstone walk; and Mrs. Ives tried to feel
that it was a stroke of good fortune when within a week a tenant was
secured. She tried equally to feel that good fortune was again hers
when she hired, only a quarter of a mile away, a comfortable apartment
for considerably less than the rent she was to receive for the house.
But she shrank none the less from the preparation that soon had to be
made for moving. Often she burst into tears and left Maggie to execute
or direct the undertaking on which she had been engaged. In those
depressed moods her surest consolation was in the re-reading of the
letters of sympathy that had come to her after her husband’s death
and that had shown her how widely he had been loved, how truly he had
been respected. Perhaps the letter that she read most often and with
the greatest satisfaction was that from Dr. Wallace; she had always
felt that by the men of his profession her husband had never been
accorded full recognition; yet here surely was the proof that she had
been mistaken. Dr. Wallace wrote as one who had known and appreciated
and admired. And his son had written to David, a boyish, sympathetic
letter, with this sentence at the end, “My father says that yours was
fine.” Those letters were not the only ones that helped to remove the
old bitterness over what had seemed to her the failure of the community
to accord her husband the place that he had earned; now at the end
of all came letters upon letters testifying to the existence of an
affection that she had thought withheld. She read them over and over,
but Dr. Wallace’s oftenest of all.
David’s plan was to go back to the high school after Christmas, finish
out the year and then try to find work in some business office. He felt
that he must abandon his ambition to be a surgeon and must set about
establishing himself in a position where he could at an early date
contribute to the support of the family and to Ralph’s education. His
mother lamented the necessity and protested against the sacrifice, but
was unable to suggest any alternative.
Christmas was a day that David and his mother looked forward to with
no happy expectancy. But on Christmas Eve they all hung up their
stockings as usual, and after Ralph had gone to bed David assisted his
mother in arranging the presents.
“So many,” Mrs. Ives sighed, “that our friends have given us! And we
have been able to give to so few!”
“Never mind,” David answered. “People aren’t going to think about that.”
He kissed his mother――a paternal sort of kiss. Often in those days he
felt quite paternal toward her.
The next morning, though Mrs. Ives could not bring herself to respond,
“Merry Christmas!” to that greeting, delivered by each of her sons and
by Maggie, she did enjoy the pleasant spectacle of Ralph’s excitement
and of her older boy’s eager interest as they opened bundles; she even
had a mild pleasure in examining the things that had been given to her.
It became more than that; it became a tenderer emotion when she found
the books that were the gifts of her two boys. But it was the arrival
of the postman, about the middle of the morning, that furnished the
great sensation of the day. He left several Christmas cards, two or
three little packages and a letter for David. The envelope bore the
address of St. Timothy’s School.
David opened it and in a moment was crying with excitement, “Mother!
Mother! Just look at this!” His face was so eager, his eyes were so
shining that Ralph came crowding up to look over his mother’s shoulder
as she read:
MY DEAR DAVID: One who is deeply interested in you and who has
an affectionate memory of your father and of his hopes and
ambitions for you has communicated to me his wish that you
return to St. Timothy’s and complete your course. He is not
only well able to bear the expense, but he is eager to do so;
in fact, he has already placed a sum of money to your credit
here, and I am therefore sending you a check to cover your
traveling expenses. He does not wish to make himself known
to you now; he hopes that you will not make any inquiries
concerning him. He has other grounds than those of modesty for
requesting this.
We shall all welcome you back after the Christmas holidays. And
I am very glad indeed that the school is not after all to lose
one of its best pupils.
Sincerely yours,
C. S. DAVENPORT.
“Isn’t that splendid, mother!” David began, and then stopped, for
instead of joy there was an added sadness in his mother’s face.
“Yes, David, yes,” she answered, and quickly tried to assume
cheerfulness. “Only――it will be harder than ever to part with you now.”
“I won’t go if you feel you need me, mother.”
“Of course you must go. You could not decline an offer made by one who
wants to help you to carry out your dear father’s wishes.”
But David was still doubtful. “I wonder if I ought to go. I wonder if I
oughtn’t to stay here and find work――”
“No, David, no. We must look to the future, dear. I couldn’t think of
letting you sacrifice an opportunity so wonderfully offered. Who do you
suppose is giving it to you, David?”
“I can’t imagine.――unless it’s Dr. Wallace.”
“Of course! That’s just who it is!” Mrs. Ives’s thoughts reverted to
the sympathetic letter that he had written her. “Of course it’s Dr.
Wallace. He’s taking this way of showing how much he thought of your
father.”
“I shouldn’t wonder at all if Lester had suggested it to him,” said
David. “Lester’s my best friend. I suppose, though, I mustn’t say
anything to him about it.”
“No, since it’s Dr. Wallace’s wish.”
“Perhaps Lester will come and see me during the vacation; perhaps he’ll
refer to it in some way.”
“Of course, if he should do that. But we must be careful to respect Dr.
Wallace’s wish.”
She could not help rejoicing with her boy over his good fortune, and
she could not help sorrowing for it in her heart. Already she had
come to look upon him as her prop and her companion in the loneliness
with which she must always now be surrounded. Was there no end to the
sacrifices required of women? But even while her spirit made that
outcry, a look into her son’s radiant face comforted her.
The day after Christmas the moving began. By the middle of the
afternoon it was all accomplished; some of the family possessions were
in storage, the rest were already disposed in a quite orderly manner
in the neat little apartment. David, who had gone back to the house
to effect a final clearance of discarded articles, had turned the key
in the lock for the last time. He looked up and saw Lester Wallace
entering at the gate and ran to meet him eagerly.
“Do you know my great news?”
“No. What?”
“I’m going back next term, after all.”
“O Dave, isn’t that great! Somehow I felt it must be all a mistake that
you weren’t coming back. All the fellows will be so glad.”
From Wallace’s manner David could not be sure whether he had any
knowledge or intimation of his father’s generosity or not. He seemed,
at any rate, not at all interested in the question how the means for
David’s return had been provided. So into that question David did not
go. He prevailed on Wallace to come into the new apartment for a few
minutes and meet his mother; she, with the thought of Dr. Wallace
foremost in her mind, could hardly refrain from uttering words of
gratitude that pressed to her lips. Altogether, Wallace’s brief visit
imparted a pleasant glow of cheerfulness and hopefulness to Mrs. Ives
on that trying first day in her new surroundings.
Maggie did not disapprove of David’s return to St. Timothy’s so much as
he had expected. “Well,” she said, “I guess you’d better be there than
strammin’ round a small place like this. I’m sure it will mean less
than half as much work for me. I must say, though, if I was that rich I
had to be giving money away, I wouldn’t be doing it to take a boy from
his mother――whoever I was.”
That, to be sure, was just what David’s benefactor was doing, and
it came home to the boy when on the last day his mother accompanied
him to the station. Ralph, who had been excused from school, was
with them, and in the trolley car and afterwards on the bench in the
waiting-room sat snuggled close to his brother――demonstrative in this
way of his affection. Mrs. Ives was silent most of the time, but often
surreptitiously squeezed David’s hand. While they waited, Wallace,
accompanied by his father and mother, entered; they came up to David
and Mrs. Ives; and Mrs. Wallace said, “It’s hard when we have to send
them back, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Ives, mindful even in that moment of the obligation to which she
must not refer, answered, “Yes, it’s hard, but I am trying not to be
sorry. David is so glad.”
Dr. Wallace grasped David’s arm with one hand and his son’s arm with
the other and held the two boys for a moment while he said genially,
“Help each other along all you can, you two fellows.” And David felt
how splendid it must be to be able to give help, instead of just
receiving it――to be giving such help as his father all his life had
given to others; he felt that it was to enable him to do that very
thing that Dr. Wallace was sending him back to St. Timothy’s, and he
resolved to be worthy of the opportunity.
In the train David had the few last moments alone with his mother and
Ralph, just as Lester had with his mother and father. They were silent
moments, so charged with feeling that David sat with tear-blurred eyes,
aware only of his mother pressing his hand and Ralph crowding against
him softly.
“Write to us often, David,” his mother said. “And――and think of your
father every day.”
David nodded, too choked to speak. He kissed each of them――a long, long
kiss for his mother――hugged them close; and the next moment they were
gone.