MR. DEAN PROVIDES FOR THE FUTURE
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Dean when Wallace announced himself. “Sit down,
Wallace. You’re going, David? Then we may consider the matter settled?”
“If you’re sure you really want it so.”
“I’m sure. Good-bye.”
As David passed out, Wallace was still standing by the door,
embarrassed, with downcast eyes. He had given David no greeting and
seemed to desire none. Such evidence of his bitterness shadowed David’s
happiness――shadowed it, but not for long. How could he help being
happy? The sacrifice that he had been prepared to make was unnecessary;
the friend who was helping him was a friend whom he knew and loved
and understood, not one who in all essentials was a remote stranger.
The only disappointment involved in the discovery was his loss of the
vague belief that Dr. Wallace had chosen generously to testify his
professional admiration for an unappreciated _confrère_. And that
disappointment was balanced by satisfaction in Mr. Dean’s declaration
that he had been actuated by his liking for David’s father as well as
for David himself.
How splendid it was of Mr. Dean! And then David thought how thrilled
and excited his mother would be at learning the unexpected solution of
the mystery. He began a letter to her as soon as he reached his room;
he had not finished it when Wallace stood in his doorway.
“Hello, Lester!” David could not quite keep the note of surprise out of
his voice. “Come in and sit down.”
Wallace closed the door quietly behind him and dropped into a chair.
“I’ve just told Mr. Dean of my cribbing in the examination. I decided
it was the only thing to do.”
“That took sand all right!”――The old admiration shone from David’s eyes.
“No, it didn’t. After the way you talked to me I felt I didn’t want to
go on always knowing I’d done such a crooked thing without ever trying
to make it right. I told Mr. Dean that I should never have confessed if
you hadn’t found me out. So he knows I didn’t deserve much credit.”
“Just the same, I think you do, and I guess he thinks so,” David said
warmly.
“He was mighty good to me,” Wallace acknowledged. “He asked me what I
thought should be my status now, and I had to say that, as I hadn’t
honestly passed the examination, I supposed I ought to be put on
probation again. He said he supposed so, too, but he said he didn’t
want the school to know the reason for it all; he thought that, as I
had come to him, the story needn’t be made public. I said I was willing
to take my medicine, but of course I should be grateful if I wasn’t
shown up before everybody. So he’s just going to let it be known that
I’m on probation again, after all, and that there was some mistake made
in letting me off it; people can draw whatever conclusions they please.”
David went over and seated himself on the arm of Wallace’s chair; he
slipped his own arm round Wallace’s shoulders.
“Lester,” he said, “I feel somehow as if I’d done a mighty mean thing
to you. I guess I did talk like a prig.”
“You were right about it, anyway. And I’m glad I’ve got the thing off
my chest. I don’t want you to think of me as crooked, Dave.”
“I won’t! I never will! I was afraid you didn’t care any more what I
thought of you!”
“Well, I do!” Wallace reached up and gripped David’s hand. “Look here,
Dave――what was all that about your not coming back next year?”
“Oh, that was a mistake. I was feeling blue; I am coming back all
right.”
“Good enough! Don’t you think we might make a go of it if we roomed
together, Dave?”
“I’d rather room with you than any other fellow here, Lester. I’ve
often hoped you’d suggest it. But Mr. Dean has asked me to live with
him next year. He needs some one. That was what we were talking about
this evening.”
“Well, I’m sorry.” Wallace hesitated a moment and then said, “You know,
I like Mr. Dean. He’s making an awfully plucky fight. I never stopped
to think about that. The way he talked to me this evening――he was white
clear through. I’ll tell you one thing, Dave.” Wallace got slowly out
of his chair. “Nobody’s going to have any chance to put me on probation
next year.”
That resolve, however, as David knew, did not make it any easier for
Wallace to face the surprise, the disappointment, and the inquiries
of the school. The next day all St. Timothy’s buzzed with rumor and
excitement; the strangeness of Wallace’s case, off probation one day,
on again the next, and his own reticence as to the cause, led to gossip
and speculation. All he would say in reply to the questions of his best
friends was that Mr. Dean was not to be blamed in any way for thus
disqualifying him for the school nine; it was all his own fault, and he
did not care to talk about it.
Henshaw, captain of the nine, came to David.
“I’ve got to try you now at first,” he said. “I guess you’ll hold your
end up all right. But Lester makes me tired! He was the best batter on
the team.”
Wallace himself tried to make amends to the team for failing them. He
gave the members batting practice; he played on the scrub; he heartened
and encouraged the players with his praise. And his spirit of willing
service went far toward reëstablishing him in the affections of the
school.
The game that year was played at St. John’s, and thither on the day
appointed all St. Timothy’s journeyed――even Mr. Dean. And during the
game Mr. Dean and Wallace sat side by side on the players’ bench, and
Wallace reported to him the progress of events. He clapped his hands
with the rest when in the second inning David made a hit that brought
in a run――the only hit, to be sure, that he made during the game. It
was a hard-fought game, in which Carter, the St. Timothy’s pitcher, had
a little the better of it up to the ninth inning. Then, with the score
four to three against them, St. John’s came to the bat. The first man
struck out, but the next singled and the third was given his base on
balls. Carter seemed nervous and unsteady. Henshaw came in from third
base to encourage him; the St. John’s supporters had taken heart and
were keeping up a distracting tumult along the third-base line. Wallace
leaned forward, gripping cold hands together; Mr. Dean sat with an
expression of patient expectancy. Henshaw returned to his position,
and Carter faced the captain of St. John’s. The captain had determined
to “wait them out,” but Carter recovered control, and after having two
balls called sent two strikes over the plate. Then the batter hit a
hard grounder toward Adams, the second baseman; Adams made a brilliant
stop and tossed the ball to the short-stop, who was covering second,
and the short-stop shot it to David at first just ahead of the runner.
The game had been won in an instant; the St. Timothy’s crowd burst into
a tremendous roar.
Mr. Dean cried, in the midst of the bellowing, into Wallace’s ear,
“What happened?” and Wallace shouted back:
“Double play――Adams to Starr to Dave.”
And then Mr. Dean stood up and waved his hat and shouted with the rest.
David sat with Mr. Dean in the train going home. Near by sat Wallace
and Ruth Davenport, and David noticed that they talked together
seriously and did not seem affected by the jubilation and jollity that
prevailed throughout the car.
It was growing dusk when they reached St. Timothy’s, and lights were
glowing in the windows of the buildings. The hungry swarm poured
into the dining-room and rattled into their places at the tables;
the clatter of knife and fork did not, however, subdue the clamor of
tongues. Inexhaustibly they dwelt upon the afternoon’s triumph. David,
receiving congratulations and compliments from every side, was fairly
simmering with happiness. Then he caught sight of Wallace, sitting at a
distant table, quiet and forgotten, and compassion for Wallace, who was
missing all the pleasure and the satisfaction that might have been his,
checked the laughter on David’s lips. After supper Wallace was not to
be found. David walked down to the study; Ruth Davenport, waiting at
the rectory gate, called him across the road to her.
“Lester told me the whole story in the train to-day, David,” she said.
“You know, he’s awfully glad that you put him right. So am I.”
“Lester’s all right,” said David. “He was always all right.”
“He’ll be all right next year, anyway,” Ruth answered. “I always liked
Lester, but he’s had the idea that nothing mattered much so long as he
had his own way. You know, I like him better because he told me!” she
added irrelevantly.
“Nobody could help liking him,” David answered.
“Or you, either, David.”
And for David that little speech from Ruth put the crown upon a
glorious day. The study bell rang and summoned him, but for some
minutes after he was seated at his desk his mind was elsewhere than on
his books; his eyes saw, not the printed page, but the girl in white
standing by the gate and looking up at him with her honest, friendly
eyes.
* * * * *
It was a pleasant and happy summer vacation that David passed. He
was gratified to find that Ralph had grown in strength and athletic
promise, and he complimented him with fraternal frankness on the fact
that he had acquired more sense. His mother seemed to grow younger; at
any rate, she was more cheerful than when he had last seen her; only
occasionally did the look of sadness and of longing for the past come
into her eyes.
They spent a month camping in the woods on the shore of a lake; Maggie
went with them, though she protested that she did not see why they
wanted to leave a nice, tidy little apartment and run wild like the
Indians. She made that protest to Mrs. Ives and to Ralph, not to
David. Somehow she could not feel quite so free and easy with David
as formerly; he was not any longer just a boy. He had grown older and
bigger, and involuntarily Maggie found herself treating him with a
deference almost like that which she had been accustomed to observe
toward his father. To be sure, before the summer was over a good part
of that constraint wore off; but she never again could open her heart
to him in full and whole-souled criticism as in the old days.
For Mrs. Ives the ideal that Dr. Wallace had embodied was shattered.
David laughed to see how much she begrudged the grateful thoughts that
she had entertained toward the distinguished surgeon through all those
months.
“You know, he didn’t commit a wrong, mother, in not sending me back to
St. Timothy’s,” David reminded her. “You seem almost to feel that he’s
done us an injury.”
“No, of course not, David, but it does make me cross to think of all
the feelings I’ve had about him, and he never caring in the least! And
all the time I never once thought of that good, kind, poor Mr. Dean!”
From Mr. Dean came letters; he was passing the summer in Boston,
getting instruction in a school for the blind. “Interesting, but not
very encouraging,” he wrote. “If I were younger, perhaps I shouldn’t be
so stupid. But I’ve made some progress, and perhaps next year I shall
find that the lack of sight is not so troublesome.”
As David’s vacation drew to a close, his mother became again subdued
and wistful. She talked hopefully, she was glad that Mr. Dean had
intimated his intention to prepare David for the career that the boy’s
father had intended, but she could not readily resign herself to the
wrench of another parting.
“We live so far away,” she lamented on the last morning. “It takes so
long for letters to go and come. I can’t help feeling that you’ll be
less and less my boy, David, dear.”
He scoffed at her, but nevertheless her words struck home to a tender
spot. Of course he would never grow away from her in his heart, but he
realized that he would be away from her more and more continuously as
the years went on, and with a pang of shame he suddenly knew that the
separation would mean more to her than to him. He determined then and
there that he would try his best to make up to her through his letters
for the loss that she must always feel, to convince her that she always
had his confidence as well as his love. And during the next year he
fulfilled faithfully that resolve. It was a busy year, for besides
doing his own work he had to give a good deal of help to Mr. Dean;
moreover, as a sixth-former he had responsibilities and offices that
demanded a considerable amount of attention; his athletic avocations,
in which he had a gratifying success, were numerous. But the more he
had to do the more he found to write home about and the gayer and
cheerier was the spirit of what he wrote. It pleased him when in the
short vacations at Christmas and Easter his mother said: “I can hear
you in your letters, David. You write me such good letters!”
Between Mr. Dean, dependent on David in so many little matters, and
David, dependent on Mr. Dean in one large affair, the friendship grew
stronger and closer. The boy admired the man for his learning, his
kindness, his courtesy, and most of all for his courage; David wondered
how any one stricken with such an affliction could make so little
of it. And the man liked the boy for his responsiveness and for a
certain stanch and honest quality that could not fail to impress even
one who was blind. So the association was a happy one――so happy that
the masters commented upon it among themselves and wondered how Mr.
Dean would manage the next year; he seemed to have nobody in training
to take David’s place. David himself often wondered about it, but
refrained from asking any questions; and Mr. Dean kept his own counsel,
kept it, indeed, until one evening two weeks before the end of the
school year, the evening of the day on which St. Timothy’s had again
met St. John’s upon the ball field and been victorious. The members of
the nine had been cheered at the bonfire built in their honor, Lester
Wallace, the captain, had made a little speech, and then David had
slipped away to go to his room. But as he passed the open door of Mr.
Dean’s study the master called him.
“A great celebration, David?”
“Yes, pretty fine.” David came in and described the scene round the
bonfire.
Mr. Dean smiled. “Yes, I could hear the cheering. It was a great game!
I wish I could have really seen it! And you played well at second base?”
“I managed to pull through without any errors. But Lester was a wonder
at first――just like lightning!”
“You and he seemed to develop some fine team play together. And not
just on the ball field, either. You have shown good team play in
everything this year. At Harvard next year I hope it will continue;
there will be just as many opportunities for it.” Mr. Dean hesitated
a moment and then said, with a shade of diffidence and embarrassment,
“And I think our team play has been pretty good, David, don’t you?”
“Yours has been splendid, Mr. Dean.”
“You’ve done your share, David. So well that I don’t know how I shall
get on without you. In fact, I don’t want to get on without you.”
David was silent for a moment in embarrassment, not knowing what to
say. “Anybody else would be of just as much help, Mr. Dean,” he said
finally.
“Nobody else could be, because I couldn’t feel about anybody else
as I do about you, David. Well, I can’t ask you to stay on and be
a schoolboy indefinitely, can I?” Again Mr. Dean paused; he was
apparently finding it hard to say something that he had in mind. “I’ve
talked with the rector and told him that I shouldn’t come back next
year. He was very kind and urged me to reconsider――but I told him no.
I’m not so useful as I once was, and I can’t help being aware that in
some ways I hamper the administration. So it’s best for St. Timothy’s
and for me that I should withdraw.”
“The school will be awfully sorry to lose you, fellows and masters
both,” said David.
“I hope they’ll feel a friendly regret, the same that I feel at parting
from them. But the step is one that I’ve decided to take. And now the
question is, What am I to do with myself? I have enough money to live
comfortably. I was wondering, David, if your mother wouldn’t like to
take a house in Cambridge or Boston, since you’re to be at Harvard,
and take me in as a boarder? I know it’s asking a tremendous lot――to
suggest that she undertake the care of a blind man; she mustn’t feel
under any obligation to say she’ll do it. But I thought perhaps she
might like to be near you; and then there’s your brother Ralph――we
might arrange about his education, too. How do you feel about it,
David? And how do you think your mother would feel about it?”
“I think she’d feel it was too good to be true!” said David
enthusiastically. “Oh, Mr. Dean, I’m sure she’d feel it was the finest
thing in the world!”
Mr. Dean could recognize the eager ring in David’s voice even if he
could not see the eager sparkle in the boy’s eyes.
“Of course she mightn’t feel so at all,” he said, smiling. “She might
not want to move away from the place that had been her home. But if you
will sound her on the matter, David, when next you write, I shall be
very much obliged.”
“When next I write! I’m going to write to her this minute, Mr. Dean!”
Perhaps the master waited as eagerly as David for her reply. And one
morning the boy came to him with a letter.
“It’s just as I knew it would be, Mr. Dean,” he said; his eyes were
shining, his face was happy. “She’s so excited she couldn’t even write
straight; her hand was all shaky. She thinks more than ever that you’re
the finest person in the world.”
Mr. Dean laughed joyously. “She’ll have plenty of opportunity to
discover that I’m not. Well, David, old man, I guess you’ve got me on
your hands for life.”
Indeed, Mrs. Ives had written to her boy a letter that was throbbing
with joy and happiness. Yet toward the end she had admitted misgivings.
She felt that she should be overawed by Mr. Dean. Her looks would not
matter, of course, but she was afraid he might not like her voice or
the way she read aloud, and of course he would want to have some one
who could read pleasantly to him. David laughed and did not pass on
those doubtful questionings to Mr. Dean. He knew that his mother’s
voice was all right. He laughed, too, over the end of the letter.
“I’ve just told Maggie, and she said, ‘The dear sake! Of all the crazy
notions! You mean to tell me you’re going to pull up stakes, root and
branch!’ I said I thought I really should, and then Maggie said, ‘Very
well. But you and a blind man――you’ll need me to look after the both
of you!’ Isn’t it nice of her? As for Ralph, he’s simply wild with
delight――” and so on.
Before the end of the school year the arrangements were partly made.
Mr. Dean was to spend the summer in Boston at the school for the blind.
About the first of September David was to bring his family on from the
West, and then they would all go house-hunting together. David went
round those last few days walking on air; examinations did not bother
him; everything was fine; every one was happy.
And then there came upon him a sense of melancholy, even of sadness. He
did not want so soon to leave this place that had been so dear to him.
The days slipped by inexorably. And on the last night, in the middle of
the school hymns, he was very near to weeping, and when he shook hands
with the rector and said good-bye he could not say more than just that
word.
Outside he saw a figure in white standing behind the rectory gate. He
crossed the road and spoke to her.
“I hate to go, Ruth. You’ve been awfully nice to me here.”
“I’m sorry to think that you and Lester and all the rest are leaving,
David. That’s the trouble with being a girl in a boys’ school. Your
friends are always leaving you――over and over and over.”
“You make so many new ones that perhaps you don’t miss the old.”
“Yes, I do, David. You’ll come up and see us sometimes, won’t you?”
They bade each other good-bye, and he went away. Yes, he would
go back to St. Timothy’s and see them, he said to himself quite
distinctly――often and often.