SCHOOL BEGINS
It was all settled by the time they had finished breakfast. Perhaps the
cheerfulness of the morning, or it may have been Mrs. Magoon's coffee,
worked its effect on Nead, for that youth was far more amiable, and,
while he did hesitate and seem a bit dubious for a moment, he ended by
accepting the proposition. Ira found himself hoping that he wouldn't
and took the other's hesitation as a good augury, but put aside all
regrets the moment Nead made his decision.
"That's all right, then," he declared. "Now we'll have to make a dicker
with Mrs. Magoon, I guess, for she'll want more for the room if there's
two in it."
"I don't see why," objected Nead. "Anyway, we oughtn't to pay more than
four a week."
"I think four would be enough," Ira agreed. "And what about breakfasts?
She charges a quarter apiece, you know."
"And they're pretty punk, if this is a sample," said Nead. "The
coffee's all right, but my chop had seen better days. Still, it's
easier than hunting a restaurant. I thought maybe I'd eat in school.
They say you get mighty good feed at Alumni Hall."
"Well, we'll tell her we'll take two breakfasts for awhile. That will
cheer her up, maybe. Shall I make the dicker?"
"Yes, she doesn't like me. And I don't like her. So that's even. What
class are you going into, Rowland?"
"Third, unless I trip up. What's yours?"
"Second. Wish we were in the same. It makes it easier if you're with a
fellow who's taking the same stuff. There's another thing, too; that
bed's fierce. See if she hasn't got a better mattress."
"I was going to buy one," said Ira. "I guess hers are all about the
same, don't you?"
"Well, make a stab," said Nead. "She may have one that hasn't been
slept on twenty years. What are the other fellows here like?"
"Don't know. I've seen only one, the fat fellow across the hall. There
must be quite a lot of them, because she says she has all the rooms
rented, and there are four rooms on each floor."
"Nine rooms altogether," Nead corrected. "There's one on the ground
floor at the back that she rents. It's behind the spring-water place. I
suppose there are two in some rooms. Must be twelve or fourteen fellows
in this dive, eh?"
"Maybe," agreed Ira, pushing away from the walnut table on which the
breakfast tray had been placed. "Do you know any fellows in school?"
"No, do you?"
"Only one, a fellow named Johnston. I ran across him yesterday and he
told me about this place. They call it 'Maggy's.' I'd been to about
six before that and couldn't find anything I liked. Well, I'll go down
and-- Hold on, though! I must write a note first."
He got a tablet and pulled a chair to the desk, and after wrinkling his
forehead a moment, wrote: "Mr. Eugene Goodloe, Parkinson School, Warne,
Mass. Dear Sir: I have a room at Mrs. Magoon's, 200 Main Street, third
floor back on the left. A note addressed to me here will find me and I
shall be glad to meet any appointment you care to make. Respectfully,
Ira Rowland." Then he enclosed it, stamped the envelope and dropped it
in his pocket.
"That's what I must do, I suppose," remarked Nead. "I told my folks I'd
write last night, but I forgot it. Guess I'll scribble a note while
you're talking to the old girl downstairs. Let me use your pen, will
you? Mine's in the trunk."
"Sorry, Nead," replied Ira, "but that's something I won't do. I'll lend
you about anything but my fountain pen."
"Oh, all right," said the other haughtily. "I've got a better one of my
own. Just didn't want to look for it."
The interview with Mrs. Magoon was a long-drawn-out ceremony. In the
first place, she was not eager to have Nead as a tenant. When she had
finally agreed to it, she held out for four dollars and a half a week
until Ira informed her that they would each want breakfasts. Four
dollars a week was at last agreed on. In the matter of mattresses,
however, she was adamant. More, she was even insulted. "That mattress
has been on that bed for six years," she said indignantly, "and
nobody's ever said anything against it before. Anyhow, I ain't got any
better one."
"All right, ma'am. And how about another bed in there?"
"You can keep that cot, I guess. I ain't got another bed."
"But the cot's as hard as a board!" exclaimed Ira. "It hasn't any
mattress; just a--a sort of pad!"
"Well, I don't know what I can do," replied the lady. "I can't afford
to go and buy a lot of new things. It's all I can do to get along as
it is, with rents as low as they are. That room ought to fetch me six
dollars a week, it should so. And I'm only getting four for it. And the
price of everything a body has to buy is going up all the time. I don't
know what we're coming to!"
"Suppose I buy a cheap single bed and mattress," suggested Ira. "Will
you take it off my hands when I move out?"
"I might. It wouldn't be worth full price, though, young man, after
being used a year or more."
"No, that's so. Suppose you pay me half what it costs me? Would that
do?"
"Why, yes, I guess 'twould. But don't go and buy an expensive one. I
wouldn't want to put much money into it."
"Well, I dare say I can get a bed for six dollars and a mattress for
ten, can't I?"
"Land sakes! I should hope you could! You can get an iron bed for four
dollars and a half that's plenty good enough and a mattress for six.
You go to Levinstein's on Adams Street. That's the cheapest place. Ask
for Mr. Levinstein and tell him I sent you. I buy a lot from him.
Leastways, I used to. I ain't bought much lately, what with times so
hard and rents what they are and everything a body has to have getting
to cost more every day. I mind the time when----"
But Ira had flown, and Mrs. Magoon's reminiscences were muttered to
herself as she made her way down to the mysterious realms of the
basement.
Nead flatly refused to spend any money for bed or mattress, but agreed
to go halves on the furniture that Ira had already purchased and on
anything it might be necessary to buy later. "You see," he explained,
"it will be your bed, and I won't get anything out of it. Maybe I might
swap mattresses with you if I like yours better, though," he concluded
with a laugh.
"You just try it!" said Ira grimly.
He purchased the bed and mattress before first recitation hour,
paying, however, more than Mrs. Magoon had advised. After testing the
six-dollar mattresses Ira concluded that there was such a thing as
mistaken economy! After leaving Levinstein's he remembered the letter
in his pocket and dropped it into a pillar box and then hustled for
school.
He was somewhat awed by the magnificence of Parkinson Hall as he made
his way up the steps and entered the rotunda. It still lacked ten
minutes of first hour, which was nine o'clock, and the entrance and
the big, glass-domed hall were filled with groups of waiting fellows.
He found a place out of the way and looked about him interestedly.
The rotunda was a chamber of spaciousness and soft, white light. The
stone walls held, here and there, Latin inscriptions--Ira tried his
hand at one of them and floundered ingloriously--and there were several
statues placed at intervals. A wide doorway admitted at each side to
the wings, and into one of the corridors he presently ventured. There
were three doors to his right and as many to his left, each opened and
showing a cheerfully bright and totally empty classroom, and at the
end of the corridor was a stairway leading to the floor above. About
that time a gong clanged and, with a hurried and surreptitious glance
at the schedule card in his pocket, Ira began a search for Room L. A
small youth in short trousers came to his assistance and he found it at
the end of the opposite wing. He had rather hoped to run across Mart
Johnston, but it was not until he had taken a seat in the recitation
room that he saw that youth several rows nearer the front. Mart
didn't see him, however, for he was busily engaged in whispering to a
good-looking, dark-complexioned fellow beside him whom Ira surmised
to be "Brad." The whispering, which was general, suddenly died away
and the occupants of the seats, fully a half-hundred in number, Ira
judged, arose to their feet and began to clap loudly. Ira followed
suit without knowing the reason for the demonstration until he caught
sight of a tall, thin figure in black making its way up the side aisle
toward the platform. Then he clapped louder, for the figure was that of
Professor Addicks, and Ira already had a soft spot in his heart for the
pleasant-voiced man who had spoken so kindly to him the day before.
Professor Addicks bowed and smiled, standing very straight on the
platform with one gnarled hand on the top of the desk. "It gives me
much pleasure to see you young gentlemen all back here again and all
looking so well," said he. "I trust you have spent a pleasant Summer
and that you have returned eager for work--and play. Someone--was it
not our own Mark Twain?--said that play is what we like to do, work
what we have to do. But he didn't say that we can't make play of our
work, young gentlemen. I can think of nothing that would please me more
than to overhear you say a few years from now: 'I had a good time at
Parkinson. There was football, you know, and baseball and tennis; and
then there was Old Addicks' Greek Class!'"
A roar of laughter greeted that, laughter in which the Professor joined
gently.
"Oh, I know what you call me," he went on smilingly. "But I like to
think that the term 'Old' is applied with some degree of--may I say
affection?"
Clapping then, and cries of "Yes, sir!"
"Age, young gentlemen, has its advantages as well as its disadvantages,
and amongst them is the accumulation of experiences, which are things
from which we gain knowledge. I am old enough to have had many
experiences, and I trust that I have gained some slight degree of
knowledge. I make no boast as to that, however. In fact, I find that
I am considerably less certain of my wisdom now than I was when I was
many years younger. Looking back, I see that the zenith of my erudition
was reached shortly after I had attained the age of the oldest of you,
that is, at about the age of twenty-one years. Today I am far more
humble as to my attainments. But, young gentlemen, there is one thing
that I have learned and learned well, and that is this: each of us can
make his work what he pleases, a task or a pleasure. Some of you won't
believe that now, but you'll all learn eventually that it is so. And if
you make your work a task you are putting difficulties in your own way,
whereas if you make it a pleasure you are automatically increasing your
power for work. If it is a pleasure you want to do it, and what we want
to do we do with a will. Therefore, young gentlemen, bring sufficient
of the element of play to your studies to make them agreeable. You go
through hard and difficult exertions for the exercise of your bodies
and call it fun. Why, then, pull a long face when you approach the
matter of exercising your minds? If one is play, why not the other? A
word to the wise is sufficient. I have given you many words. Let us
consider the pleasures before us."
There was no class work that day, and after they had had the morrow's
lessons indicated and had listed the books required for the courses in
Greek and Latin the fellows departed to gather again in another room
before another instructor. By noon Ira had faced all his instructors,
his head was swimming with a mass of information as to hours, courses
of reading and so on, and he had made quite a formidable list of books
and stationery to be purchased. He returned to Mrs. Magoon's and
spent a half-hour filling in a schedule card, and then, as Nead hadn't
returned, set off by himself to The Eggery for dinner. Now that the
big school dining room was open in Alumni Hall, The Eggery was rather
deserted as to students. The bulk of the patrons today were clerks and
shopkeepers.
After dinner he made various purchases of scratch-pads, blue-books,
pencils and similar articles, bought several books at a second-hand
store and paid a visit to the First National Bank of Warne. There he
made a deposit of all the money he had with him save enough change to
meet immediate demands, signed his name where the teller pointed and
emerged the proud possessor of his first check book. By that time it
was nearly three, and, having nothing especial to interest him, he
crossed the campus, made his way around Parkinson Hall and past the
little laboratory building and found himself facing the broad expanse
of level and still verdant turf known as the Playfield.
There was some twelve acres here, in shape a rectangle, with one corner
cut off by Apple Street, which began at the end of Linden Street and
proceeded at a tangent to the Cumner Road, the latter forming the
northern boundary of the field. Directly in front of Ira were the
tennis courts, a dozen in all, of which half were clay and half turf.
To the right of the courts was a quarter-mile running track enclosing
the gridiron and beyond that were the baseball diamonds, three in
number. A sizeable grandstand flanked the gridiron and a smaller one
stood behind the home-plate of the 'varsity diamond. Already the
playfield was well sprinkled with fellows. Several white-clad youths
were practising flights over the high-hurdles, another was jogging
around the farther turn of the track, the tennis courts were fairly
well occupied and the football candidates were beginning to emerge from
the nearby gymnasium and gather in front of the stand.
Ira stopped and watched the tennis for awhile and then gave his
attention to the hurdlers. He had never seen hurdlers in action before
and he looked on with interest while one after another went springing
by with long strides and queer steps; stride, stride, stride, step and
over; stride, stride, stride, step and over! Ira wondered what would
happen if he ran up to one of those barriers and tried to stick one leg
across and double the other one behind him. He chuckled at the mental
picture he got! One of the hurdlers interested him particularly. He
was a much shorter and chunkier lad than the others; in age probably
seventeen. There was no useless flesh on him, but he was very solidly
built and had more weight than the usual boy of his age. As a hurdler
he was persevering rather than brilliant. He struck four hurdles out of
the ten invariably, each time throwing himself out of his stride and
just saving himself from a fall, but he finished through with a fine,
dogged patience, rested and went at it again.
"If," thought Ira, "I was selecting a fellow to win one of these hurdle
races I wouldn't pick him, but if I was choosing a chap to--to hunt for
the South Pole or take on a hard job and finish it I guess he'd be the
one!"
When the hurdlers had picked up their sweaters and gone panting back
to the gymnasium Ira turned toward the grandstand. By this time a
half-hundred boys in football togs were assembled on the field,
while twice that number were seated in the stand to watch the first
practice of the year. Ira found a seat a little removed from the
throng and viewed the gathering. Even as he turned his eyes toward the
candidates their number was increased by the arrival of some eighteen
or twenty others accompanied by a man of perhaps thirty years whose
air of authority plainly stamped him as the coach. By his side was a
strapping youth with broad shoulders, a slim waist and sturdy legs who
was quite as plainly the captain. He had tawny hair, light eyes and
a lean, sun-browned face that, without being handsome, was striking.
He looked, Ira decided, like a born leader. And those shoulders and
that deep chest and the powerful legs under the brown-and-white
ringed stockings suggested that he was as capable physically as any
other way. A rotund man in brown denim overalls pushed a wheelbarrow
around the corner of the stand and from it unloaded a surprising
amount of paraphernalia; a canvas bag containing a half-dozen scuffed
footballs, many grey blankets, a water bucket and several shining new
tin dippers, head-guards, several pairs of shoes, a bunch of leather
laces, a nickel-plated horn with a rubber bulb attached and a leather
case whose contents were not divulged that afternoon but which Ira
later discovered to hold adhesive tape, bandages, phials and similar
first-aid requisites.
A tall, immaculate youth in street attire joined coach and captain.
He carried a square of light board to which were held by a clamp a
number of sheets of paper. Ira surmised correctly that he was the team
manager. A short conference ensued between the trio and then things
awoke to action.
"First squad down the field," called the coach. "New candidates this
way, please!"
The knot of players who had accompanied him on the field went off
with a couple of the worn footballs, while the balance of the fellows
gathered around. They represented all ages from fifteen to twenty,
although there were but two or three who looked more than eighteen;
and were of assorted sizes and of various builds. There were slim boys
there and dumpy boys; undersized boys and overgrown boys; fat boys
and lean boys; and boys who weren't anything in particular. All wore
football togs of some description, many new, more old. Here and there
Ira caught sight of a brown sweater with the white P followed by the
insignia "2nd," and here and there a white sweater bearing the letters
"P.B.B.C." in brown. But for the most part the candidates, perhaps
sixty-odd in number, appeared to be tyros. What the coach said to them
Ira was too far distant to hear, but he spoke for several minutes
amidst respectful silence. Then the group broke up and a minute later
the candidates had formed three groups at different parts of the field
and were passing balls to each other.
It wasn't an exciting sight, and after a half-hour Ira pulled himself
from his sun-smitten plank and made his way homeward across the campus,
loitering a little in the grateful shade of the buildings. He passed
three or four groups of fellows studying, or at least making a pretence
of studying, under the lindens, and always he was followed by curious
and faintly amused looks. He didn't know it, however, and wouldn't have
been troubled if he had known it. It certainly didn't occur to him
that anyone could find anything unusual in his appearance now that he
was wearing his blue serge. He had bought that suit in Bangor and he
had the salesman's word for it that it was absolutely the last cry in
fashionable attire and that it fitted him perfectly. Perhaps, however,
the salesman had been nearsighted. Let us be charitable and think so;
for the fact is that that blue serge suit was too short as to trousers,
leaving a painful lapse between the edge of each cuff and Ira's low
shoes--a lapse rather startlingly occupied by faded brown socks--and
the coat was ungracefully long and fell away at the back of his neck.
Possibly the waistcoat fitted as well as the salesman had asserted, but
Ira wasn't wearing the waistcoat today. There is no gainsaying that,
judged by the standard of the flannel-garbed youths under the trees,
Ira's appearance was somewhat unusual at Parkinson.
As he crossed Washington Avenue from the centre gate and entered School
Street he found himself hoping a trifle wistfully that he would find
Nead in the room, for he was beginning to feel a bit lonesome and
out of it. But he was destined to disappointment, for when he opened
the door the room was quite empty. There were, however, evidences of
recent occupation, evidences both olfactive and optical. First, there
was a distinct odour of cigarette smoke, and, second, there was a note
propped up against the lamp on the desk.