Hugo read the letter down to the last period after the rather tremulous
signature. His emotions were confused. Touched by the earnest and
pathetically futile efforts of his father and by the attempt of that
lonely little man to express what was, perhaps, a great affection, Hugo
was nevertheless aghast at a prospect that he had not considered. He was
going to be thrown into the world on his own resources. And, resting his
frame in his worn chair--a frame capable of smashing into banks and
taking the needed money without fear of punishment--Hugo began to wonder
dismally if he was able even to support himself. No trade, no
occupation, suggested itself. He had already experienced some of the
merciless coldness of the world. The boys would all leave soon. And then
he would be alone, unprovided for, helpless.
Hugo was frightened. He read the letter again, his wistful thoughts of
his parents diminishing before the reality of his predicament. He
counted his money. Eighty dollars in the bank and twelve in his pockets.
He was glad he had started an account after his experience with Bessie.
He was glad that he had husbanded more than enough to pay his fare to
Indian Creek. Ninety-two dollars. He could live on that for a long time.
Perhaps for the summer. And he would be able to get some sort of job. He
was strong, anyway. That comforted him. He looked out of his window and
tried to enumerate the things that he could do. All sorts of farm work.
He could drive a team in the city. He could work on the docks. He
considered nothing but manual labor. It would offer more. Gradually his
fear that he would starve if left to his own devices ebbed from him, and
it was replaced by grief that he could not return to Webster. Fourteen
hundred dollars--that was the cost of his freshman year. He made a list
of the things he could do without, of the work he could do to help
himself through college. Perhaps he could return. The fear slowly
diminished. He would be a working student in the year to come. He hated
the idea. His fraternity had taken no members from that class of humble
young men who rose at dawn and scrubbed floors and waited on tables to
win the priceless gem of education. Lefty and Chuck would be chilly
toward such a step. They would even offer him money to avoid it. It was
a sad circumstance, at best.
When that period of tribulation passed, Hugo became a man. But he
suffered keenly from his unwonted fears for some time. The calm and
suave youth who had made love to Iris was buried beneath his frightened
and imaginative adolescence. It wore out the last of his childishness.
Immediately afterwards he learned about money and how it is earned. He
sat there in the dormitory, almost trembling with uncertainty and used
mighty efforts to do the things he felt he must do. He wrote a letter to
his father which began: "Dear Dad--Why in Sam Hill didn't you tell me
you were being reamed so badly by your nit-witted son and I'd have
shovelled out and dug up some money for myself long ago?" On rereading
that letter he realized that its tone was false. He wrote another in
which he apologized with simple sincerity for the condition he had
unknowingly created, and in which he expressed every confidence that he
could take care of himself in the future.
He bore that braver front through the last days of school. He shook
Lefty's hand warmly and looked fairly into his eyes. "Well, so long, old
sock. Be good."
"Be good, Hugo. And don't weaken. We'll need all your beef next year.
Decided what you're going to do yet?"
"No. Have you?"
Lefty shrugged. "I suppose I've got to go abroad with the family as
usual. They wrote a dirty letter about the allowance I'd not have next
year if I didn't. Why don't you come with us? Iris'll be there."
Hugo grinned. "No, sir! Iris once is very nice, but no man's equal to
Iris twice." His grin became a chuckle. "And that's a poem which you can
say to Iris if you see her--and tell her I hope it makes her mad."
Lefty's blue eyes sparkled with appreciation. Danner was a wonderful
boy. Full of wit and not dumb like most of his kind. Getting smooth,
too. Be a great man. Too bad to leave him--even for the summer.
"Well--so long, old man."
Hugo watched Lefty lift his bags into a cab and roll away in the warm
June dust. Then Chuck:
"Well--by-by, Hugo. See you next September."
"Yeah. Take care of yourself."
"No chance of your going abroad, is there? Because we sure could paint
the old Avenue de l'Opéra red if you did."
"Not this year, Chuck."
"Well--don't take any wooden money."
"Don't do anything you wouldn't eat."
Hugo felt a lump in his throat. He could not say any more farewells. The
campus was almost deserted. No meals would be served after the next day.
He stared at the vacant dormitories and listened to the waning sound of
departures. A train puffed and fumed at the station. It was filled with
boys. Going away. He went to his room and packed. He'd leave, too. When
his suit-cases were filled, he looked round the room with damp eyes. He
thought that he was going to cry, mastered himself, and then did cry.
Some time later he remembered Iris and stopped crying. He walked to the
station, recalling his first journey in the other direction, his
pinch-backed green suit, the trunk he had carried. Grand old place,
Webster. Suddenly gone dead all over. There would be a train for New
York in half an hour. He took it. Some of the students talked to him on
the trip to the city. Then they left him, alone, in the great vacuum of
the terminal. The glittering corridors were filled with people. He
wondered if he could find Bessie's house.
At a restaurant he ate supper. When he emerged, it was dark. He asked
his way, found a hotel, registered in a one-dollar room, went out on the
street again. He walked to the Raven. Then he took a cab. He remembered
Bessie's house. An old woman answered the door. "Bessie? Bessie? No girl
by that name I remember."
Hugo described her. "Oh, that tart! She ran out on me--owin' a week's
rent."
"When was that?"
"Some time last fall."
"Oh." Hugo meditated. The woman spoke again. "I did hear from one of my
other girls that she'd gone to work at Coney, but I ain't had time to
look her up. Owes me four dollars, she does. But Bessie, as you calls
her--her name's Sue--wasn't never much good. Still--" the woman
scrutinized Hugo and giggled--"Bessie ain't the only girl in the world.
I got a cute little piece up here named Palmerlee says only the other
night she's lonely. Glad to interdooce you."