There was something in the friendship between those two members of the
First Latin not entirely easy for the school to understand. In many ways
they were antitheses,--Snipe, over-long; Shorty, under-sized; Snipe,
brown-eyed and taciturn, as a rule; Shorty, blue-eyed and talkative
(Loquax was Pop's pet name for him); Snipe was studious; Shorty quick to
learn, but intolerant of drudgery. Both loved play, active exercise, and
adventure. Both took naturally to everything connected with the fire
department, but in addition the smaller boy had a decided love for the
military, and was a member of the drum corps of a famous organization of
the old State militia, and vastly proud of it. Snipe loved the
fishing-rod, and Shorty had no use for one. Shorty loved drill, Snipe
couldn't bear it. Take it all in all, they were an oddly assorted pair,
but when forty-eight hours passed without their being in close
communion something had gone sadly amiss; and that was the case now.
Everybody knew that Snipe Lawton had little or no money of any kind, but
few knew why. His own father had been dead many years. His mother had
remarried when he was twelve years old, and between the boy and his
step-father there was no love whatever. Nor was this the boy's fault.
Open-hearted, affectionate, and of gentle nature, he had really tried to
like and to win the regard of the man who had won his mother's heart and
had given her an attractive, even a beautiful, home. But there are men
who have no sympathy whatever with boys. Mr. Park was one of these, and,
after two years of experiment, gave up trying to understand his
step-son, and declared that the boy must be sent away to school. It is
needless to describe what those two years were to the mother or to the
son. Both welcomed the decision, though it cost the former many tears. A
younger sister was married and living in New York City. Mr. Park was a
Columbiad and a fervent admirer of the great Doctor. It was arranged
that the boy should have his home under the roof of his aunt, Mrs.
Lawrence, and his lessons under Pop. He grew rapidly, and his clothes
were generally short for him. He was shy, sensitive, and hated to ask
for money from home, because it had to come from his step-father. Time
and again he could not go to the little social gatherings of his
schoolmates, with whom he became popular almost from the start, solely
because of his outgrown coat and trousers. His aunt had a houseful of
company much of the time; her husband's kindred were numerous and
prevalent, and, to tell the truth, she was a little ashamed of the tall,
shy, sometimes awkward, if not gawky, boy, whose wrists were always in
evidence and whose trousers were so short and shabby. And so it resulted
that poor Snipe had his little bedroom in her garret, which the servants
soon learned they could neglect with impunity, and a place at her table
when they were not entertaining company; but home, he really had none.
Breakfast was served at the Lawrences' at nine o'clock, but before that
time Snipe was expected to come down to forage for himself and be off to
school and out of the way. Luncheon he could take with him, if he chose
to put it up and carry it, but as none of the other boys did this Snipe
soon ceased, and one of Duncan's doughnuts was the mid-day sustenance,
washed down by a glass of what the Doctor referred to as "copious cold
Croton" (the Doctor loved that word copious), and on this rather meagre
diet Snipe worried through the day till dinner-time, which with Uncle
and Aunt Lawrence was half-after six, and a very hungry boy was he who
silently, even humbly, took his seat among the lively, chattering party
(there were always six or eight in the family circle), and, as soon as
his appetite was appeased, was permitted to withdraw, presumably, to his
studies, though the fact that he was at Shorty's home was always
comforting to Aunt Lawrence, for she had great regard for certain
feminine relatives of the smaller boy, and believed that wherever they
presided her nephew could not possibly get into mischief. It is not that
Aunt Lawrence was either knowingly neglectful or actively unkind. She
was a busy woman, a fashionable woman, a woman full of pleasant impulse.
She had told George to be sure and come to her whenever anything went
wrong, when he needed advice or aid, or--rather vaguely--anything else.
She had told the butler to be sure to see that Master George had coffee
ready every morning at quarter-past eight, and the seamstress was
ordered to keep his wardrobe in repair, and for a month or so both did
as they were bid, and then let Master George look out for himself. Mr.
Park had requested Mr. Lawrence to see that George was given fifty cents
each Saturday for his spending money, out of which he was to provide his
own shoes and gloves. This was Park's own allowance in the old days when
he was a boy at the grammar school and Columbia was away down-town,
about on line with the City Hall, and the boys lunched sumptuously at
Shaddle's for thrippence; but Park had not to buy his shoes in those
days, though he said he bought his gloves out of his little sum. He
simply argued that it would be good discipline for his step-son to learn
to economize. Gloves and shoes cost much less in the ante-bellum days
than now, and less in Park's school-days than in those of his step-son.
George took what was given him silently and without appeal, and during
his three years at Pop's that was every cent of money he received from
home. But gloves, he said, he had no use for, and boots were far beyond
him. Furthermore, low shoes, summer and winter both, were best to run
in, and not another boy at the Doctor's dreamed of the true state of the
case, unless it was little Shorty, for to that boy the hungry heart of
the lonely fellow seemed to go out from the start. He, too, was an
alien; he, too, had left the mother wing to find a nest in the great,
thronging city; he, too, was probably not a little in the way, but for
him at least there was warmth and interest and sympathy and kindliness,
and many a time and oft did Snipe roost all night long in that snug
white bed of Shorty's, with no one "at home" the wiser. And many and
many a time had he been made welcome at the bountiful board where Shorty
sat among an affectionate kindred, and the tall boy's soft brown eyes
seemed mutely to thank each member of the big family circle for every
pleasant word. They had grown to like him, despite his silence, or
perhaps because of it and its contrast with Shorty's chatter. They took
no note of his short-sleeved, skimpy sack-coat or the low shoes at which
Briggs had sneered and other fellows at school had levelled their
witticisms until they saw it hurt, and then, wonder of wonders, the
latter quit it. With all their impulse for fun and frolic and mischief,
Pop's boys had the leaven of gentlemen. Even Hoover had never twitted
Lawton on the evidences of his poverty, and there were others of that
immortal twenty-seven little better off than he. In all the First Latin,
Briggs had been the only one to continue the torment after the discovery
that it brought pain and distress, and even Briggs no longer dare
attempt it when certain of the class were near, for Julian, overhearing
him one day, had called him aside at recess and told him that only a
mean-spirited whelp would be guilty of such a thing, slapped his face,
and invited him into a neighboring stable to fight it out, which
invitation Briggs declined. Even little Shorty, overhearing Briggs one
day, had flown at him like a young bull-terrier and drawn blood from
Briggs's nose before they could be separated. The class stood up for
Snipe most loyally in these days of his early tribulations, and by the
time Second Latin year was over no one seemed to think of his worn and
undeniably shabby garb. Snipe himself was "all right," said they. But
there was lingering venom in the soul of Briggs, and as for Hoover, his
soul was that of Ishmael and his hand against everybody, and when these
two crabbed natures drifted together in alliance, offensive and
defensive, it meant trouble for somebody, and there was no fun in the
First Latin when Tuesday came, for to one and all it was plain that
Snipe Lawton's heart was heavy, and his big brown eyes were full of
nameless misery.
Twice that morning had Shorty tried to get him aside with sympathetic
question, but the elder shook his head. There was no time. At recess,
when Shorty counted on seeing his chum and hearing the whole story,
Lawton never came out at all. John, the janitor, said he was having a
talk with Mr. Halsey, trying to get him not to report something to the
Doctor, but John himself seemed ill at ease and anxious to avoid
question. The class communed together and instinctively connected Briggs
and Hoover with the mystery, but Hoover had disappointed everybody by
remaining away from school that day, and as for Briggs, he was in
everybody's way. Wherever he saw a group in low-toned conference he
would make for it, and by his very presence and loud-voiced questions
and conjectures put an end to their confidences. Everybody seemed to
feel that when the Doctor came down that afternoon there would be a
sensation of some kind, and school reassembled after recess and the
First Latin went to its benches without even accidentally upsetting one
of them. Snipe was sitting at the end of the upper bench looking
drearily out on the avenue, and Mr. Halsey, with darker face than usual,
had taken his accustomed place.
A spiritless recitation was begun, Snipe losing his head and memory and
place after place. There were boys who knew the answers to questions at
which he only shook his head and who presently refused to speak and go
above him. Halsey's face grew darker and darker at these evidences of
sympathy. The "next! next! next!" became incessant. Up even towards the
head of the class, above the seat to which the sad-eyed fellow had
drifted, there was no animation. The leaders gave their answers in low
tones, as though to say, "We've got to go through with this, but we've
no heart in it. Snipe's proper place is up here among us." It was
actually a relief to everybody when at last, towards the close of the
hour, the Doctor's heavy tread was heard, slow and majestic, ascending
the wooden stairs.
It was his custom to halt at the doorway, and from that point of view
survey his waiting scholars, the foot of the class coming in for
invariable comment. I can see him now, portly, erect, scrupulously neat
and exact in dress from the crown of his deeply weeded high top hat to
the tip of his polished shoes. Clean shaved, the wide upper lip, the
broad massive chin, the great sweep of jaw. Collar, cuffs, and
shirt-front immaculate; coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and the broad
stock of flawless black. The gold seal dangling from his watch ribbon
the only speck of color, the gold top of his stout, straight, black cane
concealed in his hand. Under their shaggy brows the deep-set gray eyes
twinkle, as slowly he lifts the long ferule and points it at the
luckless wight on the lowermost bench; then with inquiring gaze sweeps
the line of intent young faces, looking for some one.
"What!" he says. "Another occupant! Where, then, is the
'_Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum_'?"
And at any other day the class, barring Hoover, would have shouted with
appreciative joy; but not to-day. Despite Hoover's absence a cloud has
lowered over their house. They cannot laugh, even in counterfeited glee,
and the Doctor's face changes on the instant as he steps within. He has
noted Lawton's unusual position and his strange, white face.
"Anything wrong, Mr. Halsey?"
The head-master rises and turns to his revered senior. In low tone he
says, so that only one or two can catch the words, "A matter I'll have
to tell you after school, sir." And school must last over an hour
longer. Silently the class exchanges the text-book for Xenophon. The
Doctor's own hour has come, sacred to Greek, and silently the boys
retake their places. But the occasion weighs upon the Doctor's mind.
Something tells him there is worry ahead, and the sooner it is met the
better. One expedient never fails him. "How have they done to-day, Mr.
Halsey?"
The head-master purses up his lip. He knows that since recess at least,
so far as recitation is concerned, they have done unusually ill; but he
knows what the Doctor desires.
"_Behaved_ rather better than usual, sir."
"One good turn deserves another," says Pop. "How many young gentlemen of
the First Latin deserve half holiday? All hands up!" And up go the
hands, but with only half the usual alacrity.
"The ayes have it. The class may retire."
And slowly the First Latin finds its legs and lingers, for Halsey
whispers to Pop, and the latter, with somewhat grayer shade to his face,
says, "Lawton will remain."
The boys dawdle unaccountably about the big bookcase, glancing over
their shoulders at Lawton, who sits with drooping head and downcast eyes
opposite Halsey's table. Briggs, panting a little, slinks through the
silent group to the doorway, and scuttles quickly down the stairs. When
Joy and Beekman reach the street he is peering round the stable at the
corner, but slips out of sight an instant later. Three or four of the
class, Shorty among them, still hover about the coat-rack. Shorty says
he can't find his overshoes, which is not remarkable, as he did not wear
them. Halsey is nervously tapping his desk with the butt of his pencil
and glancing at the dawdlers with ominous eyes. At last the Doctor
uplifts his head and voice. He has been looking over some papers on his
desk.
"Those young gentlemen at the coat-rack seem reluctant to leave school,
Mr. Halsey. Hah! Julian, cestus bearing! Dix, ecclesiasticus! Et tu,
puer parvule, lingua longissima!" He pauses impressively, and, raising
hand and pencil, points to the door. "If one of 'em comes back before
to-morrow, Mr. Halsey, set him to work on Sallust."
And then the three know enough to stand no longer on the order of their
going. Their faces are full of sympathy as they take a farewell peep at
Snipe, and Shorty signals to unseeing eyes "I'll wait." And wait the
little fellow does, a long hour, kicking his heels about the cold
pavement without, and then the Second Latin comes tumbling down-stairs,
scattering with noisy glee, and marvelling much to see Shorty looking
blue and cold and mournful. He will not answer their questions; he's
only waiting for Snipe. And another quarter-hour passes, and then for an
instant the boy's eyes brighten, and he springs forward as his tall chum
appears at the doorway, cap downpulled over his eyes, coat-collar
hunched up to his ears, a glimpse of stocking between the hem of his
scant trousers and those inadequate shoes. But the light goes out as
quickly as it came, for with Lawton, similarly bundled up and well-nigh
as shabby, is the head-master, who silently uplifts his hand and warns
Shorty back; then, linking an arm in one of Lawton's, leads him away
around the corner of Twenty-fifth Street.
It is more than the youngster can stand. Long-legged Damon, short-legged
Pythias, the two have been friends since Third Latin days and chums for
over a year. Shorty springs after the retreating forms, but halts short
at sound of his name, called in imperative tone from above. At the open
window stands the Doctor gazing out. He uses no further words. His right
hand is occupied with his snowy cambric handkerchief. With his left he
makes two motions. He curves his finger inward, indicating plainly
"Come back!" and then with the index points down the avenue, meaning as
plainly "Go!" and there is no cheery, undignified whistle as Shorty
hastens to tell his tale of sorrow to sympathetic ears at home.