Armed with the list of rooming houses furnished him by the registrar
Scott set out in search of a room. His stock of money was limited, and
he regretted that his old chum, Dick Bradshaw, was not there to share
his room, and incidentally his room rent. For to Scott, who had always
lived at home, and never associated very closely with many other boys of
his own age, the selection of a roommate was a problem which he
considered would require much thought and a thorough knowledge of his
intended partner. His New England conservatism kept him from even
dreaming of going in with a stranger.
The search proved rather long and tiresome. The upper classmen had
picked all the best rooms before they left in the spring the year
before, and the assortment now available was not very attractive. Single
rooms were hard to find at all and the prices something to inspire awe.
Scott approached a rather attractive little house which stood back in a
pleasing yard something like the one at his home. The usual sign, “Rooms
to Rent,” was not in sight, but he rang the bell and waited patiently
for someone to answer it. Presently the door opened a crack and a
silver-haired old lady eyed him curiously. Her face looked kindly enough
but the sound of her voice made Scott almost jump.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“I beg your pardon,” said Scott, “but can you tell me where there are
any rooms to rent around here?”
“No.” Like the crack of a pistol.
“They seem to be rather hard to find,” Scott remarked apologetically.
“Yes,” the old lady fired at him as she slammed the door. “I guess the
people in this park want to live in their own houses.”
Scott gazed at the closed door in astonishment. “Well,” he thought,
“there is one thing sure—I should hate to live in yours.”
He was becoming discouraged, and was turning wearily away from the
twelfth house—almost the last one on his list—when he nearly collided
with a young fellow who was bounding up the front steps three at a jump.
The landlady took pity on Scott’s weary look, and addressed herself to
the newcomer. “Mr. Johnson, do you know of any place where this young
man can find a room?”
The young man turned abruptly and ran his eye frankly over Scott.
“What’s your course?” he asked.
“Forestry,” Scott answered, wondering what that had to do with it.
“Sure I do,” said Johnson. “Come on in with me. That’s my course and I
am looking for a bunkie. Come on up and leave your suitcase and then you
can see about your trunk.”
Scott gazed with astonishment at this new species of being who would
take on a second’s notice a roommate whose very name he did not know.
But that confident and carefree young gentleman was already leading the
way up the stairs without a doubt as to the issue. Scott looked at the
landlady to see what effect such a sudden proposition had made on her.
He expected to find her wide-eyed and agape with astonishment; instead
of that she had closed the front door and was disappearing down the
hall. He would certainly have backed out if he had known how, but both
the landlady and the stranger seemed to be so certain the deal was
closed, that Scott, dazed by the swift passage of events and seeing no
possible way out, followed helplessly up the stairs.
“Maybe,” he thought, “it’s one of those dens you read about in the
newspaper where young fellows are roped in in this way and robbed. If it
is they will need more than that red-headed guy to do it. Dick could
lick the shoes off of him and Dick never could box. They would not get
very much if they succeeded,” he grinned, “the railroads already have
most of it.”
When he entered the room indicated he found his new acquaintance already
seated in a revolving chair near the table, reading a large poster.
Without raising his eyes from the paper Johnson said, “You may have the
two lower drawers of the bureau, I already have my stuff in the others,
and the right hand side of the closet. Better go back to the registrar’s
office and tell them where to bring your trunk; they charge you storage
awful quick at the depot.” And he continued to read the poster.
Scott tried to look the room over carelessly as he thought anyone would
who was used to renting a new one every week or so. He found that he was
still holding his suitcase in his hand. He looked at his roommate to see
if he had noticed it, but that indifferent young man was still absorbed
in the poster and oblivious to his surroundings. Scott set the suitcase
quietly in the corner and took another careless look around the room.
“Well, I guess this will do,” he remarked flippantly. “I’ll go see about
the trunk.”
As he was going out the door Johnson called after him, “Hustle back and
I’ll take you to our hash house. They are nearly all foresters there and
a couple of them are seniors, too.”
Scott hurried to the registrar’s office, left word about the trunk and
started back to his newly acquired room and roommate, both of which he
had obtained almost before he knew it and was not yet quite certain
whether he wanted them or not. However, it was a great relief to feel
that he had some place to go, and he rather thought that he liked it. As
he was going down the steps a husky, sunburned fellow with a swinging
gait and the free air of the woods joined him.
“Getting straightened out?” he asked pleasantly.
“Yes,” Scott answered, with a readiness that surprised himself. “I got a
room, a roommate and a boarding house, all this afternoon.” He was
beginning to feel a little proud of it.
“You are lucky,” the other said. “Where are you from?”
“Massachusetts,” said Scott, a little proudly. He felt that it was
rather a distinction to live so far away. He expected to see some show
of astonishment from this stranger, but instead the answer astonished
him.
“I expect we are nearly the Eastern and Western limits of the School,”
he said quietly. “I am from Honolulu. Not much timber left in
Massachusetts, is there?”
Ordinarily Scott would have been very diffident with a stranger who
accosted him in this way, especially after such an experience as he had
had that morning, but there was a personal magnetism about this tall,
dark, gentlemanly fellow that made him open his rather lonesome heart.
“No,” he answered, “nothing much but second growth. How did you know
that I was a forester?”
“Nothing very mysterious about that. Your green registration card is
sticking out of your pocket. Well, here is where I leave you. So long.”
Scott found his new home and walked in with an independent air of
ownership that sent a thrill through him. Johnson was waiting
impatiently for him. As soon as Scott appeared in the door Johnson
grabbed his hat and started out. “Hurry up, man. You’re late. These hash
houses aren’t home. If you are late you get a short ration.”
Scott took a hasty scrub at his car-stained face and hands, and they
hurried away to the boarding house. Most of the men were already seated
when they arrived. Scott waited for an introduction to the landlady to
inquire whether he could stay there, but Johnson jerked out the chair
next to his, looked at him curiously, and ordered him to sit down.
“Don’t you have to see the landlady here?” Scott asked.
“Don’t worry,” Johnson laughed. “She’s probably spotting you now through
a crack in the door, and you’ll see her pretty regularly every Saturday
night at pay time.”
“Humph,” thought Scott, “I’d like to see anyone get into a
boarding-house around home without giving his whole pedigree and paying
a week’s board in advance.” He added aloud to Johnson, “I should think a
good many fellows would skip their board.”
“No,” said Johnson, “there are not many fellows here who try it and most
of them get caught.”
When the rush of passing dishes was over Scott had a chance to look
around the table. He was surprised to see what a husky, sunburned,
independent looking crowd it was. Two of them, especially, seemed to be
almost an Indian red, and directed the conversation with peculiar
abandon. He was agreeably surprised to see that one of them was the
Hawaiian who had walked down the street with him a few minutes before.
He caught Scott’s eye and smiled pleasantly.
Johnson caught the salutation and looked at Scott with an air of
surprise and added respect. “I did not know that you knew him,” he said
in an undertone, but his remarks were cut short by a peremptory command
from another sunburned face at the end of the table.
“Johnson, you haven’t the manners of a goat. Why don’t you introduce
your friend?”
“Oh,” said Johnson, somewhat abashed. “Fellows, this is my roommate.”
“That’s a fine introduction for him. What’s his name, pinhead?”
Johnson looked wonderingly at Scott for a minute, grinned at the
surrounding company, and burst out laughing. “Blamed if I know his name
yet, I just got him this afternoon, and we have not had the time to
explain the short sad histories of our young lives to each other yet.”
Then to Scott, “You’ll have to introduce yourself, I guess.”
“Scott Burton, forester,” he announced with quiet dignity, and the
sunburned senior acknowledged the introduction for the crowd.
After dinner he talked for a little while with the Hawaiian and a few of
the other men and went back to the room with Johnson.
“How did you get to know Ormand?” Johnson asked.
“Who’s he?”
“Why that fellow you spoke to at the table. Didn’t you know him?”
Johnson asked in surprise.
“He walked down the street with me when I was coming from the
registrar’s office,” said Scott. “Who is he?”
“Gee,” said Johnson. “He is president of the senior class and manager of
last summer’s corporation.”
“What do you mean by last summer’s corporation?”
“Why, when the juniors go up to the woods for the summer they form a
corporation and elect one of the class to manage the business for the
bunch. He bosses the whole crowd. He’s the biggest man in the College
and that other fellow who called me down about the introduction is
Morgan, the next biggest. Funny I did not know your name, wasn’t it?”
“Well,” Scott said, “I should not have known yours if I had not heard
other people talking to you. What class are you?”
“Who, me?” said Johnson. “Why, I am a freshman like you.”
“Then how is it that you know all these people so well?” Scott asked.
“Oh, I went to prep school here, and knew them all last year. I have
credit in a couple of courses,” Johnson added proudly, “and I have field
experience to burn. I do not have to take any German this year or
mathematics either.”
“Neither do I,” said Scott. “Our high school is ahead of the ones here,
and I have taken so much work in the summer that I got credit for nearly
all the work of the first two years.”
“Then you’re a junior?” asked Johnson in a more respectful tone. Respect
for the upper classes was about the only weakness that Johnson allowed
himself in that direction.
“I suppose so,” said Scott; “they told me at the registrar’s office that
I was practically a junior, but would be classed as a freshman till I
had completed my elementary forestry, dendrology and forest
engineering.”
“Been around the country much?”
“No,” said Scott, “that’s one reason why I came out here to College.
I’ve seen every rock in the country around home, but I have never been
away from there.”
“Then you have never seen a real forest,” exclaimed Johnson.
“Only the woodlots on the farms.”
“What sort of work did you do in the summer there?”
“Went to summer school and loafed.” Scott, like most of the boys in the
East, had always considered the holidays sacred to recreation, and had
thought himself particularly virtuous for devoting six weeks of it to
summer school each year. “Do you work in vacation time?” he asked.
“You bet,” said Johnson. “I’ve worked every summer since I can remember,
and every winter, too, for that matter. I’ve paid all my expenses at
school for the past ten years.”
Scott gazed at him in open wonder. “What do you do?” he asked.
“What haven’t I done would be easier. I’ve been ‘bull cook’ on a
railroad construction crew in Montana, and driven teams on a slusher in
Arizona; I’ve picked apples in Washington, and been a ‘river pig’ on the
drive here in northern Minnesota; I’ve carried a rod on a survey party
in Colorado, and pushed straw in the harvest fields of North Dakota;
I’ve tended furnaces, carried papers, and weighed mail, billed express
and smashed baggage during Christmas vacation. Some of ’em were tough
and some of ’em were cinches, but they have all netted me a good bunch
of experience.”
During the careless listing of his roommate’s experiences Scott had
slowly settled back in his chair with a feeling of wondering admiration
for Johnson and an overwhelming sense of his own helplessness. He eyed
Johnson’s thin freckled face, and ran his glance over his slight, wiry
frame, and wondered what he himself, with all his strength, would do if
he had to tackle such problems. It had never occurred to him that anyone
but a born laboring man could do such things. The feeling of contempt
which he had at first for Johnson’s roughness gave way to a kind of new
admiration for his ability and self reliance.
“Do you play football?” Johnson asked suddenly.
“No, I never cared anything about it.”
“Baseball?”
“Only a little.”
“Basketball?” Johnson persisted.
“No.”
“Well, where in thunder did you get that build if you have never worked
and don’t do any athletic stunts?” Johnson was searching for something
to account for Scott’s five feet ten and one hundred and seventy-five
pounds, his heavy shoulders and muscular neck. He had the Westerner’s
contempt for the tenderfoot of the East. He was not at all surprised
that he could not do anything, but was puzzled at his fine physique.
“Oh,” said Scott, “I got that wrestling, boxing and walking around the
country. There was an ex-prizefighter who worked for father and he used
to give me lessons in the barn every evening.”
Johnson pricked up his ears. “A boxer,” he thought. “Maybe the man was
not so helpless after all.”
“You’ll have to box Morgan,” he said aloud, “and if you can do him,
you’ll have to fight for the College on rush day. Will you do it?”
“I’ll certainly try,” said Scott, and the East rose a thousand per cent
in Johnson’s estimation.
The two boys talked on till nearly midnight and finally went to sleep
with entirely new ideas of each other. Unconsciously the prejudices of
generations had been broken down and their views broadened across half a
continent.