Scott realized that the trip to the lumber camps had been the most
instructive three weeks that he had ever spent. Every minute of the time
he had been learning something new, some detail of logging, some new
phase of woods life, some new trait of lumberjack character. At the same
time he had been so interested that it had seemed more like a pleasure
trip than a required part of the school course. He felt that he could
have spent the whole winter right there in that camp and enjoyed it all.
He returned to the college fresh, rested and ready for the hardest grind
of his life. The Civil Service examinations were only two months away
and on these examinations depended his appointment in the Government
service, and the fulfillment of his father’s condition. In this it meant
far more to him than to any of the others. The field covered was
enormous and Scott felt that it was simply a matter of steady grinding
to get over as much of the ground as he possibly could. He apportioned
his time carefully to the different subjects and prepared to put in
thirteen hours a day.
He knew that there would be many questions which would be a mere matter
of judgment, and on those he did not waste his time; but there would be
many others which would call for facts and those facts he proposed to
master.
The weeks passed by monotonously enough. There was no variation, no
change from the set routine. The other members of the class were working
spasmodically but they had not tied themselves down to such gruelling
work.
Johnson astonished Scott by coming to town two weeks before the
examination and announcing that he was going to test the value of his
experience by taking the examination, and seeing what he could do with
it. He followed the lines of Scott’s work pretty carefully and in the
hour which they devoted to discussion every evening he managed to
collect most of the points that had been unearthed during the day.
At last the day for the great trial arrived. It was to last for two days
of seven hours each; two unbroken periods of seven long hours.
They went down to the post office where the ordeal was to take place. “I
feel like a sausage,” Johnson said. “I’m stuffed so tight that I can’t
shut my eyes comfortably.”
“I feel worse than that,” Scott answered. “I feel as though I had been
stuffed so tight that I had burst somewhere and all the stuffing was
running out. If I don’t get hold of those questions pretty quick I’ll
forget my name.”
“I’ve already forgotten my name,” Johnson said, “but I think it is
Dennis.”
They were quickly seated in the great silent room with eight others, all
in a great state of nervous excitement. At the first stroke of nine the
first set of papers was handed out and they were off with a rush.
Scott never had a very clear idea of those two days except that he wrote
on and on incessantly and was not in the least rattled when he had once
begun to write.
“Well,” Johnson said, when the two days’ trial was over and they were
settled comfortably in Scott’s room, “they bowled me over on some of
that German stuff, but I think that I hit the most of it pretty hard.
That grubbing around I did last summer helped me a lot and I fairly
killed that lumbering.”
“I’m not going to speculate,” Scott said, “but it seemed easy to me.
That’s when a fellow flunks the worst, when it seems easy.”
“It was good practice, anyway,” Johnson said; “I would not take a job
yet if I could get it. I know better what I ought to study next year,
and that is what I took it for.”
So the great event for which they had been working so hard for two
months was laid away on the shelf and Scott settled down to his lighter
schedule. The rest of his class went away to the Forest Experiment
Station at Cloquet, but Scott’s irregular course forced him to stay at
the College. He put in his spare time reading along those lines and when
his class work was over, June 1, went up there for a week.
The other men came down about that time so he had a week alone with the
director of the station. The experience opened up a new line of thought
to him. He had studied the growth and learned the characteristics of
trees; here he found exact scientific experiments to discover the facts
which controlled that growth and formed those characteristics. It was a
fascinating field, especially the study of all the instruments which
were used to wrest from nature the answers to the pertinent questions
which the practical work suggested.
Scott would have liked to stay longer at the Station, but it was time
for commencement, and after that he was going home. That overshadowed
everything now. The solemn rites of commencement, and even the almost
sacred last meeting of the old Itasca corporation, were dimmed by the
visions of the home which he had not seen for two long years.
The last ringing cheers of the old corporation had scarcely died away
when he was on a train traveling all too slowly eastward. The states
crept by very slowly, but on the second day he found himself in the
Berkshire hills and felt that he was almost home.
No sooner had the train stopped than he was out and up the village
street. He had not told them what train he would take and no one was at
the station to meet him. He felt that he would rather not meet them at
the station anyway. Everything about the village looked so quiet, and
peaceful, and old.
He would not have changed a stick of it for all the slurs the Westerners
could cast upon its sleepiness.
About halfway home he met Dick Bradshaw. The two boys greeted each other
eagerly.
“Hello, Scotty,” Dick cried, “I thought you were not expected till
tomorrow.”
“I’m not,” Scott said, “but I could not wait any longer. It certainly
seems good to get back.”
“You’ve been away long enough,” Dick growled, “and you have written
about like a clam.”
“Well, I’ve been too busy to write much, Dick. I’ve had the time of my
life. I had to work for it, but I finished and I’m a full-fledged
forester now.”
They were in sight of the house and Scott was looking it over eagerly.
“I’ll come around to hear about it in the morning,” Dick said.
Scott hardly answered him, for as he opened the yard gate he saw his
father and mother on the side porch. He dropped the suitcase at the gate
and bounded up the steps and into his mother’s arms.
“Mother!” he cried.
She held him silently a moment and then released him to allow him to
grasp his father warmly by the hand.
“Welcome home, my boy,” he said quietly; “it’s been a long weary time
since you left us.”
“It certainly has,” Scott said, “and I thought the train would never get
here this time.”
“Two long years, Scott,” his mother said, placing her hands on his
shoulders and looking searchingly into his face, “but you have not
changed a bit. I was afraid you would.”
“No, mother,” he answered, “I was pretty foolish for about a month, but
I got over it. And I can tell you all about even that,” he added
smilingly, remembering his mother’s parting advice.
“Yes, I believe you could, Scott,” she said, looking earnestly into his
eyes. “Come in to supper; we have been waiting in hope that you would
come. There’s some mail here ahead of you.”
The old dining-room with the old chair in the same old place thrilled
him with a strange joy. He suddenly realized that it was the first
private dining-room he had been in since he left home.
He picked up one of the letters beside his plate. It was the return from
his Civil Service examinations. He opened it eagerly and his face
lighted as he read it.
“I passed my Civil Service exams,” he said modestly, handing the letter
to his father.
“Ninety-two,” his father cried excitedly, “and you are rated second on
the eligible list. Does that mean that only one man in the United States
made a better mark?”
“I suppose so, but only a few of the men in the United States took it.”
“My boy, I’m proud of you,” his father said, grasping his hand. “And on
only two years’ work, too. Aren’t you glad, Susan?”
“Of course I’m glad,” his mother said, looking proudly at her son, “but
I’m not surprised. I knew he could do it.”
Scott opened the other letter. It was from the Forest Service appointing
him to a position in the White Mountains at twelve hundred dollars per
year. He turned it over silently to his mother.
“Thank heaven, it’s near home,” she said fervently.
“Mother, do you see that mark of ninety-four in lumbering?” he asked,
referring to the Civil Service sheet again. “That’s what I learned last
Christmas when you thought I ought to come home.”
“I knew you were right, Scott, and I’m glad you stayed, but it was hard
to believe it then.”
“Come,” Dr. Burton urged cheerfully, “let’s eat supper if I am not too
proud. I never felt so stuck up in my life.”
“And I never felt so happy,” Scott said. “I must wire the news to
Johnson.”
“Good,” said Dr. Burton; “from what you have written of that man,
Johnson”—Scott looked up anxiously, conscious for the first time since
his arrival of the great prize that was yet hanging in the balance. The
first joy of the homecoming had driven it completely out of his head—“he
must be a remarkable fellow. And many of those others that you have
mentioned in the past year strike me as being especially promising
material. I am entirely satisfied with you, Scotty, and tomorrow you
shall be the legal owner of that ten-thousand-acre forest.”