TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS
As the school-master had foretold, there was no room at college for
Jack. Several times Major Buford took the dog home with him, but Jack
would not stay. The next morning the dog would turn up at the door of
the dormitory where Chad and the school-master slept, and as a last
resort the boy had to send Jack home. So, one Sunday morning Chad led
Jack out of the town for several miles, and at the top of a high hill
pointed toward the mountains and sternly told him to go home. And Jack,
understanding that the boy was in earnest, trotted sadly away with a
placard around his neck:
I own this dog. His name is Jack. He is on his way to Kingdom Come.
Please feed him. Uncle Joel Turner will shoot any man who steels him.
CHAD.
It was no little consolation to Chad to think that the faithful
sheep-dog would in no small measure repay the Turners for all they had
done for him. But Jack was the closest link that bound him to the
mountains, and dropping out of sight behind the crest of the hill, Chad
crept to the top again and watched Jack until he trotted out of sight,
and the link was broken. Then Chad went slowly and sorrowfully back to
his room.
It was the smallest room in the dormitory that the school-master had
chosen for himself and Chad, and in it were one closet, one table, one
lamp, two chairs and one bed--no more. There were two windows in the
little room--one almost swept by the branches of a locust-tree and
overlooking the brown-gray sloping campus and the roofs and
church-steeples of the town--the other opening to the east on a sweep
of field and woodland over which the sun rose with a daily message from
the unseen mountains far beyond and toward which Chad had sent Jack
trotting home. It was a proud day for Chad when Caleb Hazel took him to
"matriculate"--leading him from one to another of the professors, who
awed the lad with their preternatural dignity, but it was a sad blow
when he was told that in everything but mathematics he must go to the
preparatory department until the second session of the term--the
"kitchen," as it was called by the students. He bore it bravely,
though, and the school-master took him down the shady streets to the
busy thoroughfare, where the official book-store was, and where Chad,
with pure ecstasy, caught his first new books under one arm and trudged
back, bending his head now and then to catch the delicious smell of the
fresh leaves and print. It was while he was standing with his treasures
under the big elm at the turnstile, looking across the campus at the
sundown that two boys came down the gravel path. He knew them both at
once as Dan and Harry Dean. Both looked at him curiously, as he
thought, but he saw that neither knew him and no one spoke. The sound
of wheels came up the street behind him just then, and a carriage
halted at the turnstile to take them in. Turning, Chad saw a slender
girl with dark hair and eyes and heard her call brightly to the boys.
He almost caught his breath at the sound of her voice, but he kept
sturdily on his way, and the girl's laugh rang in his ears as it rang
the first time he heard it, was ringing when he reached his room,
ringing when he went to bed that night, and lay sleepless, looking
through his window at the quiet stars.
For some time, indeed, no one recognized him, and Chad was glad. Once
he met Richard Hunt riding with Margaret, and the piercing dark eyes
that the boy remembered so well turned again to look at him. Chad
colored and bravely met them with his own, but there was no
recognition. And he saw John Morgan--Captain John Morgan--at the head
of the "Lexington Rifles," which he had just formed from the best
blood of the town, as though in long preparation for that coming
war--saw him and Richard Hunt, as lieutenant, drilling them in the
campus, and the sight thrilled him as nothing else, except Margaret,
had ever done. Many times he met the Dean brothers on the playground
and in the streets, but there was no sign that he was known until he
was called to the blackboard one day in geometry, the only course in
which he had not been sent to the "kitchen." Then Chad saw Harry turn
quickly when the professor called his name. Confused though he was for
a moment, he gave his demonstration in his quaint speech with perfect
clearness and without interruption from the professor, who gave the boy
a keen look as he said, quietly:
"Very good, sir!" And Harry could see his fingers tracing in his
class-book the figures that meant a perfect recitation.
"How are you, Chad?" he said in the hallway afterward.
"Howdye!" said Chad, shaking the proffered hand.
"I didn't know you--you've grown so tall. Didn't you know me?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you speak to me?"
"'Cause you didn't know ME."
Harry laughed. "Well, that isn't fair. See you again."
"All right," said Chad.
That very afternoon Chad met Dan in a football game--an old-fashioned
game, in which there were twenty or thirty howling lads on each side
and nobody touched the ball except with his foot--met him so violently
that, clasped in each other's arms, they tumbled to the ground.
"Leggo!" said Dan.
"S'pose you leggo!" said Chad.
As Dan started after the ball he turned to look at Chad and after the
game he went up to him.
"Why, aren't you the boy who was out at Major Buford's once?"
"Yes." Dan thrust out his hand and began to laugh. So did Chad, and
each knew that the other was thinking of the tournament.
"In college?"
"Math'matics," said Chad. "I'm in the kitchen fer the rest."
"Oh!" said Dan. "Where you living?" Chad pointed to the dormitory, and
again Dan said "Oh!" in a way that made Chad flush, but added, quickly:
"You better play on our side to-morrow."
Chad looked at his clothes--foot-ball seemed pretty hard on clothes--"I
don't know," he said--"mebbe."
It was plain that neither of the boys was holding anything against
Chad, but neither had asked the mountain lad to come to see him--an
omission that was almost unforgivable according to Chad's social
ethics. So Chad proudly went into his shell again, and while the three
boys met often, no intimacy developed. Often he saw them with Margaret,
on the street, in a carriage or walking with a laughing crowd of boys
and girls; on the porticos of old houses or in the yards; and, one
night, Chad saw, through the wide-open door of a certain old house on
the corner of Mill and Market Streets, a party going on; and Margaret,
all in white, dancing, and he stood in the shade of the trees opposite
with new pangs shooting through him and went back to his room in
desolate loneliness, but with a new grip on his resolution that his own
day should yet come.
Steadily the boy worked, forging his way slowly but surely toward the
head of his class in the "kitchen," and the school-master helped him
unwearyingly. And it was a great help--mental and spiritual--to be near
the stern Puritan, who loved the boy as a brother and was ever ready to
guide him with counsel and aid him with his studies. In time the Major
went to the president to ask him about Chad, and that august dignitary
spoke of the lad in a way that made the Major, on his way through the
campus, swish through the grass with his cane in great satisfaction. He
always spoke of the boy now as his adopted son and, whenever it was
possible, he came in to take Chad out home to spend Sunday with him;
but, being a wise man and loving Chad's independence, he let the boy
have his own way. He had bought the filly--and would hold her, he said,
until Chad could buy her back, and he would keep the old nag as a
broodmare and would divide profits with Chad--to all of which the boy
agreed. The question of the lad's birth was ignored between them, and
the Major rarely spoke to Chad of the Deans, who were living in town
during the winter, nor questioned him about Dan or Harry or Margaret.
But Chad had found out where the little girl went to church, and every
Sunday, despite Caleb Hazel's protest, he would slip into the Episcopal
church, with a queer feeling--little Calvinist of the hills that he
was--that it was not quite right for him even to enter that church; and
he would watch the little girl come in with her family and, after the
queer way of these "furriners," kneel first in prayer. And there, with
soul uplifted by the dim rich light and the peal of the organ, he would
sit watching her; rising when she rose, watching the light from the
windows on her shining hair and sweet-spirited face, watching her
reverent little head bend in obeisance to the name of the Master,
though he kept his own held straight, for no Popery like that was for
him. Always, however, he would slip out before the service was quite
over and never wait even to see her come out of church. He was too
proud for that and, anyhow, it made him lonely to see the people
greeting one another and chatting and going off home together when
there was not a soul to speak to him. It was just one such Sunday that
they came face to face for the first time. Chad had gone down the
street after leaving the church, had changed his mind and was going
back to his room. People were pouring from the church, as he went by,
but Chad did not even look across. A clatter rose behind him and he
turned to see a horse and rockaway coming at a gallop up the street,
which was narrow. The negro driver, frightened though he was, had sense
enough to pull his running horse away from the line of vehicles in
front of the church so that the beast stumbled against the curb-stone,
crashed into a tree, and dropped struggling in the gutter below another
line of vehicles waiting on the other side of the street. Like
lightning, Chad leaped and landed full length on the horse's head and
was tossed violently to and fro, but he held on until the animal lay
still.
"Unhitch the hoss," he called, sharply.
"Well, that was pretty quick work for a boy," said a voice across the
street that sounded familiar, and Chad looked across to see General
Dean and Margaret watching him. The boy blushed furiously when his eyes
met Margaret's and he thought he saw her start slightly, but he lowered
his eyes and hurried away.
It was only a few days later that, going up from town toward the
campus, he turned a corner and there was Margaret alone and moving
slowly ahead of him. Hearing his steps she turned her head to see who
it was, but Chad kept his eyes on the ground and passed her without
looking up. And thus he went on, although she was close behind him,
across the street and to the turnstile. As he was passing through, a
voice rose behind him:
"You aren't very polite, little boy." He turned quickly--Margaret had
not gone around the corner: she, too, was coming through the campus and
there she stood, grave and demure, though her eyes were dancing.
"My mamma says a NICE little boy always lets a little GIRL go FIRST."
"I didn't know you was comin' through."
"Was comin' through!" Margaret made a little face as though to
say--"Oh, dear."
"I said I didn't know you were coming through this way."
Margaret shook her head. "No," she said; "no, you didn't."
"Well, that's what I meant to say." Chad was having a hard time with
his English. He had snatched his cap from his head, had stepped back
outside the stile and was waiting to turn it for her. Margaret passed
through and waited where the paths forked.
"Are you going up to the college?" she asked.
"I was--but I ain't now--if you'll let me walk a piece with you." He
was scarlet with confusion--a tribute that Chad rarely paid his kind.
His way of talking was very funny, to be sure, but had she not heard
her father say that "the poor little chap had had no chance in life;"
and Harry, that some day he would be the best in his class?
"Aren't you--Chad?"
"Yes--ain't you Margaret--Miss Margaret?"
"Yes, I'm Margaret." She was pleased with the hesitant title and the
boy's halting reverence.
"An' I called you a little gal." Margaret's laugh tinkled in merry
remembrance. "An' you wouldn't take my fish."
"I can't bear to touch them."
"I know," said Chad, remembering Melissa.
They passed a boy who knew Chad, but not Margaret. The lad took off his
hat, but Chad did not lift his; then a boy and a girl and, when only
the two girls spoke, the other boy lifted his hat, though he did not
speak to Margaret. Still Chad's hat was untouched and when Margaret
looked up, Chad's face was red with confusion again. But it never took
the boy long to learn and, thereafter, during the walk his hat came off
unfailingly. Everyone looked at the two with some surprise and Chad
noticed that the little girl's chin was being lifted higher and higher.
His intuition told him what the matter was, and when they reached the
stile across the campus and Chad saw a crowd of Margaret's friends
coming down the street, he halted as if to turn back, but the little
girl told him imperiously to come on. It was a strange escort for
haughty Margaret--the country-looking boy, in coarse homespun--but
Margaret spoke cheerily to her friends and went on, looking up at Chad
and talking to him as though he were the dearest friend she had on
earth.
At the edge of town she suggested that they walk across a pasture and
go back by another street, and not until they were passing through the
woodland did Chad come to himself.
"You know I didn't rickollect when you called me 'little boy.'"
"Indeed!"
"Not at fust, I mean," stammered Chad.
Margaret grew mock-haughty and Chad grew grave. He spoke very slowly
and steadily. "I reckon I rickollect ever'thing that happened out thar
a sight better'n you. I ain't forgot nothin'--anything."
The boy's sober and half-sullen tone made Margaret catch her breath
with a sudden vague alarm.
Unconsciously she quickened her pace, but, already, she was mistress of
an art to which she was born and she said, lightly:
"Now, that's MUCH better." A piece of pasteboard dropped from Chad's
jacket just then, and, taking the little girl's cue to swerve from the
point at issue, he picked it up and held it out for Margaret to read.
It was the first copy of the placard which he had tied around Jack's
neck when he sent him home, and it set Margaret to laughing and asking
questions. Before he knew it Chad was telling her about Jack and the
mountains; how he had run away; about the Turners and about Melissa and
coming down the river on a raft--all he had done and all he meant to
do. And from looking at Chad now and then, Margaret finally kept her
eyes fixed on his--and thus they stood when they reached the gate,
while crows flew cawing over them and the air grew chill.
"And did Jack go home?"
Chad laughed.
"No, he didn't. He come back, and I had to hide fer two days. Then,
because he couldn't find me he did go, thinking I had gone back to the
mountains, too. He went to look fer me."
"Well, if he comes back again I'll ask my papa to get them to let you
keep Jack at college," said Margaret.
Chad shook his head.
"Then I'll keep him for you myself." The boy looked his gratitude, but
shook his head again.
"He won't stay."
Margaret asked for the placard again as they moved down the street.
"You've got it spelled wrong," she said, pointing to "steel." Chad
blushed. "I can't spell when I write," he said. "I can't even
talk--right."
"But you'll learn," she said.
"Will you help me?"
"Yes."
"Tell me when I say things wrong?"
"Yes."
"Where'm I goin' to see you?"
Margaret shook her head thoughtfully: then the reason for her speaking
first to Chad came out.
"Papa and I saw you on Sunday, and papa said you must be very strong as
well as brave, and that you knew something about horses. Harry told us
who you were when papa described you, and then I remembered. Papa told
Harry to bring you to see us. And you must come," she said, decisively.
They had reached the turnstile at the campus again.
"Have you had any more tournaments?" asked Margaret.
"No," said Chad, apprehensively.
"Do you remember the last thing I said to you?"
"I rickollect that better'n anything," said Chad.
"Well, I didn't hate you. I'm sorry I said that," she said gently. Chad
looked very serious.
"That's all right," he said. "I seed--I saw you on Sunday, too."
"Did you know me?"
"I reckon I did. And that wasn't the fust time." Margaret's eyes were
opening with surprise.
"I been goin' to church ever' Sunday fer nothin' else but just to see
you." Again his tone gave her vague alarm, but she asked:
"Why didn't you speak to me?"
They were nearing the turnstile across the campus now, and Chad did not
answer.
"Why didn't you speak to me?"
Chad stopped suddenly, and Margaret looked quickly at him, and saw that
his face was scarlet. The little girl started and her own face flamed.
There was one thing she had forgotten, and even now she could not
recall what it was--only that it was something terrible she must not
know--old Mammy's words when Dan was carried in senseless after the
tournament. Frightened and helpless, she shrank toward the turnstile,
but Chad did not wait. With his cap in his hand, he turned abruptly,
without a sound, and strode away.