NEW QUARTERS
Freeburg, Connecticut is like so many other New England towns that
to describe it would be a waste of time. A central street, broad
and elm-shaded; two blocks of modest buildings devoted to business;
old-fashioned residences, generally white, with green blinds, set back
from the thoroughfare; a few more modern and much smaller houses tucked
around the corners on the side streets; churches, schools, a town hall,
a library, a fire house; irritatingly detached from the village proper,
a railroad station at which trains bound northward for Massachusetts
and southward for New York pause on their way. Not all of them, either,
for there are at least two hoity-toity trains that go straight through
with only a careless, half-contemptuous shriek for the little town.
The one-seventeen from the south, however, wasn’t one of those. The
one-seventeen slowed up cumbrously, sifting gray dust over Clif as
he stood on the platform, and sighed pneumatically as it came to a
halt. There were three parlor cars at the rear, and from these and
the coaches ahead descended the first considerable contingent of
Wyndhamites to a number close on a hundred. The late afternoon train
would bring perhaps half as many more, others would come on the
southbound express and not a few would arrive by automobile. By six
o’clock there would be just short of two hundred of them at Wyndham,
of which number two score or so would be junior school youngsters
seeing Wyndham for the first time, round-eyed, shyly curious, a little
bit homesick under a pathetic assumption of ease. Quite a few of
these were already on the platform, alone or in charge of parents,
clinging desperately to shriekingly new suit cases and staring avidly.
The two school buses, new this fall and resplendent in dark blue
paint and varnish, honked invitingly, free-lance taxis squawked, and
the confusion grew. Up ahead trunks were being crashed and thumped
desperately from baggage car to trucks. At the windows onward-bound
passengers gazed down interestedly at the scene.
For several moments Clif thought Tom Kemble hadn’t come, and just when
doubt was becoming certainty he spied him. It was, Clif reflected with
an affectionate grin, just like Tom to be the last one out of his car
and then to descend as though there was all the time in the world!
Clif pushed his way across the platform and made a grab at a battered
suit case. “Porter, sir? Porter?” he inquired. Tom saw him then, cried
“Alphonse! Alphonse!” in a voice that turned many heads his way,
dropped the suit case and a bag of golf clubs and threw his arm about
Clif, bestowing a resounding smack on the latter’s left cheek. But when
he would have planted a similar salute on the other cheek the other
cheek was out of range.
“Tom, you blamed idiot!” fumed Clif. “Cut it out!”
“_Ah, mon cher ami!_” cried Tom, still clasping Clif tightly. “_Mon
petit chou!_”
“Will you shut up?” cried Clif, struggling, amused but annoyed. “Don’t
be an ass, Tom! Quit it, I tell you!”
Tom quit it, grinning. The custom of embracing and kissing between
Frenchmen had made a great hit with Tom during his visit to Paris, and
later he and Clif had amused themselves considerably in Switzerland
by staging meetings in such public places as station platforms and
hotel lobbies. “_Ah, mon cher Alphonse!_” Tom would ejaculate in
tones of delighted surprise. “_Mon cher Armande!_” Clif would rejoin
ecstatically. Then they would rush together, embrace and kiss, to
the great amusement of Loring Deane and the scandalizing of Wattles,
his attendant. Sometimes Tom followed with the rest of his French,
declaring fervidly that the view was magnificent, asking Clif how he
did and ending up with the seemingly unconnected announcement that his
window looked into the garden.
Well, that sort of thing had been all right over there, away from home,
where folks did pretty much as they pleased, anyhow; but being embraced
and kissed on the station platform at Freeburg, Connecticut, U. S. A.,
was quite another proposition, and Clif looked distinctly uncomfortable
as he pushed his way around the corner of the station, followed by the
amused stares of his schoolfellows and the excited piping of a newly
arrived junior who asked in a shrill voice: “Dad, did you see that boy
kiss the other one?”
“You haven’t as much sense as――as I thought you didn’t have!” Clif
declared irately as he tossed Tom’s suit case into a flivver. Tom
chuckled and climbed in.
“_Aller, cocher! Vit, vit!_” he directed. The driver turned a slow,
inquiring gaze upon him over a shoulder.
“How’s that? Ain’t you fellers for the school?”
“Yes,” answered Clif. “West Hall. Don’t mind this chap. He’s nutty.” He
leaned back and smiled at the nutty one. “Well, how are you?”
“Never better,” replied Tom. “Say, what’s the colossal idea? Thought
you were going to be at the junction, you rotter!”
Clif explained while the taxi bounded schoolwards, and Tom accepted the
explanation with a shrug. “Huh,” he said. “All right, but you only got
what was coming to you back there on the platform, old son. I owed you
that!”
“Seen Loring?” asked Clif.
“No, there wasn’t time. He telephoned yesterday, though. Wanted me
to come up with him, but I knew there’d be a crowd in the car. He’s
bringing a couple of fellows along, and, of course, his folks and
Wattles. Besides, you’d said you’d be at the junction, and there wasn’t
any way of getting word to you.”
“That was sort of low down, my not keeping the date,” said Clif; “but I
didn’t have the courage. Wasn’t it frightfully hot on the train?”
“Hot? It was awful! Say, any of the crowd back?”
“I haven’t seen any of them, but ‘G. G.’ says ‘Swede’s’ here. And Guy
Owens. Some of them came up with you, didn’t they?”
“Four or five. Treader and Sim Jackson and two or three more. How’s Mr.
Otis?”
“Hale and hearty. Looks like an Indian. All tanned up. Practice at
three-thirty, so you’ll just have time to bathe and rest up a few
minutes.”
Tom groaned. “Practice on a day like this? Is the man not so well in
his mind, perhaps?”
“Says we can’t afford to miss a day, Tom. We’re out for big things this
year. Going to clean up. Through the season without a defeat; that sort
of thing, you know.”
“He say that?”
“We――ell, no; but he did say it would be worth trying. I think so, too.
‘Wyndham’s undefeated eleven!’ Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Say,
what’s to keep us from making a stab at it?”
“Stab all you please,” grumbled Tom. “But we’ve got about as much
chance to do it as――” He hesitated, lacking a simile, and was spared
further effort by the arrival of the taxi in front of the dormitory.
Wyndham School is all under one roof, if we except the gymnasium.
When Dr. John Wyatt Wyndham started the institution a quarter of a
century ago it consisted of one building. Subsequently a larger hall
was built to form an L, presenting a fine example of the tail wagging
the dog. However, Wyndham School prospered exceedingly and not many
seasons passed before the dog had two tails and the L had changed to
an E, an E with the middle projection lacking. The old building is now
but a connecting link between the new ones and is devoted entirely to
recitation rooms. The original entrance remains facing a courtyard of
sward and shrubbery and a graveled circle in which a sundial reigns,
but it is no longer used. It is, in fact, of no more practical value
than the sundial which, since it stands in shadow fully half of the
day, owes its presence there solely to æsthetic principles.
The school stands well back from the streets, from the principal
thoroughfare of the town, Oak Street, which runs along the western side
of the grounds, and from Elm Street which lies to the south. From Elm
Street one looks across a gently rising expanse of excellent turf, and
over a long bed of scarlet sage and white cosmos, straight into the
little courtyard. On the right is the front end of East Hall, on the
left the corresponding elevation of West. The old building is known
now as Middle Hall. But one doesn’t approach from our present point
of view. Instead, a curving drive, shaded by a double row of maples,
leads from the junction of the two streets. Here a pair of stone posts,
surmounted by globular lights, indicates the way. Up this graveled
drive the rattling flivver had sped, to stop, as is the manner of such
vehicles, with disconcerting suddenness, in front of the first pair of
wide stone steps.
Clif and Tom struggled out, Tom paid the driver――adding a ten-cent
tip and the seemingly irrelevant statement, “_Ma fenêtre donne sur le
jardin_”――and they went up the steps, occupied by several hesitant
youths and a number of bags, and entered West Hall.
“Welcome home,” murmured Clif.
Tom grinned and led the way to the slate stairway beyond the empty
reception room. Across the wide corridor was the recreation room, its
great stone fireplace offering no appeal to-day. Leather-cushioned
couches and easy chairs, a massive table and many smaller ones stood
about on the warm-hued carpet. Back of the recreation room was the
library. Then, opening from the latter, was the reading room. Across
the corridor the corresponding space was occupied by the office. At the
far end of the corridor a wide entrance, at present barred by heavy
oaken doors, admitted to the dining hall.
“Well, at that,” remarked Tom above the clatter of his shoes on the
stone treads, “getting back doesn’t seem so bad, Clif.”
“Bad? I’ll say it doesn’t! I was tickled to death to get here. Say,
Number 40 is all right, Tom. You see for a thousand miles from the rear
window!”
“_Le coup d’oeil est magnifique_,” agreed Tom.
They climbed two flights to reach Number 40, passed a dozen other
rooms, turned finally to the left and were there. Tom slid his bag
along the floor, Clif tossed the golf clubs onto a bed and they sank
into chairs to mop their faces and inspect the new quarters. Clif
had already taken possession of his half――first arrival had given
him choice of sides――and his brushes and comb and soap box and other
gimcracks were neatly arranged on the fresh white cover atop his
chiffonier. There were two framed portraits there, besides; one of his
mother, long since dead, and one of his father. Tom noted and sighed.
“I’ve got to unpack, too,” he murmured. “The trunk won’t be along
before practice, though.” He slipped out of his coat and unfastened his
tie. “Say, I’ll tell you one thing, old timer; having two window seats
is going to be expensive.”
“Yes, I thought of that,” said Clif. “But they’re worth it. Each of us
has his own, you see.”
“Yes, but which is mine?” asked Tom suspiciously.
“Well, I selected this side of the room,” replied Clif carelessly, “so
I suppose you take the window seat nearest your bed.”
“Sounds all right,” muttered the other; “but I’ll bet there’s a catch
to it somewhere!” He studied the situation frowningly. Then: “Oh,
yes,” he exclaimed sarcastically, “I get the north window, eh? Fine in
winter, what?”
Clif laughed. “Not so good in winter, Thomas; but think of the long,
dreamy days of spring! And look at it to-day. Your window’s nice and
shady and has a breeze――”
“Breeze!” protested Tom.
“――While mine’s got the sun full on it. You see, don’t you? You know I
wouldn’t take advantage of you, old thing.”
“No, you wouldn’t! What time is it? I’m going to have a ger-lorious
shower right now! Say, did you get the stuff out of the storeroom?”
“I did, sir. Everything’s attended to. You’ll find your togs hanging in
your closet, your shoes on the shelf――By the way, Tom, I hate to tell
you, but you need a new pair of brogans.”
“Heck, do I? Life’s just one expense after another! All right. Got a
towel? Mine are in the trunk. Thanks. Where’s your bath robe?”
“In my closet. Any other little thing you need? Soap――sponge――wash
cloth――”
“Yeah, soap. Toss it to me. Atta boy. See you in five minutes, Clif.”
The five minutes were nearer ten, and then Tom reappeared looking
considerably refreshed, and, sketchily swathed in Clif’s bath robe,
stretched himself on the bed. “You said you had a talk with ‘G. G.,’
Clif,” he prompted. “What did he have to say?”
“Well, for one thing, he said he wanted me to try playing tackle.”
“Tackle! Tackle? My sainted Aunt Jerusha! What for?”
“Says we need tackles more than ends. Raiford’s not coming back, he
says.”
“Well, what of it? He wasn’t such a much, was he? Think you can do it?”
“I don’t know, Tom. I told him I’d have a try at it, of course. I
suppose I can learn, eh?”
“Why, yes, you can learn; but, heck, I don’t savvy the idea at all!
You’re a thundering good end, Clif, and you mightn’t be a good tackle;
not an awfully good one, I mean. You don’t suppose ‘G. G.’ has been
exposed to the sun, eh?”
“Well, I don’t have to keep on at it if I don’t show the goods.”
“No.” Tom sought a new position and kicked one muscular leg free of
the robe. “No, of course not. Oh, I guess you’ll make good at it. You
generally manage to deliver. And with me to help you――Say, he didn’t
happen to suggest making me into a guard or a center or anything, did
he?”
“Well, he said he had been considering it, but he guessed it wouldn’t
be possible to make you into anything, and so he’s going to let you tag
along behind the team as usual.”
“Is that so? Don’t get fresh, young feller. I suppose Joe Whitemill
will be back. Of course _he_ couldn’t be the one to quit school. Just
the same, he wasn’t going so frightfully well toward the end of last
year, and I’m out to beat that guy!”
“I think you will, Tom. By the way, how’s your father? I meant to ask
before.”
“Top-hole, Clif. He’s on his way to the coast this minute. He’s got
some sort of a deal on with some folks out there who make oil; refine
it, I mean. If it goes through he will be off to England next month and
I suppose I won’t see him for a whale of a time. I tried to argue him
out of starting in business again. You know he’s been out of it ever
since the War. But he says we need the money; says having a son is a
bit expensive. Heck, I don’t cost him much. Still, there’ll be college
after next year, and college educations do cost, I suppose.”
“I’ll bet it broke your heart to let him make that trip alone,” laughed
Clif. “Or has the wanderlust left you since you got back from abroad?”
“No, that little trip just sort of whetted my appetite,” answered Tom.
“Never mind, though. Summer will be around again before you know it,
and I’m going to make dad take me to China.”
“China? For Pete’s sake, why China?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why not China? For one thing, I want to see how they
make it.”
“Make what?” asked Clif.
“China.”
Clif launched himself on the other and several moments of rough-house
followed, during which Tom managed to become so involved with the bath
robe that he was eventually helpless. Clif applied punishment and
resumed his seat, considerably warmed up, while Tom, with disgusted
grunts and mutters, untangled himself.
Tom was an extremely good-looking chap, with rather extraordinary
gray eyes, hair that came close to the copper tone and a skin that
in spite of its warm tan was remarkably clear. His chin was a wee
bit aggressive, but it went well with a short, straight nose and a
good-tempered mouth. He was a little heavier than Clif, while lacking
an inch or so of height; but he invariably carried himself with such
military erectness that it would have occurred to none that any
advantage of height belonged to his companion. The two had known each
other for just a year and in that time had become warm friends. Tom was
seventeen years of age, and so was Clif, but Tom would see eighteen
some six months before the other.
Clif Bingham――Clifton Cobb Bingham, to give him his full name――was a
bit more slender than Tom, in spite of those added seven pounds of
whose presence he had assured Mr. Otis, and had a wide-awake, alert
appearance not so noticeable in the other. If you wouldn’t have thought
of calling him very good-looking, at least you would have conceded an
attractiveness of expression that answered fully as well. You would
have liked the way his face lighted up when he smiled, and you’d have
liked the smile particularly. It had made lots of friends for Clif.
Both he and Tom were in the second class this year, a fact which had
been of assistance to them in securing as good a room as Number 40.
Corner rooms were ever in demand at Wyndham, and the new occupants
of Number 40 considered themselves fortunate. Of course it was
rather a nuisance to have to climb two flights of particularly hard
stairs――slate held an advantage from the point of view of the builder
whose thoughts were on fireproof construction, but it was rather
deadly on the feet!――but the view made up for that. From the north
window you had, as Clif had announced, a wide view of fields and hills
near at hand and of the blue peaks and slopes of the Berkshires in
the distance. From the west casement you could look across the side
lawn and between the already yellowing maples that lined the road to
a sloping meadow recently slashed by a new street along which, here
and there, tiny and not unattractive two-story colonial houses were
appearing. Beyond, topping the long hill, was a farm; the big red barn
and the more humble white house, elm-shaded, just poked their roofs
over the summit. By craning your neck a bit you could look toward the
village proper, and at almost any time of the day or evening you
could watch the automobiles whizz past. Sometimes they didn’t whizz.
Infrequently one lessened its speed at sight of the ivy-clad buildings
and curious occupants stared forth and debated whether what they beheld
was a school or a hospital or――who knew?――an insane asylum!
All the rooms, whether in East Hall, most of which was devoted to
the Junior School, or in West, were much the same in size and shape,
and Number 40 was consequently not very different from Number 34, in
which Tom had resided last year, or from Number 17, which had been
Clif’s. It was sixteen feet the longest way and fourteen the other.
On each side of the door, accounting for the little passage beyond
it, was a good-sized closet. Along the right wall were the two single
beds, jutting halfway into the room, two slim chiffoniers and a
straight-backed chair. The space between the foot of the beds and the
opposite wall was rather thoroughly taken up by a study table, four
chairs, two window seats and a radiator. Underfoot was a brown linoleum
and on that rested three grayish rugs with blue borders. Brown was
the prevailing color of the room, for the furniture was brown oak――or
what passes for oak these days――and the walls were tinted a lighter
shade of the same color. It was all extremely harmonious, as Tom
remarked, but he favored “jazzing it up a bit” with a few touches of
color. He suggested red silk curtains for the windows, but Clif was of
the opinion that faculty didn’t allow one to recurtain――the present
draperies were, of course, brown――and prevailed on Tom to confine the
color to the pillows on the window seats and such wall decorations as
the rules permitted.
“You’ve got a couple of pillows somewhere, haven’t you?” he asked.
Tom suddenly sat up with an exclamation of dismay. “Why, heck!” he
cried. “I forgot to pack ’em! They’re over in 34 and I’ll have an awful
time making Billy give ’em up.”
Clif chuckled. “I’ll say you will; and Billy’s too big to lick! Never
mind, I’m going to buy a couple I saw in the village this noon. Not
half bad, although I don’t believe the stuff inside them ever grew on a
chicken. It felt more like cotton batting.”
“What good will your pillows do me?” demanded Tom. “Can’t keep shifting
’em from one window to t’other! I’ll just have to go over some time
when Billy’s out of the room and get mine.”
“Who’s he got in with him this year?” asked Clif.
“Jeff Ogden. And if he gets to sprawling his old carcass on those
pillows they won’t be anything but pancakes! Say, what time is it?”
Well, it was time to get into old canvas pants and blue jerseys and
scuffed shoes and head for the football field, and Tom pulled himself
off the bed with a deep sigh of resignation.