A VISITOR
The boys both hastily leaped to the ground and the old farmer quickly
spoke to his team and started on, leaving his recent passengers in such
a frame of mind that they even forgot to thank him for his courtesy and
kindness. As the wagon drove off, Will fancied that he heard a sly
chuckle from the driver but he had disappeared around the bend in the
road before the young freshman recovered from his astonishment
sufficiently to speak of it.
"That old chap wasn't such a fool after all," said Mott glumly.
"That's what he wasn't," responded Will beginning to laugh.
"What are you laughing at?" demanded Mott sharply.
"At ourselves."
"I don't see the joke."
"Might as well laugh as cry."
"You'll sing another song before you're back in Winthrop to-night. Ten
miles isn't any laughing matter after we've tramped as far as we have
to-day."
"But it'll help us for our track meet," suggested Will, laughing again.
"Bother the track meet!"
"It'll help our longevity then. I've always heard that walking was the
best exercise."
"The old fellow was foxy. He never said a word but just let us talk on.
I'd give a dollar to hear his account of it when he gets home."
"Cheap enough. But say, Mott, have we got to tramp all the way back to
Winthrop?"
"Looks that way."
"Can't we get a car here somewhere?"
"Hardly. We might try it at that farmhouse over yonder," replied Mott
pointing toward a low house not far away as he spoke.
"Come ahead! Let's try it anyway," suggested Will eagerly.
The boys at once hastened to the place, and after a brief delay
succeeded in summoning the young farmer who lived there. They made their
wishes known, but in response the man said, "Can't do it anyhow. My
wife's sick and I'm goin' for the doctor now."
"Where is he?" demanded Will eagerly.
"Over at the Junction."
Will knew where the Junction was, a little hamlet about seven miles from
Winthrop. How far it was distant from the place where he then was,
however, he had no idea. It was easy to ascertain, and in response to
his question the farmer explained that it was "about three mile."
"You might take us there, then," said Will quickly. "I don't know just
how the trains run for Winthrop, but it'll be three miles nearer
anyway."
"Yes, I'll be glad to take you there."
"How much are you going to charge us?" demanded Mott who did not plan to
be caught again by the "guilelessness" of any of the people of the
region.
"Oh, I sha'n't charge ye anything. Glad t' do ye the favor," responded
the farmer heartily.
In a brief time his car was ready, and, acting upon his suggestion, the
boys at once took their places on the seat, and the driver soon was
briskly speeding down the roadway.
Conversation lagged, for the boys were somewhat wearied by their long
tramp and the young farmer was silent, doubtless anxious over the
illness in his home. When a brief time had elapsed he deposited the boys
on the platform of the little station at the Junction, and again
declining any offer on their part to pay for the service he had rendered
them at once departed in his search for the physician.
Approaching the little window in the ticket office Mott inquired,
"What's the next train we can get for Winthrop?"
"No more trains to-night," responded the man without looking up from the
noisy clicker over which he was bending.
"No more trains?"
"That's what I said. The last one passed here fifteen minutes ago."
"Isn't there any way we can get there?"
"I s'pose there is."
"What is it?" demanded Mott eagerly.
"Walk."
"How far is it?"
"Seven miles."
"And there's no other way?"
"You won't be the first that have counted the ties between Junction and
Winthrop."
"Isn't there a freight train that comes along pretty soon?" inquired
Will.
"There's one that's due in 'bout an hour. But you never can depend on
it. It may be here in an hour and it may be three hours. You never can
tell."
"What shall we do, Phelps?" inquired Mott, turning sharply to his
companion.
"I don't care much, but I believe it would be better for us to start. It
isn't so very far and besides it'll be good for our longevity and help
us for the meet."
There was an exclamation of anger from Mott who doubtless had become
somewhat sensitive to the frequent references to his favorite expression
of the day, but he made no protest and the two boys at once started up
the track. Both were hungry and weary but the distance must be
traversed, and there was no time or breath to waste in complaining.
Steadily they trudged onward, the monotony of the walk increased by the
deepening darkness. They had been gone from the station only about an
hour when the shrill screech of the whistle from a locomotive
approaching from behind them was heard, and in a few minutes the long
and noisy freight train thundered past them.
Mott was almost beside himself with rage as he watched the passing cars
and heaped all manner of maledictions upon the head of the station
agent, who, he declared, must have known the train was coming, and with
malice aforethought had withheld his knowledge and advised the boys to
walk. "Everybody was against the college boys," he declared, "and looked
upon it as legitimate to take advantage of them in every possible
manner." But Will only laughed in response and made no protests though
he was as thoroughly wearied as his companion.
At last the lights of the college could be seen and shortly after ten
o'clock they arrived at their dormitory. "We'll remember this walk, I
take it," said Mott glumly as he turned toward his room.
"We certainly shall," replied Will. "The 'longevity' of that old farmer
was something wonderful."
"Bother his longevity!" exclaimed Mott as he turned quickly away.
Left to himself Will slowly climbed the stairs until he arrived at his
own room, but as he was about to enter he suddenly stopped and listened
intently to the sound of voices within. Surely he knew that voice, he
thought, and in an instant opened the door and burst into the room.
Seated in the easy-chair was his father. Instantly Will's weariness was
forgotten and with a shout he rushed upon his visitor throwing his arm
about his neck and laughing in a way that may have served to keep down a
stronger emotion.
"How long have you been here?" he demanded. "Where's mother? When did
you come? How's everybody at home? Anything wrong? My, but I'm glad to
see you! How long are you going to stay?"
The questions and exclamations fell from Will's lips in such confusion
that it was impossible to reply and even Foster who was in the room
joined in the laugh with which his room-mate's excitement was greeted.
"Not too fast, Will," laughed his father. "I had to come near here on
business and I thought it would be a good thing to stop at Winthrop over
night and have a little visit with my boy. I didn't know that I should
be able to have one," he added smilingly, "for he wasn't anywhere to be
found."
"I'm sorry! I wish I'd known it. I've been out for a walk with Mott. And
we certainly have had one!" he added as he recounted some of the
experiences of the afternoon.
His recital was greeted with laughter and even Will himself could enjoy
it now that it was all past and he was once more safe in his room. For
an hour Mr. Phelps remained in the room listening to the tales of the
boys of their new life in the college, laughing as he heard of their
pranks, and deeply interested in all they had to relate. At last when he
arose to go to his room in the village hotel, he promised to come and
attend church in the morning with the boys and then explained that he
would have two hours to spend with Will on the morning following as his
train did not leave until half-past ten.
"But I have a recitation the first hour," said Will blankly. "I'll 'cut'
it, though, for it isn't every day one has his daddy with him, and I
wouldn't lose a minute of your time here, pop, for ten hours with old
Splinter. I have Greek, you know, the first hour in the morning. Oh,
I've got 'cuts' to burn," he added hastily as an unspoken protest
appeared in the expression on his father's face. "You needn't worry
about that."
"I don't want you to lose any recitation because I am here," said his
father quietly. "I sha'n't want to come again if my coming interferes
with your work, and as it is I have serious doubts--"
"All right, pop," replied Will patting his father affectionately on the
shoulder. "I'll go to Splinter's class, though I know he'll 'go for' me
too. I won't do a thing that'll ever keep you from showing up here in
Winthrop again."
On Monday morning after the exercises in the chapel, Mr. Phelps went to
Will's room and waited till the hour should pass and the eager-hearted
boy should return. As the great clock in the tower rang out the hour he
arose and stood in front of the window peering out across the campus at
the building where Will was at work, but the stroke had scarcely ceased
before he beheld the lad run swiftly down the steps and speed along the
pathway toward his room as if he were running for a prize. The
expression in the man's eyes was soft and there was also a suspicious
moisture in them as well as he watched his boy. Was it only a dream or
reality? Only a few short years ago and he had been an eager-hearted boy
speeding over the same pathway (he smiled as he thought how the "speed"
was never displayed on his way to the recitation building), and now it
was his own boy who was sharing in the life of old Winthrop and
doubtless he himself was in the minds of the young students relegated to
that remote and distant period when the "old grads" were supposed to be
young. Doubtless to them it was a time as remote as that when Homer's
heroes contended in battle or the fauns and satyrs peopled the wooded
hills and plains. And yet how vital it all was to him. He watched the
groups of students moving across the campus, and as the sound of their
shouts or laughter or the words of some song rose on the autumn air, it
seemed to the man that he needed only to close his eyes and the old life
would return--a life so like the present that it did not seem possible
that a great gulf of thirty years lay between.
Mr. Phelps' meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Will, who
burst into the room with the force of a small whirlwind.
"Here I am, pop!" he exclaimed as he tossed his books upon his couch and
threw his cap to the opposite side of the room. "Old Splinter stuck me
good this morning, but I can stand it as long as you are here."
"Who is Splinter?"
"Why, don't you know? I thought everybody knew Splinter. He's our
professor of Greek and the biggest fraud in the whole faculty."
"What's the trouble with him?" Mr. Phelps spoke quietly but there was
something in his voice that betrayed a deeper feeling and one that Will
was quick to perceive and that gave him a twinge of uneasiness as well.
"Oh, he's hard as nails. He must have 'ichor' in his veins, not blood. I
don't believe he ever was a boy. He must have been like Pallas Athenæ.
Wasn't she the lady that sprang full-fledged from the brain of Zeus?
Well, I've a notion that Splinter yelled in Greek when he was a baby.
That is, if he ever was an infant, and called for his bottle in dactylic
hexameter. Oh, I know lots about Greek, pop," laughed Will as his father
smiled. "I know the alphabet and a whole lot of things even if Splinter
thinks I don't."
"Doesn't he think you know much about your Greek?"
"Well, he doesn't seem to be overburdened with the weight of his opinion
of me. He just looks upon me, I'm afraid, as if I was not a bright and
shining light. 'Learn Greek or grow up in ignorance,' that's the burden
of his song, and I've sometimes thought that about all the fun he has in
life is flunking freshmen."
"How about the freshmen?"
"You mean me? Honestly, pop, I haven't done very well in my Greek; but I
don't think it's all my fault. I've worked on it as I haven't worked on
anything else in college. I've done my part, but Splinter doesn't seem
to believe it. What am I going to do about it?"
Will in spite of his light-hearted ways, was seriously troubled and his
father was silent for a brief time before he responded to the boy's
question.