THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM
"I was aware that you were having trouble with your Greek," said Mr.
Phelps quietly, "and that was one of my reasons for stopping over here."
"You were? How did you know?"
"I had received word from the secretary of the faculty. He sent me a
formal note announcing that your work was so low that it was more than
probable you would fail in your mid-year examination."
For a moment Will Phelps was silent. His face became colorless and his
heart seemed almost to rise in his throat. Fail in his mid-year's? A
"warning" sent home to his father? To the inexperienced young student it
seemed for a moment as if he was disgraced in the eyes of all his
friends. He knew that his work had been of a low grade, but never for a
moment had he considered it as being at all serious. So many of his
newly formed friends in the college had been speaking of their
conditions and low grades as a matter of course and had referred to them
laughingly, much as if they were good jokes to be enjoyed that Will too
had come almost to feel that his own trouble was not a serious one. And
Splinter was the one to be blamed for the most of it, he was convinced.
The words of his father, however, had presented the matter in an
entirely different light, and his trouble was vastly increased by its
evident effect upon him. Will's face was drawn and there was an
expression of suffering upon it as he glanced again at his father and
said:
"What shall I do? Will it drop me out of college?"
"I think not necessarily. You must pass off more than half your hours to
enable you to keep on with your class; but failure in one study will not
bring that of itself, for your Greek is a four-hour course. But the
matter is, of course, somewhat serious and in more ways than one."
"Yes, I know it," replied Will despondently.
"Well, if you know it, that's half the battle won already. The greatest
trouble with most unsuccessful men is that they have never learned what
their own weaknesses and limitations are. But you say you know, and I
wish you'd tell me what you think the chief difficulty is."
"My Greek," said Will, trying to smile.
"But what's the trouble with the Greek?"
"The trouble is that the Greek troubles me. I suppose the Greek is all
right and I'm all wrong."
"In what way?"
"I don't know it as I ought to."
"Is that 'Splinter's' fault?"
"No, it's mine. You know how hard I worked in the closing half of my
last year in the high school, but that didn't, and I suppose couldn't,
make up for what I hadn't done before."
"Are you working hard now?"
"On my Greek?"
"Yes."
"I'm putting more time on that than on everything else."
"I didn't ask you about the 'time,' but about the work."
"Why, yes. I don't just see what you mean. I spend three hours on my
Greek every day we have it."
"It's one thing to 'spend the time' and another to work. Some men will
accomplish more in an hour than others will in three."
"I do my best," said Will gloomily. He felt almost as if his father was
unfair with him and was disposed to question what he had said.
"Now, Will," said Mr. Phelps quietly, but in a tone of voice which his
boy clearly understood, "it would be an easy thing for me to smooth over
this matter and make light of it, but my love and interest in you are
too strong to permit me to think of that for a moment. I believe in you,
my boy, but there are some things in which I cannot aid you, some things
which you must learn and do for yourself. Last year you faced your
crisis as a man should, and I believe you will face this one too."
"It seems as if there was always something to be faced."
"There is. That's it, exactly. My boy, Splinter, as you call your
professor in Greek, is not limited to the faculty of Winthrop College.
In one form or another he presents himself all through your life. His
name is simply that of the perpetual problem."
"I don't see, then--" interrupted Will.
"No, you don't see; but it is just because I do, and I am your father,
that I am talking in this way. Why do you think I have sent you to
college? It isn't for the name of it, or for the fun you will get out of
it, or even for the friendships you will form here, though every one of
these things is good in itself. It is to have you so trained, or rather
for you so to train yourself, that when you go out from Winthrop you
will be able to meet the very problems of which I am speaking and master
them. They come to all, and the great difference in men is really in
their ability to solve these very things. I think it is Emerson who
says, 'It is as easy for a large man to do large things as it is for a
small man to do small things.' And that is what I want for you, my boy,
the ability to do the greater things."
"But I'll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in
its place."
"Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is
a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to
overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim.
There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled
to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come
to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that's the part of a
coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that's the part of
the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found
out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it.
Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he
must, and there is no escape."
"You think I ought to hit it between the eyes?"
"Yes, though I should not put it in quite that way," said his father
with a smile.
"I'd like to smash it! I don't like it! I'll never make a Greek scholar,
and I detest Splinter. He's as dry as a bone or a Greek root! He hasn't
any more juice than a piece of boiled basswood!"
"That does not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to
choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will meet it."
"I suppose that's so," said Will quietly. "But it doesn't make it any
easier."
"Not a bit."
"I know what you would say."
"Then it isn't necessary for me to say another word. There's one thing I
am thankful for, Will, and that is that you and I are such good friends
that we can talk this trouble all over together. The dean was telling me
this morning--"
"Have you seen the dean?" interrupted Will quickly. "What did he say?"
"The dean was telling me," resumed Mr. Phelps smiling and ignoring the
interruption, "that he sees so many of what might be termed the tragical
elements of college life, that he sometimes feels as if he could not
retain his position another day. Fathers and mothers broken-hearted,
boys discouraged or worse, but the most tragical experience of all, he
says, is to try to deal with fathers who have no special interest in
their boys, and between whom there is no confidence. Whatever troubles
may come to us, Will, I am thankful that that at least will not be one
of them."
As he spoke Mr. Phelps arose, for the machine which was to convey him to
the station could now be seen approaching and the time of his departure
had arrived. His good-bye was hastily spoken for he knew how hard it
would be for Will to be left behind, and in a brief time he had taken
his seat in the auto. He saw Will as he hastily ran back to his room and
then he could see him as he stood by the window in his room watching the
departing auto as long as it could be seen. He gave no signal to show
that he saw his boy, but his own eyes were wet as he was carried swiftly
down the street, as he thought of the predicament in which Will was and
how the testing-time had come again. But the young student must be left
to fight out his battle alone. To save him from the struggle would be to
save him from the strength. If it were only possible for a father to
save his boy by assuming his burden, how thankful he would be, was Mr.
Phelps' reflection, but he was too wise a man and too good a father to
flinch or falter now, and, though his heart was heavy, he resolutely
kept on his way leaving Will to fight his own battle, and hoping that
the issue would be as he most fervently desired.
Left to himself, for a moment Will was almost despondent. The departure
of his father seemed to leave the loneliness intensified, but he was
recalled as he heard some one run up the stairway and rush into the
room. His visitor was Mott, and perhaps the sophomore almost
instinctively felt that his presence was not welcome, for he said:
"Governor gone, Phelps? Hope he left a good-sized check with you! I've
come over to be the first to help you get rid of it."
"What's the trouble?" inquired Will quietly, glancing up as he spoke.
"Your money all gone? Want to borrow some?"
"I'm always ready for that," laughed Mott, "though I'll have to own up
that I've got a few cents on hand yet. No, I don't know that I want to
borrow any; but I thought you might want a little help in getting rid of
that check, and I'd just run over to oblige you. Just pure missionary
work, you see." Mott seated himself in the large easy-chair and
endeavored to appear at his ease, though to Will it still seemed as if
there was something which still troubled his visitor.
"I haven't any special check."
"That's all right. My 'old man' never has been up to see me since I
entered Winthrop, but as I look around at the fellows whose fathers and
mothers have been up, I've noticed that they're usually pretty flush
right after the old gentleman departs."
"Hasn't your mother ever been up?" inquired Will in surprise.
"No. Why should she? She hasn't any time to bother with me. She's on
more than forty boards, and is on the 'go' all the time. She has to
attend all sorts of 'mothers' meetings' too, and I believe she has a
lecture also, which she gives."
"A lecture?"
"Yes. She has a lecture on 'The proper method of bringing up boys.' How
do you suppose she ever has any time to visit me?" Mott laughed as if
the matter was one of supreme indifference to him, but Will fancied that
he could detect a feeling of bitterness beneath it all. For himself, the
condition described by the sophomore seemed to him to be incredible. His
own relations with his father had been of the frankest and most friendly
nature. Indeed, it never occurred to him in a time of trouble or
perplexity that there was any one else to whom he so naturally could go
as to his own father. Since he had entered Winthrop, however, he had
discovered several who were not unlike Mott in their feelings toward
their own families; and as Mott spoke he almost unconsciously found a
feeling of sympathy arising in his heart for him. Some of his apparently
reckless deeds could be explained now.
"Mott, you must go home with me next vacation," he said impulsively.
"That's good of you, but it's too far off to promise. Say, Phelps,
what's become of that man Friday of yours?"
"Who's he?"
"Schenck."
"Oh, he's flourishing."
"He's the freshest freshman that ever entered Winthrop. What do you
suppose he had the nerve to say to me to-day?"
"I can't imagine."
"Well, he told me that he thought the Alpha Omega was the best
fraternity in college, and that he'd made up his mind to join it."
As this was the fraternity to which Mott himself belonged, Will laughed
as he said, "Oh, well, don't be too hard with Peter John. He doesn't
know any better now, but he'll learn."
"That's what he will," replied Mott with a very decided shake of his
head. "I thought I'd come over to tell you that the sophomore-freshmen
meet is to come off on Saturday afternoon."
"Not next Saturday?" exclaimed Will aghast.
"Yes, that's the very day."
"They told me it wasn't to be for two weeks yet."
"All the same it's on Saturday. I thought I'd tell you, though I'm going
to do my best to keep you from winning your numerals."
Mott rose and departed from the room, and when Foster returned he found
his room-mate hard at work, with his Greek books spread out on the desk
before him.