gone as far as to pick out the site--off in Cresheim Valley. We should
have to select our teachers with the utmost care. They must be gifted
to communicate freely with children. Communication is everything. I
don’t care much about what they know, although we must have skill
there, too, especially in art work and languages; but the main thing
in teaching is not knowledge, but wisdom.”
Mrs. Levering voiced the discontent of parents with schools as they are
and expressed the belief that there would be no difficulty in securing
paying pupils.
“It would be a great joy to spend one’s life at that task,” he mused.
“Why don’t you?” Kate inquired quietly.
Well, he was a professor of English; that was the first reason. His
studies had all been to prepare him for scholarship. One could not go
against one’s life preparation. The main reason seemed to be the matter
of expense. Elisha might begin such an undertaking, but not without the
ravens. It costs money even to do good. To open such a school and keep
it going would require a never-ending store of health and good cheer.
The vitality of the staff would be absolutely essential to its life.
Worry over money or, worse, the necessity of putting good energy into
outside work--that would wear down the most courageous spirit and would
mean slow failure.
But his mind was on the theme. He sketched the ideal environment
for children as he saw it clear before him. There should be much
out-of-doors, and glorious muscle-stretching play; health should
come first, and then the searching discovery of individual aptitude.
The world’s store of necessary information would be transferred as
naturally and as imperceptibly as growth. The children would never once
object; the enormous turbines of curiosity would actually drive them
along; give a child half a chance and he will question himself into
intelligence.
And what a pace these youngsters would travel! He had one boy--one of
his “cases” whom he taught personally and by correspondence--who had
done four years of grammar school work in eight months.
“He was not forced,” Blynn explained; “he was enticed to discover his
speed. We dawdle mightily in our long years of preparation. Think of
deciding before you were born that you must not study fractions until
you are eleven years of age! You should see some of my six-year-old
lads eat up fractions! They love ’em! Especially the vulgar and the
improper ones!”
“Allen Blynn,” Kate remarked, “with all your gift for discovering the
genius of others, you haven’t found out your own ability.”
“And what is that, pray?”
“At heart you’re not really a college professor--”
“I believe you,” earnestly. “I’m afraid I ‘profess’ for a livelihood
and for the excitement that’s in it. The racket I’ve stirred up in
Holden; phew! But what can I do?” he spread out his hands pathetically.
“I am ‘professing’ because scholarship is not endowed. Scholarship and
teaching! They are the antipodes! Scratch a fine scholar and you’ll
probably find a wretched teacher.”
“I doubt if you are even a scholar,” she persisted.
“Please be more careful, Keyser,” Mrs. Levering looked up from her
sewing. “You mustn’t be flippant, you know. That’s _one_ of the things
the Leverings do not do, whatever else they may be guilty of.”
“I’m very much in earnest, mother,” Kate continued. “Allen Blynn is a
genius with little children. He should be a primary teacher, that’s--”
“Gracious!” Mrs. Levering stared. “Why not hire him as a coachman or
gardener! Primary teacher! That’s a sort of public nursery governess,
isn’t it?”
Blynn was regarding Kate in deep perplexity.
“Remember Pestalozzi,” she ignored her mother. “You have just his
spirit and just his gift. You have something of his face, too. Oh, I
know they say he was a plain man, but they called Lincoln that. Few
people understand the beauty of ruggedness--”
“Thanks,” he bowed.
“Children always understand. And they thoroughly comprehend you, Allen
Blynn. I have watched you at your work. It’s--it’s just great! That’s
_your_ job, sir!”
“Oh, I hope you’re right,” he glowed innocently. “Wouldn’t it be fine!
You could help-- There! That’s your job, madam!”
“And Gorgas could do the shop end--” Kate put in enthusiastically.
“And Bardek!” remembered Allen. “Wouldn’t he be a cracker-jack at the
languages!--”
“And Mac,” remarked Mrs. Levering satirically. “He could teach
horsemanship and stabling.”
“Why not!” exclaimed both Kate and Allen. “Mac cares for horses the
way everybody should care for children,” said one. “He’s the sort of
teacher I should want for myself,” said the other.
And so they chattered until Allen remembered that the lack of funds
stood forever in the way.
“But I couldn’t finance it,” he concluded gloomily. “I’m no good at the
money business. If a man owed me fifty dollars--there are several who
do!--I’d never get it unless he volunteered to pay. That’s the reason I
enjoy my ‘cases’ so much. If anyone forced me to accept money I would
decamp. I have no financial ability.”
“Neither had Pestalozzi,” Kate reminded him.
“To be sure he hadn’t,” he mused. “But that’s why he failed.”
“But he didn’t have a manager.”
“Neither have I.”
“Let me take the post?”
For the first time Mrs. Levering saw some sense in their talk. A secret
admiration for the daughter’s astuteness almost showed in her face.
“Just you let Keyser manage for you, Mr. Blynn,” the mother nodded her
head significantly. “She runs this house--and everybody in it. When it
comes to money Keyser can do wonders on nothing.”
“I can believe it,” laughed Blynn. “Pennsylvania-German thrift is
notorious. But how could you ‘manage’? We haven’t a red cent.”
“Let us see,” Kate searched among her sewing things for paper and
pencil. “What is your income outside of your salary at Holden?”
“How _can_ you be so impertinent?” the mother interfered.
“Oh, no,” Blynn urged. “This is not impertinent, it’s important. She
should ask that first. It will bring the school of cards down at the
first shot. Outside of salary and lectures and writings, my sure income
is exactly $96 per annum, the rental of Bardek’s house. I have a
half-dozen other small properties. Sometimes I have had as much as $600
a year. It practically put me through college. Of course, mother has
her own. Just at present I am pulling about $300. The reason I know is
that I have just had an annual report from the agent. But Bardek is the
only sure tenant. The dream’s up, my lady; oats is too high.”
“Do you think so?” she was calmly figuring. “Please let me do
the managering, if I am to be manager.” After a moment or two of
consideration she looked up satisfied. But first she asked questions.
They included a complete list of his “cases.” Alongside of each one she
checked those who could pay and those who could not.
“Here’s my scheme,” she showed him her paper. “I’ll rent you five acres
of woodland for the grounds. There’s a good stone house there. It
needs fixing up. I’ll attend to that. It’s just off the old mill above
Cresheim Creek, where the road forks and goes up, you know, at the top
of the hill.”
“‘Top-o’-the-Hill!’” he exclaimed. “We’ll call it ‘Top-o’-the-Hill.’
But,” ruefully, “where are we going to get the rent?”
“On the premises,” she continued. “I shall retain 51% of the stock
and demand one wild rose paid to me every year with proper literary
ceremonies.”
“A Pageant of the Wild Rose,” said he. “We shall crown you queen and
I will recite. Listen! Wouldn’t this be nice and lugubrious. It’s old
Dick Fanshawe’s fancy of complimenting his lady-love three hundred
years ago.”
He began with, “Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon”--but
she interrupted at the first line.
“I should particularly fancy that when I am growing aged and the petals
begin to drop off. But to come down to business,” the manager referred
to her paper; “would keeping up your outside lectures be too much for
you?”
“Not at all,” he rejoined. “That is mere play. I figured out once that
I could just about make a living by giving one or two series each year.”
“Well, then, that’s disposed of,” she resumed. “We could charge $100
a year to each pupil I have checked on this list, and let the others
come in free. Bardek and Gorgas and I would serve without pay. I don’t
need it and the other two are making lots of money. They really ought
to contribute something. We can guarantee you, with your lectures and
your rentals,” she verified carefully the totals in her memoranda, “two
thousand a year at the least, which ought to be enough. When we can
afford it we’ll take all your time. And we’ll see about those houses
of yours, too; just put them in my hands and I’ll boost your cash
account, I have some of that same sort of property myself and you bet
your buttons I don’t let any agent monkey with them.”
Gorgas bounded in with a roseate greeting, and after her gown had been
admired the project was gone over again.
“I’d love it,” she chirped. “Let me pay all the bills. I’ve got loads
of money.”
They talked of the business and of the proposal for awhile and then
drifted into an animated discussion of methods. The children must
spend the whole day with them. There would be a fine midday dinner, a
powerful educational instrument. They would teach the three r’s and
all the informational necessities, but they would also cultivate the
graces of cheerfulness, unselfishness, fair play, courage, restraint
and table manners. There should be no scoldings and no punishments;
and while they might talk and sing and even dance in languages, there
should be no conjugations! And there would be tree climbing, and
sledding, baseball and tennis and swimming and skating and riding, and
dancing, all a part of the course of study. They even got so far as
outlining a prospectus and selecting a name. Of a host of suggestions,
“Top-o’-the-Hill” remained first choice.
“It is from the top of that hill,” said Blynn, “that I always see
Whittier’s ‘dun files of Krisheim’s home-bound cows’ and hear them
clanking their bells up the rough road. Do you know, milady,” he turned
to Kate, “that John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a considerable poem on
our little Valley?”
“Did he?” she asked, with a smiling lack of interest. “I am not very
poetic, you know--just a practical person who owns some earth, the very
spot for your school.”
A messenger-boy bicycled slowly along the road, peering here and there
at houses on either side. He stopped to inquire at the Williams’ and
came back to the Levering gate. Mrs. Levering walked forward. Gorgas,
Kate, and Allen were lost in their discussion.
“It’s a telegram for you, Mr. Blynn,” Mrs. Levering handed him the
envelope. “Your mother sent him over here. It is prepaid. I have signed
for you.”
His face, after he had read the paper carefully, gave the three women a
fright, but he hastened to reassure them.
“Perhaps it is good news,” he said; “I don’t know. It really frightens
me.” He searched their faces hesitantly, then decided. “I am told to
keep this information strictly to myself, but I’m sure it will not do
harm to tell you, especially Gorgas and Kate, after all your beautiful
plans. I’m afraid they’re knocked sky-high. It is from Diccon. He is at
Holden now attending a special meeting of the trustees. Oh, it’s really
dreadful.”
He read:
“Strictly private information not yet made public. President Galt
will resign to take effect next term. He goes on retirement at
full salary. Trustees to engineer a monster farewell dinner of
alumni. He goes out covered with laurels. Says he recognizes time
to make a climax of his life-work and will leave the working out
of the new plans to younger hands. He is not unfavorable to you as
his successor. Straw vote of board shows you to be the candidate
of majority for presidency. Come to Holden immediately. Don’t see
anybody; don’t decide anything. Above all, don’t talk. Remember you
know nothing. Wire.
“DICCON.”
“How perfectly splendid!” exclaimed Mrs. Levering.
The other members of the group looked like a trio of sentenced convicts.
“How can you say that, mother!” Kate spoke sharply. “Everything was so
lovely--and now there’ll be no Top-o’-the-Hill.”
“It’s beastly,” snapped Gorgas. “I hate Holden; always did. Squabbling,
little, petty kid-factory.”
“It’s awful!” murmured the candidate of a majority of the trustees.
But eventually they talked off their disappointment and began to see
things from a less personal point of view. Blynn showed them the
absurdity of his own qualifications; there were other men in the
faculty to whom the elevation would be not only welcome but deserving.
“I am an accident,” he went on. “I got into the limelight. I took
other men’s ideas and had the spokesman rôle. Everybody understood;
I made no secret of it. Some folks can talk and others can’t. That’s
all there is to it.... I suppose I’m a dramatic sort of chap. Diccon
says I am. I get heated up with enthusiasm, the preacher in me comes
to the front, and I splutter figures of speech.... In my lectures it
comes out, and when I get the most applause,” he bowed his head, “I am
the most ashamed. I like to thrill ’em, work the stops, soft pedal,
_vox humana_ and all that. I don’t mean to play on their feelings. I
am honest with my own feelings but--there’s the trouble!--I do have
feelings; and I show ’em.
“It’s my running tongue that got me in this fix. Why does everybody put
such foolish value on the talker! Talkers ought to be suppressed!”
Gorgas came to her senses first.
“I’m over my mad now,” she said. “Of course, you’ve got to go, whether
you want to or not. They call it duty, I believe. That means something
disagreeable that your insides won’t let you shirk. You can’t back out,
Allen Blynn. I advised you to go to Holden. In fact, I had just this
thing in mind. I wanted you to be big and famous and talked about.
Well, you are. I’m not happy about it. This splendid idea of a school
in Cresheim Valley where we could all work together and be somebodies
ourselves--it’s an awful come-down to have to chuck it--”
“Gorgas!” mildly from Mrs. Levering. “That talk doesn’t go at all with
your lady-like clothes. I wish you wouldn’t say ‘chuck it.’”
“Mother, I’m almost tempted to say ‘Rats!’”
“Horrors!” the mother flung up her hands. “Say ‘chuck it’ if you must.
That other word is positively vulgar. I can’t see why so many nice
young boys and girls use such slang. Slang of the right sort, Mr.
Blynn, I don’t mind; but the latest corruptions of the language are
just low. Don’t toss those gloves on the ground, Gorgas, even if you do
pay for them yourself. You have no proper reverence for fine clothes.”
“I’m ready to swear, mother, at any moment. Look out!” Gorgas smiled
grimly.
“_Ein tousand ein hundred ein und zwanzig!_” helped Blynn. He was
beginning to recover from the shock.
“_Name of the name of a pipe!_” she added, and suggested, “Let’s talk
it over with Bardek.”
“Good!” everyone agreed, and they were off to the white cottage.
Bardek was riding both children on his back, a French lancer
charging flying Germans. The air was full of rippling French, fierce
manifestations of ancient hatred. The children were echoing every
annihilating threat.
“You see at once a lesson in patriotism and savagery and the French
language,” he explained after he had dismissed the cavalry. “The
professor has come back. Good!” He shook hands effusively. “Do not
be afraid. I will not kiss you. See! I hold myself back. It is for
me a lesson in courage; I subdue the flesh.” He beat his breast like
St. Jerome. “Sit, children,” he pointed to the collection of large
flat-topped rocks which flanked his door.
They talked all together and told him of “Top-o’-the-Hill” and the
imminent presidency of Holden. The latter topic did not reach Bardek at
all.
“That Top-o’-the-Hill,”--he called it “Tope-o-t’-Heel”--“it is grand!
I would like that--oh, so much. The ‘smithy’ it is good--it keep me
alive and it make me forget--but to teach the little children, zat,
my friends,” tears came to his eyes and his English went to pieces,
“is what I--it is what--in English I cannot,” he blurted in torrential
French. “That is what I am, teacher of children. In École Nouvelle at
Grenoble I taught the little ones the languages! I can do that; ah,
how well I can do that!--_I have the certificate of the University of
Naples!_” he roared, and struck an attitude. “_And I am bachelier ès
lettres de l’Université de Bordeaux!_”
The group was tremendously impressed. They told him so noisily, and
soothed his pride.
“But in my silliness,” he slipped into his normal self, “I fight the
big Austrian and then I must go away. This I should not tell you,
but--it is told.”
It was hard to break his enthusiasm. Little by little it came to
him that Top-o’-the-Hill was a dream. He held himself in with great
restraint while Holden and its presidency was put before him.
“You should go, my friend,” he advised quietly. “It is a great
honor--to be president of a big university and you so young. These
other little schools for little fellows, they can be made by anybody;
but the university, it is vairy important. When the time comes to
succeed, one must not go back of the gods who send things. I have
always had my will; I have laughed at fortune and I have been happy.
But I know what it is to have the great thought in the brain to go
up, up, up and be a man famous. They tell me you have that already.
They talk about you out in the great world there,” he seemed deeply
thoughtful over such honors. “And it is right. You are good. And you
should not turn away from the big world and be like ol’ Bardek, who
has nothings but for you kind friends. It is not always happy to be
exile and live like pig.... So we must not have the little school at
the top o’ the hill? It is a great pity--for me, and for the little
fellows. _Nom d’une pipe!_” he grew more and more agitated. “What a
thing to choose between, honors and presidents--and the little fellows.
Oh, it is nice to have your name in beeg preent and to have all the
little men bow and look up at you--but _nom du nom d’une pipe!_” His
agitation increased. “It would not do to make Bardek to choose. I would
put in one hand all the great nothings of the universities and poof!”
he blew savagely. “It is wort’ one good laugh--jus’ that.... But,”
he recovered himself, “men are not the same. And it is good. A world
full of Bardeks! Hoi, yoi! It would be the ol’ devil who would have
to laugh.... I do not want to discourage you, my friend. Go to your
little place. The world will call it with big name. Maybe you, after
while, will believe it, too. That is the way wit’ man. Go on! Be busy
all day at typewriter. Run! Hurry!... Smile and laugh when you would
better cry! Go up! Be success! But I am so sorry that we not have zat
Tope-o’-t’-Heel. _Nom d’une pipe!_”
Bardek turned abruptly and marched like a corporal of the guard
straight into his white cottage. Kate stepped on ahead down the path
and disappeared within the house. Gorgas pumped Allen’s hand at parting
as if to assure him that although convicted and sentenced she would
stand by him no matter what public opinion said.
“This spoils something else for me,” she said. “I can’t talk about it
now. Don’t ask. When do you go up to Holden?”
“Tonight, I fear,” he confessed guiltily.
“You will write to me?”
“Oh, I shall be gone for only a day or two, a week at the most. But
I’ll write anyway,” he read her face, “though you may have to be
satisfied with a dictated family letter.”
“That’s better than silence.”
He could think of nothing to say, he the much heralded talker! Her
rather heavy voice had given an intonation to the sentence which seemed
to hold it in the air. “That’s better than silence.”
“It sounds like the ending of Hamlet,” he managed to be gay. “‘The
rest is silence,’ you know. Goodby, child.”
“Aufwiederhören, mein guter Kamarade.”
“Aufwiederhören?” he repeated. “You shall hear from me if I have to
send couriers!”
BOOK FOUR
Canaan
“Speak when you’re spoken to!” the Queen sharply interrupted her.
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice ... “and if you only
spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for
_you_ to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything....”
XXIII
MY LORD AND EKE MY MASTER
But Gorgas did not hear from Allen Blynn, nor did he send couriers. For
nearly a week he permitted himself to be led about by Diccon in the
rôle of a “candidate,” growing each day more rebellious, and finally he
had decamped. There was one important luncheon “to meet Professor Allen
Blynn” which had to get along without its chief guest. The professor
had seized his grip and fled. Rumor had it that he had buried himself
in the University library, but Gorgas soon discovered that he had been
seen under his own shade trees with his young pupils; and there she
found him.
He looked older, she noted as she peered cautiously at him through
a hedge. And what was that on the end of his chin which waggled as
he talked? Mercy! It was the beginnings of a beard! That tuft was
certainly the sign of a man absorbed in his affairs or worried beyond
peradventure.
For some time she watched him through the hedge--“Getting used to the
chin-thing,” she told him later. Howard Croft, the cripple boy, was
reading aloud from a portentous history of philosophy; the two seemed
to be stopping at every sentence to talk it out. She had rarely seen
Allen Blynn so terribly in earnest.
When she finally stepped through the hedge and came up to the studious
pair, Allen gave her a nod, as much as to say, “Sit down and pretend to
be busy or you’ll frighten this shy bird off.”
For an hour she sketched beards of all nations, from Belshazzarian
curls to the latest French twist, adroitly arranging it so that the boy
could not see her.
“You like to make folks suffer, Allen Blynn,” Gorgas scolded gently
after the boy had gone. “How do you suppose the Leverings have stood
all this waiting for you to come over and tell us the latest? I just
couldn’t stand it any longer. If I don’t hear all about Holden and
other things I’ll blow up. I’m to take you back with me for dinner.
The old crowd--some of them--are to drop in. Oh, the papers have told
everything, so you needn’t fear.”
And all the time her mirthful eyes were fastened on his chin.
“I cannot talk about it,” his lips closed firmly. “It makes me ill even
to think of it. That’s why I have been working on the youngsters so
solidly. It’s the only antidote.”
She broke into sudden laughter. “It waggles when you talk.” She
imitated by thrusting her own chin up and down grotesquely. “Why--oh,
why did you do it?”
“Oh!” he came out of his perplexity. “My Van Dyke? A barber persuaded
me. My chin is all bristles, and it was too sensitive for shaving. He
fixed it this way, and I have forgotten to remove it.”
“I thought maybe it was penance for sins,” she choked back her laughter.
“Don’t you like it?”
“Yes,” she steadied herself. “I like--anything that’s funny!...
Wait.... I thought I was used to it, but I see it’ll take some time....
There! I’ll be good and won’t laugh at the big man. Come!” she tapped
him cheerfully on the arm. “Come along with me. We’ve wasted loads of
time already.... And trust that crowd for making you forget. When they
see that--whisker! oh!” she held her handkerchief to her mouth. “You
are _too_ funny, Allen Blynn! They’ll want you to talk all night--to
see--it go up and down!”
As they walked along the shaded streets, she ceased joking him, except
for an occasional mischievous peer around at the tufted chin. His good
humor was equal to hers; but they soon settled into a more serious chat.
The dinner had some of its old-time gaiety and irresponsibility. Morris
and Bea Wilcox were at the announcement stage and therefore open to
persistent raillery. Diccon was there to keep the topic away from
Holden, and Betty and Mary had brought their young husbands. Far in the
background, seated like an accustomed idol, Leopold smiled wisely over
the whole.
One may be sure that Blynn’s beard was greeted with excess of emotion.
Beards were a rarity then; they were restricted by tacit law to
dentists, young physicians, returning European tourists, and war
veterans.
Almost the only difference between these dinner-parties and the others
of five years ago was that they broke up earlier. There were trains to
catch; there was the next day’s work; and in some cases there had begun
to be babies to go back to. By ten o’clock Allen Blynn was alone with
the Leverings.
Everyone had avoided the topic of Holden with obvious premeditation.
Diccon had passed the word along to “drop it,” but in the more intimate
situation with the Leverings questions were bound to arise.