MICHAELMAS TERM
This late talk with Carroll did more toward putting Tony at his ease in
the school than perhaps anything that happened to him. From that time
on he became very friendly with his room-mate—all the better friends
doubtless because they always maintained toward each other a certain
reserve, due rather to Carroll’s involuntary elaborateness of manner
than to any deliberate effort on their part. All the better also was it
that real as was their mutual regard for each other neither had that
enthusiastic affection that school boys so frequently experience, and
of which Tony was already aware in another direction. For just such a
friendship quickly developed between him and Jimmie Lawrence.
He has missed one of the purest joys of life who has not known the
delights of an enthusiastic boyish friendship. It has its sweetnesses,
its fears and scruples, as has every other love; but there is a
cloudless carelessness about its happy days as about no other period of
life. For Tony, in that first Indian summer at Deal to wander off from
the common fields with Jimmie Lawrence, into unfamiliar haunts, into
the enchanted region of Lovel’s Woods, or along the rocky kelp-strewn
shores of the Strathsey River or the tawny beaches of the Neck, was a
joy pure and unalloyed.
Among others Carroll watched the development of this friendship with
interest. Carroll was not the sort to give his affection quickly in
such whole-hearted fashion, though he cared deeply enough about things,
he thought. He neither approved nor disapproved of his room-mate’s
devotion to Jimmie, certainly was not jealous of it. If such things
must be—he had a way of smiling with his assumed air of cynicism
when friendship was mentioned—why he supposed Jimmie Lawrence was as
worthy of Tony’s devotion as the next boy. Carroll never spoke of this
friendship to Tony, but tactfully began to welcome Jimmie as a visitor
to their rooms during that fall term. To his own form-mates he referred
to his study as “the kindergarten.” He did, however, speak unusually
frankly to Tony of another friendship which that youth appeared to have
made. They had wandered toward the beach one evening. Football practice
was just over; Tony had had his bath and was glowing a beautiful pink
and white in the soft air of the Indian summer twilight.
“Do you know,” said Carroll, flecking at the pebbles in the sands, as
they stopped at the creek, “that you have made a great hit with our
beloved Bill?”
Tony laughed. “Bill’s made a great hit with me, I may say. But
doubtless that’s plain enough.”
“Oh, perfectly,” answered Carroll who was used to boys liking
Mr. Morris, “but it has never been evident before that Bill has
particularly cared for one of us rather than for another; he has been
extraordinarily decent to everyone with whom he has to do, just as
Gumshoe has been extraordinarily odious. For myself, I have always
disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it
expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a
universal _in loco parentis_, a grim determination to make people think
every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible,
and as undesirable as it is unreal. Witness, Gumshoe really makes me
grateful to him, despite his native hideousness, because he never
addresses me without a sarcastic snarl or an odious grin as though I
were amusing him. One understands that amusement.”
“Oh, quite,” said Tony, absently.
Reggie did not like these little interjections in his monologue. “Don’t
assume to be paying attention,” he commented now. “I know of course
that you are not until I get back to you. Don’t think it necessary to
assent. I am accustomed to talking without being listened to.”
“Oh, dry up, Reggie, go on with Bill—what about him?”
“Ah, I thought our curiosity had been aroused. This, little one; he had
succeeded better than most people in liking a good many fellows, with
the result of course that the fellows really like him. But, for you,
his liking is more patent than usual. I congratulate you—not to say, I
envy you.”
“Nonsense,” began Tony.
“Cultivate him, my boy.”
“Oh, I mean to do that,” Deering answered. “Tell me, do you like Mr.
Morris, Reggie; you’re such a—”
“I, oh I adore him,—in my way; but even so much is between you and
me. He is a demi-god, the superman. As for me, I amuse him, interest
him, baffle him a little, I hope; but he will never be fond of me. It
will be a relief to Bill when I get out of his house.”
“Don’t you think it’s just that he’s never been sure whether or not he
could trust you?” asked Tony.
Carroll for once started. “Trust me? Good heavens, Deering, I imagine
the man takes me for a gentleman.”
“Oh, of course, that—I meant rather in other ways; if he counts on you
to help out....”
“Oh!” Carroll exclaimed, with a tone of relief, “I dare say not.... I
dare say not....” And for a while he seemed to think rather seriously.
Tony wondered to himself how he had happened to stumble on what
doubtless was a sore spot with his room-mate in his relation to the
house-master. As for Carroll’s talk about Mr. Morris’s good opinion,
Tony only took that half seriously. He hoped it was true, of course.
Tony liked to be liked, as perhaps most people do.
Those were really golden days for him, which he was always to recall
with a peculiar sense of pleasure. He was consciously happier than he
had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain
family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that
first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost
by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood
on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the
sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and
a quivering ocean, it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and
tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School.
He was quick and sensible enough to keep his classroom work up to the
average, and though he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, he
suffered very little from detention or pensums, those popular devices
for the torture of the dull and the lazy. He had his long afternoons
free, save for football. And football in that day, under what Tony
ever felt was a wise dispensation of the Head’s, was never allowed to
absorb more than an hour, except when a game was on. As it was, he
always had a good hour or so of daylight in which with a congenial
companion,—Jimmie, or Kit, or Carroll, often,—he could explore the
surrounding country. And this for Tony soon became the most fascinating
way of spending his time. Before the Michaelmas term was over he had
got to know every path and by-way for five miles roundabout. To a boy
who had eyes as well as wits there was a plenty to interest him in
the region about Deal;—the bold and varied shore, with its rocks and
beaches, its coves and caves, its points and necks, the abode of wild
fowl of the sea; the rolling fertile country to the north; Lovel’s
Woods; the quiet waters of Deal Great Pond; the quaint streets of the
old town of Monday Port, with its rotting wharves and empty harbor.
This strange old town, despite everywhere the lingering touch of the
summer invasion, with its suggestion of a vanished trade, in the winter
was bereft of all save its memories of a bygone order of things; and
with these memories, to an imaginative boy, the town seemed heavy.
It required a special permission and a good excuse for any of the
schoolboys, except the Sixth, to get the freedom of its streets. Tony
was especially keen for such excuses and such freedom. His first walk
there had been with Mr. Morris, who seemed to know the intimate stories
of its houses, to be familiar with all its little secrets. In less
conventional conversations Tony planned escapades for that direction;
but as yet nothing very definite suggested itself. The penalties for
being caught in Monday Port without the good excuse were considered
excessive and usually not worth the risk. Mr. Morris had a glorious
tale of the days when he was a schoolboy at Deal, of the actual
exodus from the school by night of the whole Fifth, the boarding of a
schooner that had lain dreaming in the sleepy harbor for a day or so, a
thrilling sail into the open, and the overhauling of the pirate crew by
the Head in a steam-launch. Those were the good old days of birching,
and yes, Mr. Morris had caught it. He had smiled at the memory as if it
were a pleasant one.
Golden days that more and more took the aspect of holidays as midst
school strain and throbbing excitement, they drew near the day of the
“great game” with Boxford, the rival school across the Smoke mountains.
It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the
School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a
vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat
and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He
had watched his play for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form
team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one
of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the
first month found Tony a member of the School squad.
To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be
able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn
at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge
man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest
days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed.
And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the
Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on
Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to
the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world
to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold
out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he
would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a
new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the
line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in
Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few
nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the
advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself,
he nevertheless was a greenhorn.
His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the
way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him;
on the other hand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a
good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed
Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that
took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful
running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy
rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but
he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due
that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality
of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it
was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,”
a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans
know—but that’s another story.
In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony
nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky
toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that
Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly.
This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite
his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them.
Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s
“whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the
Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse
to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.
Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one
evening after supper, and joined them as they walked around the
terrace in the moonlight.
“I say, you fellows,” he began, plunging _in medias res_—Carroll
always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on
young Deering?”
Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the
moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve
no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes
to school, as you seem to have.”
“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that
when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has,
you might show a little—well, appreciation.”
“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the
hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford
game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to
Kingsbridge instanter.”
“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know
it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?”
he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to
snubbing him.”
Marsh gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, Arty and me hang together,” he said
lamely.
“Well, that is more than you can say for your English,” remarked
Carroll, with a contemptuous smile, and turned away.
Chapin followed him up, and laid an arm upon his shoulder. “Look here,
Reggie,” he exclaimed, “don’t let’s bicker about this kid. I don’t like
him, but what difference need that make between us? We have stuck
pretty close these four years. Come on now, let’s slip down to the
cave, hit the pipe, and talk things over.”
“No, thank you,” replied Carroll briefly.
“Come on, Reggie, do,” put in Marsh, “we’ve bagged a bottle of wine
to-day, and we’ll bust it to-night in your honor.”
“Thanks, no; seductive as your offering is, I rather fancy you may
count me out of your little meetings in the future.” And with the words
Carroll went on his way.
The two boys looked after him a moment, until he entered the Old
School, when Chapin exclaimed, with an oath, “Let him go, Harry; we’ll
count him out all right; but we’ll get even with his cub.”
Marsh murmured an assent, but hung back a little when Chapin renewed
the proposal to visit the cave on the beach. “Don’t let us go to-night,
Art; remember you’re in training.”
“The deuce with training. What’s the use of banging your head against a
football for a month if a greenhorn like that is to be shoved into the
front row at the last moment. I’m going to have some fun nights, and
you’ll see, I shall be as fit as a fiddle in the morning anyway.” And
as he spoke, he drew Marsh’s arm within his, and together they started
for the beach.
From that day Carroll avoided them, a circumstance that did not
increase their friendliness toward Tony. It had been comparatively
easy at the time for Reginald to take the course he did, but as the
days came and went, he began to miss the companionship of Chapin and
Marsh more than he cared to acknowledge. Although naturally there was
little in common between them, for so long a time he had identified
himself with them and their crowd,—attracted by their willingness
to engage upon any lark however wild and their keenness to avoid
school rules, a process to which his own languid existence had been
secretly dedicated,—that he keenly missed the nefarious exploits their
companionship afforded. To be sure he had stopped smoking, he was
bracing up a bit and helping Mr. Morris out with the discipline of the
house, but beyond that he craved as ardently as ever the excitement and
adventure of his more careless days.
At that moment he was ripe to have entered into a closer intimacy with
Tony, or even with Mr. Morris. But Deering was absorbed in the life
of his form, and except at night he and Carroll had no opportunity of
being together, and then Tony was so tired out with football practice
that by “lights” he was ready to tumble into bed. And so they fell
quite out of the way of having nocturnal talks. Mr. Morris had a great
liking for Carroll, despite his obvious faults, but he had long since
given up the hope of knowing him better, of getting beyond Carroll’s
supercilious reserve and too-elaborate courtesy. The consequence was
that he detected no change now in the boy’s attitude and failed to
make the advances that Carroll would have responded to so readily. For
the first time Carroll became seriously dissatisfied with his life at
school. He was really bored, as he had always pretended to be, and
also lonely, which of course he did not acknowledge, even to himself.
He was a little inclined to think in his heart that his half-conscious
efforts at reform were not worth while. However he decided to stick
it out for the year at any rate, and settled down to the monotonous
routine with an air of indifference, and kept steadily away from his
old companions.