Billy got up early. As he plunged into his cold bath he envied his
room-mate, who could remain at rest indefinitely, while his own hard lot
was hurrying him to prayers and breakfast and Oscar’s inexorable notes.
He sighed once more as he looked at the beauty of the new morning
and felt its air upon his cheeks. He and Bertie belonged to the same
club-table, and they met there mournfully over the oatmeal. This very
hour to-morrow would see them eating their last before the
examination in Philosophy 4. And nothing pleasant was going to happen
between,--nothing that they could dwell upon with the slightest
satisfaction. Nor had their sleep entirely refreshed them. Their eyes
were not quite right, and their hair, though it was brushed, showed
fatigue of the nerves in a certain inclination to limpness and disorder.
“Epicharmos of Kos
Was covered with moss,”
remarked Billy.
“Thales and Zeno
Were duffers at keno,”
added Bertie.
In the hours of trial they would often express their education thus.
“Philosophers I have met,” murmured Billy, with scorn And they ate
silently for some time.
“There’s one thing that’s valuable,” said Bertie next. “When they spring
those tricks on you about the flying arrow not moving, and all the rest,
and prove it all right by logic, you learn what pure logic amounts to
when it cuts loose from common sense. And Oscar thinks it’s immense. We
shocked him.”
“He’s found the Bird-in-Hand!” cried Billy, quite suddenly.
“Oscar?” said Bertie, with an equal shout.
“No, John. John has. Came home last night and waked me up and told me.”
“Good for John,” remarked Bertie, pensively.
Now, to the undergraduate mind of that day the Bird-in-Hand tavern was
what the golden fleece used to be to the Greeks,--a sort of shining,
remote, miraculous thing, difficult though not impossible to find, for
which expeditions were fitted out. It was reported to be somewhere in
the direction of Quincy, and in one respect it resembled a ghost: you
never saw a man who had seen it himself; it was always his cousin, or
his elder brother in ‘79. But for the successful explorer a dinner and
wines were waiting at the Bird-in-Hand more delicious than anything
outside of Paradise. You will realize, therefore, what a thing it was
to have a room-mate who had attained. If Billy had not been so dog-tired
last night, he would have sat up and made John tell him everything from
beginning to end.
“Soft-shell crabs, broiled live lobster, salmon, grass-plover,
dough-birds, and rum omelette,” he was now reciting to Bertie.
“They say the rum there is old Jamaica brought in slave-ships,” said
Bertie, reverently.
“I’ve heard he has white port of 1820,” said Billy; “and claret and
champagne.”
Bertie looked out of the window. “This is the finest day there’s been,”
said he. Then he looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes before
Oscar. Then he looked Billy hard in the eye. “Have you any sand?” he
inquired.
It was a challenge to Billy’s manhood. “Sand!” he yelled, sitting up.
Both of them in an instant had left the table and bounded out of the
house. “I’ll meet you at Pike’s,” said Billy to Bertie. “Make him give
us the black gelding.”
“Might as well bring our notes along,” Bertie called after his rushing
friend; “and get John to tell you the road.”
To see their haste, as the two fled in opposite directions upon
their errands, you would have supposed them under some crying call of
obligation, or else to be escaping from justice.
Twenty minutes later they were seated behind the black gelding and
bound on their journey in search of the bird-in-Hand. Their notes in
Philosophy 4 were stowed under the buggy-seat.
“Did Oscar see you?” Bertie inquired.
“Not he,” cried Billy, joyously.
“Oscar will wonder,” said Bertie; and he gave the black gelding a
triumphant touch with the whip.
You see, it was Oscar that had made them run go; or, rather, it was
Duty and Fate walking in Oscar’s displeasing likeness. Nothing easier,
nothing more reasonable, than to see the tutor and tell him they should
not need him to-day. But that would have spoiled everything. They did
not know it, but deep in their childlike hearts was a delicious sense
that in thus unaccountably disappearing they had won a great game, had
got away ahead of Duty and Fate. After all it did bear some resemblance
to an escape from justice. .
Could he have known this, Oscar would have felt more superior than ever.
Punctually at the hour agreed, ten o’clock he rapped at Billy’s door and
stood waiting, his leather wallet of notes nipped safe between elbow and
ribs. Then he knocked again. Then he tried the door, and as it was open,
he walked deferentially into the sitting room. Sonorous snores came from
one of the bedrooms. Oscar peered in and saw John; but he saw no Billy
in the other bed. Then, always deferential, he sat down in the sitting
room and watched a couple of prettily striped coats hanging in a
half-open closet.
At that moment the black gelding was flirtatiously crossing the
drawbridge over the Charles on the Allston Road. The gelding knew the
clank of those suspending chains and the slight unsteadiness of the
meeting halves of the bridge as well as it knew oats. But it could not
enjoy its own entirely premeditated surprise quite so much as Bertie and
Billy were enjoying their entirely unpremeditated flight from Oscar. The
wind rippled on the water; down at the boat-house Smith was helping
some one embark in a single scull; they saw the green meadows toward
Brighton; their foreheads felt cool and unvexed, and each new minute had
the savor of fresh forbidden fruit.
“How do we go?” said Bertie.
“I forgot I had a bet with John until I had waked him,” said Billy. “He
bet me five last night I couldn’t find it, and I took him. Of course,
after that I had no right to ask him anything, and he thought I was
funny. He said I couldn’t find out if the landlady’s hair was her own. I
went him another five on that.”
“How do you say we ought to go?” said Bertie, presently.
“Quincy, I’m sure.”
They were now crossing the Albany tracks at Allston. “We’re going to get
there,” said Bertie; and he turned the black gelding toward Brookline
and Jamaica Plain.
The enchanting day surrounded them. The suburban houses, even the
suburban street-cars, seemed part of one great universal plan of
enjoyment. Pleasantness so radiated from the boys’ faces and from their
general appearance of clean white flannel trousers and soft clean shirts
of pink and blue that a driver on a passing car leaned to look after
them with a smile and a butcher hailed them with loud brotherhood from
his cart. They turned a corner, and from a long way off came the sight
of the tower of Memorial Hall. Plain above all intervening tenements
and foliage it rose. Over there beneath its shadow were examinations
and Oscar. It caught Billy’s roving eye, and he nudged Bertie, pointing
silently to it. “Ha, ha!” sang Bertie. And beneath his light whip the
gelding sprang forward into its stride.
The clocks of Massachusetts struck eleven. Oscar rose doubtfully from
his chair in Billy’s study. Again he looked into Billy’s bedroom and at
the empty bed. Then he went for a moment and watched the still forcibly
sleeping John. He turned his eyes this way and that, and after standing
for a while moved quietly back to his chair and sat down with the
leather wallet of notes on his lap, his knees together, and his
unblocked shoes touching. In due time the clocks of Massachusetts struck
noon.
In a meadow where a brown amber stream ran, lay Bertie and Billy on the
grass. Their summer coats were off, their belts loosened. They watched
with eyes half closed the long water-weeds moving gently as the current
waved and twined them. The black gelding, brought along a farm road and
through a gate, waited at its ease in the field beside a stone wall.
Now and then it stretched and cropped a young leaf from a vine that grew
over the wall, and now and then the want wind brought down the fruit
blossoms all over the meadow. They fell from the tree where Bertie and
Billy lay, and the boys brushed them from their faces. Not very far away
was Blue Hill, softly shining; and crows high up in the air came from it
occasionally across here.
By one o’clock a change had come in Billy’s room. Oscar during that hour
had opened his satchel of philosophy upon his lap and read his notes
attentively. Being almost word perfect in many parts of them, he now
spent his unexpected leisure in acquiring accurately the language of
still further paragraphs. “The sharp line of demarcation which Descartes
drew between consciousness and the material world,” whispered Oscar with
satisfaction, and knew that if Descartes were on the examination paper
he could start with this and go on for nearly twenty lines before
he would have to use any words of his own. As he memorized, the
chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times already and had
gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained her indignation.
“Get up Mr. Blake!” she vociferated to the sleeping John; “you ought to
be ashamed!” And she shook the bedstead. Thus John had come to rise and
discover Oscar. The patient tutor explained himself as John listened in
his pyjamas.
“Why, I’m sorry,” said he, “but I don’t believe they’ll get back very
soon.”
“They have gone away?” asked Oscar, sharply.
“Ah--yes,” returned the reticent John. “An unexpected matter of
importance.”
“But, my dear sir, those gentlemen know nothing! Philosophy 4 is
tomorrow, and they know nothing.”
“They’ll have to stand it, then,” said John, with a grin.
“And my time. I am waiting here. I am engaged to teach them. I have been
waiting here since ten. They engaged me all day and this evening.
“I don’t believe there’s the slightest use in your waiting now, you
know. They’ll probably let you know when they come back.”
“Probably! But they have engaged my time. The girl knows I was here
ready at ten. I call you to witness that you found me waiting, ready at
any time.”
John in his pyjamas stared at Oscar. “Why, of course they’ll pay you the
whole thing,” said he, coldly; “stay here if you prefer.” And he went
into the bathroom and closed the door.
The tutor stood awhile, holding his notes and turning his little eyes
this way and that. His young days had been dedicated to getting the
better of his neighbor, because otherwise his neighbor would get the
better of him. Oscar had never suspected the existence of boys like John
and Bertie and Billy. He stood holding his notes, and then, buckling
them up once more, he left the room with evidently reluctant steps. It
was at this time that the clocks struck one.
In their field among the soft new grass sat Bertie and Billy some ten
yards apart, each with his back against an apple tree. Each had his
notes and took his turn at questioning the other. Thus the names of the
Greek philosophers with their dates and doctrines were shouted gayly in
the meadow. The foreheads of the boys were damp to-day, as they had been
last night, and their shirts were opened to the air; but it was the
sun that made them hot now, and no lamp or gas; and already they looked
twice as alive as they had looked at breakfast. There they sat, while
their memories gripped the summarized list of facts essential, facts to
be known accurately; the simple, solid, raw facts, which, should they
happen to come on the examination paper, no skill could evade nor any
imagination supply. But this study was no longer dry and dreadful to
them: they had turned it to a sporting event. “What about Heracleitos?”
Billy as catechist would put at Bertie. “Eternal flux,” Bertie would
correctly snap back at Billy. Or, if he got it mixed up, and replied,
“Everything is water,” which was the doctrine of another Greek, then
Billy would credit himself with twenty-five cents on a piece of paper.
Each ran a memorandum of this kind; and you can readily see how spirited
a character metaphysics would assume under such conditions.
“I’m going in,” said Bertie, suddenly, as Billy was crediting himself
with a fifty-cent gain. “What’s your score?”
“Two seventy-five, counting your break on Parmenides. It’ll be cold.”
“No, it won’t. Well, I’m only a quarter behind you.” And Bertie puffed
off his shoes. Soon he splashed into the stream where the bend made a
hole of some depth.
“Cold?” inquired Billy on the bank. Bertie closed his eyes dreamily.
“Delicious,” said he, and sank luxuriously beneath the surface with slow
strokes.
Billy had his clothes off in a moment, and, taking the plunge, screamed
loudly “You liar!” he yelled, as he came up. And he made for Bertie.
Delight rendered Bertie weak and helpless; he was caught and ducked; and
after some vigorous wrestling both came out of the icy water.
“Now we’ve got no towels, you fool,” said Billy.
“Use your notes,” said Bertie, and he rolled in the grass. Then they
chased each other round the apple trees, and the black gelding watched
them by the wall, its ears well forward.
While they were dressing they discovered it was half-past one, and
became instantly famished. “We should have brought lunch along,” they
told each other. But they forgot that no such thing as lunch could have
induced them to delay their escape from Cambridge for a moment this
morning. “What do you suppose Oscar is doing now?” Billy inquired of
Bertie, as they led the black gelding back to the road; and Bertie
laughed like an infant. “Gentlemen,” said he, in Oscar’s manner, “we
now approach the multiplicity of the ego.” The black gelding must have
thought it had humorists to deal with this day.
Oscar, as a matter of fact, was eating his cheap lunch away over in
Cambridge. There was cold mutton, and boiled potatoes with hard brown
spots in them, and large picked cucumbers; and the salt was damp and
would not shake out through the holes in the top of the bottle. But
Oscar ate two helps of everything with a good appetite, and between
whiles looked at his notes, which lay open beside him on the table.
At the stroke of two he was again knocking at his pupils’ door. But no
answer came. John had gone away somewhere for indefinite hours and
the door was locked. So Oscar wrote: “Called, two p.m.,” on a scrap
of envelope, signed his name, and put it through the letter-slit.
It crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but
he decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three
o’clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of
performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing
ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind.
This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon
it, “Called, three P.M.,” and signed it as before, and departed to his
room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.
Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of the
field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that they
could eat the native bill-of-fare as well as anybody. They found
some good, cool beer, moreover, and spoke to several people of
the Bird-in-Hand, and got several answers: for instance, that the
Bird-in-Hand was at Hingham; that it was at Nantasket; that they had
better inquire for it at South Braintree; that they had passed it a
mile back; and that there was no such place. If you would gauge
the intelligence of our population, inquire your way in a rural
neighborhood. With these directions they took up their journey after
an hour and a half,--a halt made chiefly for the benefit of the black
gelding, whom they looked after as much as they did themselves. For
a while they discussed club matters seriously, as both of them were
officers of certain organizations, chosen so on account of their
recognized executive gifts. These questions settled, they resumed the
lighter theme of philosophy, and made it (as Billy observed) a near
thing for the Causal law. But as they drove along, their minds left this
topic on the abrupt discovery that the sun was getting down out of the
sky, and they asked each other where they were and what they should
do. They pulled up at some cross-roads and debated this with growing
uneasiness. Behind them lay the way to Cambridge,--not very clear, to be
sure; but you could always go where you had come from, Billy seemed to
think. He asked, “How about Cambridge and a little Oscar to finish off
with?” Bertie frowned. This would be failure. Was Billy willing to go
back and face John the successful?
“It would only cost me five dollars,” said Billy.
“Ten,” Bertie corrected. He recalled to Billy the matter about the
landlady’s hair.
“By Jove, that’s so!” cried Billy, brightening. It seemed conclusive.
But he grew cloudy again the next moment. He was of opinion that one
could go too far in a thing.
“Where’s your sand?” said Bertie.
Billy made an unseemly rejoinder, but even in the making was visited by
inspiration. He saw the whole thing as it really was. “By Jove!” said
he, “we couldn’t get back in time for dinner.”
“There’s my bonny boy!” said Bertie, with pride; and he touched up
the black gelding. Uneasiness had left both of them. Cambridge was
manifestly impossible; an error in judgment; food compelled them to
seek the Bird-in-Hand. “We’ll try Quincy, anyhow,” Bertie said. Billy
suggested that they inquire of people on the road. This provided a new
sporting event: they could bet upon the answers. Now, the roads, not
populous at noon, had grown solitary in the sweetness of the long
twilight. Voices of birds there were; and little, black, quick brooks,
full to the margin grass, shot under the roadway through low bridges.
Through the web of young foliage the sky shone saffron, and frogs piped
in the meadow swamps. No cart or carriage appeared, however, and the
bets languished. Bertie, driving with one hand, was buttoning his coat
with the other, when the black gelding leaped from the middle of the
road to the turf and took to backing. The buggy reeled; but the driver
was skilful, and fifteen seconds of whip and presence of mind brought it
out smoothly. Then the cause of all this spoke to them from a gate.
“Come as near spillin’ as you boys wanted, I guess,” remarked the cause.
They looked, and saw him in huge white shirt-sleeves, shaking with
joviality. “If you kep’ at it long enough you might a-most learn to
drive a horse,” he continued, eying Bertie. This came as near direct
praise as the true son of our soil--Northern or Southern--often thinks
well of. Bertie was pleased, but made a modest observation, and “Are we
near the tavern?” he asked. “Bird-in-Hand!” the son of the soil echoed;
and he contemplated them from his gate. “That’s me,” he stated, with
complacence. “Bill Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand has been me since April,
‘65.” His massy hair had been yellow, his broad body must have weighed
two hundred and fifty pounds, his face was canny, red, and somewhat
clerical, resembling Henry Ward Beecher’s.
“Trout,” he said, pointing to a basket by the gate. “For your dinner.
“Then he climbed heavily but skilfully down and picked up the basket and
a rod. “Folks round here say,” said he, “that there ain’t no more trout
up them meadows. They’ve been a-sayin’ that since ‘74; and I’ve been
a-sayin’ it myself, when judicious.” Here he shook slightly and opened
the basket. “Twelve,” he said. “Sixteen yesterday. Now you go along and
turn in the first right-hand turn, and I’ll be up with you soon. Maybe
you might make room for the trout.” Room for him as well, they assured
him; they were in luck to find him, they explained. “Well, I guess
I’ll trust my neck with you,” he said to Bertie, the skillful driver;
“‘tain’t five minutes’ risk.” The buggy leaned, and its springs bent as
he climbed in, wedging his mature bulk between their slim shapes. The
gelding looked round the shaft at them. “Protestin’, are you?” he said
to it. “These light-weight stoodents spile you!” So the gelding went
on, expressing, however, by every line of its body, a sense of outraged
justice. The boys related their difficult search, and learned that any
mention of the name of Diggs would have brought them straight. “Bill
Higgs of the Bird-in-Hand was my father, and my grandf’ther, and his
father; and has been me sence I come back from the war and took the
business in ‘65. I’m not commonly to be met out this late. About fifteen
minutes earlier is my time for gettin’ back, unless I’m plannin’ for a
jamboree. But to-night I got to settin’ and watchin’ that sunset, and
listenin’ to a darned red-winged blackbird, and I guess Mrs. Higgs has
decided to expect me somewheres about noon to-morrow or Friday. Say,
did Johnnie send you? “When he found that John had in a measure been
responsible for their journey, he filled with gayety. “Oh, Johnnie’s a
bird!” said he. “He’s that demure on first appearance. Walked in last
evening and wanted dinner. Did he tell you what he ate? Guess he left
out what he drank. Yes, he’s demure.”
You might suppose that upon their landlord’s safe and sober return
fifteen minutes late, instead of on the expected noon of Thursday or
Friday, their landlady would show signs of pleasure; but Mrs. Diggs from
the porch threw an uncordial eye at the three arriving in the buggy.
Here were two more like Johnnie of last night. She knew them by the
clothes they wore and by the confidential tones of her husband’s voice
as he chatted to them. He had been old enough to know better for twenty
years. But for twenty years he had taken the same extreme joy in the
company of Johnnies, and they were bad for his health. Her final proof
that they belonged to this hated breed was when Mr. Diggs thumped the
trout down on the porch, and after briefly remarking, “Half of ‘em
boiled, and half broiled with bacon,” himself led away the gelding to
the stable instead of intrusting it to his man Silas.
“You may set in the parlor,” said Mrs. Diggs, and departed stiffly with
the basket of trout.
“It’s false,” said Billy, at once.
Bertie did not grasp his thought.
“Her hair,” said Billy. And certainly it was an unusual-looking
arrangement.
Presently, as they sat near a parlor organ in the presence of earnest
family portraits, Bertie made a new poem for Billy,--
“Said Aristotle unto Plato,
‘Have another sweet potato? ’”