I
Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., sauntered along the aisle, his trim young body accommodating itself gracefully to the erratic swaying of the day coach. I speak of Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., as being trim, but you are not to picture him as slender. On the contrary, without being fat, he had in his fourteen years and some months of existence managed to cushion his frame with enough flesh to give him a comfortably well-rounded appearance. It seemed probable that later on the cushion would increase in depth and that the term trim would no longer be applicable. In fact, Daniel Webster Jones’s father—you saw his likeness on the cartoons holding his justly celebrated Creamette Biscuits—was quite abundantly upholstered. But at present, what with an easy and graceful carriage and a careful attention to the niceties of attire, Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., presented a most pleasingappearance. Under a straw hat which was absolutely the latest cry in masculine fashions, the boy’s copper-brown hair was brushed sleekly back from a well-shaped forehead. Grayish blue eyes, a nose rather too button-like to be called classical, a cherubic mouth, a nice, firm chin with a dimple in it, all these features set in a round, healthy, rosy-cheeked face combined to make Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., thoroughly attractive. Yet it was, I think, the qualities of mind and character illumining the ingenuous countenance that won folks to him. The gray-blue eyes seemed veritable pools of truthfulness, the button-like nose proclaimed uncompromising integrity, the cherub lips appeared formed for the utterance of pure and beautiful thoughts, and when Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., smiled, one felt oh, so glad that such innocence and candor existed in a deceitful world!
The boy’s progress through the car was neither unnoticed nor unheralded. Small and admiring juniors looked appealingly upward and sought recognition with a wistful “How d’ye do, Jones,” while upper-class fellows,rousing from the lethargy induced by a two-hour journey on a hot September afternoon, observed his advent with something of the same relief with which a traveler on the desert might catch sight of an oasis and hailed him hopefully with a “Hi, Jonesie!” But Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., merely nodded with just the correct amount of superciliousness to the juniors—one had to keep the kids in their place—and returned the greetings of the others with preoccupied gravity. Oddly enough this had the effect of causing smirks and winks and nudges amongst the older fellows and one felt glad that Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., was unconscious of the levity. One felt certain that it would have wounded him.
The car was filled almost to its capacity, yet here and there a seat held but one occupant. At such a seat, near the front of the coach, Jonesie—for after all why should we accord him the dignity of his full title when no one else did?—Jonesie, then, paused indecisively and caught the shy upward glance of the seat’s only occupant, a boy of perhaps thirteen years of age.
“Mind if I sit here?” asked Jonesie most politely. “Sorry to bother you, but everything’s pretty well filled up.”
“Not—not at all!” stammered the other boy. He tugged frantically at a fat suitcase bearing the inscription “J. A. W.” on the end and squeezed toward the window. Jonesie murmured his thanks and seated himself with a sigh, folding his arms and staring ahead of him with a thoughtful frown. The train swayed onward in a cloud of gray dust. After a moment the original occupant of the seat took courage and studied his neighbor out of the corners of his eyes. He liked what he saw and wondered sympathetically what weighty care was clouding the brow under the stunning straw. At that moment Jonesie unclasped his arms and began to study a purple blister at the base of the second finger on his right palm. The other boy, interested, looked, too. It was a most promising blister. He speculated as to the cause of it and considered its future treatment rather enviously. And at that moment the proud possessor of the blister looked up and caught his glance embarrassingly.
“Played thirty-six holes yesterday,” said Jonesie. “Hadn’t golfed before all summer.” He frowned at the blister, wiggling his finger experimentally. “Beastly bother,” he added disgustedly.
“Yes,” agreed the other, almost with enthusiasm. The sympathy seemed to draw Jonesie’s attention to his companion for the first time and he turned and shot a brief and speculative glance at him. Then,
“Randall’s?” he inquired.
“Yes, I—I’m just entering.”
“Ah!” Jonesie beamed with a sudden friendly interest. “That’s fine. Lower Middle, I suppose?”
“N-no, just Junior,” returned the other apologetically.
Jonesie nodded. “Should have thought you’d enter Lower Middle. You look it.” The new boy flushed with pleasure at the implied tribute to his age, wisdom and experience. “I’m in the Lower Middle myself,” continued Jonesie, crossing one smartly clad leg over the other and assuming an attitude promising confidential discourse. “Hope you will like the school.”
“I—I think so, thank you,” murmured the other. “I don’t know much about boarding schools, though. I suppose it will be—be sort of strange at first.”
“Probably,” replied Jonesie sympathetically. “Of course a new boy has quite a lot to learn, but you’ll get on to things after a bit. It isn’t a bad school, Randall’s. I dare say you know some of the fellows?”
“No.” The other shook his head a trifle dejectedly. “I guess I don’t know a soul there.”
Jonesie frowned. “That makes it harder,” he acknowledged. “But you’ll find friends after a bit,” he added hopefully. “Sooner the better, too, for there’s nothing like having an older fellow to—er—sort of give you a hand over the rough places.” Jonesie regulated carefully the expanse of violet and gray cuff showing beyond his coat sleeve. “At least, that was my experience. Take the matter of athletics, for instance—— But perhaps you don’t go in for that sort of thing?”
“Oh, yes!” replied the other eagerly, “that is, I hope to. I—I’m very fond of football.”
“Fine game, football,” commended Jonesie.“And that’s a—er—a case in point. Of course you’ll want to make the School Team; every fellow does.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect to do that! Not the—the first year!”
“Why not? Fellows have done it. Don’t know why you shouldn’t if you buckle down to it. I dare say I had a close shave from getting on the School myself the first year. Unfortunately illness—er”—Jonesie’s gaze wandered along the bell rope—“illness prevented. Quite a blow to the Coach.”
“You—you are on the Team now?” asked the other eagerly.
Jonesie shook his head regretfully. “No, I never got into football after that. Doctor’s orders. Perhaps next year—I’m so much better——” He sighed and then smiled brightly, bravely. “Well, it doesn’t matter, I guess.”
“Oh, but if you’re really fond of the game,” exclaimed the other boy feelingly, “it must be—be an awful disappointment! I—I’m sorry!”
“Thanks. Yes, of course itisa disappointment, but”—Jonesie shrugged his shoulders—“life is full of disappointments and one soonlearns to—er—accept them philosophically. Now take your case—er—— You didn’t tell me your name, did you?”
“No. It’s Wigman.”
“Mine’s Jones, D. W. Jones. Well, as I was saying, Wigman, take your case. You may have to—to accept disappointment, too. You see, there’ll be piles of fellows trying for the Team, and some of them may show up as well as you will, although I will say”—and here Jonesie turned to scrutinize Wigman carefully and approvingly—“that from your looks you ought to have the making of a dandy player.” Wigman flushed under the compliment. “But there you are! Merit isn’t everything. You might play as well as another chap and yet he’d get the call just because he had—er—friends to speak for him. Do you see?”
“But—but that’s hardly fair, is it?” asked Wigman. “I thought Randall’s was a school where you—where every fellow had the same chance as every other fellow. I—I’ve heard so.”
“Sure! That’s so, to a certain extent. Still, you know yourself, Wigman, that if you werecaptain of the Team—as you will be some day, or I miss my guess!—you couldn’t help favoring the fellow you knew, supposing he played as well as the other fellow, whom you didn’t know. It’s human nature, isn’t it?”
Wigman allowed that it was.
“Of course! There you are, then! So what you want to do is to make friends, Wigman; get acquainted right away and, if you can do it, find a fellow who’s close to Bing.”
“Bing?” faltered Wigman.
“Yes, Carey Bingham. He’s captain this year. His chums call him Bing for short. Nice chap, Bing. I’ve just been having a chat with him in the smoker. Bing has a queer idea that I’m a judge of football material. Maybe he isn’t so far wrong, either; I’ve picked more than one green player and seen him develop into a wonder. And I don’t believe I’ve picked a bad ’un yet. We were talking over this year’s prospects. Bing’s inclined to be a bit discouraged and—er—pessimistic, but I told him that to my mind we had as good an outlook as ever we’d had. Quite cheered up, he was, when I left him. Wanted me to stay and go over theschedule with him, but I couldn’t stand the smoke any longer. Well, here’s the bridge. We’ll be at Chester Hill in five minutes. I must get my things together. Awfully glad to have met you, Wigman, and if there’s anything I can do for you just let me know, will you?”
“Th—thank you,” said the other boy gratefully. “But I wouldn’t think of bothering you.”
“No bother at all. Tell you what I’ll do, Wigman.” Jonesie drew forth a silver card case, abstracted an oblong slip of thin cardboard bearing his name and home address in ornate Old English letters and scrawled a line on it with a silver pencil. “There’s where I hang out—18 Hawthorne. Look me up as soon as you get settled or let me know where to find you and I’ll drop in. Maybe I can put you on to the ropes a bit, eh? Very glad to do anything I can for a new fellow. Know what it means to be dumped down here with a couple of hundred strangers. Makes you feel sort of lost and all that for a bit. I know! Glad to have met you, Wigman. See you again soon, I hope.”
Jonesie smiled his best and sweetest smile, shook hands and sauntered off, leaving James Andrew Wigman filled with gratitude and admiration. Halfway along the aisle an imperious hand shot out and seized on Jonesie. Jonesie, after a vain attempt to elude his captor, faced him innocently.
“Hello, Carpenter,” he said sweetly. “How’s the boy?”
“What have you been up to, Jonesie?” inquired Carpenter, a big Senior, sternly.
“Me?” Jonesie’s candid countenance expressed surprise. “Why, nothing!”
“What kind of a yarn have you been stringing to that poor Fresh down there?” persisted Carpenter.
“You make me tired! Can’t a fellow be decent to a new boy, I’d like to know? I’ve been cheering him up a bit, that’s all. Found him terribly down in the dumps, poor chap. You Upper Class fellows never think of trying to make things a bit easier for new boys.” Jonesie mingled regret with indignation. Carpenter blinked. “Seems to me you fellows ought to remember how you felt yourselves when youstruck school and didn’t know anyone! It—it’s mighty lonesome business, Carpenter!”
“Is that so, Jonesie? Well, you’d better write to theWeeklyabout it. A fat lot of comforting you were doing, I’ll bet!” But after Jonesie had gone on, Carpenter glanced inquiringly at Gus Peasley, who occupied the seat with him. “Maybe Jonesie is right about it, too,” said Carpenter. “I dare say it would be a decent thing if some of us Upper Classmen sort of looked after the new boys a little. I remember myself——”
“Piffle!” This was Peasley, grinning. “Jonesie doesn’t care a hang whether a new boy is homesick! Bet you a dollar, Billy, he’s been up to some more of his deviltry!”
“Think so?” asked Carpenter doubtfully. “Maybe. I wouldn’t trust him. Just the same, Gus, there’s something in what he said.”
Peasley yawned as he got up to rescue his suitcase from the rack above.
“Jonesie could talk tears out of a brick, Billy,” he replied. “He’s the biggest little faker in school. Some day, if he doesn’t get hung first, he’ll be President!”