CHAPTER XIXATTAINMENT
The afternoon of Class Day was bright and sunny; the curve of the Stadium, banked with spectators, mostly feminine, glowed and sparkled while the seniors, in academic cap and gown, marched behind their spirited brass band into the arena. Seating themselves upon the grass, they formed a somber center for a setting so gay and flashing; yet the jewel, if so the composite mass might be designated, was not without its sparkle. For the class humorist, Harry Carson, mounted the platform and, standing against a screen of greenery that had been erected for the occasion, delivered his address. David was sure that no other Ivy orator had ever been so witty or so brilliant or had ever drawn such frequent bursts of laughter from an audience. He gave his ears to the speakers, but his eyes to his mother and Katharine Vance, who were sitting together in one of the lower tiers of seats. He was eager to see how they were responding to Harry Carson’s humor—eager to see them laughing at the jokes. Or perhaps it wouldbe truer to say that he was eager to see Katharine laughing and amused. She did not disappoint his glances; her sense of humor was sympathetic with his, and she had a sufficient knowledge of college matters to appreciate some of the orator’s remarks that left Mrs. Ives, who was less well informed, looking bewildered. David was finding in those days that the best enjoyment of all lay in seeing the person for whom he cared enjoying the things that he enjoyed.
After the Ivy orator had finished, Jim Farrar, the first marshal, led the cheering—for the president of the university, for the faculty, for the football team, the crew, the nine. Lester Wallace was in New Haven with the nine, battling against Yale at that very hour. The last and most appreciated cheer was for the ladies; when the applause occasioned by it had died away, the band struck up “Fair Harvard,” and the spectators rose and joined with seniors and graduates in the singing. Then, while the band played a lively air, the seniors marched out along the track directly beneath the lowest tier of seats; and while they marched they were pelted with bright-colored streamers and with showers of confetti; they were pelted, and they returned the pelting; back and forth flew the lightmissiles, weaving gay patterns in the air. David waved to Katharine Vance; her eyes flashed a merry greeting in reply; then she flung a small paper bomb at his head. David caught it and threw it back; it struck the brim of her hat and burst into a shower of bright fragments. Then a streamer tossed from some other hand entwined itself round David’s neck and another bomb caught him in the ear and exploded satisfactorily; he passed on, fishing with one finger for the scraps of paper that were working down inside his collar.
At the exit David fell out of line and stood for a while looking on at the lively scene. The graduates marched by in the order of their classes, pelting and being pelted; shrieks rose from ladies who were unable to dodge the soft missiles; triumphant shouts and laughter came from those who scored or suffered hits; arms waved, heads and hats ducked and bobbed, colored streamers fluttered and floated and flashed; and the brass band receded into the distance, with the black-gowned seniors marching behind it.
David made his way up into the section in which his mother and Katharine were stationed. He stood with them and watched the final exchanges between the spectators and the last stragglers among the graduates.
“I don’t think any of them look as nice as this year’s graduating class,” said Katharine.
“And I’m sure that none of them ever had such nice people to see them graduate,” said David.
Katharine, with her gay laugh, and Mrs. Ives, with her quiet smile, were equally pleased.
“I suppose some time, David, you’ll get over making such polite and flattering remarks to me,” said Katharine.
David affected surprise. “Why, what was there in that remark that you could take personally?”
“Oh, I wish I had a real bomb to burst on you!” exclaimed Katharine.
“Then I should not be able to take you to the festivities this evening,” said David. “I suppose that now we might as well be on our way.”
At Harvard Square Mrs. Ives left them and went home; the festivities, she said with a laugh, were not for her. Katharine and David stopped in front of the bulletin that announced the victory of Harvard over Yale in baseball by the score of 5 to 3.
“Isn’t that great!” said David. “Now to-morrow we’ll surely win on our own grounds. I wonder what Lester did.”
“Sometimes you make me almost jealous of Lester,” said Katharine. “I almost think you like him more than you do me.”
“I like him a lot,” replied David. “But not more than I do you.”
The “spread” to which David conducted Katharine was one of numerous “spreads,” as they were called, at which members of the graduating class entertained their relatives and friends. This particular one was held on the lawn adjoining a dormitory; small tables were set out on the grass; in a tent at one side there was dancing; electric lights in Chinese lanterns that were strung overhead illuminated the scene when twilight fell. Katharine and David and Richard and Marion Bradley seized upon a table and refreshed themselves with lobster-Newburg, strawberries and ice cream; then they strolled about among the tables, greeting friends and being introduced to friends of friends. Romance was in the air; several engagements that had been announced that day were a topic of conversation, particularly as the seniors who had thus plighted themselves and the girls to whom they were plighted were present and were receiving congratulations and undergoing inspection. It was impossible for Katharine and David to remain unaffected by such an atmosphere.
“Don’t I wish we were announcing our engagement, too!” murmured David to her in one ofthe moments when they had the table to themselves.
“But you know we’ve talked it all over, David. And with four years in the medical school ahead of you—it would be foolish, wouldn’t it?”
Katharine’s voice was a little wistful; it betrayed a desire to be overruled.
“Then let’s do something foolish,” said David earnestly. “I know there’s nothing that can change my feeling about you in four years, or in forty. Our families know how we feel about each other; they’re satisfied. What’s the use of pretending we’re not engaged, when we are? Let’s have the fun of it to-night.”
“Goodness!” said Katharine. “It awes me awfully. But—all right. How do we begin?”
“Let’s begin with Richard and Marion,” said David. “Here they come now, back from dancing.”
“Shall we, really?”
“Yes. Be a sport.”
When Richard came up he asked, “Why aren’t you two dancing? Have a turn with me, Katharine.”
“She’s got something to tell you first,” said David.
“You needn’t put it all on me,” said Katharine.“You can tell Richard. Marion, I know you’ll be glad to hear that David and I are announcing our engagement.”
Marion looked for an instant startled and uncertain, and for the same instant her brother stood gaping. Then she exclaimed, “Katharine dear, it’s true, isn’t it!” and flung her arms about her friend’s neck.
Richard seized David’s hand, crying, “Bully for you, Dave!” and with the other hand grasped Tom Anderson, who happened to be strolling by. “Here Tom, what do you think of this? New engagement, just out!” And before the astonished and somewhat embarrassed Tom had finished congratulating the pair, Richard had hailed other friends; and presently Katharine and David were the center of more attention than in their rashness they had bargained for.
Later they slipped away from the spread and went into the College Yard. There they heard the glee club sing and walked under the Chinese lanterns that were swung among the trees, and stood by the fountain that played and plashed and shone in the soft light.
“I’ve come to every class day since I’ve been in college,” said David. “But it’s more like fairyland to me to-night than it’s ever been before.”
“For me, too, David,” said Katharine in a low voice.
It was late that evening when David arrived at his room in the dormitory. He had begun to undress when there came a knock on the door, and Lester entered. He was looking very happy.
David hailed him jovially. “Tell me, Lester, what did you do? Crack out a couple of home runs, or something like that?”
“No; I only got a double.”
“How many on bases?”
“Two.”
“So you brought in two runs. Well, that’s not so bad. And I guess you’ll do even better to-morrow.”
“I hope so,” said Lester. “I’d like to do well to-morrow, for you see Ruth will be there. I wanted to tell you, Dave; to-morrow she and I are announcing our engagement.”
“Fine enough!” cried David. “I always felt it would come sometime. It’s splendid, Lester. But I beat you to it. Katharine Vance and I announced our engagement this evening.”
Lester was enthusiastic in his expressions of rejoicing.
“I suppose in a way it was rather foolish ofus,” admitted David. “With four years at least ahead of me in which I shan’t be earning a cent, and probably six or seven, anyway, before I can afford to get married. But Katharine was game for it—and somehow there’s a satisfaction in letting our friends know how we feel about each other.”
“Yes,” said Lester. “Ruth and I have no very immediate prospects. I’ve got over those get-rich-quick ideas I used to air so freely, Dave. I’m starting in next week to work in a cotton mill down in New Bedford. I’m going to try to learn the business from the bottom up.” He added musingly, “With the real things of life so close to us, isn’t it funny that I should think of that game to-morrow as so important?”
“No,” said David. “Of course it’s important. It’s a thing you’ve worked hard for; it’s a thing the whole college is keen about.”
“Yes, but it’s more important than in just that way,” said Lester slowly. “I feel as if it were going to be the first real test of me for Ruth. She’ll be with my mother and father; they saw the game at New Haven to-day. At one time I thought they wouldn’t come to see me graduate—you know why.”
“Of course they’d come.”
“Yes, they’ve forgiven me. So has Ruth. I told her the whole story about myself, Dave.”
“That must have been hard,” said David, a good deal moved.
“I felt that it was only fair to her. It was right that she should know how weak I’d been and should realize what a chance she might be taking if she said yes. It hurt her terribly. But she believes in me in spite of all. She feels sure I can never be so weak again. You and she have been as splendid to me as any two human beings could be—far more so than I deserved.”
“She’s a brick,” said David. “And you don’t need to worry about the need of making a good showing in the game to-morrow. You’ll do that, anyway; but you could strike out every time you came to bat, and it couldn’t affect Ruth’s feelings for you in the least.”
“It mightn’t, except that she realizes I have a special responsibility to the college and the class, after what I did. And if instead I should do poorly—”
“Forget it,” said David. “You go right to bed and sleep. You’ll do your best. Don’t worry.”
“I guess that’s good advice.” Lester turned to thedoor. “Oh, by the way, Dave, would it be all right for me to bring Ruth and mother and father round to your house after the game? She’d like to see your family, and so should I.”
“Mother and Mr. Dean will be delighted,” said David. “I’ll have Katharine there, too.”
David sat with Katharine at the game, and in the row in front of them and only a short distance away sat Ruth and Mr. and Mrs. Wallace. Across the intervening backs they exchanged nods and smiles. Ruth at the beginning of the game was radiant, but as it proceeded the expression with which she followed Lester’s movements became anxious and troubled. As for David, the course of events filled him with dismay. Harvard was being beaten, and almost worse than that Lester was playing wretchedly. He muffed a throw at first base that let in a run; he struck out in the second inning, when he first came to bat; he struck out again in the fourth and again in the seventh.
“Isn’t it awful!” David muttered to Katharine, when after the last failure Lester walked with hanging head to his seat.
“Yes, I feel so sorry for him. I suppose he’s just overcome with the responsibility—having Ruth here, and their engagement just out, and everybody expecting him to do great things.”
Overcome by the responsibility; yes, that was it, David knew, and he knew that Lester would interpret his failure in this game as another manifestation of incurable weakness. Of course Ruth would not so regard it, but David found himself concerned now with Lester’s own soul and the damage that would be done to it should that self-confidence which had been already so shaken be destroyed.
When Harvard came to bat in the last half of the ninth inning, Yale was leading by a score of 6 to 3. People were already leaving the stands, and moving languidly toward the gate, admitting defeat. Then suddenly the whole complexion of the game changed; a base on balls, an error, a scratchy little infield hit; the bases were filled, with none out, and the spectators were on their feet, cheering and shouting.
“He can’t strike out now; he can’t!” murmured David.
For it was Lester that advanced to the plate.
“Why don’t they put some one in to bat for that fellow!” exclaimed a man standing behind David.
He had hardly finished the remark when the pitcher delivered the last ball of the game. There was the resounding crack of a clean and solid hit;there was a tumultuous outburst of sound from the crowd; the ball flew far over the head of the center fielder, who went sprinting after it to no purpose. “The longest hit ever made on this field,” affirmed the ground keeper afterward. The centerfielder was just picking up the ball when Lester crossed the plate with the fourth run of the inning, the winning run of the game.
Before he could make his escape a mob of shouting classmates bore down upon him. Hundreds of Harvard men swarmed over the fences and in an instant had possession of the field. Lester was hoisted to the shoulders of a group who clung to him firmly despite his struggles and appeals. “Right behind the band!” they shouted; and right behind the band they bore him, up and down the field, at the head of the ever-lengthening, joyously serpentining, and wildly shouting procession. All the other members of the team had been allowed to slip off to the locker building; but the crowd clung to Lester; they bore him proudly, like a banner. They carried him past the stand in which Ruth sat; he looked up at her; she waved to him; and probably Katharine and David were the only persons who saw the tears running down her cheeks.
An hour later there was a joyful gathering inMrs. Ives’s parlor. Mr. Dean succeeded in capturing Ruth with one hand and Lester with the other.
“So you’ve closed your athletic career, Lester, in a blaze of glory and a blare of sound. I’m delighted—especially for Ruth’s sake. But I don’t mind saying that your great triumph is not in winning the game, but in winning Ruth.”
“Indeed, I realize that,” said Lester.
“Anyway, that home run was the most splendid sort of engagement present,” said Ruth. “If you’d struck out that time and given me a string of pearls, it couldn’t have consoled me.”
“If I’d struck out that time,” said Lester, “I don’t believe that even you, Ruthie, could have consoled me.”
“We’d have been two broken hearts, still trying to beat as one,” said Ruth.
“Well, I guess it would be pretty hard for us to be any happier than we are,” said Lester. “And, Mr. Dean, I want to tell you before saying good-bye how grateful I am for the great help that you gave me. And when I say that, Ruth knows exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Yes,” said Ruth in a low voice. “I’m so glad he came to you, Mr. Dean.”
“God bless you both,” said Mr. Dean. Hesqueezed Lester’s hand; then he drew Ruth to him and kissed her.
That evening Mr. Dean asked David to come to his room for a few moments. He seemed to David somewhat ill at ease; he greeted him with a curious formality, bade him take a chair, and then, after an interval of silence, said abruptly: “David, I suppose you realize that I’ve practically adopted you and your mother and Ralph as my family. At my death such property as I have will go to you and Ralph. I have no near relatives, as you know, and I believe there is no one who would be likely to contest my will, or in the event of contesting it likely to succeed. I don’t believe in long engagements. Five or six months or at most a year is sufficient as a probationary period. If you and Katharine are just as sure six months from now as you are to-day, I think that then you had better get married. You will do better work in the medical school if you are married and settled down instead of impatiently waiting to be. I could arrange matters so that you could live comfortably—not extravagantly, of course. It is what I should do if you were my own son. You stand in that relation to me.”
“I don’t see how I could let you do that, Mr.Dean,” said David, with distress as well as gratitude in his voice. “Somehow I’ve often wondered whether it was right that I should accept so much from you as I have done—whether it was altogether manly of me. I hope I don’t hurt you when I say this. But I’ve never been quite comfortable about it. Whether I wouldn’t have been better satisfied with myself if I’d worked my way through college—paid for my own education—”
“My dear boy, don’t I know you’ve often been troubled by those doubts! But it wasn’t selfishness on your part that impelled you to accept my assistance. There was the obligation not to reject an arrangement that would improve your mother’s circumstances and that would give Ralph his chance. There was my own peculiar need, which you could hardly in compassion have refused. No, you’ve given quite as much as you’ve received. You needn’t have scruples on that score. And now in regard to Katharine.”
He rose and made his way to his bureau, where his hand unerringly searched out and picked up a framed photograph of a young woman who was dressed in a fashion of fifty years ago. David had often wondered about that photograph—who the girl was and why, even in his blindness, Mr. Deanhad always been careful that it should occupy the central place on his bureau.
“David,” said Mr. Dean, holding out the picture, “there is the photograph of the girl to whom I was engaged when I was in college. When I graduated, I went into teaching at a small salary; we felt that we could not immediately afford to get married, but in a year or so—well, eventually I did win some increase in salary, but when I did my mother’s health was failing, and what I earned barely sufficed to keep her properly cared for until she died. At the end of four years it seemed to us that we could get married. Our plans were all made when Lydia—that was her name—was stricken with scarlet fever. She died in two weeks. Less than a year later an uncle of my mother’s, a childless widower who had gone West in his early youth and who had never manifested the slightest interest in his relatives, died and left me a hundred thousand dollars. That money might have been of so much use to me and was of so little! I don’t want you, David, to run the risk of missing your happiness as I missed mine. I don’t even want you to go through four years of waiting such as I passed through. Indeed, I’m determined not to allow it. You must talk withKatharine and tell her what I’ve said; and perhaps she will come and let me talk with her. If she does, I shall tell her that I feel—I know—my Lydia’s spirit is hovering near, watching you and her, watching you and her wistfully. Sometimes of late when I hold this photograph I feel again my Lydia’s hand in mine.”
Mr. Dean’s head had sunk forward upon his breast, his voice had grown dreamy, he seemed suddenly to have forgotten David’s presence. But only for a moment; he raised his head and said with brisk and cheerful command that brooked no argument: “So we won’t discuss it any more, David. Run along now and tell Katharine what I’ve made up my mind to do.”
After David had left the room, Mr. Dean remained seated in his chair, holding the photograph, lightly caressing it with his fingers.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations.Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.Page 58: “You can get them at the store in the basement of the study and went to the locker room to hang Wallace here.” (printer’s error, and partially repeated on next page in proper context);changed to“You can get them at the store in the basement of the study.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
Page 58: “You can get them at the store in the basement of the study and went to the locker room to hang Wallace here.” (printer’s error, and partially repeated on next page in proper context);changed to“You can get them at the store in the basement of the study.”