He was made a good deal of now. The coachers patted him on the back and said "Myboy" to him. He had a lot of sympathetic adulation from admiring classmates. Upper-classmen whom he had never seen before, but who somehow knew him, came up and said, "How's the leg, Tommy?" At which he hung his head and sniffled, and said, "Getting along pretty well, thank you," and then grinned, because he didn't know whether they were guying him or not.
In a few days he could walk with a cane, and he put on his football clothes because they were more comfortable. He limped after the teams up and down the field, and squatted down to see how the 'varsity made their openings, and he learned how to tell, by the expression of his legs, on which side the quarter was going to pass the ball, which nobody else in the world could tell. Also, by carelessly daily sauntering into the cage during the preliminary practising, with a guileless smile on his face, he found out the 'varsity signals, which he had no business to find out.
Sometimes he became very much excited during the scrimmages, and once, when Dandridge, the wriggly 'varsity half-back, kept on squirming and gaining after he had been twice downed, Wormsey screamed, as he hopped up and down on one foot, "Oh, grab—grab him!Pleasegrab him! Oh! oh!" so loud that all the field heard it and laughed at him. Then he realized what a fool he had made of himself and kicked himself with his good leg, and limped slowly up the field to study the next play.
But conceited as it was, he really thought that he would have stopped that runner if he had been there. He imagined just how it would feel to have once more the thrill of a clean tackle, sailing through the air, and locking his arms tight, and squeezing hard, and both rolling over and over, while the crowd yelled in the distance. And he thought it would be fine to get out there again, and run his hands through his hair, and call out the signals, and plunge the ball home into the back's stomach, and then pitch forward, and push and strain and sweat and fall down and get up again. He had a firm healthy skin now, and had gone up to the tremendous weight of 138½, which was vulgar obesity.
One windy sunny day when Wormsey was limping friskily up and down the field with his hair blowing about, Stump, the 'varsity quarter, instead of springing up to his place after one of the tandem plays, as he should have done, lay still on the ground, while the college held its breath.
"It's Stump! it's Stump!" they whispered to one another with scared faces. Then they no longer held their breaths. They moaned, and stamped their heels into the frosty ground, and gazed out sadly toward the dear, frowzy head of the man who was being carried to the field-house.
"It's only a wrench," said the doctor. "He'll be out in a few days."
The captain's mouth grew a little more stern, but he only snapped his fingers, and said: "Bristol! No, he's laid off too. Wait a moment, doctor," he called out. "Is Wormsey well enough to play?"
"Wormsey?" said Tommy to himself in little gasps. "Why, I'm Wormsey. What! play with the 'varsity!"
And the doctor's voice came back through the wind, "No, I think not."
"Oh, yes, I am!" yelled the shrill voice, which was heard all up and down both sides of the field, and reached to the Athletic Club; and throwing away his cane, and bending over to let some one pull off two sweaters, Wormsey ran sniffling out on the field.
"See, Jack," he called to the trainer. "I don't limp a bit." But he kept his face turned to one side so that the trainer couldn't see it twitch.
"Come here and I'll give you the signals, Wormsey," said the captain.
"I know them already," said Wormsey, looking ashamed of himself; and he took his place on one knee behind the centre who had so often tumbled upon him.
Then he jumped in and showed everybody what he had been learning during the past ten days. He was in perfect condition now, except for the ankle, which he forgot about. He was quite accurate in his quick method of passing, and he tackled ravenously. Fellows like Wormsey never get soft. "Just watch that boy follow the ball," exclaimed one of the coachers to another. "Too bad he's so light," said the other.
Once when the scrub had the ball they gave the signal for a trick which they had been saving up as a surprise for the 'varsity. Tommy knew that signal. He dashed through the line between tackle and end, he caught the long pass on the fly, and having plenty of wind and a clear field, he made a touch-down unassisted, which made the crowd yell and applaud. Of course it was a great fluke, and Wormsey knew that, but all the same, while the crowd gave a cheer for Tommy Wormsey, and a three-times-three for "the little devil," he grinned for amoment, and puckered up his eyes. But it is not the crowd that chooses the team.
That evening at dinner all the college was talking about the great tear the little freshman had made, and down at the Athletic Club Wormsey overheard one of the coachers say: "When Stump comes out again, it'll make him work to see the freshman putting up a game like that. But of course he can't keep it up. The pace is too fast."
Wormsey bit his nails and had his own opinion about that. But whatever it might have been was never learned, because the next day he was taken off the field for the season. His bad ankle was sprained in the first half, which served him right for disobeying the doctor's order. But he should not have cared. Didn't he play one whole day on the 'varsity?
If you would like to see a college campus as it really is, with students walking along with the gait and the manner and the clothes they usually wear, and to hear the old bell ring, the hall and dormitory stairs rattle, the entries echo and the feet scrape along the stone walks as on ordinary occasions, and see the quadrangle become crowded and noisy, then suddenly empty and quiet again, and if you wish to have a view of your brother's room in its average state of order and ornamentation, do not come to Princeton for one of the class dances, or on the day of a big game, when everyone is excited and well dressed, and even the old elms are in an abnormal flutter, but come down in a small party some quiet day in an ordinary week, when there are no extra cars on the small informal train which jolts up from the junction. Tell your brother that you are coming, or his roommate, who will gladly cut a lecture or two and show you about the campus. Then you may see the college world in its normal state, and theundergraduate in his characteristic settings—any number of him with a pipe in his mouth or a song, slouching across the campus with the Princeton gait, wearing something disreputable upon his head, corduroys and sweaters or flannels and cheviots upon his body, and an air of ownership combined with irresponsibility all over. In short, if you prefer to get some idea of college life, and learn, as far as a girl can, why college days are the best of a lifetime, visit Princeton on some day that is not a special occasion. But very likely this is not what you prefer.
Most girls would rather hurry down with a big trunk in a crowded special train, and go to four teas, meet a score of men apiece whom they will never see again, dance all night, and then, in a few minutes, arise looking as fresh as they did on Easter Sunday, and smile good-byes at the depot to the breakfastless young men whom they leave forsaken and sleepy to try to go on where they left off, while they themselves hurry back to town, and to another dance the next night.
A college dance is generally considered very good fun. There is an adventurous zest in journeying to a college, and exploring it, and meeting crowds of people you never saw before, andthere is something wild and reckless in being quartered in an odd little boarding-house, or, more delicious still, in some room in University Hall borrowed by your entertainer for the occasion, with the owner's photographs and souvenirs hanging about just as he left them. Then, too, the young men themselves, some of whom you have met or heard of before, try to be very agreeable, and do everything in their power to make you have a good time, if for no other reason, in order that you may see how superior their college is to any other, so that even several-seasoned society girls consider it worth their while to run down to a college dance, and be amused by these fresh-faced young fellows. Some of them have been coming off and on for several generations of college men, and could talk interestingly of your brother in the class of '88 should they be so inclined. They know all about these hops. This is written for you who have yet to attend one.
There are three regular dances each year, and they are given by the three upper classes. One takes place at the close of the mid-year examinations, to usher in the new term. Another is given at a more beautiful time of the year, usually occurring on the eve of some great baseball game. The third one, the most splendid andmost jammed, is the sophomores' reception, given on the night before Commencement to the class which graduates the following day.
Each class has a dance committee, who fly around and work hard to make their dance finer than the last one, and generally succeed. They procure a fine patroness list to engrave on their invitations, containing several of the sort of names that appear in connection with Patriarchs' balls and Philadelphia assemblies, together with those of two or three professors' wives, to lend a tone. The committee get hold of the Gymnasium, pull down the bars and draw the trapeze to one side; then have a lot of pink and white cheese-cloth tacked up, hang some athletic trophies over the rafters, string a few hundred incandescent lights here and there, and send to one of the neighboring cities for a smart caterer and a large high-priced orchestra to come for the night. Then they are ready for you.
Before the dance, however, you are taken to a few teas which are given by some of the clubs. You saw the club-houses when you were shown about earlier in the day. Some of them are very handsome, and they are all nice, and the nicest is the one to which your brother belongs, or whoever owns the club-pin you carry homewith you. At the teas the rooms are crowded, the air is hot, the flowers are tumbled over, you become hoarse, and in most features it is similar to any tea, except that there are enough men. You will here meet several of those whose names you have on your dance-card, and you may make up your mind whether to remember that fact or not.
After the round of teas there remain but two hours in which to dress. When you have hurried on those things which make up "a dream," "a creation," or "a symphony," whichever it is that you bring, and have had, if you feel like it, a bit of dinner, you are taken, at a little after eight o'clock, to church. The Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin clubs give a very good concert here, and it is a good place to have your escort point out the various men who are fortunate enough to be on your card, and gives you a good opportunity to notice the taste displayed by other girls in their costumes, and feel pleased with your own. There are all sorts of gowns, made of many sorts of materials with interesting names.
When the concert is at last over—much as you enjoyed it, it seemed rather long to you, who were thinking of what was to follow—you are taken to University Hall, which is across thestreet, or to the Gymnasium, if the dance is to be there, which is a little farther back on the campus, and you are shown to the dressing-room, where those last fluttering finishing touches are put on. Those calm, assured-looking young women who came in ahead of you are a little excited too, as is that laughing girl who was pointed out to you as a flirt.
When you are quite ready, and are pulling and smoothing your gloves while waiting for the chaperon to start your party, you catch a glimpse of something, as the door opens for an instant, which extends from the door all along the dimly lighted passage to the very stairs beyond—something which looks like a great black bank with gleaming white patches here and there. This is made up of young men, whose collars are stiff and straight. When your chaperon stalks forth with a sort of flourish, several members of the black and white bank come forward to meet your party, and the rest make inaudible comments upon your appearance, probably to the effect that you are "smooth." But all that you are sure of is that your escort offers you his arm with a smile and a stiff bow, that you walk nervously up the winding stairs, step into a dazzle of light, where members of the dance committee are running hither and thitherwith dance-cards and girls, and where patronesses are smiling, bowing, looking stately, holding their fans, and doing whatever patronesses usually do. Then the orchestra plays a promenade, to which a few impatient couples try to waltz, and you begin what you have talked about and thought about and dreamed about for a month.
You notice when you have danced the first one with your brother's roommate, at whose special invitation you came, that as soon as he has taken you to your seat he rushes off like mad. In a moment he comes back again, bearing with him the young man who was pointed out to you at the concert as being down on your card for No. 2. While he is being presented, still another anxious-eyed man runs up and hurriedly snatches off your host. These are men who are "running" girls' cards.
Now, while you and your new acquaintance are waiting for the music to begin, and are amiably agreeing that the concert was good, that the room is warm, that the light effects are pretty, you may steal another glance at your dance-card to make sure of this man's name. It is carefully written in ink on the pretty silk-and-leather-bound card which was handed to you on the way to the concert. All the numbersare filled and three extras. This is the way it was done:
About three weeks ago a young man was sitting in the grand stand one sunny afternoon watching the baseball practice, and wondering whether the nine would beat Harvard, when one of his clubmates came along and asked him for a match. He complied with the request, and said, "Don't mention it." Then the borrower of the match asked if he were going to the dance, and as he admitted his intention of doing so, he was handed a preliminary card which had your name at the top of it. Then, after a little more conversation, he put his name down for No. 2, and handed it back to your host, who thanked him. And again he said, "Don't mention it." That was the man who is about to dance with you. At that time you were unknown to him. The other names were secured in various ways. In the midst of a lecture your card was passed along to some fellow on the end of the row, who, with the same pencil with which he was taking notes on "Post-Kantian Philosophy," secured for himself adeux-tempswith you. Other men were hailed out in front of Old North when the seniors were singing, or at the club dinner tables, and in the lounging-rooms when they were talking baseball, or when they were at the billiardtable and had to walk across the room to where their coats were hanging to see their cards. Perhaps your host took a night off to it, and went out on the campus and yelled "Hello, Billy Wilson!" under Billy Wilson's window to see if he were in before he ran up the stairs to his room and demanded to see his dance-card; and went on thus from entry to entry as if he were out after subscriptions, except that he went to his friends. Sometimes it is not an easy task to fill five or six cards, especially when every one is feeling rather down-hearted over an unfortunate athletic season. Of course if the girl has been down before, and is well known and popular, there is no difficulty of this kind. Probably the next time you come down you won't need a card.
Except for the five dances which he saves out for himself you see very little of your host during the evening, and even then he seems worried and absent-minded. It no doubt piques you a little that the moment the music ceases he leaves you, and, with an expression on his face which reminds you of when "Pigs in Clover" was the rage, darts across the room, bumping into people and begging pardons. The only time he looks comfortable and recalls to your mind last Christmas holidays is when heand you have slipped off to one of those quiet little nooks so bounteously adorned with rugs and hangings, brought for the occasion from some dormitory room, to enjoy two little bits of ice which he has pillaged from the supper-room. Then for a while he seems to forget his cares, and you two have a good old-fashioned chat. You notice a streak of chicken-salad along his silken collar, but that gives you no adequate idea of the muscle and bad language required to secure and bear away those two little dabs of ice and one napkin, any more than his anxious expression indicates the amount of patience and ubiquity required to "run" three girls' cards at a college dance.
All this time you have been going through the several different stages of "a perfectly lovely time." You have shown a lot of young men how well you can dance, and have gotten along very well with all you have met except that once when you asked sweetly, sympathetically, "Won't you be just too glad to be a sophomore next year?" of a very studious and diminutive member of the graduating class. The chat is no longer about the concert, nor is the heat mentioned, though it is terrific, nor the effect of the lights upon the pink and white cheese-cloth, except by those gallants who see fit to say somethingabout its being becoming to certain complexions. And, most gratifying of all, you notice that those who have your name on their cards more than once come the second time without being brought. Indeed, some come again who have not that good fortune, and you pay slight attention to your card after supper, but dance with those who come up and beg for a dance, because you are tender-hearted and hate to displease them. It is a good plan to lose your card now or hide it. Some girls tear up theirs the moment they come, for fear they might make a mistake, and consequently hurt somebody's feelings.
By this time you have gotten your second wind, if you'll pardon the expression. You talk without previously meditating upon what you are about to say; but you know it's all right just as you drift to the strains of the music automatically. Your eyes are wide open and sparkling; your cheeks have a flush which is becoming; you are dimly conscious that your visit at Princeton is a success. And just as you are beginning to wish that all this could last forever you hear a strain of music of which every daughter of a loving home should be fond, and then, for the first time, you notice that the stately patronesses in their bower are openingtheir eyes very wide and gritting their teeth very hard. Then, having danced that last one furiously, you are dragged off, casting a lingering glance at faded flowers, wilted collars, tired musicians, torn skirts.
When you come from the noisy, laughing dressing-room a moment later, wrapped from head to foot in a great long thing which covers any changes the five hours' exercise might have wrought in your appearance, you are met by your bedraggled escort under the light, where you took his arm before, long ago, on the way to the dance. You can remember how stiff his collar was then and how smooth his hair. Everything, animate and inanimate, looks different now, especially with that ghastly streak of dawn which mingles with the electric light. It makes some of the girls look rather faded and jaded, you think, and some of the men rather rakish, but not even the girls seem to care very much. Every one is too excited to be tired, and too merry to be formal. All the stiffness of your escort's manner has gone with that of his collar. As he offers his arm this time he does not gaze straight ahead of him and murmur something incoherent about hoping that you are going to enjoy this, for he begins singing "It's all over now," to the dank and misty campustrees on the way to University Hall, and you give him permission to smoke a cigarette, and shout good-night down the stairs, and tell him what time to call around in the morning—later on in the morning—for he has made you promise to stay over all of the following day and see a little of the college and campus, and take a stroll in the queer old town.
Then, as the gray dawn creeps in through the dotted Swiss curtains which somebody made for the freshman who owns the room, causing the roses on the bureau to look pale and livid, and while the far-away voices of the dance committee can be heard from back of Witherspoon, where they are having an informal game of baseball in their evening clothes to celebrate the success of their efforts, and the sparrows outside your window begin to twitter as though there had been no dance, you lay your head upon the pillow and tell your roommate what the tall one said who danced the two-step so divinely, and what that funny little fellow with frowsy hair told you, and what were the remarks of the football man with whom you sat out two dances, and how the entertaining man who sang the solo at the concert seemed to like you, and what your brother's roommate told you not to tell.
At first they thought he was one of the new students, he was such a little fellow and had such a smooth, boyish face. And one of the college men had stopped him on the street, and, in a manner that seemed to indicate that he had some particular reason for desiring the information, asked him abruptly: "What class do you belong to?"
The little tutor had looked up timidly through his large spectacles and answered, in his thin, high voice: "I am not a member of any of the classes. I am to be one of the instructors in the academy."
He had smiled reassuringly, to show that he did not take any offence. But the tall young man did not seem to dream of embarrassment; he only said: "Youare?" and passed on.
This happened early in September, the day before the term opened, and the little tutor had been busying himself looking about the campus and getting his bearings in the little city. He had never been in the West before, and thisseemed very far out West; it was like a foreign country to him. The broad, evenly laid, well-kept streets lined with so many fine lawns, were a matter of great interest and speculation. He thought it queer that when a man could afford to have nearly a whole block of lawn that he should have only a frame house upon it, but some of these frame houses were very large and comfortable and invariably freshly painted, and he liked that. He admired the new and handsome business blocks of fine brick and stone. But what seemed most wonderful to him was the broad, level sweep of the prairie when he walked out into the country. It almost took his breath away.
But it was the campus, as being his future place of work, that occupied most of his attention and curiosity. He walked slowly over it all, examining each building and every feature thoughtfully and with a critical air as one about to buy. There were only about a half-dozen buildings in all, including both the college and academy. It struck him as odd that both institutions should be on the same grounds and apparently of the same importance. The buildings were rather new, and he missed the dignified, patriarchal aspect of the old campus he had been accustomed to. He thought he couldnever feel any veneration for all this brand-newness as he had toward those old landmarks he loved so well. Indeed, it all seemed small and puny viewed in this light, and he walked about with rather a patronizing air, as he thought with pride of his Alma Mater, and it seemed to him that this institution was favored in obtaining for an instructor a graduate of such a famous old institution—and an honorman, too, he said to himself, with a blush of satisfaction.
Of course, this preparatory school teaching was only temporary with him. Only a preparation for something else, and that but a step to something higher, until he became—but the little tutor never acknowledged just how high his ambition aimed. It was at this point, as he was leaning against a tree, that the young man had come up and asked him what class he belonged to.
But he had not minded that in the least; he knew how boyish-looking he was. It was very natural for them to make such mistakes. A little thing like that would not discourage him. They did not know him; wait a few days, and they would learn who he was.
And he was right. The whole college and academy learned who he was the very next afternoon in chapel. And even the townsfolksoon learned to know him by sight; they thought it odd that such a little fellow should be a professor. By the end of the month the children coming home from school had learned to point out his small figure with the large head, carried with his peculiar, springing strides, and they would say to one another, "There goes the Little Tutor."
But as they watched him walking briskly by, holding his body stiff and straight, they little knew what was going on behind that smile, which was a curious mixture of gravity and good nature.
For some reason or other things had not gone as he had expected, and so far, at least, they were not tending toward the future he had pictured.
He had thought that out there they would appreciate that he came from such a large, famous old institution, and that he had stood so well in his class and all that; but neither the attitude of the faculty, college, nor academy indicated anything of the kind, he thought. And this wasn't all. No one seemed to take any interest in him as an individual. That is, beyond a cold curiosity.
He did not see why no one took the initiative and made friends with him; he could not, beinga new-comer. He knew he had never been very popular at college, but he had a few good friends, and nearly every one of his classmates was kind to him. As he looked back on those dear old days, midst those dear old influences, his present surroundings seemed cold, very cold.
And he could not explain this coldness. Surely it could not all be on account of that first mistake. Oh, that terrible first day in chapel. He thought he would never forget it. He remembered sitting up there on the platform, before all the college and academy—for out there the whole faculty come to chapel, and they sit in a semicircle behind the President. He was conscious of many eyes being upon him, and he knew what they were thinking and whispering to each other, "Is that the new tutor?" "What a kid!" And, indeed, as he cast his eyes furtively over the faces before him he discovered even among the preps. many a raw-boned countryman who was his senior in years, and this thought had so rattled him that he took off his glasses—those large owl-eyed things—and began wiping them, as he always did when embarrassed, and then he suddenly reminded himself that this always made him appear more youthful, and so he clapped them onagain. He had not felt this peculiar lonely out-of-it feeling for a good many years; no, not since beginning of freshman year, at his first eating club.
But what was that? He had heard his name pronounced. Surely he was not going to be called upon to lead in prayer. Then the whole sentence re-echoed in his confused brain, the distinct clear-cut words of the President, "Horatio B. Stacy, A.B., will be Professor Wilkin's assistant in the academy." If any of the bold, searching eyes had for a moment wandered from him, he knew they had returned again now. He remembered wondering if he jumped enough for them to see him. He remembered how the steam-heater rattled and pounded in the little chapel and the odor of the new paint, as the young President went on with his perfectly enunciated words in his clear and cold voice: "He comes highly recommended from a good Eastern college. I trust he will prove satisfactory. Let us sing number three hundred and sixteenth." The President pronounced sixteenth perfectly. And the organ burst forth with a loud, cruel prelude, and the hymn was sung. The little tutor always remembered number three hundred and sixteen, one bar of which always seemed to sing "satisfactory."
When the long hymn was finished, the President, having pronounced the benediction, stepped down from the platform and started down the centre aisle, followed by an old white-headed professor, and he by the professor on his left. The little tutor sat next, and so, innocently enough, he started down behind them. How was he to know that there was a custom to be observed in this trooping out of chapel, that the order was determined by precedence? Ah, it made him flush when he thought of it, even now. He could remember just how the whole college and academy laughed—they did not titter, but laughed outright—and when he realized the position and hesitated, trembling, half-way down the aisle, and tried to smile, some of them fairly shouted. He could even now see, in his mind, the face of one of the college men next to the aisle as he leaned back and laughed merrily, cruelly, looking squarely into the little tutor's eyes without pretending to control his mirth. The little tutor never remembered how he gained the cool of the outside.
But why was he to be blamed? They should have told him. How was he to know that there was any rule about the matter? At his college the professors never attended chapel; that is, except two or three, who sat in the stalls.
The next morning, with some fear and much hope, he had met his first class. Perhaps his hand shook a little as he held the roll while his pupils came into the room, and his voice trembled, perhaps, as he addressed the class, and he couldn't help blushing—his old failing—when he heard the laugh caused by his mispronouncing a queer name; but he told himself that he had gotten along splendidly when the long day was over, and the future seemed bright once more as he planned his work.
He thought out just what his attitude toward his pupils would be. He was determined that he would not lord it over them, but would win their confidence, become friends with them, get to know them all personally, and invite them around to his rooms some time, perhaps. He even determined upon his policy of discipline, if that should become necessary. He would not, he thought, be sarcastic with them, as one of his professors at college used to; no, because that, he deemed, was taking a mean advantage of the student, who could not, by reason of the relations of master and pupil, answer back; the master had it all on his side. Neither did he think he would affect the indignant attitude; no, because—well, he remembered the fellows' laugh at him when he once tried to be indignant.He would assume a dignified disregard, as the dean used to. That was the best method of maintaining order and attention in a class-room. That would best become Horatio B. Stacy, A.B. He fell asleep that night wondering what his pupils would give him for a nickname.
Now, as the week went by he never had been obliged to exercise his authority. The classes all paid very good attention, better than he had hoped for. But how very different this thing teaching was from what he had supposed!
The little tutor had been there almost a month; he had walked all around the town and about the country; had faithfully attended all his classes, and sometimes he had six hours a day; had gone to chapel every evening at five; had sat, stared at, in the semicircle behind the President, and had trooped out again with his odd gait, and always thelastone in the procession now. But he had not a single friend in the State, unless it was his landlady with the false hair front.
He remembered thinking at college that the attitude of those dear old professors was rather distant. But that dignified conservatism was nothing like this unconcern, this icy indifference, manifested by these professors and assistants;and he was one of their number remember, too.
He smiled grimly as he recollected how that, when he first came, he had rather expected that some of them might invite him to dine. This he deemed would be proper in view of his position as an assistant, especially as this institution was so small that the faculty was not large enough to be divided into many cliques. And he had even pictured himself enjoying a delightful conversation with that old, white-haired professor whom he had taken such a fancy to, or, perhaps, holding an animated discussion with some of them as to the respective merits of Western and Eastern colleges.
But he could have endured their attitude if only his plans would work in regard to his classes. It was about his pupils that he thought the most. He made a study of each man and each mind and learned what to expect from each: which were good at one kind of work and which at another; which were the bright, indolent fellows and which were the plodders. They nearly all worked quite hard, that was the one encouraging thing. But he could not understand them. The little tutor had never been to a preparatory school himself, but he felt certain that these fellows were not like mostpreps. He certainly could not understand their attitude toward himself. He wanted to be friendly with them all, and tried to laugh and joke occasionally to make the relations easy, but it was of no use, they only looked at him inquiringly, as if he were doing something they hadn't bargained for. They all came to recitation in a business-like way, which seemed to say, "Here we are, now you teach us."
They never thought of bowing to him as they came in. They seemed to regard him only as an automaton that was paid—and bytheirmoney—to stand up there and teach, and he would not have believed that he was thought of by them outside, that he entered into their existence at all, if he had not one day come into the room with rubber over-shoes on his feet and heard them say something about the "Little Tutor." That was the time he learned his nickname, and he felt rather glad when he heard them say it, though they were somewhat confused when they turned and saw him.
When recitations were over, when they had gotten their money's worth, they returned to their lodgings in the same brisk business-like manner, for dormitories are scarce out there. The little tutor thought perhaps this had somethingto do with the lack of college feeling in the institution. There was noesprit de corps. They were, the whole collection of them, college and academy, simply a lot of young men who came together in one place, paid their money and got an education by which they would earn more than enough to repay them. So you see it was a good bargain. Perhaps this was putting it too strongly, he reminded himself, for there was some feeble exhibition of class spirit once or twice, and a football team, too, that practised after supper in their shirt-sleeves. But, oh! how he longed for a sight of those old familiar figures he used to see slouching carelessly across the campus in corduroys and sweaters, with pipes and songs and all that easy good friendship, and the practising at the 'varsity grounds. But these are bitter thoughts.
He hoped that these pupils of his would not always wear linen shirts. He wished their vests were not cut so low. He longed for a sight of a familiar cheviot shirt and a carelessly tied bow at the neck. He would have given a good deal, he thought, just to see one man walking by with a sweater tied by the arms about his neck, a dirty sweater perhaps, and his hands deep down in his pockets. Sometimes he felt that he would enjoy, yes, actually, hearing somebodyflunk in one of his classes. Who would have thought that of little poler Stacy?
You see the boy was almost hysterical with this morbid homesickness. He was brim full of it, and a very slight jar would have been enough to upset him and spill it all.
Sometimes he realized that he was making a fool of himself and then he used to take himself in hand for being so childish. But he had always had these little boyish ways of thinking about the people and things around him. He remembered how it was at college; when he first came as a freshman his poor little brain was nearly worn out with wondering and imagining, and when he fell to thinking of those days long ago, it seemed impossible to him that he was a grown man now and teaching in an academy. But it was true, and the framed diploma hung in his room. And, what was more to the point, he was making money. He had felt encouraged when he received his first earnings.
On a Saturday evening he had called around at the treasurer's office and received his money, carefully counted and put in an envelope with a blue lining. The treasurer was an old man with a hard face, and when the little tutor came in he did not say "How do you do," or anything, but simply turned toward the safe and took out themoney, keeping the pen in his teeth as he did so, and only taking it out to ask, as he looked up at the little tutor, "That is right," in an exact tone, "is it not?"
He hated this proceeding, and hoped that next time there would not be the right amount, so that he might have a cheque. But he felt light-hearted when he carried the money to his room and wrote his letter home and enclosed a certain share of his profits. Prospects seemed brighter and his hopes ran high, and his dreams ran away out into the future when all his drudgery would be over and he would be recognized as a great man, an authority on—but somehow it was hard to hold those old aspirations that had seemed so realizable about commencement time, when he was an honor man. This cold western climate and these common-sense practical New Englanders seemed to have a chilling effect upon his ambitions, especially as his self-confidence was never very firmly rooted, for he was not, strangely enough for a young man, very much of a believer in himself, and his conceit was not spontaneous, but was of the bolstered-up kind, so that when he halted in his castle-building he was in a very dangerous position, for, if you take a young man's conceit away from him, is henotin a very dangerous position indeed?
He was also, he told himself, learning this life lesson: that to win what men call success in this world required something that he was afraid he did not possess: he did not know exactly what to call it. When he was in college he used to comfort himself with saying: "Never mind, you may not amount to much here, but when you get out in the world individual worth will not be handicapped by modesty." But he was beginning to despair of this. It would do well enough in books, but it took what they callbluffto get along with men, even if you want to do them good, and this, he knew very well, he did not, and never could, possess. And when he followed this line of thought, he used to sigh and come to the conclusion that what the world called success was not worth the struggle when one had to use such manœuvring to win it. But he reminded himself that he must not allow himself to sink into such pessimism, as in his case those at home had a claim upon him.
It was not at all characteristic of the "little Stacy" of college days to become so despondent, for he was of a hopeful, trusting disposition, and it was all because he had no friend to talk to, no kindred spirit for his confiding nature, or any other kind for that matter.
His discouragement took the form of indignationin the end, but not before he had several times taken hope and smiled in his old trustful way, only to find that it was a blind lead.
For instance when that young Wheaton in his rhetoric class appeared to be striking up a friendship with him, and even walked through the campus several times with him, the chances of having a friend had seemed fair and he began to think that at last he was being appreciated by one fellow, and a nice fellow too. But after young Wheaton had obtained an extension of time on the essay he was to write his manifestations of friendliness suddenly ceased. And the little tutor wondered how he had offended his pupil.
Then there was the time he was invited to a certain annual reception that is always given. The little tutor knew that he was asked only by reason of his position, but he remembered accepting with a good deal of pleasure, and the anticipation of hisentréeinto the society of the town was a matter of no small excitement to him: a good deal depended on it, he had told himself. He meditated considerably over the manner of conducting himself in his first appearance in society as an instructor: what was becoming to a tutor, and just how dignified he ought to appear, and he even found himself practisingremarks in his room and examining in the glass the expression of his face and all those old failings of his self-conscious nature of which he was so ashamed. He remembered how excited he was as he rang the door-bell, and how awkwardly he bowed when he had come down-stairs, and how little the people restrained their curiosity in examining him. He did not mingle with the younger people any more than he could help, for he always hated young ladies, but stayed with a group of women who were talking about Emerson.
These ladies were members of a literary club, which thought itself very literary and tried to be Bostonian; and no doubt it was. Stacy had some very good ideas, and would have been willing to express them, and could have quoted readily from an essay he had once written, but somehow they did not seem to be expecting anything from him except to smile and say, "Yes, certainly," now and then, as those two young assistants were doing, and so he tried to pick up a low-toned conversation with one of them on the edge of the circle. But they made themselves so obnoxious by their air of superiority that he boldly made some allusion to the athletic insignificance on the part of their college in comparison with his own. One of themimmediately made some answer which brought in something about Yale (at which the other laughed loudly), and then drew up his brow and looked complacent, as if he had made a splendid shot. The poor little tutor turned on his heel furious, and felt a strange desire to swear, something that he had never done in all his innocent life.
He came to the conclusion that the fault of this whole matter lay not in himself, but in them. This is what he conceived to be the reason: Nearly everyone in the little city, students, faculty and townspeople, were New Englanders by blood or birth. That part of the country, like other sections of the West, happened to have been settled entirely by New Englanders. Perhaps they were not all of the best sort of New England extraction either. At any rate no one knew anything but New England ways of doing things and looking at things, and to the little tutor, whose environments had not been such as to cause him to bow down and worship the Pilgrim fathers, or to think that the sun rose and set on Plymouth Rock, all this was at first a matter of surprise, then of wonder, and finally of hate.
Every day in chapel the President spoke in his cold tones of character moulding, and heldup before his hearers Puritan models. On Sundays the little tutor went to the principal church of the place, and a kind of essay that seemed to him nothing but washed-out New Englandism was thrown out to him. The text-books were all those of New England writers; all the manners and customs about the college were copied after New England colleges; the very compositions that he had to correct contained allusions to the Pilgrim Fathers and sturdy New England character and noble Puritan traits until the little tutor began to wish that there never had been a Plymouth Rock. He wondered how everyone else seemed to stand it so well. But they had been brought up on it and never knew anything different, and could not conceive of any one's not thinking as they did and as their fathers did and as their great-grandfathers had done, and pitied (only Stacy doubted if they could pity) any family that did not have a piece of the Mayflower to worship.
The most aggravating feature of it, to the little tutor, was that they were so very self-satisfied about it all, never dreaming that there could be anyone so barbarous as not to envy their New England blood, and it was this attitude that used to make the little tutor indignant and cause him to wish he could be sarcastic, as oneof his professors used to be: how he would pitch into them! But the worst of it was that he realized his diminutiveness and his boyishness; so he felt helpless and baffled, and he had to submit to the cold indifference and haughty air of superiority worn by those two young assistants not much older than himself, who graduated from such a miserable little unheard-of college. Stacy thought that if they had gone to his college they would have had some of the conceit taken out of them. He thought he might stand it all as far as he was concerned, but he felt somehow as if they were insulting his college in their treatment of himself, her representative. He blushed to think how poor a representative he was.
It was just at this point in his discouragement that he had an opportunity which he had often longed for. At last he would have a chance to show them what was in him. This would be his final stroke, he told himself, and he staked his all upon it. He was to lead the prayer-meeting. These prayer-meetings were attended by the college, the academy, and even the professors.
Like many excessively shy men, the little tutor was not abashed before a crowd when he appeared in some identity other than his own.At college he had always done well in his orations, because unconsciously he merged his own personality into that of an imaginary orator. So on this occasion he was perfectly cool; indeed, he was surprised at himself. The subject was, "Help one another." He had thought, in preparing it, that it was a singular coincidence, his having that subject. He thought he could talk to them from his heart on such a subject. And he did.
They all listened intently, and he thought they must be surprised to see how thoughtful he was, and how earnest, and what a splendid speaker he was. When he finished, he knew that he had done well.
He felt almost joyful when he returned to his room. He dreamed that night that certain men came up to him as he was walking alone, and tried to become intimate with him, as he had seen it done at college with fellows who had suddenly become prominent.
The next morning he was joined on the way to the campus by the principal of the academy. Stacy thought he was going to compliment him upon his admirable talk. But he was mistaken. He even hinted about it indirectly, though ashamed of himself for so doing; but this had no effect. At last, in desperation, he was goingto say, "Professor Thorne, may I ask you whether my talk last evening met your approval," but while he was trying to invent some excuse for such a question they reached the academy building.
As he took his seat on the platform waiting for morning prayers to begin (the academy had prayers as well as evening chapel), he looked around at the preps. and studied their faces carefully.
Professor Thorne that morning spoke on one aspect of character-moulding, namely, "Independence." He did not directly mention the address of the evening before, but Stacy thought he might just as well have, as he sat there beside the principal before the eyes of the whole academy without changing his gaze from the floor or moving a muscle, except once, when the principal made some reference to the sturdy New England character; then the little tutor made a slight involuntary gesture, but no one noticed it.
That morning in the class-room the little tutor did not seem himself, and his pupils watched him curiously. And if the conduct and appearance of the little tutor was unusual that morning, what was it in the afternoon!
At one o'clock, when nearly every one went down to get the mail, the little tutor was casually noticed by some of them in the post-office. "Anything for Horatio B. Stacy?" he asked at the window in a high voice. Then they noticed him excitedly tear open the one letter he had received and, as he ran over the contents, he said excitedly, in a voice loud enough to be heard, "Just in time—just," but at that point he seemed to notice that he was being observed. His dazed expression was a curious mixture of surprise and, perhaps, pleasure.
Then he came in late to his recitation at three o'clock and seemed to be barely able to keep his attention on the work, and now and then he would look up and smile and stare at them in an indescribably queer way. And in the midst of the next recitation he suddenly arose and, motioning the young man that was reciting to take his seat, he said, in a husky voice, "Here, stop! the class will please excuse me," and bowing politely, even grandly, he hurried out of the room, not seeming to care that his pupils had not got their money's worth. The little tutor was not himself.
At half-past seven o'clock that evening he came promptly to the faculty meeting and quietly took his customary seat by the door.None of the faculty were aware of anything unusual until after they had transacted the ordinary business and had decided one or two cases that came up, and the president had arisen, as usual, and said, in his clear tones, "Gentlemen of the faculty, is there further business of any nature to come before this meeting?" and the white-headed old professor as usual had turned his head sedately around to see if there was anything, and then settled down in his chair again with his disappointed look, as was his custom. At this point the little tutor arose.
No one saw him at first, and the president was beginning to say "Then the meeting stands adjourned," but before he reached the last word the little tutor cleared his throat with a loud, forced sound, which made them all, young and old, turn their eyes upon him. He was smiling, they thought.
"I think it is about time for me to speak," he said, in his high voice, with a little nervous tremor in it.
He was vaguely conscious of this, and, also, of the light of the lamp reflected upon the blackboard back of the President's head. Then he buttoned up his little cut-away coat and began the speech he had practised in his room. He spoke slowly and, apparently, very coolly, andin a deep voice which he always assumed in delivering his orations.
"You are probably aware, as I am, that in the wording of the letter by which I was engaged to serve as Professor Wilkins's assistant in your academy, there was no clause which specifies the length of time for which I was to serve in that capacity. This is the case, is it not? A purely temporary arrangement, so that, in case I proved unsatisfactory"—he tried to imitate the President's pronunciation of this word—"I need not be retained the entire year.
"I have been here one month," he said, with impressiveness. He paused a moment, and then assuming a smile which he thought was like one of his old classmates, he concluded: "I appreciate the delicacy of your position, and will relieve you of the disagreeable duty—a duty from which you have been restrained by your very kind and thoughtful appreciation for my feelings—by voluntarily offering my resignation."
The little tutor walked bravely over to the desk and bowing low laid a carefully written sheet of paper on the desk, thereby purposely allowing an opportunity for expression of opinion. But he had crossed the room and reached his place before anyone began to speak; at first it seemed as if nothing was going to be said ontheir part. Then the President at last made answer, speaking very deliberately, it seemed to Stacy:
"Well, Mr. Stacy, this is very sudden; very unexpected. We are surprised. Believe me, Mr. Stacy, in case the performance of your duties had not been satisfactory, we would have advised you."
The little tutor believed him.
"Furthermore, your work has been entirely satisfactory, has it not, Professor Thorne?"
"Entirely," echoed Professor Thorne, across the room.
The little tutor was baffled by the tones of the President. He thought they belied his words. Nobody seemed to be impressed as he had expected.
"It is my intention to leave to-morrow!" he exclaimed, excitedly, making an emphatic gesture with his hand.
"Surely, Mr. Stacy, you are laboring under some wrong impression. Surely, there is some misunderstanding. You are a little excited, Mr. Stacy. Perhaps you are a little overworked. You had better think it over before you make up your mind permanently."
Professor Thorne here spoke up: "Don't you think, Mr. Stacy, that it would be a little unwiseon your own account. Pardon me, Mr. Stacy, but I understand your circumstances, and it would be rather late in the year to obtain another position now."
The President was about to say something further, but as he turned he saw on the young man's face a look as of a weak animal at bay; and he stopped.
"Don't you know why I'm leaving this place? I'll tell you," he exclaimed, excitedly; all his oratorical manner and assumed grandiloquence was forgotten with the rest of his speech. He almost screamed in his natural voice, "I'll tell you,I hateyou—all, every one." He swept his hand wildly around the circle, "From the oldest, gray-haired D.D. to those two conceited young assistants, you cold, intellectual, cultured, bloodless, unemotional, self-satisfied creatures—I hate you. Of courseyoudon't care; you won't lose anything by my hate." He paused a moment, buttoned up his little coat and began again, the words pouring out of themselves: "I know I'm nobody; I know I'm not attractive, or cultured, but I'm a human being—if I'm not from New England—and I have a human heart. I have been here a whole month, and in that time what one of you has made a friendly advance?—has spoken a word of encouragement?—haseven taken note of my existence, except as a machine paid to do a certain amount of work? I found that out that first day in chapel when your President told you all of the bargain he had made. He assured you that you were not cheated, as the article rented had had a good standing in his class. I wondered at the time he did not, in naming my good points like a horse, mention my college instead of sayinga good Eastern college—that's what I can't stand. I could endure the treatment of myself, but those slurs on my college I cannot and will not stand. Stop! Don't get excited; don't try to explain anything. You don't want me to go, because you think you have a good, hard-working horse. You think to detain me by informing me of my poverty. That might do, but—but read that!" He snatched from his pocket the letter he had received that morning.
"Read that!" and he started toward the desk with the letter in his hand. But the strain was too much for the little tutor. He fainted for the first time in his life.
He never found out whether they read the letter or not. Of course, he could have ascertained by writing out there, but he never did.Indeed, he did not like to think of that time now, though he did love to take out a certain letter with a printed head at the top and read the formal language which stated briefly how that, owing to the fact that Mr. Charles Benjamin Howard had decided, etc., "the fellowship in, etc., was open to Horatio B. Stacy as being, etc., and that it was with a great deal of pleasure"—but he knew it all by heart, because he had intended to repeat it once on a certain awful occasion when he was, he thought, temporarily insane, at least not Horatio B. Stacy.