MICHAELMAS TERM

This late talk with Carroll did more toward putting Tony at his ease in the school than perhaps anything that happened to him. From that time on he became very friendly with his room-mate—all the better friends doubtless because they always maintained toward each other a certain reserve, due rather to Carroll’s involuntary elaborateness of manner than to any deliberate effort on their part. All the better also was it that real as was their mutual regard for each other neither had that enthusiastic affection that school boys so frequently experience, and of which Tony was already aware in another direction. For just such a friendship quickly developed between him and Jimmie Lawrence.

He has missed one of the purest joys of life who has not known the delights of an enthusiastic boyish friendship. It has its sweetnesses, its fears and scruples, as has every other love; but there is a cloudless carelessness about its happy days as about no other period of life. For Tony, in that first Indian summer at Deal to wander off from the common fields with Jimmie Lawrence, into unfamiliar haunts, into the enchanted region of Lovel’s Woods, or along the rocky kelp-strewn shores of the Strathsey River or the tawny beaches of the Neck, was a joy pure and unalloyed.

Among others Carroll watched the development of this friendship with interest. Carroll was not the sort to give his affection quickly in such whole-hearted fashion, though he cared deeply enough about things, he thought. He neither approved nor disapproved of his room-mate’s devotion to Jimmie, certainly was not jealous of it. If such things must be—he had a way of smiling with his assumed air of cynicism when friendship was mentioned—why he supposed Jimmie Lawrence was as worthy of Tony’s devotion as the next boy. Carroll never spoke of this friendship to Tony, but tactfully began to welcome Jimmie as a visitor to their rooms during that fall term. To his own form-mates he referred to his study as “the kindergarten.” He did, however, speak unusually frankly to Tony of another friendship which that youth appeared to have made. They had wandered toward the beach one evening. Football practice was just over; Tony had had his bath and was glowing a beautiful pink and white in the soft air of the Indian summer twilight.

“Do you know,” said Carroll, flecking at the pebbles in the sands, as they stopped at the creek, “that you have made a great hit with our beloved Bill?”

Tony laughed. “Bill’s made a great hit with me, I may say. But doubtless that’s plain enough.”

“Oh, perfectly,” answered Carroll who was used to boys liking Mr. Morris, “but it has never been evident before that Bill has particularly cared for one of us rather than for another; he has been extraordinarily decent to everyone with whom he has to do, just as Gumshoe has been extraordinarily odious. For myself, I have always disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a universal in loco parentis, a grim determination to make people think every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible, and as undesirable as it is unreal. Witness, Gumshoe really makes me grateful to him, despite his native hideousness, because he never addresses me without a sarcastic snarl or an odious grin as though I were amusing him. One understands that amusement.”

“Oh, quite,” said Tony, absently.

Reggie did not like these little interjections in his monologue. “Don’t assume to be paying attention,” he commented now. “I know of course that you are not until I get back to you. Don’t think it necessary to assent. I am accustomed to talking without being listened to.”

“Oh, dry up, Reggie, go on with Bill—what about him?”

“Ah, I thought our curiosity had been aroused. This, little one; he had succeeded better than most people in liking a good many fellows, with the result of course that the fellows really like him. But, for you, his liking is more patent than usual. I congratulate you—not to say, I envy you.”

“Nonsense,” began Tony.

“Cultivate him, my boy.”

“Oh, I mean to do that,” Deering answered. “Tell me, do you like Mr. Morris, Reggie; you’re such a—”

“I, oh I adore him,—in my way; but even so much is between you and me. He is a demi-god, the superman. As for me, I amuse him, interest him, baffle him a little, I hope; but he will never be fond of me. It will be a relief to Bill when I get out of his house.”

“Don’t you think it’s just that he’s never been sure whether or not he could trust you?” asked Tony.

Carroll for once started. “Trust me? Good heavens, Deering, I imagine the man takes me for a gentleman.”

“Oh, of course, that—I meant rather in other ways; if he counts on you to help out....”

“Oh!” Carroll exclaimed, with a tone of relief, “I dare say not.... I dare say not....” And for a while he seemed to think rather seriously. Tony wondered to himself how he had happened to stumble on what doubtless was a sore spot with his room-mate in his relation to the house-master. As for Carroll’s talk about Mr. Morris’s good opinion, Tony only took that half seriously. He hoped it was true, of course. Tony liked to be liked, as perhaps most people do.

Those were really golden days for him, which he was always to recall with a peculiar sense of pleasure. He was consciously happier than he had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and a quivering ocean, it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School.

He was quick and sensible enough to keep his classroom work up to the average, and though he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, he suffered very little from detention or pensums, those popular devices for the torture of the dull and the lazy. He had his long afternoons free, save for football. And football in that day, under what Tony ever felt was a wise dispensation of the Head’s, was never allowed to absorb more than an hour, except when a game was on. As it was, he always had a good hour or so of daylight in which with a congenial companion,—Jimmie, or Kit, or Carroll, often,—he could explore the surrounding country. And this for Tony soon became the most fascinating way of spending his time. Before the Michaelmas term was over he had got to know every path and by-way for five miles roundabout. To a boy who had eyes as well as wits there was a plenty to interest him in the region about Deal;—the bold and varied shore, with its rocks and beaches, its coves and caves, its points and necks, the abode of wild fowl of the sea; the rolling fertile country to the north; Lovel’s Woods; the quiet waters of Deal Great Pond; the quaint streets of the old town of Monday Port, with its rotting wharves and empty harbor.

This strange old town, despite everywhere the lingering touch of the summer invasion, with its suggestion of a vanished trade, in the winter was bereft of all save its memories of a bygone order of things; and with these memories, to an imaginative boy, the town seemed heavy. It required a special permission and a good excuse for any of the schoolboys, except the Sixth, to get the freedom of its streets. Tony was especially keen for such excuses and such freedom. His first walk there had been with Mr. Morris, who seemed to know the intimate stories of its houses, to be familiar with all its little secrets. In less conventional conversations Tony planned escapades for that direction; but as yet nothing very definite suggested itself. The penalties for being caught in Monday Port without the good excuse were considered excessive and usually not worth the risk. Mr. Morris had a glorious tale of the days when he was a schoolboy at Deal, of the actual exodus from the school by night of the whole Fifth, the boarding of a schooner that had lain dreaming in the sleepy harbor for a day or so, a thrilling sail into the open, and the overhauling of the pirate crew by the Head in a steam-launch. Those were the good old days of birching, and yes, Mr. Morris had caught it. He had smiled at the memory as if it were a pleasant one.

Golden days that more and more took the aspect of holidays as midst school strain and throbbing excitement, they drew near the day of the “great game” with Boxford, the rival school across the Smoke mountains.

It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He had watched his play for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the first month found Tony a member of the School squad.

To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed. And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself, he nevertheless was a greenhorn.

His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him; on the other hand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,” a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans know—but that’s another story.

In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly. This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them. Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s “whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.

Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one evening after supper, and joined them as they walked around the terrace in the moonlight.

“I say, you fellows,” he began, plunging in medias res—Carroll always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on young Deering?”

Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes to school, as you seem to have.”

“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has, you might show a little—well, appreciation.”

“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to Kingsbridge instanter.”

“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?” he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to snubbing him.”

Marsh gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, Arty and me hang together,” he said lamely.

“Well, that is more than you can say for your English,” remarked Carroll, with a contemptuous smile, and turned away.

Chapin followed him up, and laid an arm upon his shoulder. “Look here, Reggie,” he exclaimed, “don’t let’s bicker about this kid. I don’t like him, but what difference need that make between us? We have stuck pretty close these four years. Come on now, let’s slip down to the cave, hit the pipe, and talk things over.”

“No, thank you,” replied Carroll briefly.

“Come on, Reggie, do,” put in Marsh, “we’ve bagged a bottle of wine to-day, and we’ll bust it to-night in your honor.”

“Thanks, no; seductive as your offering is, I rather fancy you may count me out of your little meetings in the future.” And with the words Carroll went on his way.

The two boys looked after him a moment, until he entered the Old School, when Chapin exclaimed, with an oath, “Let him go, Harry; we’ll count him out all right; but we’ll get even with his cub.”

Marsh murmured an assent, but hung back a little when Chapin renewed the proposal to visit the cave on the beach. “Don’t let us go to-night, Art; remember you’re in training.”

“The deuce with training. What’s the use of banging your head against a football for a month if a greenhorn like that is to be shoved into the front row at the last moment. I’m going to have some fun nights, and you’ll see, I shall be as fit as a fiddle in the morning anyway.” And as he spoke, he drew Marsh’s arm within his, and together they started for the beach.

From that day Carroll avoided them, a circumstance that did not increase their friendliness toward Tony. It had been comparatively easy at the time for Reginald to take the course he did, but as the days came and went, he began to miss the companionship of Chapin and Marsh more than he cared to acknowledge. Although naturally there was little in common between them, for so long a time he had identified himself with them and their crowd,—attracted by their willingness to engage upon any lark however wild and their keenness to avoid school rules, a process to which his own languid existence had been secretly dedicated,—that he keenly missed the nefarious exploits their companionship afforded. To be sure he had stopped smoking, he was bracing up a bit and helping Mr. Morris out with the discipline of the house, but beyond that he craved as ardently as ever the excitement and adventure of his more careless days.

At that moment he was ripe to have entered into a closer intimacy with Tony, or even with Mr. Morris. But Deering was absorbed in the life of his form, and except at night he and Carroll had no opportunity of being together, and then Tony was so tired out with football practice that by “lights” he was ready to tumble into bed. And so they fell quite out of the way of having nocturnal talks. Mr. Morris had a great liking for Carroll, despite his obvious faults, but he had long since given up the hope of knowing him better, of getting beyond Carroll’s supercilious reserve and too-elaborate courtesy. The consequence was that he detected no change now in the boy’s attitude and failed to make the advances that Carroll would have responded to so readily. For the first time Carroll became seriously dissatisfied with his life at school. He was really bored, as he had always pretended to be, and also lonely, which of course he did not acknowledge, even to himself. He was a little inclined to think in his heart that his half-conscious efforts at reform were not worth while. However he decided to stick it out for the year at any rate, and settled down to the monotonous routine with an air of indifference, and kept steadily away from his old companions.