Charles King - From School to Battle-field - A Story of the War Days

Twice that morning had Shorty tried to get him aside with sympathetic question, but the elder shook his head. There was no time. At recess, when Shorty counted on seeing his chum and hearing the whole story, Lawton never came out at all. John, the janitor, said he was having a talk with Mr. Halsey, trying to get him not to report something to the Doctor, but John himself seemed ill at ease and anxious to avoid question. The class communed together and instinctively connected Briggs and Hoover with the mystery, but Hoover had disappointed everybody by remaining away from school that day, and as for Briggs, he was in everybody's way. Wherever he saw a group in low-toned conference he would make for it, and by his very presence and loud-voiced questions and conjectures put an end to their confidences. Everybody seemed to feel that when the Doctor came down that afternoon there would be a sensation of some kind, and school reassembled after recess and the First Latin went to its benches without even accidentally upsetting one of them. Snipe was sitting at the end of the upper bench looking drearily out on the avenue, and Mr. Halsey, with darker face than usual, had taken his accustomed place.

A spiritless recitation was begun, Snipe losing his head and memory and place after place. There were boys who knew the answers to questions at which he only shook his head and who presently refused to speak and go above him. Halsey's face grew darker and darker at these evidences of sympathy. The "next! next! next!" became incessant. Up even towards the head of the class, above the seat to which the sad-eyed fellow had drifted, there was no animation. The leaders gave their answers in low tones, as though to say, "We've got to go through with this, but we've no heart in it. Snipe's proper place is up here among us." It was actually a relief to everybody when at last, towards the close of the hour, the Doctor's heavy tread was heard, slow and majestic, ascending the wooden stairs.

It was his custom to halt at the doorway, and from that point of view survey his waiting scholars, the foot of the class coming in for invariable comment. I can see him now, portly, erect, scrupulously neat and exact in dress from the crown of his deeply weeded high top hat to the tip of his polished shoes. Clean shaved, the wide upper lip, the broad massive chin, the great sweep of jaw. Collar, cuffs, and shirt-front immaculate; coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and the broad stock of flawless black. The gold seal dangling from his watch ribbon the only speck of color, the gold top of his stout, straight, black cane concealed in his hand. Under their shaggy brows the deep-set gray eyes twinkle, as slowly he lifts the long ferule and points it at the luckless wight on the lowermost bench; then with inquiring gaze sweeps the line of intent young faces, looking for some one.

"What!" he says. "Another occupant! Where, then, is the

'Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum'?"

And at any other day the class, barring Hoover, would have shouted with appreciative joy; but not to-day. Despite Hoover's absence a cloud has lowered over their house. They cannot laugh, even in counterfeited glee, and the Doctor's face changes on the instant as he steps within. He has noted Lawton's unusual position and his strange, white face.

"Anything wrong, Mr. Halsey?"

The head-master rises and turns to his revered senior. In low tone he says, so that only one or two can catch the words, "A matter I'll have to tell you after school, sir." And school must last over an hour longer. Silently the class exchanges the text-book for Xenophon. The Doctor's own hour has come, sacred to Greek, and silently the boys retake their places. But the occasion weighs upon the Doctor's mind. Something tells him there is worry ahead, and the sooner it is met the better. One expedient never fails him. "How have they done to-day, Mr. Halsey?"

The head-master purses up his lip. He knows that since recess at least, so far as recitation is concerned, they have done unusually ill; but he knows what the Doctor desires.

" Behaved rather better than usual, sir."

"One good turn deserves another," says Pop. "How many young gentlemen of the First Latin deserve half holiday? All hands up!" And up go the hands, but with only half the usual alacrity.

"The ayes have it. The class may retire."

And slowly the First Latin finds its legs and lingers, for Halsey whispers to Pop, and the latter, with somewhat grayer shade to his face, says, "Lawton will remain."

The boys dawdle unaccountably about the big bookcase, glancing over their shoulders at Lawton, who sits with drooping head and downcast eyes opposite Halsey's table. Briggs, panting a little, slinks through the silent group to the doorway, and scuttles quickly down the stairs. When Joy and Beekman reach the street he is peering round the stable at the corner, but slips out of sight an instant later. Three or four of the class, Shorty among them, still hover about the coat-rack. Shorty says he can't find his overshoes, which is not remarkable, as he did not wear them. Halsey is nervously tapping his desk with the butt of his pencil and glancing at the dawdlers with ominous eyes. At last the Doctor uplifts his head and voice. He has been looking over some papers on his desk.

"Those young gentlemen at the coat-rack seem reluctant to leave school, Mr. Halsey. Hah! Julian, cestus bearing! Dix, ecclesiasticus! Et tu, puer parvule, lingua longissima!" He pauses impressively, and, raising hand and pencil, points to the door. "If one of 'em comes back before to-morrow, Mr. Halsey, set him to work on Sallust."

And then the three know enough to stand no longer on the order of their going. Their faces are full of sympathy as they take a farewell peep at Snipe, and Shorty signals to unseeing eyes "I'll wait." And wait the little fellow does, a long hour, kicking his heels about the cold pavement without, and then the Second Latin comes tumbling down-stairs, scattering with noisy glee, and marvelling much to see Shorty looking blue and cold and mournful. He will not answer their questions; he's only waiting for Snipe. And another quarter-hour passes, and then for an instant the boy's eyes brighten, and he springs forward as his tall chum appears at the doorway, cap downpulled over his eyes, coat-collar hunched up to his ears, a glimpse of stocking between the hem of his scant trousers and those inadequate shoes. But the light goes out as quickly as it came, for with Lawton, similarly bundled up and well-nigh as shabby, is the head-master, who silently uplifts his hand and warns Shorty back; then, linking an arm in one of Lawton's, leads him away around the corner of Twenty-fifth Street.

It is more than the youngster can stand. Long-legged Damon, short-legged Pythias, the two have been friends since Third Latin days and chums for over a year. Shorty springs after the retreating forms, but halts short at sound of his name, called in imperative tone from above. At the open window stands the Doctor gazing out. He uses no further words. His right hand is occupied with his snowy cambric handkerchief. With his left he makes two motions. He curves his finger inward, indicating plainly "Come back!" and then with the index points down the avenue, meaning as plainly "Go!" and there is no cheery, undignified whistle as Shorty hastens to tell his tale of sorrow to sympathetic ears at home.

There were three more school-days that week, and they were the quietest of the year. On the principle that it was an ill wind that blew nobody good, there was one instructor to whom such unusual decorum was welcome, and that was poor Meeker, who noted the gloom in the eyes of most of the First Latin, and responsively lengthened his face, yet at bottom was conscious of something akin to rejoicing. His had been a hapless lot. He had entered upon his duties the first week in September, and the class had taken his measure the first day. A better-meaning fellow than Meeker probably never lived, but he was handicapped by a soft, appealing manner and a theory that to get the most out of boys he must have their good-will, and to get their good-will he must load them with what the class promptly derided as "blarney." He was poor and struggling, was graduated high in his class at college, was eager to prepare himself for the ministry, and took to teaching in the mean time to provide the necessary means. The First Latin would have it that Pop didn't want him at all, but that Meeker gave him no rest until promised employment, for Meeker had well known that there was to be a vacancy, and was first to apply for it. But what made it more than a luckless move for him was that he had applied for the position vacated by a man Pop's boys adored, "a man from the ground up," as they expressed it, a splendid, deep-voiced, deep-chested, long-limbed athlete, with a soul as big as his massive frame and an energy as boundless as the skies. He, too, had worked his way to the priesthood, teaching long hours at Pop's each day, tutoring college weaklings or would-be freshmen in the evenings, studying when and where he could, but wasting never a minute. Never was there a tutor who preached less or practised more. His life was a lesson of self-denial, of study, of purpose. Work hard, play hard, pray hard, might have been his motto, for whatsoever that hand of his found to do that did he with all his might. Truth, manliness, magnetism, were in every glance of his clear eyes, every tone of his deep voice. Boys shrank from boys' subterfuges and turned in unaccustomed disgust from school-boy lies before they had been a month in Tuttle's presence; he seemed to feel such infinite pity for a coward. Never using a harsh word, never an unjust one, never losing faith or temper, his was yet so commanding a nature that by sheer force of his personality and example his pupils followed unquestioning. With the strength of a Hercules, he could not harm an inferior creature. With the courage of a lion, he had only sorrow for the faint-hearted. With a gift and faculty for leadership that would have made him a general-in-chief, he was humble as a child in the sight of his Maker, and in all the long years of his great, brave life, only once, that his boys ever heard of, did he use that rugged strength to discipline or punish a human being, and that only when courtesy and persuasion had failed to stop a ruffian tongue in its foul abuse of that Maker's name. It was a solemn day for the school, a glad one for the church militant, when he took leave of the one to take his vows in the other. There wasn't a boy among all his pupils that would have been surprised at his becoming a bishop inside of five years, – as, indeed, he did inside of ten, – and the class had not ceased mourning their loss when Meeker came to take his place. "Fill Tut's shoes!" said Snipe, with fine derision. "Why, he'll rattle around in 'em like shot in a drum." No wonder Meeker failed to fill the bill.