The Adventures of a Freshman Part 18

"I think he's pretty hard hit financially," said Lucky Lee, who had been pretty hard hit of late himself. "He's working his way through college, you know. I wish he hadn't lost so much money."

"He had no business playing, then," said Powelton.

"I respect him for stopping, anyway," said Todd, who seldom played cards; recently he had not played at all; he had been doing some studying, "just for fun," he said.

"So do I," said Lee, in a low voice, and the others agreed--in lower voices.

Meanwhile, Young was studying as if his life depended upon it, and the strain was telling. He had lost twenty-four pounds since the football season.

The fellows saw nothing of him now except at meals, where he kept his white face turned down to the book beside his plate. They had left off guying him, and were worrying about him instead.

They began saying: "See here, old man, you've got to quit this. You'll kill yourself if you keep on this way. The prize isn't worth it." But it did no good. Finally a number of them came up to his room one evening to see what they could do about it. They were headed by Lucky Lee.

"I wish you would let me alone," was all that Young would say. "I've simply got to win that prize."

"Why have you got to?" asked Lucky, in his nice, refined voice.

At that Young only smiled queerly, and turned to the table where his books were.

"See here, you old chump," said Lucky. "I believe you've got a notion--say, fellows, the Deacon's got a notion that just because he owes some of us a couple of dollars or so we are in a hurry to be paid back. If he thinks that, he's an old a.s.s, isn't he, fellows?"

"Why, certainly," said Powelton.

"Thank you," said Young, curtly; "but as I said before, I intend to square up at commencement."

"Why, we can get along just as well till next fall," Lucky went on, although he had p.a.w.ned some of his clothes as well as his bicycle last week. "In fact, if you're worrying about it, why--well--they were gambling debts, Will, and----"

"Lucky," said Young, flushing, "that's no way to talk. I'm an honest man and"----then he stopped suddenly; he was not an honest man, and this was the first time he had been called "Will" since he left home, and home was what he hated most of all to think of in these days, and this was Lucky Lee, who never would have had gambling debts, if it had not been for him, and whose kind mother he had promised---- Altogether he felt very queer and wrought up, and for a wild moment he had a notion to tell them all about it, and make a clean breast of it.

If he had done so they might have helped him out and sworn secrecy; but Young was not the sort that could do it. "Please go away, fellows, and leave me alone. You're mighty good, but--you don't understand," he said.

They could see something was troubling him greatly. They did go away, and they did not understand, but they felt very sorry. After that Todd, without telling the reason, left off studying hard and took to rambling in the woods again.

"Aren't you going to try for the prize, then?" they asked him.

"I wouldn't stand any chance against Young," he answered. But the others were not so sure about that.

Meanwhile every hour brought final examinations sixty minutes nearer, and Young, all alone in his little bake-oven of a room, was studying as probably no student had ever studied in that old room before. Sometimes he felt that even his powerful const.i.tution would not stand the strain much longer; but he could not afford to break down or die until after commencement, until after disgrace had been averted from his family name. It was that thought which kept his heavy eyelids open.

Examination week was like a long, hideous nightmare.

There were tasks that seemed superhuman to perform, and with them the sickening dread that he could not perform them. When the last paper was finished and handed in he had a horrible conviction that he had lost the prize. He felt sure of it.

But he could not be sure until commencement day itself, and before that came four days of preliminary commencement gayety. Each one of these contained for Young twenty-four hours of suspense, and these were worse than examination days--there was nothing to take his mind off what he did not want to think about. He could not sleep. His nerves were used up; and everybody else was so happy!

The campus was bright with hundreds of attractive girls in summer costumes, and alive with rollicking old graduates holding noisy reunions. But even at the baseball game, when the nine was beating Yale and everyone else was crazy with exultant joy, Young was saying to himself: "How should I break the news to mother? Should I let matters take their course, or--what are they all cheering for now? Oh, I see, Cap has made another hit!"

The worst of it was that he had no one to take him out of himself.

Nearly all his cla.s.smates and all his intimates were packing up and going home, as Freshmen usually do, without waiting for commencement.

Luckily they had not voted to celebrate their Soph.o.m.orehood! He wandered about all alone; and all alone he went in to hear his fate decided on commencement morning.

Near the door he stood, squeezed in beside some graduates he had never seen before, who wondered why this long, gaunt undergraduate started so when the clerk of the Board of Trustees arose and began to announce the fellowships and prizes.

The awards were read from a long list in the clerk's hand, and after each announcement there was a cheer from the members of the literary society to which the victor belonged. It delayed matters so. Sometimes they cheered several times. Then the clerk cleared his throat and went on slowly.

At last he came down toward the end of the list.

"Now, then," said Young, bracing himself. "I know I am going to lose."

He did not dare look up. Just in front of him sat a good-looking girl.

He saw her put her pretty orange-and-black-bordered programme to her lips and suppress a yawn while the loud, monotonous voice of the clerk said, "The Freshman First Honor prize awarded to J. Milton Barrows, of Pennsylvania."

Young stood perfectly still. He did not move a muscle. He heard the loud cheering. He heard a man behind him say, "Well! well!" He heard the band strike up a lively air. Still looking at the girl, he saw her begin to beat time to the music with her programme against her pursed lips.

Then he shut his eyes tight for a moment and asked himself: "What was it I was going to do? I cannot remember somehow. What was it? Shall--shall I telegraph----"

In a few minutes the valedictorian had finished his oration, then the benediction was p.r.o.nounced, and the audience flocked out laughing and talking while the band played with all its might. Commencement was over, and the college year was a matter of history.

A few hours later Young was speeding across the country at the rate of ever so many miles an hour toward the old prairie farm, toward the home he had disgraced.

He did not know why he was going home, unless it was because the watch he p.a.w.ned brought just the right amount of money. Instinct made him do it, perhaps.

As the train started off down the grade he stood on the rear platform, and looked back at the green campus and the dear old brown building.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, "perhaps in time they'll forget that there ever was a fellow named 'Deacon' Young."

Then the car turned the curve, and the college was hidden from view.

CHAPTER XIV

"HOME FROM COLLEGE"

She was standing beside the neatly painted horse-block, waiting to welcome her boy. Will had spied her from the road.

As the buggy turned in through the gate he began to brace himself for meeting her. This was going to be harder, he knew, than had been the meeting at the railroad station a little while before, with his father, whose honest old eyes had looked at him so searchingly.

He was coming nearer and nearer. She was smiling. It was the same motherly smile he had known he would see. Now she was speaking his name.

The next moment he was out of the buggy, and she was kissing him just as when he was an innocent little boy. She was frightened at her son's pale, haggard face, but she did not want him to know it, and only said, patting his cheek laughingly, "Why didn't you take better care of yourself, child?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MEETING "I don't know, mother," he said slowly, "I don't know...."]

They were walking up the path. Will looked down at her. The tears were forming in the little mother's eyes. He looked away again. "I don't know, mother," he said, slowly, "I don't know why I didn't take better care of myself."

"There, don't talk. You must rest after your long journey. Keep still now. You can tell me all about everything later on." They opened the screen door and went in.