The Seven-Branched Candlestick Part 8

I did promise. And two days later I received a postcard from Trevelyan, telling me that it would hardly be worth my while to try for the college paper. He added, in the large, unruly handwriting which his near-sightedness made necessary:

"You may go on breathing, however, if you don't make a noise at it."

He supplemented this, a few nights later, when he and I were at our old places in his room. He threw down his pipe in the midst of talking about something carefully unimportant, and sat up with a laughably angry face.

"See here, 'fresh,'" he bawled out, "you're getting the rottenest deal I ever saw. You know why--so do I. And we're going to show them a thing or two. We're going to buck up against the strongest thing in the world--and that thing is prejudice. We're going to beat it, too. Do you understand? Were going to beat it out! Smash it to pieces!"

Yes, I understood, I said. I understood it all only too well. So well, indeed, that I knew there was no use trying to fight. I knew that prejudice of race and religion was the strongest shield of the ignorant and mean, that neither he nor I could fight it fairly--and that, if he came into the fight by my side, he would ruin his own chances of being one of the biggest men in the college world when his senior year arrived.

"A lot I care for being a big man in a place of little thoughts," he snapped back at me. "I'm ready to take the consequences, now and forever after."

"Have you thought of what your fraternity brothers might say about it?"

I asked him.

"I don't care--I don't--well, if they--." His voice died away in perplexity. I had hit upon his weak spot. He was an easy-going, likeable chap; he hated a rumpus. If he made any sort of fight against the anti-Jewish prejudice, he would have his whole fraternity against him, he would perhaps be shunned by all his sworn brothers, by his best college friends. His enthusiasm became a little dulled, then died down into a great good-natured sigh.

"I suppose you're right, 'fresh,'" he admitted slowly. "I'm not of the fighting sort. And I have my fraternity to consider. That's the worst of belonging to a fraternity." He took up his pipe again and smoked in silence for a while. "I suppose you think you'll never be happy, now that you know you aren't going to be in a fraternity. Take my word for it, you're ten times luckier in having your freedom. Wait until you're an uppercla.s.sman and you'll agree with me."

It seemed a dreadful sacrilege for him to be saying it. Besides, I thought he was blaming his own lack of fighting power on his fraternity in too heavy and unjust a degree. I wasn't any more of a fighter than he--but I was disappointed, somehow, that his pugnacity had died out so readily.

"I can't do it, 'fresh,'" he confessed, with a grin. "I'm not the sc.r.a.pper I thought I could be. I just want to go through college lazily, happily, respectably--and all that. I wouldn't know how to make a rumpus if I wanted to. But listen here." He pointed his finger at me sternly.

"If I were you, I wouldn't rest until I had made the fight and won it.

Fight it not only for yourself but for the hundred other Jewish fellows in college. See that they get a square deal. See that they don't lose out on all the things that make college worth while. A Jew is just as good as anyone else, isn't he?"

"Yes," I answered him only faintly.

"Well, then, go ahead and prove that fact to the whole college world."

But, though I did not answer him, I knew that I was not any more able to make the fight than he. Less able, perhaps, because I was more handicapped. I made myself a thousand excuses as I sat there thinking it over--I was not brave enough, that was all.

But one thing my acquaintanceship with Trevelyan did bring me. He was a dabbler in light verse, and had been elected to the college funny paper.

He also contributed to the undergraduate literary magazine at times--though he was a bit ashamed of being taken seriously. At any rate, he encouraged me to go into these two activities.

Whether or not it was due entirely to his influence, or whether these two college publications were broader and less exacting as to the ancestry of contributors, my work for them was welcomed. Before the year was over I had been elected an a.s.sociate editor of the funny paper, and had four articles accepted by the literary magazine--enough to put me among the list of "probables" for election, next winter.

At the same time I went through a successful trial for membership in the college dramatic a.s.sociation. I was not given a part in the annual play, however. I made up my mind to consider this a just decision, and that I had no right to impute it to anything other than my lack of talent. The president of the a.s.sociation, however, met me at lunch hour one day and made some rather lame remarks about the embarra.s.sment to which the "dramatics" would be put if I were in the cast.

"Yer see," he said, "we go on an annual tour. And we get entertained a lot, yer see. And it's big social stunts in every city. And it's the cream of society wherever we go--so, it'd be funny if--well don'tcher see?"

"Yes," I admitted, "I do see. I see further than you do."

I was beginning to wonder if that fight that Trevelyan planned wouldn't be worth while, after all.

XI

A MAN'S WORK

I talked to Trevelyan, too, of my interest in the work of Lawrence Richards. Trevelyan had heard of him and of his settlement, and was rather at sea to give an opinion about it. He was only mildly enthusiastic.

"What's the use of bothering with things so far away from your college life?" he protested lazily. "Of course, the idea of being useful to people in need is splendid and all that. But somehow, it doesn't fit in with college life."

"Why not? Why shouldn't it?" I argued.

He waved his hand as if to begin some generalization, but made no real reply.

"Wait until you're through with college before you settle down to manhood," he said a little later. "College is just the sport of kids, after all."

It came to me--though I did not tell him so--of how, in the beginning, I had thought of college as a place of full manhood--and of the misgivings I had had, that perhaps, after all, college would be only another stepping stone to that manhood. And so it was: just a stepping stone, through brambles of p.r.i.c.kly prejudice and childish pranks. When would it come, that manhood?

"You know, Trev," I said to him hesitatingly, "I sometimes feel I am much older than most fellows. Almost old enough to do a man's work."

He looked at me and laughed, refusing to take me too soberly. "You are older," he admitted. "Only what do you call a man's work?"

I didn't know, and told him so. He seemed to consider it a triumph for his own argument.

"See here," he said, "what's the use of all this stewing about the slums and the wretched poor and that sort of thing, if you're just aching to make trouble for yourself? If you want manhood, you'll reach it ten times sooner if you'll slip into it comfortably, gracefully, lying quietly on your back and floating--and not splashing too hard. You'll never get anywhere if you insist on getting there with a rumpus."

I admired the studied grace of his similes, but had to confess that they did not impress me as true. But, at the same time, I did not try to explain any further to him how I felt.

That did not end the questioning for me, however. I even broached it to Aunt Selina once, and she threw up her hands in despair. I think I did it somewhat with the idea of seeing her do just that. It was beginning to amuse me, how hopeless she thought I was.

So that was why I did not tell her of my intention to go, one evening, to see Mr. Lawrence Richards at his East Side Settlement. But immediately after supper, I bade my aunt good night, and answered her suspicious query with the information that I was "bound for a social affair." The answer seemed to rea.s.sure her and she gave me gracious permission to go.

I took the subway to Spring street, walked across to the Bowery, and a few blocks on the other side of it, came to the Settlement. It was in the heart of a noisy crowded section, towering high above the shabby buildings like a great, clean, shining bulwark.

Mr. Richards was at supper, I was told. A bright-eyed little Jewish boy, neatly dressed and careful of speech, offered to show me the way to the dining room on the fifth floor.

I had a hearty welcome from the Head Worker when he recognized me. He was disappointed that I had already had my supper; made me sit down beside him and introduced me to all his a.s.sociates. They were mostly young men, I was surprised to find; one of them told me that he had graduated from one of the New England colleges only the year before.

Mr. Richards showed me all about the place, as he had promised he would. Then he took me with him into his "den" as he called it--a little room, just off the gymnasium, where he had his desk and filing cabinets and books. He sat me down opposite him on a canvas-covered chair, and, when he had gone over some reports which needed his signature, looked up at me and smiled.

"Well," he said, "what's the trouble?"

"Oh, I didn't--well, how did you know there was any trouble?"

The smile broadened. "None of you ever come down here unless you are in trouble. Trouble's a sort of bait that lands ambitious youths into doing settlement work--and into coming to me for advice. They say I'm pretty good at giving it. Why don't you try me?"

I did. I told him exactly how I felt: that I was growing impatient of all the tomfoolery of college; that I wanted work more sure of manly results, more broadening, more full of character. Then, too, I told him of what Trevelyan had said, and he laughed at it merrily.

"Trevelyan?" he said. "Oh, yes, I know him. He belongs to my fraternity, doesn't he? I've met him at one or another of our affairs. A good enough fellow--a little too much money, and a little too easy with himself in consequence. But he's a thorough gentleman at heart, isn't he?"

I almost gasped. He had summed up Trevelyan marvelously well in those few words. He saw my wonderment and smiled.

"I've only met him once or twice," he said, "but I have the faculty of knowing men. It's a faculty I have to have in this sort of work. It depends so much on the human equation. I meet thousands of young men and women every year--meet them, talk with them a little while, give them the best I have to give in that short s.p.a.ce--and like to think that, even if I never see them again, I've helped them along a bit. That's all that a settlement can do, after all."