The Varmint Part 2

"Scored on the Princeton 'Varsity."

"Jemima! You don't say so!"

"Eight to four."

"Great Heavens!"

"Only game they lost."

"The Princeton championship team, too," said Stover, who was not deficient in historical athletics. "Say, how's the nine shaping up?"

"It's a winner."

All at once Jimmy extended his whip. "There it is, over there--you'll get the water tower first."

Stover stood up reverentially. Across the dip and swell of the hills a cl.u.s.ter of slated roofs, a glimpse of red brick through the trees, a touch of brownstone, a water tower in sharp outline against the sky, suddenly rose from the horizon. A continent had been discovered, the land of possible dreams.

"It's ripping--ripping, isn't it?" he said, still standing eagerly.

The Roman, gazing on it for the thousandth time, shook his head in musing agreement.

Across the fields came the stolid ringing of the school bell, ringing a hundred laggards across the budding campus to hard seats and blackboarded walls, ringing with its lengthened, slow-dying, never-varying note.

"That the bell?" said Stover, rebelling already at its summons.

"That's it," said Jimmy.

Stover sat down, his chin in his hands, his elbows on his knees, gazing eagerly forward, asking questions.

"I say, where's the Green House?"

"Ahead on your left--directly."

"That old, stone, block-house affair?"

"You win."

"Why, it's not on the campus."

"No, it ain't," said Jimmy, flicking the flies off the near horse; "but they've got a warm bunch of Indians all the same." Then, remembering the Wild-Western methods of driving, he added: "Don't forget about the ginger. Sock it to them. Fare, please."

"I'll sock it," said Stover with a knowing air. "I may be tender, but I'm not green."

He slapped a coin into the outstretched hand and reached back for the battle-scarred valise, to perceive the keen eye of Mr. Hopkins set on him with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well, Sport, ta-ta, and good luck," said Stover, who had mentally ticketed him as a commercial traveler. "Hope you sell out."

"Thanks," said Mr. Hopkins, with a twitch to his lip. "Now just one word to the wise."

"What's that?"

"Don't get discouraged."

"Discouraged!" said Stover disdainfully: "Why, old c.o.c.ky-wax, put this in your pipe and smoke it--I'm going to own this house. In a week I'll have 'em feeding from my hand."

He sprang down eagerly. Before him, at the end of a flagged walk, under the heavy boughs of evergreens, was a two-story building of stone, and under the Colonial portico a group curiously watching the new arrival.

The coach groaned and pulled heavily away. He was alone at the end of the interminable stone walk, clutching a broken-down bag ridiculously mended with strings, face to face with the task of approaching with dignity and ease these suddenly discovered critics of his existence.

II

In all his fifteen years Stover had never been accused of standing in awe of anything or anybody; but at the present moment, as he balanced from foot to foot, calculating the unending distance of the stone flags, he was suddenly seized with an overpowering impulse to bolt.

And yet the group at the steps were only mildly interested. An urchin pillowed on the knees of a Goliath had shifted so as languidly to command the approach; a baseball, traveling back and forth in lazy flight, had stopped only a moment, and then continued from hand to hand.

Stover had thought of his future a.s.sociates without much trepidation, as he had thought of the Faculty as Miss Wandell in trousers--being inferior to him in mental agility and resourcefulness who, he confidently intended, should shortly follow his desires.

All at once, before he had spoken a word, before he had even seen the look on their countenances, he realized that he stood on the threshold of a new world, a system of society of which he was ignorant and by whose undivined laws he was suddenly to be judged.

Everything was wrong and strangely uncomfortable. His derby hat was too small--as it was--and must look ridiculous; his trousers were short and his arms seemed to rush from his sleeves. He tried desperately to thrust back the cuff that had broken loose and stooped for his bag. It would have been wiser to have embraced it bodily, but he breathed a prayer and grasped the handle. Then he started up the walk; half way, the handle tore out and the bag went down with a crash.

He dove at it desperately, poking back the threatened avalanche of linen, and clutching it in his arms as a bachelor carries a baby, started blindly for the house.

A roar of laughter had gone up at his discomfiture, succeeded by a sudden, solemn silence. Then the White Mountain Canary pillowed against the knees of Cheyenne Baxter, spoke:

"No old clothes, Moses; nothing to sell to-day."

At this Butsey White's lathery face suddenly appeared at the second-story window.

"He doesn't want to buy--he wants to sell us something," he said.

"Patent underwear and all that sort of thing."

Stover, red to the ears, advanced to the steps and stopped.

"Well?" said the Coffee-colored Angel as the guardian of the steps.

"I'm the new boy," said Stover in a gentle voice.

"The what?"

"The new boy."

"Impossible!"

"He's not!"