Winning His "W" Part 21

"I don't think I'll go," said Will quietly.

"Not go? Why not?" demanded Foster in astonishment.

"I've been thinking it over and I've made up my mind that it won't do for me to break in on the regular program I've mapped out for myself.

You see Sat.u.r.day is the day when I always have a double dose with my tutor, and it won't do for me to spoil it," and Will Phelps made a wry face as he spoke.

"But, Will," protested Foster, "you can make up the work before then and not lose a bit."

"Yes, I've thought of that, but I don't think I'll do it. It's a bitter dose I know, but I might as well swallow it first as last."

"Do you mean it?"

"Don't I act as if I did?"

"All right. I'll not say another word. Maybe it'll be a way out for Peter John. I'd like to fix it for the fellow if I can."

"I don't just see--" began Will; but he stopped when he perceived that his room-mate had risen from his seat and was about to depart from the room.

On the following day the excitement among the students of Winthrop increased when a ma.s.s meeting was held and various leading spirits of the college delivered very florid and perfervid addresses in which the student-body was urged to support the team and take advantage of the low rates offered to accompany it and be on hand on the field to cheer it on to victory. Shouts and cheers greeted the speakers, and when the meeting broke up and the boys were returning to their rooms Mott and Peter John joined Will on his way to Perry Hall.

"Have the time of your young life on Sat.u.r.day, Phelps," said Mott loudly.

"I'm not going."

"Why not? All the fellows are."

"I'd like to, but I've some work I _must_ do, and I can't break in on it."

"You must be a 'shark' Phelps," laughed Mott. "I'd like to see the work that would keep me away. Peter John Schenck and I intend to take it all in, don't we, freshman?" he added, turning to his companion as he spoke.

"Ye-es, I guess so," responded that worthy who had been addressed.

"You'll have a good time," said Will. "I wish I could go too, but I can't, and the only thing for me to do is to stand up and not whine over it."

"You'll be sorry for it," laughed Mott, as he and Peter John turned toward the latter's room. "All we can do will be to try to make up for what you're going to lose."

And Will Phelps did almost feel that he was too strict in his demands upon himself when the student-body formed in line early Sat.u.r.day morning and, preceded by a band, started down the street on the way to the station. His room-mate had said no more to him concerning the trip, but as Will marched by Foster's side he could feel the deep sympathy of his friend. His heart almost misgave him. It was not too late even yet to go, for doubtless he could borrow money of some one. Perhaps it was too much a mere sentiment to hold himself to his work as he was doing. And he detested the work so heartily too.

Still he held rigidly to his decision, and even when the heavily laden train pulled out from the station and the words of the song which was sung came back to him he did not falter, though his heart was heavy within him.

Gaudeamus igitur Juvenes dum sumus Gaudeamus igitur Juvenes dum sumus Post jucundam juventutem Post molestam senectutem Nos habebit humus Nos habebit humus.

CHAPTER XVI

TELEGRAMS

When Will Phelps returned to the college, the entire place to him seemed to be deserted, and a stillness rested over all that was almost oppressive. Even the few college boys who were to be seen about the grounds all shared in the prevailing gloom and increased the sense of loneliness in the heart of the young freshman. When he entered his room, the sight of his room-mate's belongings was almost like that of the possessions of the dead and Will Phelps was utterly miserable and dejected.

Work he decided was his only cure and at once he busied himself at his task from which he was aroused in the course of an hour or two by the coming of the senior who was tutoring him.

"I'm mighty glad to see you," said Will impulsively. "I feel as if I was about the only one of my kind in the world."

"You're downhearted over deciding to stay in town, to-day?" replied his tutor pleasantly. "Oh, well, never mind. It will be a good tonic for you and when you've pa.s.sed your mid-year's in Greek, you'll never once think of this trip with the team to-day."

"I'm afraid that's cold comfort just at the present moment. I've just been hanging on and that's all there is to it."

"Sometimes it's the only thing a fellow can do. It may bring a lot of other good things with it, though."

"Maybe," replied Will dubiously. "There's one thing I've learned though, and if I ever come to know my Greek as well as I know that, I'll pa.s.s all right."

"What's that?"

"Never to get behind. I'll keep up and not catch up. When I see what a fool I made of myself in my 'prep' days, I wonder sometimes that I ever got into college anyway. I never really worked any except in a part of the last year."

"You're working now," suggested the senior.

"Yes, I have to. I don't like it though. The descent to Avernus is the easy trip, if I remember my Virgil correctly. It's the getting back that's hard."

"Do you know, I never just believed that."

"You didn't? Why not? Why, you can see it every day! It's just as easy as sliding down hill. It's dragging the sled back up the hill that makes the trouble."

"That isn't quite a fair ill.u.s.tration. If I'm not mistaken, it seems to me that somewhere, sometime, some one said that 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' He didn't seem to agree with Virgil's statement somehow, did he?"

"But that means it's hard afterward."

"That isn't what it says. I think it means just what it says too."

"I don't see."

"Well, to me it's like this. In every fellow there's a good side and a bad side. Sort of a Doctor Jekyl and Mr. Hyde in every one of us. I heard the other day in our laboratory of a man who had taken and grafted one part of the body of an insect on the body of another. He tried it both on the chrysalis and on an insect too. I understood that he took the pupa of a spider and by very careful work grafted upon it the pupa of a fly. Think of what that monstrosity must have been when it pa.s.sed out from the chrysalis and became a full-fledged living being. One part of it trying to get away from the other. One wanting to fly and the other to hide. One part wanting to feed on flies and the other part in mortal terror of all spiders."

"Was that really so?" inquired Will deeply interested.

"I didn't see it myself, but it was told over in the biological laboratory and I don't think there was any question about it. It struck me that it was just the way some of us seem to be built, a sort of a spider and fly combination and not the ordinary combination either, when the fly is usually inside of the spider and very soon a part of his majesty. And yet when you've told all that you know, it's a sort of monstrosity after all, and that the truth is that a fellow really _is_ his best self if he'll only give that part half a chance. That's why I say the way of the transgressor is hard and not easy. A fellow is going against the grain of his best side. He throws away his best chances under protest all the while, and _he_ doesn't want to do it either. No, Phelps, I believe if a fellow goes down hill it's like a man dragging a balky horse. It looks easy but it isn't, and he himself is pulling against it all the time."

"I never thought of it in that way before."

"Then on the other hand this very kind of work you're doing now is the sort that stirs your blood. I expect that those fellows who live down in the tropics and about all the work they have to do to feed themselves is to pick a banana off a tree and go through the exertion of peeling it, don't really get half the fun out of life that some of us boys had up on the hillside farms in Vermont. Why, when we'd have to get up winter mornings, with the weather so cold that we'd have to be all the while on the lookout that we didn't freeze our ears or noses, and when we'd have to shovel out the paths through three feet of snow and cut the wood and carry water to the stock, it did seem at times to be a trifle strenuous; but really I think the boys in Vermont get more fun out of life than the poor chaps in the tropics do who plow their fields by just jabbing a hole in the ground with their heel, and when they plant, all they have to do is to just stick a slip in the ground. It's the same way here, Phelps. This sort of thing you're doing is hard, no doubt about that; but it's the sort of thing that really stirs up a live man, after all."

"I'm afraid I'll be all stirred up if we don't get at this work pretty soon," laughed Will, who was nevertheless deeply impressed by the words he had heard from the prospective valedictorian of the senior cla.s.s.

"Why can't we do it all up this morning?" he inquired eagerly.

"All?"