Part 10

All this time you have been going through the several different stages of "a perfectly lovely time." You have shown a lot of young men how well you can dance, and have gotten along very well with all you have met except that once when you asked sweetly, sympathetically, "Won't you be just too glad to be a sophomore next year?" of a very studious and diminutive member of the graduating class. The chat is no longer about the concert, nor is the heat mentioned, though it is terrific, nor the effect of the lights upon the pink and white cheese-cloth, except by those gallants who see fit to say something about its being becoming to certain complexions. And, most gratifying of all, you notice that those who have your name on their cards more than once come the second time without being brought. Indeed, some come again who have not that good fortune, and you pay slight attention to your card after supper, but dance with those who come up and beg for a dance, because you are tender-hearted and hate to displease them. It is a good plan to lose your card now or hide it. Some girls tear up theirs the moment they come, for fear they might make a mistake, and consequently hurt somebody's feelings.

By this time you have gotten your second wind, if you'll pardon the expression. You talk without previously meditating upon what you are about to say; but you know it's all right just as you drift to the strains of the music automatically. Your eyes are wide open and sparkling; your cheeks have a flush which is becoming; you are dimly conscious that your visit at Princeton is a success. And just as you are beginning to wish that all this could last forever you hear a strain of music of which every daughter of a loving home should be fond, and then, for the first time, you notice that the stately patronesses in their bower are opening their eyes very wide and gritting their teeth very hard. Then, having danced that last one furiously, you are dragged off, casting a lingering glance at faded flowers, wilted collars, tired musicians, torn skirts.

When you come from the noisy, laughing dressing-room a moment later, wrapped from head to foot in a great long thing which covers any changes the five hours' exercise might have wrought in your appearance, you are met by your bedraggled escort under the light, where you took his arm before, long ago, on the way to the dance. You can remember how stiff his collar was then and how smooth his hair. Everything, animate and inanimate, looks different now, especially with that ghastly streak of dawn which mingles with the electric light. It makes some of the girls look rather faded and jaded, you think, and some of the men rather rakish, but not even the girls seem to care very much. Every one is too excited to be tired, and too merry to be formal. All the stiffness of your escort's manner has gone with that of his collar. As he offers his arm this time he does not gaze straight ahead of him and murmur something incoherent about hoping that you are going to enjoy this, for he begins singing "It's all over now," to the dank and misty campus trees on the way to University Hall, and you give him permission to smoke a cigarette, and shout good-night down the stairs, and tell him what time to call around in the morning--later on in the morning--for he has made you promise to stay over all of the following day and see a little of the college and campus, and take a stroll in the queer old town.

Then, as the gray dawn creeps in through the dotted Swiss curtains which somebody made for the freshman who owns the room, causing the roses on the bureau to look pale and livid, and while the far-away voices of the dance committee can be heard from back of Witherspoon, where they are having an informal game of baseball in their evening clothes to celebrate the success of their efforts, and the sparrows outside your window begin to twitter as though there had been no dance, you lay your head upon the pillow and tell your roommate what the tall one said who danced the two-step so divinely, and what that funny little fellow with frowsy hair told you, and what were the remarks of the football man with whom you sat out two dances, and how the entertaining man who sang the solo at the concert seemed to like you, and what your brother's roommate told you not to tell.

THE LITTLE TUTOR

At first they thought he was one of the new students, he was such a little fellow and had such a smooth, boyish face. And one of the college men had stopped him on the street, and, in a manner that seemed to indicate that he had some particular reason for desiring the information, asked him abruptly: "What class do you belong to?"

The little tutor had looked up timidly through his large spectacles and answered, in his thin, high voice: "I am not a member of any of the classes. I am to be one of the instructors in the academy."

He had smiled reassuringly, to show that he did not take any offence. But the tall young man did not seem to dream of embarrassment; he only said: "You _are_?" and passed on.

This happened early in September, the day before the term opened, and the little tutor had been busying himself looking about the campus and getting his bearings in the little city. He had never been in the West before, and this seemed very far out West; it was like a foreign country to him. The broad, evenly laid, well-kept streets lined with so many fine lawns, were a matter of great interest and speculation. He thought it queer that when a man could afford to have nearly a whole block of lawn that he should have only a frame house upon it, but some of these frame houses were very large and comfortable and invariably freshly painted, and he liked that. He admired the new and handsome business blocks of fine brick and stone. But what seemed most wonderful to him was the broad, level sweep of the prairie when he walked out into the country. It almost took his breath away.

But it was the campus, as being his future place of work, that occupied most of his attention and curiosity. He walked slowly over it all, examining each building and every feature thoughtfully and with a critical air as one about to buy. There were only about a half-dozen buildings in all, including both the college and academy. It struck him as odd that both institutions should be on the same grounds and apparently of the same importance. The buildings were rather new, and he missed the dignified, patriarchal aspect of the old campus he had been accustomed to. He thought he could never feel any veneration for all this brand-newness as he had toward those old landmarks he loved so well. Indeed, it all seemed small and puny viewed in this light, and he walked about with rather a patronizing air, as he thought with pride of his Alma Mater, and it seemed to him that this institution was favored in obtaining for an instructor a graduate of such a famous old institution--and an honorman, too, he said to himself, with a blush of satisfaction.

Of course, this preparatory school teaching was only temporary with him. Only a preparation for something else, and that but a step to something higher, until he became--but the little tutor never acknowledged just how high his ambition aimed. It was at this point, as he was leaning against a tree, that the young man had come up and asked him what class he belonged to.

But he had not minded that in the least; he knew how boyish-looking he was. It was very natural for them to make such mistakes. A little thing like that would not discourage him. They did not know him; wait a few days, and they would learn who he was.

And he was right. The whole college and academy learned who he was the very next afternoon in chapel. And even the townsfolk soon learned to know him by sight; they thought it odd that such a little fellow should be a professor. By the end of the month the children coming home from school had learned to point out his small figure with the large head, carried with his peculiar, springing strides, and they would say to one another, "There goes the Little Tutor."

But as they watched him walking briskly by, holding his body stiff and straight, they little knew what was going on behind that smile, which was a curious mixture of gravity and good nature.

For some reason or other things had not gone as he had expected, and so far, at least, they were not tending toward the future he had pictured.

He had thought that out there they would appreciate that he came from such a large, famous old institution, and that he had stood so well in his class and all that; but neither the attitude of the faculty, college, nor academy indicated anything of the kind, he thought. And this wasn't all. No one seemed to take any interest in him as an individual. That is, beyond a cold curiosity.

He did not see why no one took the initiative and made friends with him; he could not, being a new-comer. He knew he had never been very popular at college, but he had a few good friends, and nearly every one of his classmates was kind to him. As he looked back on those dear old days, midst those dear old influences, his present surroundings seemed cold, very cold.

And he could not explain this coldness. Surely it could not all be on account of that first mistake. Oh, that terrible first day in chapel. He thought he would never forget it. He remembered sitting up there on the platform, before all the college and academy--for out there the whole faculty come to chapel, and they sit in a semicircle behind the President. He was conscious of many eyes being upon him, and he knew what they were thinking and whispering to each other, "Is that the new tutor?" "What a kid!" And, indeed, as he cast his eyes furtively over the faces before him he discovered even among the preps. many a raw-boned countryman who was his senior in years, and this thought had so rattled him that he took off his glasses--those large owl-eyed things--and began wiping them, as he always did when embarrassed, and then he suddenly reminded himself that this always made him appear more youthful, and so he clapped them on again. He had not felt this peculiar lonely out-of-it feeling for a good many years; no, not since beginning of freshman year, at his first eating club.

But what was that? He had heard his name pronounced. Surely he was not going to be called upon to lead in prayer. Then the whole sentence re-echoed in his confused brain, the distinct clear-cut words of the President, "Horatio B. Stacy, A.B., will be Professor Wilkin's assistant in the academy." If any of the bold, searching eyes had for a moment wandered from him, he knew they had returned again now. He remembered wondering if he jumped enough for them to see him. He remembered how the steam-heater rattled and pounded in the little chapel and the odor of the new paint, as the young President went on with his perfectly enunciated words in his clear and cold voice: "He comes highly recommended from a good Eastern college. I trust he will prove satisfactory. Let us sing number three hundred and sixteenth." The President pronounced sixteenth perfectly. And the organ burst forth with a loud, cruel prelude, and the hymn was sung. The little tutor always remembered number three hundred and sixteen, one bar of which always seemed to sing "satisfactory."

When the long hymn was finished, the President, having pronounced the benediction, stepped down from the platform and started down the centre aisle, followed by an old white-headed professor, and he by the professor on his left. The little tutor sat next, and so, innocently enough, he started down behind them. How was he to know that there was a custom to be observed in this trooping out of chapel, that the order was determined by precedence? Ah, it made him flush when he thought of it, even now. He could remember just how the whole college and academy laughed--they did not titter, but laughed outright--and when he realized the position and hesitated, trembling, half-way down the aisle, and tried to smile, some of them fairly shouted. He could even now see, in his mind, the face of one of the college men next to the aisle as he leaned back and laughed merrily, cruelly, looking squarely into the little tutor's eyes without pretending to control his mirth. The little tutor never remembered how he gained the cool of the outside.

But why was he to be blamed? They should have told him. How was he to know that there was any rule about the matter? At his college the professors never attended chapel; that is, except two or three, who sat in the stalls.

The next morning, with some fear and much hope, he had met his first class. Perhaps his hand shook a little as he held the roll while his pupils came into the room, and his voice trembled, perhaps, as he addressed the class, and he couldn't help blushing--his old failing--when he heard the laugh caused by his mispronouncing a queer name; but he told himself that he had gotten along splendidly when the long day was over, and the future seemed bright once more as he planned his work.

He thought out just what his attitude toward his pupils would be. He was determined that he would not lord it over them, but would win their confidence, become friends with them, get to know them all personally, and invite them around to his rooms some time, perhaps. He even determined upon his policy of discipline, if that should become necessary. He would not, he thought, be sarcastic with them, as one of his professors at college used to; no, because that, he deemed, was taking a mean advantage of the student, who could not, by reason of the relations of master and pupil, answer back; the master had it all on his side. Neither did he think he would affect the indignant attitude; no, because--well, he remembered the fellows' laugh at him when he once tried to be indignant. He would assume a dignified disregard, as the dean used to. That was the best method of maintaining order and attention in a class-room. That would best become Horatio B. Stacy, A.B. He fell asleep that night wondering what his pupils would give him for a nickname.

Now, as the week went by he never had been obliged to exercise his authority. The classes all paid very good attention, better than he had hoped for. But how very different this thing teaching was from what he had supposed!

The little tutor had been there almost a month; he had walked all around the town and about the country; had faithfully attended all his classes, and sometimes he had six hours a day; had gone to chapel every evening at five; had sat, stared at, in the semicircle behind the President, and had trooped out again with his odd gait, and always the _last_ one in the procession now. But he had not a single friend in the State, unless it was his landlady with the false hair front.

He remembered thinking at college that the attitude of those dear old professors was rather distant. But that dignified conservatism was nothing like this unconcern, this icy indifference, manifested by these professors and assistants; and he was one of their number remember, too.

He smiled grimly as he recollected how that, when he first came, he had rather expected that some of them might invite him to dine. This he deemed would be proper in view of his position as an assistant, especially as this institution was so small that the faculty was not large enough to be divided into many cliques. And he had even pictured himself enjoying a delightful conversation with that old, white-haired professor whom he had taken such a fancy to, or, perhaps, holding an animated discussion with some of them as to the respective merits of Western and Eastern colleges.

But he could have endured their attitude if only his plans would work in regard to his classes. It was about his pupils that he thought the most. He made a study of each man and each mind and learned what to expect from each: which were good at one kind of work and which at another; which were the bright, indolent fellows and which were the plodders. They nearly all worked quite hard, that was the one encouraging thing. But he could not understand them. The little tutor had never been to a preparatory school himself, but he felt certain that these fellows were not like most preps. He certainly could not understand their attitude toward himself. He wanted to be friendly with them all, and tried to laugh and joke occasionally to make the relations easy, but it was of no use, they only looked at him inquiringly, as if he were doing something they hadn't bargained for. They all came to recitation in a business-like way, which seemed to say, "Here we are, now you teach us."

They never thought of bowing to him as they came in. They seemed to regard him only as an automaton that was paid--and by _their_ money--to stand up there and teach, and he would not have believed that he was thought of by them outside, that he entered into their existence at all, if he had not one day come into the room with rubber over-shoes on his feet and heard them say something about the "Little Tutor." That was the time he learned his nickname, and he felt rather glad when he heard them say it, though they were somewhat confused when they turned and saw him.

When recitations were over, when they had gotten their money's worth, they returned to their lodgings in the same brisk business-like manner, for dormitories are scarce out there. The little tutor thought perhaps this had something to do with the lack of college feeling in the institution. There was no _esprit de corps_. They were, the whole collection of them, college and academy, simply a lot of young men who came together in one place, paid their money and got an education by which they would earn more than enough to repay them. So you see it was a good bargain. Perhaps this was putting it too strongly, he reminded himself, for there was some feeble exhibition of class spirit once or twice, and a football team, too, that practised after supper in their shirt-sleeves. But, oh! how he longed for a sight of those old familiar figures he used to see slouching carelessly across the campus in corduroys and sweaters, with pipes and songs and all that easy good friendship, and the practising at the 'varsity grounds. But these are bitter thoughts.

He hoped that these pupils of his would not always wear linen shirts. He wished their vests were not cut so low. He longed for a sight of a familiar cheviot shirt and a carelessly tied bow at the neck. He would have given a good deal, he thought, just to see one man walking by with a sweater tied by the arms about his neck, a dirty sweater perhaps, and his hands deep down in his pockets. Sometimes he felt that he would enjoy, yes, actually, hearing somebody flunk in one of his classes. Who would have thought that of little poler Stacy?

You see the boy was almost hysterical with this morbid homesickness. He was brim full of it, and a very slight jar would have been enough to upset him and spill it all.

Sometimes he realized that he was making a fool of himself and then he used to take himself in hand for being so childish. But he had always had these little boyish ways of thinking about the people and things around him. He remembered how it was at college; when he first came as a freshman his poor little brain was nearly worn out with wondering and imagining, and when he fell to thinking of those days long ago, it seemed impossible to him that he was a grown man now and teaching in an academy. But it was true, and the framed diploma hung in his room. And, what was more to the point, he was making money. He had felt encouraged when he received his first earnings.

On a Saturday evening he had called around at the treasurer's office and received his money, carefully counted and put in an envelope with a blue lining. The treasurer was an old man with a hard face, and when the little tutor came in he did not say "How do you do," or anything, but simply turned toward the safe and took out the money, keeping the pen in his teeth as he did so, and only taking it out to ask, as he looked up at the little tutor, "That is right," in an exact tone, "is it not?"

He hated this proceeding, and hoped that next time there would not be the right amount, so that he might have a cheque. But he felt light-hearted when he carried the money to his room and wrote his letter home and enclosed a certain share of his profits. Prospects seemed brighter and his hopes ran high, and his dreams ran away out into the future when all his drudgery would be over and he would be recognized as a great man, an authority on--but somehow it was hard to hold those old aspirations that had seemed so realizable about commencement time, when he was an honor man. This cold western climate and these common-sense practical New Englanders seemed to have a chilling effect upon his ambitions, especially as his self-confidence was never very firmly rooted, for he was not, strangely enough for a young man, very much of a believer in himself, and his conceit was not spontaneous, but was of the bolstered-up kind, so that when he halted in his castle-building he was in a very dangerous position, for, if you take a young man's conceit away from him, is he _not_ in a very dangerous position indeed?

He was also, he told himself, learning this life lesson: that to win what men call success in this world required something that he was afraid he did not possess: he did not know exactly what to call it. When he was in college he used to comfort himself with saying: "Never mind, you may not amount to much here, but when you get out in the world individual worth will not be handicapped by modesty." But he was beginning to despair of this. It would do well enough in books, but it took what they call _bluff_ to get along with men, even if you want to do them good, and this, he knew very well, he did not, and never could, possess. And when he followed this line of thought, he used to sigh and come to the conclusion that what the world called success was not worth the struggle when one had to use such manoeuvring to win it. But he reminded himself that he must not allow himself to sink into such pessimism, as in his case those at home had a claim upon him.

It was not at all characteristic of the "little Stacy" of college days to become so despondent, for he was of a hopeful, trusting disposition, and it was all because he had no friend to talk to, no kindred spirit for his confiding nature, or any other kind for that matter.

His discouragement took the form of indignation in the end, but not before he had several times taken hope and smiled in his old trustful way, only to find that it was a blind lead.

For instance when that young Wheaton in his rhetoric class appeared to be striking up a friendship with him, and even walked through the campus several times with him, the chances of having a friend had seemed fair and he began to think that at last he was being appreciated by one fellow, and a nice fellow too. But after young Wheaton had obtained an extension of time on the essay he was to write his manifestations of friendliness suddenly ceased. And the little tutor wondered how he had offended his pupil.