Chapter 6

At every opportunity he joined the group on the steps. No one addressed him. If he spoke no one answered. At table the Coffee-colored Angel no longer asked him to pass his plate, but passed it around the other way. He went out in the evenings and placed his cap in line with the other boys', but the ball never went into his hat. If he stood, hoping to be hit, no one seemed to notice that he was standing there. For several days he sought to brazen it out with a miserable, sinking feeling, and then he gave it up. He had thought he cared nothing for the company of his House mates--he soon discovered his error and recognized his offending. But apology was now out of the question. He was a pariah, a leper, and so must continue--a thing to be shunned.

The awful loneliness of his punishment threw him on his own resources. At night he lay in his bed and heard Butsey steal out to a midnight spread behind closed doors, or to join a band that, risking the sudden creak of a treacherous step, went down the stairs and out to wend their way with other sweltering bands across the moonlit ways, through negro settlements, where frantic dogs bayed at the sticks they rattled over the picket fences, to the banks of the canal for a cooling frolic in the none too fragrant waters.

In the morning he could not join the group that congregated to listen to Beekstein--Secretary of Education--straighten out the involved syntax or track an elusive x to its secret lair. In the afternoon he could not practice on the diamond with them, learning the trick of holding elusive flies or teaching himself to face thunderous outshoots at the plate.

This enforced seclusion had one good result: left to his own devices his recitations improved tremendously, though this was scant consolation.

He kept his own company proudly, reading long hours into the land of Dumas and Victor Hugo; straying up to the 'Varsity diamond, where he cast himself forlornly on the grass, apart from the groups, to watch Charlie DeSoto dash around the bases, and wonderful Jo Brown on third base scrape up the grounders and shoot them to first.

He was too proud to seek other friends, for that meant confession. Besides, his own classmates were all busy on their own diamonds, working for the success of their own House nines.

Only when there was a 'Varsity game and he was swallowed up in the indiscriminate mass that whooped and cheered back of first, thrilling at a sudden crisis, did he forget himself a little and feel a part of the great system. Once when, in a game with the Princeton Freshmen, Jo Brown cleared the bases with a sizzling three-bagger, a fourth-former he didn't know thumped him ecstatically on the back and he thrilled with gratitude.

But the rest was loneliness, ever recurrent loneliness, day in and day out. His only friends were Charlie DeSoto and Butcher Stevens at first, whom he could watch and understand--feeling, also, the fierce spirit of battle cooped up and forbidden within him.

One night in the second week of June, when Butsey White had gone to a festal spread in Cheyenne Baxter's rooms, Dink sat cheerlessly over the Latin page, seeing neither gerund nor gerundive.

The windows were open to the multiplied chorus of distant frogs and the drone of near-by insects. The lamp was hot, his clothes steamed on his back. He thought of the rootbeer and sarsaparilla being consumed down the hall and, going to the closet, consulted his own store of comforting things.

But to feast alone was no longer a feast at all. He went to the window and sniffed the warm air, trying to penetrate the outer darkness. Then, balancing carefully, he let himself out and, dropping on the yielding earth, went hungrily up to the campus.

He had never been on the Circle before at night, with all the lights about him. It gave him a strange, breathless feeling. He sat down, hugging his knees, in the center of the Circle, where he could command the blazing windows of the Houses and the long, lighted ranks of the Upper, where the fourth-formers were singing on the Esplanade. The chapel at his back was only a shadow; Memorial Hall, a cloud hung lower than the rest.

From his position of vantage he could hear scraps of conversation through the open windows, and see dark figures flitting before the mellow lamps. The fellowship in the Houses, the good times, the feeling of home that hung about each room came to him with acute poignancy as he sat there, vastly alone. In the whole school he had made not a friend. He had done nothing; no one knew him. No one cared. He had blundered from the first. He saw his errors now--only too plainly--but they were beyond retrieving.

There was only a week more and then it would be over. He would never come back. What was the use? And yet, as he sat there outside the life and lights of it all, he regretted, bitterly regretted, that it must be so. He felt the tug at his heartstrings. It was something to win a place in such a school, to have the others look up to you, to have the youngsters turn and follow you as you passed, as they did with Charlie DeSoto or Flash Condit or Turkey Reiter or a dozen of others. Instead, he would drop out of the ranks, and who would notice it? A few who would make a good story out of that miserable game of baseball. A few who would speak of him as the freshest of the fresh, the fellow who had to be put in Coventry--if, indeed, any one would remember Dink Stover, the fellow who hadn't made good.

The bell clanged out the summons to bed for the Houses. One by one the windows dropped back into the night; only the Upper remained ablaze.

At this moment he heard somewhere in the dark near him the sound of scampering feet. The next moment a small body tripped over his legs and went sprawling.

"What in the name of Willie Keeler!" said a shrill voice. "Is that a master or a human being?"

"Hello!" said Stover gruffly, to put down the lump that had risen in his throat. "Who are you."

"Me? Shall we tell our real names?" said the voice approaching and at once bursting out into an elfish chant:

_Wow, wow! Wow, wow, wow! Oh, me father's name was Finnegan, Me mother's name was Kate, Me ninety-nine relations To you I'll now relate._

"Oh, you're Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, are you?" said Dink, laughing as he dashed his cuff across his eyes. "The kid that wrote the baseball story."

"Sir, you do me honor," said Finnegan. "Who are you?"

"I'm Stover."

"The Dink?"

"Yes, the Dink."

"The cuss that translates at sight?"

"You've heard of it?"

"Cracky, yes! They say The Roman was knocked clean off his pins, first time in his life. I say----"

"What?"

"Then you're the fellow down in the Green, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Dink, thinking only of the ban of excommunication.

"Why, you're a regular cross-sawed, triple-hammered, mule-kick, beef-fed, rarin'-tearin' John L. Sullivan, ain't you?" said the exponent of the double adjective in rapid admiration.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you're the cuss that smeared the Angel, swallowed the Canary, and bumped Tough McCarty, all at once."

"Oh, yes."

"My dear boy, permit me--you're it, you're the real thing."

Dink, with a feeling of wonder, shook hands, saying:

"Well, they don't think so much of it at the Green."

"Anything wrong?"

"Nothing much."

Finnegan, perceiving the ground was shaky, switched.

"I say, you want to get into the Kennedy next year; we've got the A No. 1 crowd there. I'm there, the Tennessee Shad, the Gutter Pup--he's the president of the Sporting Club, you know; prize-fights and all that sort of thing--and King Lentz and the Waladoo Bird, the finest guards Lawrenceville ever had. And say, you'n I and the Tennessee Shad could strike up a combine and get out a rip-snorting, muzzle-off, all-the-news, sporting-expert, battle-cry-of-freedom newspaper that would put the _Lawrence_ out of biz. I say, you must get in the Kennedy."

"I'm not coming back."

"What!"

"I guess my par-ticular style of talent isn't suited around here."

"What's wrong?"

"Well, everything."

"I say, Dink, confide in me!"

Stover, at that moment, in his loneliness, would have confided in any one, especially the first human being who had given him a thrill of conscious pride.

"It's just this, youngster," he said, wondering how to begin: "they don't like me."

"You like the school, don't you?" said Finnegan in alarm.

Dink had never had the question put to him before. He was silent and his look went swiftly over to the coveted House of Lords. He drew a long breath.

"You bet I do. I love it!"

"What then?"

"I started wrong; didn't understand the game, I guess. They've put me in Coventry."

"You must have been pretty fresh."

"What!"

"Oh, don't mind me," said Dennis cheerfully. "I'm fresher than you ever thought of being. I was the freshest bit of verdure, as the poet says, that ever greened the place. I'm the freshest still. But I'm different. I'm under six inches--that's the cinch of it."

"Yes, I was fresh," said Dink, intensely relieved.

"You're always fresh if you're any good, the first term," said Finnegan. "Don't mind that. Next year you'll be an old boy, and then they'll follow you around for sugar."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Dink slowly.

"Keep a-thinking. I'm off now. Ta-ta! Got to slink in Fatty Harris' room before The Roman makes his rounds. Proud to have met you. Au revoir!"

Dink sat a long while thinking, and a lighter mood was on him. After all, he was not a blank. Some one had recognized him; some one had taken his hand in admiration. He rose and slowly made his way toward the singers on the Esplanade, and by the edge of the road camped under the shadows of an apple tree and leaned his back against the trunk.

The groups of the Esplanade stood out in cut outlines against the warm windows of the Reading-room. Above, the open windows were tenanted by boys who pillowed their heads on one another and sent their treble or bass notes down to swell the volume below.

Led by a tenor voice that soared clear and true above the rest came the melody to Stover huddled under the apple tree:

_At evening, when twilight is falling And the birds to their nests are all gone, We'll gather around in the gloaming, And mingle our voices in song. Yes, in song. The bright stars are shining above us, Keeping their watch and ward. We'll sing the old songs that we love, boys. Out on the Esplanade._

Stover listened, pressing his knuckles to his lips, raised out of himself by the accord of voices and the lingering note of melancholy that was in the hour, the note of the dividing of the ways.

Again in deeper accents a song arose:

_We sing the campus, green and fair. We sing the 'leven and nine Who battle for the old school there And guard the base and line. No cause for fear when they appear And the school flag floats above our head. When the game begins 'tis Lawrence wins, While we cheer the Black and Red. When the game begins 'tis Lawrence wins, While we cheer the Black and Red._

The song ended in lingering accents. Dink shut his eyes, clenching his fists, seeing wonderful days when the school should gather to cheer him, too, and lay its trust in him.

Suddenly near him in the road came the crunching sound of footsteps, and a voice said:

"Is that you, Bill?"

"Yes."

"Bill, I wanted to say a word to you."

"Well?"

"We've only got a few days more in the old place. I don't want to go out with any hard feelings for anybody, do you?"

"No."

"Let's call it off! Shake hands."

Stover listened breathless, hearing little more, understanding only that a feud had ceased, that two enemies on the verge of the long parting had held each other's hands, slapped each other's backs with crude, embarrassed emotion, for the sake of the memories that lived in the shadow of a name. And something like a lump rose again in Dink's throat. He no longer thought of his loneliness. He felt in him the longing to live as they had lived through the glorious years, to know the touch of a friend's arm about his shoulders, and to leave a name to stand with the names that were going out.

He raised his fists grotesquely, unconsciously, and swore an oath:

"No, I won't give up; I'll never give up. I'll come back. I'll fight it out!" he said almost aloud. "I'll make 'em like me. I'll make 'em proud of me."

X

_My father sent me here to Lawrenceville, And resolved that for college I'd prepare; And so I settled down In this ancient little town, About five miles away from anywhere._

_Five miles away from anywhere, my boys, Where old Lawrenceville evermore shall stand. For has she not stood since the time of the flood. About five miles away from anywhere?_

The school was returning after the long summer vacation, rollicking back over the dusty, Trenton highway, cheering and singing as they came.

Jimmy, on the stage, was swallowed up in the mass of exultant boyhood that clustered on the top like bees on a comb of honey, and clung to step and strap. Inside, those who had failed of place stuck long legs out of the windows, and from either side beat the time of the choruses.

"Next verse!" shouted Doc Macnooder as leader of the orchestra.

_The First Form then I gayly entered, And did so well, I do declare, When they looked my record o'er All the masters cried "Encore!" About five miles away from anywhere._

"Chorus!" cried Macnooder. "Here, you legs, keep together! You're spoiling the effect."

Dink Stover sat quietly on the second seat, joining in the singing, but without the rollicking abandon of the others. He had shot up amazingly during the vacation and taken on some weight, but the change was most marked in his face. The roundness was gone and with it the cherubic smile. The oval had lengthened, the mouth was straighter, more determined, and in the quiet set of eyes was something of the mental suffering of the last months. He had returned, wondering a little what would be his greeting. The first person he had met was the Coffee-colored Angel, who shook hands with him, pounded him on the back and called him "Good old Dink." He understood--the ban was lifted. But the lesson had been a rude one; he did not intend to presume. So he sat, an observer rather than a participant, not yet free of that timidity which, once imposed, is so difficult to shake off.

The stage, which was necessarily making slow progress, halted at the first hill, with a sudden rebellion on the part of the long suffering horses.

"All out!" shouted Macnooder.

In a jiffy every boy was on the ground.

"All push!"

The stage, propelled by dozens of vigorous hands, went up the hill on a run.

"Same places!"

"All ready?"

"Let her go!"

Mamie Reilly, being discovered on the roof and selfishly claimed below, was thrust kicking and wriggling over the side and into the ready hands at the window.

"All ready, orchestra?" said Macnooder.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"All legs in the air!"

"Aye, me Lord!"

"One, two, three!"

_And then the Second Form received me, Where I displayed such genius rare, That they begged me to refrain, It was going to my brain. About five miles away from anywhere!_

Meanwhile, at the approach of the astounding coach, which looked like a drunken centipede, the farmers stopped their plows or came to the thresholds, shading their eyes; while the cattle in the fields put up their tails and bolted, flinging out their heels, amid triumphant cheers from the students.

All the while, the bulk of the school in two seaters, and three seaters, the Fifth Formers, the new Lords of Creation, in buggies specially retained, went swirling by exchanging joyful greetings.

"Oh you, Doc Macnooder!"

"Why, Gutter Pup! You old son-of-a-gun!"

"Look at the Coffee-Colored Angel!"

"Where's Lovely Mead?"

"Coming behind."

"Hello, Skinny."

"Why, you Fat Boy!"

"See you later."

"Meet me at the Jigger Shop."

"There's Stuffy!"

"Hello, Stuffy! Look this way!"

"Look at the Davis House bunch!"

"Whose legs are those?"

_Hallegenoo, nack, nack! Hallegenoo, nack, nack! Hooray! Hooray! Lawrenceville!_

"Next verse," shouted Doc Macnooder. "Legs at attention. More action there! La-da-da-dee! One, two, three!"

_In course of time, I reached the Third Form, But was caught in examination's snare. Reassignment played its part, And it almost broke my heart, About five miles away from anywhere._

"What house are you in?" said the Coffee-Colored Angel to Stover, between breaths.

"Kennedy."

"The Roman, eh?"

"Yes, he reached out and nabbed me," said Stover, who was persuaded that his new assignment was a special mark of malignant interest.

"Who are you rooming with?"

"The Tennessee Shad."

"Well, you'll be a warm bunch!"

A shout burst out from the back of the coach.

"A race, a race!"

"Here come the Tennessee Shad and Brian de Boru."

"Turn out, Jimmy!"

"Give 'em room!"

"Go it, Dennis!"

"Go it, Shad!"

Two runabouts came up at a gallop, neck and neck, four boys in each, the Tennessee Shad standing at the reins in one, Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan in the other, each firmly clutched about the waist by the boy on whose knees he jolted and jostled.

"Push on the reins!"

"Home run, Dennis!"

"Swim out, you Shad!"

"Pass him, Dennis! Pass him!"

"Shad wins!"

"Look at his form, will you!"

"Oh, you jockey!"

"Shad wins!"

"Hurrah!"

"Hurray!"

"Hurroo!"

But at this moment, when it seemed as though the race was to go to the Tennessee Shad's nag, which had that superiority which one sacrificial horse in a Spanish bullfight ring has over another, Dennis de Brian de Boru suddenly produced the remnants of a bag of cream puffs and, by means of three well-directed, squashing shots on the rear quarters of his coal-black steed, plunged ahead and won the road, amid terrific cheering.

"Dennis forever!"

"Oh, you, Brian de Boru!"

"Get an éclair, Shad!"

"Get an omelet!"

"Get a tomato!"

"Get out and push!"

The racers disappeared in mingled clouds of dust.

Macnooder, whirling around like a dervish on the stage top, conducted the next verse. Suddenly another shout went up.

"Here comes Charlie DeSoto and Flash Condit."

"Three cheers for the football team!"

"How are you, Charlie?"

"Flash, old boy!"

"What do you weigh?"

"Pretty fit?"

"Too bad you can't run, Flash!"

"What'll we do to Andover?"

DeSoto and Condit passed, acknowledging the salutations with joyful yelps.

"Give 'em the Fifty-six to Nothing, boys," shouted Macnooder. "All you tenor legs get into this. Oom-pah! Oom-pah! Oom-pah! One, two, three!"

_There is a game called football, And that's the game for me. And Lawrenceville can play it, As you will shortly see. She goes to all the schools about, And with them wipes the ground. For it's fifty-six to nothing, boys, When Lawrenceville's around._

_She has a gallant rush-line That wears the Red and Black. Each man can carry the ball through With six men on his back. They carry it through the middle And then they touch it down. For it's fifty-six to nothing, boys, When Lawrenceville's around._

Little by little Stover was drawn into the spirit of the song. He forgot his aloofness, he felt one of them, thrilling with the spirit of the coming football season.

"Gee, it's great to be back," he found himself saying to Butcher Stevens next to him.

"You bet it is!"

"Charlie DeSoto looks fit, doesn't he?"

"He's eight pounds heavier, Doc tells me."

"By George, that's fine!"

They stopped to sing the third verse.

"It won't be any fifty-six to nothing when Andover comes around," said Butcher gruffly.

"We've got to hustle?" asked Stover respectfully of the 'Varsity left tackle.

"We certainly have!"

"What's the prospects?"

"Behind the line, corking. It's the line's the trouble--no weight."

"There may be some new material."

"That's so." Stevens looked him over with an appraising eye. "Played the game?"

"No, but I'm going to."

"What do you strip at?"

"Why, about 140--138."

"Light."

"I thought I might try for the second eleven."

"Perhaps. Better learn the game, though, with your House team."

Hearing them talk football the crowd eagerly began to ask questions.

"Who's out for center?"

"Will they move Tough McCarty out to end?"

"Naw, he's too heavy."

"I'd play him at center, and stick the Waladoo Bird in at tackle."

"You would, would you? Shows what you know about it."

"Butcher, you'll be in at tackle, won't you?"

"Hope so," said Stevens laconically.

Stover, who had entered the observant stage of his development, noted the laconic, quiet answer and stored it away for classification and meditation among the many other details that his new attitude of watchful analysis was heaping up.

"There's the water tower! I see the water tower!" cried a voice.

"I see the Cleve!"

"All up!"

"Long cheer for the school!"

"All together!"

"Rip her out!"

They gave a cheer and then two more.

"Now, fellows," said Doc Macnooder shrilly, as master of ceremonies, "we want to pull this off in fine shape. We're going to drive around the Circle. And I want this orchestra to keep together. Whose legs are those with the cannon-cracker socks?"

"Beekstein's," cried several voices from inside.

"Well, he's rotten. He gums the whole show. Now, get together, fellows, will you?"

"We will!"

As they turned to enter the campus the voice of the master spoke, clanging its inexorable note from the old Gym. Instantly a shout broke out:

"Hang the old thing!"

"Drown it!"

"Down with the Gym bell!"

"Murder!"

"Oh, Melancholy!"

"Silence!" cried the bandmaster. "Give 'em The Gym Bell--all ready below! La-da-da-dee!"

"Too high!"

"La-da-da-_dum_. Slow and melancholy. One, two, three!"

_When the shades of night are falling Round our campus, green and fair, All the drowsy sons of Lawrence To their couches then repair. Soon the slumber god has bound them With his spell of magic power, And he holds them thus enchanted Till the early morning hour._

"Up legs and at 'em now, Rip her out--chorus!"

_Till awakened By the clanging And the banging And the whanging From the cupola o'erhanging, Of that ancient Gym bell!_

Cheered by the new fifth-formers, who came laughing to the windows to hail them, the stage went gloriously around the Circle and came to a stop.

"Here we are back at the same old grind," said Butcher Stevens.

"Frightful, isn't it?" said Stover; and the rest made answer:

"Back at the grindstone!"

"Hard luck!"

"We're all slaves!"

"Nothing to eat!"

"Nothing to do!"

"Stuck in a mudhole!"

XI

At the Kennedy steps The Roman was waiting for him. Stover shook hands or, rather, allowed The Roman to pump him, as was the custom.

"Why, dear me--dear me--this is actually Stover!" said The Roman. "Well, well! How you have grown--shouldn't have known you. Had a pleasant vacation? Yes? Glad to have you in the Kennedy. It's a good House--good boys--manly, self-reliant, purposeful. You'll like 'em."

The Roman released Stover's hand, which had grown limp in the process, and said with a twinkle to his quick little eyes:

"Don't put too much ginger into them, Stover."

This remark confirmed Stover's darkest suspicions.

"I'll scatter a little ginger around all right," he said under his breath, as he climbed the stairs to his room. "He thinks he has the laugh on me, does he? Well, we'll see who laughs last!"

On the third floor the Tennessee Shad and Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, from their respective trunks, were volubly debating the merits of Finnegan's victory--the Tennessee Shad claiming that the external application of cream puffs was equivalent to doping and invalidated the result.

"Hello!" said Dink.

"Why, it's my honorable roommate," said the Tennessee Shad, emerging with a load of flannels.

"It's the Dink himself," said Dennis, gamboling up. "Welcome to our city!"