Chapter 11

THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM

"I was aware that you were having trouble with your Greek," said Mr. Phelps quietly, "and that was one of my reasons for stopping over here."

"You were? How did you know?"

"I had received word from the secretary of the faculty. He sent me a formal note announcing that your work was so low that it was more than probable you would fail in your mid-year examination."

For a moment Will Phelps was silent. His face became colorless and his heart seemed almost to rise in his throat. Fail in his mid-year's? A "warning" sent home to his father? To the inexperienced young student it seemed for a moment as if he was disgraced in the eyes of all his friends. He knew that his work had been of a low grade, but never for a moment had he considered it as being at all serious. So many of his newly formed friends in the college had been speaking of their conditions and low grades as a matter of course and had referred to them laughingly, much as if they were good jokes to be enjoyed that Will too had come almost to feel that his own trouble was not a serious one. And Splinter was the one to be blamed for the most of it, he was convinced. The words of his father, however, had presented the matter in an entirely different light, and his trouble was vastly increased by its evident effect upon him. Will's face was drawn and there was an expression of suffering upon it as he glanced again at his father and said:

"What shall I do? Will it drop me out of college?"

"I think not necessarily. You must pass off more than half your hours to enable you to keep on with your class; but failure in one study will not bring that of itself, for your Greek is a four-hour course. But the matter is, of course, somewhat serious and in more ways than one."

"Yes, I know it," replied Will despondently.

"Well, if you know it, that's half the battle won already. The greatest trouble with most unsuccessful men is that they have never learned what their own weaknesses and limitations are. But you say you know, and I wish you'd tell me what you think the chief difficulty is."

"My Greek," said Will, trying to smile.

"But what's the trouble with the Greek?"

"The trouble is that the Greek troubles me. I suppose the Greek is all right and I'm all wrong."

"In what way?"

"I don't know it as I ought to."

"Is that 'Splinter's' fault?"

"No, it's mine. You know how hard I worked in the closing half of my last year in the high school, but that didn't, and I suppose couldn't, make up for what I hadn't done before."

"Are you working hard now?"

"On my Greek?"

"Yes."

"I'm putting more time on that than on everything else."

"I didn't ask you about the 'time,' but about the work."

"Why, yes. I don't just see what you mean. I spend three hours on my Greek every day we have it."

"It's one thing to 'spend the time' and another to work. Some men will accomplish more in an hour than others will in three."

"I do my best," said Will gloomily. He felt almost as if his father was unfair with him and was disposed to question what he had said.

"Now, Will," said Mr. Phelps quietly, but in a tone of voice which his boy clearly understood, "it would be an easy thing for me to smooth over this matter and make light of it, but my love and interest in you are too strong to permit me to think of that for a moment. I believe in you, my boy, but there are some things in which I cannot aid you, some things which you must learn and do for yourself. Last year you faced your crisis as a man should, and I believe you will face this one too."

"It seems as if there was always something to be faced."

"There is. That's it, exactly. My boy, Splinter, as you call your professor in Greek, is not limited to the faculty of Winthrop College. In one form or another he presents himself all through your life. His name is simply that of the perpetual problem."

"I don't see, then--" interrupted Will.

"No, you don't see; but it is just because I do, and I am your father, that I am talking in this way. Why do you think I have sent you to college? It isn't for the name of it, or for the fun you will get out of it, or even for the friendships you will form here, though every one of these things is good in itself. It is to have you so trained, or rather for you so to train yourself, that when you go out from Winthrop you will be able to meet the very problems of which I am speaking and master them. They come to all, and the great difference in men is really in their ability to solve these very things. I think it is Emerson who says, 'It is as easy for a large man to do large things as it is for a small man to do small things.' And that is what I want for you, my boy, the ability to do the greater things."

"But I'll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in its place."

"Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim. There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that's the part of a coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that's the part of the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it. Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he must, and there is no escape."

"You think I ought to hit it between the eyes?"

"Yes, though I should not put it in quite that way," said his father with a smile.

"I'd like to smash it! I don't like it! I'll never make a Greek scholar, and I detest Splinter. He's as dry as a bone or a Greek root! He hasn't any more juice than a piece of boiled basswood!"

"That does not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will meet it."

"I suppose that's so," said Will quietly. "But it doesn't make it any easier."

"Not a bit."

"I know what you would say."

"Then it isn't necessary for me to say another word. There's one thing I am thankful for, Will, and that is that you and I are such good friends that we can talk this trouble all over together. The dean was telling me this morning--"

"Have you seen the dean?" interrupted Will quickly. "What did he say?"

"The dean was telling me," resumed Mr. Phelps smiling and ignoring the interruption, "that he sees so many of what might be termed the tragical elements of college life, that he sometimes feels as if he could not retain his position another day. Fathers and mothers broken-hearted, boys discouraged or worse, but the most tragical experience of all, he says, is to try to deal with fathers who have no special interest in their boys, and between whom there is no confidence. Whatever troubles may come to us, Will, I am thankful that that at least will not be one of them."

As he spoke Mr. Phelps arose, for the machine which was to convey him to the station could now be seen approaching and the time of his departure had arrived. His good-bye was hastily spoken for he knew how hard it would be for Will to be left behind, and in a brief time he had taken his seat in the auto. He saw Will as he hastily ran back to his room and then he could see him as he stood by the window in his room watching the departing auto as long as it could be seen. He gave no signal to show that he saw his boy, but his own eyes were wet as he was carried swiftly down the street, as he thought of the predicament in which Will was and how the testing-time had come again. But the young student must be left to fight out his battle alone. To save him from the struggle would be to save him from the strength. If it were only possible for a father to save his boy by assuming his burden, how thankful he would be, was Mr. Phelps' reflection, but he was too wise a man and too good a father to flinch or falter now, and, though his heart was heavy, he resolutely kept on his way leaving Will to fight his own battle, and hoping that the issue would be as he most fervently desired.

Left to himself, for a moment Will was almost despondent. The departure of his father seemed to leave the loneliness intensified, but he was recalled as he heard some one run up the stairway and rush into the room. His visitor was Mott, and perhaps the sophomore almost instinctively felt that his presence was not welcome, for he said:

"Governor gone, Phelps? Hope he left a good-sized check with you! I've come over to be the first to help you get rid of it."

"What's the trouble?" inquired Will quietly, glancing up as he spoke. "Your money all gone? Want to borrow some?"

"I'm always ready for that," laughed Mott, "though I'll have to own up that I've got a few cents on hand yet. No, I don't know that I want to borrow any; but I thought you might want a little help in getting rid of that check, and I'd just run over to oblige you. Just pure missionary work, you see." Mott seated himself in the large easy-chair and endeavored to appear at his ease, though to Will it still seemed as if there was something which still troubled his visitor.

"I haven't any special check."

"That's all right. My 'old man' never has been up to see me since I entered Winthrop, but as I look around at the fellows whose fathers and mothers have been up, I've noticed that they're usually pretty flush right after the old gentleman departs."

"Hasn't your mother ever been up?" inquired Will in surprise.

"No. Why should she? She hasn't any time to bother with me. She's on more than forty boards, and is on the 'go' all the time. She has to attend all sorts of 'mothers' meetings' too, and I believe she has a lecture also, which she gives."

"A lecture?"

"Yes. She has a lecture on 'The proper method of bringing up boys.' How do you suppose she ever has any time to visit me?" Mott laughed as if the matter was one of supreme indifference to him, but Will fancied that he could detect a feeling of bitterness beneath it all. For himself, the condition described by the sophomore seemed to him to be incredible. His own relations with his father had been of the frankest and most friendly nature. Indeed, it never occurred to him in a time of trouble or perplexity that there was any one else to whom he so naturally could go as to his own father. Since he had entered Winthrop, however, he had discovered several who were not unlike Mott in their feelings toward their own families; and as Mott spoke he almost unconsciously found a feeling of sympathy arising in his heart for him. Some of his apparently reckless deeds could be explained now.

"Mott, you must go home with me next vacation," he said impulsively.

"That's good of you, but it's too far off to promise. Say, Phelps, what's become of that man Friday of yours?"

"Who's he?"

"Schenck."

"Oh, he's flourishing."

"He's the freshest freshman that ever entered Winthrop. What do you suppose he had the nerve to say to me to-day?"

"I can't imagine."

"Well, he told me that he thought the Alpha Omega was the best fraternity in college, and that he'd made up his mind to join it."

As this was the fraternity to which Mott himself belonged, Will laughed as he said, "Oh, well, don't be too hard with Peter John. He doesn't know any better now, but he'll learn."

"That's what he will," replied Mott with a very decided shake of his head. "I thought I'd come over to tell you that the sophomore-freshmen meet is to come off on Saturday afternoon."

"Not next Saturday?" exclaimed Will aghast.

"Yes, that's the very day."

"They told me it wasn't to be for two weeks yet."

"All the same it's on Saturday. I thought I'd tell you, though I'm going to do my best to keep you from winning your numerals."

Mott rose and departed from the room, and when Foster returned he found his room-mate hard at work, with his Greek books spread out on the desk before him.