Chapter 21

THE EXAMINATION

Vacation had come and gone. How Will Phelps did enjoy that break in his work! He almost begrudged the swiftly passing hours while he was at home, and as the vacation drew near its close he found himself computing the hours and even the minutes that yet remained before he must return, just as he had previously reckoned the time that must pass before he could return to Sterling. It was not that he did not enjoy his college life, for as we know he had entered heartily into its spirit, but the work was hard and his handicap in the one subject had robbed him of the enthusiasm which perhaps otherwise he might have had.

When the day at last arrived when he was to return he was unusually quiet and seldom had a word to say to any one. Uppermost in his thoughts was the expression of the principal of the school where he had prepared for college, who had said to him: "Well, Will, with all the fun of college there is still another side to it, and that is, that when a fellow enters college he really is leaving home. From that time forward he may come back for his vacations, but it is nevertheless the break that sooner or later comes to every man." Will had thought much of the saying, and its truthfulness was so apparent that he was unable entirely to shake off the somewhat depressing effect it had produced upon himself.

When the hour came and the good-byes must be said he strove desperately to be calm, but he dared not trust himself to say much. He did not once glance behind him as he walked away from the house to the street, though he knew that his father and mother were standing on the piazza and were watching him as long as his sturdy form could be seen by them.

On the train he found several of his college friends and it became somewhat easier for him in their company to forget his own heaviness of heart, and as he sped on toward Winthrop the numbers increased and the noisy shouts of greeting and the enthusiasm of the students diverted him from the feeling to which otherwise he might have yielded.

Peter John and Foster were in the number of the returning students, the former having recovered sufficiently to warrant him in taking up a part of his work. Wagner also and several of the other students who had been victims of the fever were on the train when it arrived at Winthrop, and in the warmth of their reception by their student friends there was a tonic such as even the physicians' prescriptions had not afforded. Will found a slight return of his depression when he first entered his room, but when a few days had passed his life had once more settled into the grooves of the daily routine and assumed its former round of tasks.

The mid-year examinations came within a month after the reopening of the college, and the chagrin and anger of Will Phelps were keenly aroused when he learned that although he had done well in his other studies he was conditioned in his Greek. He stormed and raved about the injustice with which he was being treated, and finally, at Foster's suggestion, sought a personal interview with his professor.

"I don't understand it, professor," he said warmly. "I never felt more sure of anything in my life than I did that I had passed that exam--I mean that examination."

"Ah, yes," replied the professor. "Quite likely if you had had the decision to make, you would have passed _cum laude!_ Ha, ha! Yes, I fawncy it might have been so, but unfortunately the decision had to be made by other parties."

"But didn't I pass the examination, professor?" demanded Will.

"I do not exactly recollect as to that. Quite likely you failed, since that impression seems to be vivid in your thoughts. Were you so reported?"

"Yes, sir. Have you got that paper, professor?"

"I _have_ it. I should not say I have _got_ it."

"May I see it?" Will's manner was subdued, but there was a flush on his cheeks which those who knew him well would at once have understood.

"I will look it over with you," assented the professor. "It is against our rules to return papers to students, and I fawncy our rules are made to be obeyed, not ignored."

"Yes, sir." Will was hardly aware of what he was saying so impatient and eager was he for the paper to be produced.

The professor unlocked a drawer in his desk and drew forth a package of papers that were carefully tied with a piece of ribbon. Even the knot was exact and the loop on one side did not vary from that on the other by the smallest fraction. In his impatience Will noticed even this detail, but it was ignored in a moment when the professor slowly and with care examined the headlines of the papers and at last drew forth one which he placed on the desk in front of him and said: "Ah, yes. Here is the paper in question. It is credited with being two points above the mark required to pass a student."

"It is?" demanded Will enthusiastically. "I thought there must be a mistake."

There was a slight scowl on the professor's brow as he said: "Ah, yes. I will now refer to your true mark," and he drew forth a little book as he spoke and carefully examined the record. "Ah, yes," he murmured, not lifting his eyes from the page on which he had placed a forefinger. "Ah, yes. It is as I fawncied. Your average for the term in your recitations is what brings you below. It is true you are two above the required mark in your examination, but you are three below in your recitation work, and that, I regret exceedingly to say, brings you still one point below the mark necessary to pass you." The professor looked up and smiled blandly.

But Will Phelps was not smiling and his vigorous young heart was filled with wrath. By a desperate effort, however, he contrived to control his voice and said quietly: "Was I not doing better? Was I not improving in my work?"

"I should not care to speak positively, but my impression is that you were. Ah, yes," he added as he glanced again at his record. "You were improving. I may even say there was a marked improvement."

"And I passed the exam?"

"I have told you that you were two points above the mark required for passing the examination," said the professor with dignity.

"Then I don't see what I'm stuck for."

"You are not 'stuck'."

"I'm not? Thank you, professor. I thought I was. You can't understand what a load--"

"Excuse me, Mr. Phelps. I did not affirm that you were not conditioned. I merely declared that you were not 'stuck'."

"Then I am conditioned, am I?" said Will, his heart instantly sinking.

"Most certainly."

"What shall I have to do?"

"Pass the examination."

"But I have passed it! I passed this one!" declared Will promptly.

Again the professor's scowl returned and his thin lips were tightly compressed as he said, "I fawncy it will not be necessary for me to repeat what I have already said. You were deficient in the term work and therefore are conditioned."

"Then you mean to tell me, do you," said Will, no longer able to repress his rising indignation, "that, though I steadily improved in my class work, and then passed the examination, in spite of it all you are going to give me a condition because according to your figures I am still one point below?"

"Most certainly."

"And I'll have to take another exam?"

"Precisely."

"Good evening, professor," said Will, rising abruptly.

There was nothing more to be said, and he felt that it would be wise to withdraw from the professor's presence before, in his indignation, he should say something he was certain to regret. When, however, he returned to his own room, there the flood tides of his wrath broke loose. He related the interview to Foster, and bitterly declared that if a smaller specimen of a man could be found with a microscope he thought he would be willing to spend his days and nights searching for him. There was neither justice nor fairness in it. He had improved steadily, even Splinter acknowledged that he had, and had passed the required exam, and yet for the sake of the professor's pettiness and the red tape of the college rules he must take another, and then if he should pass _that_ he would be all right. Bah! Greek was bad enough, but Splinter was worse. What kind of a man was he to put in charge of a lot of fellows with live blood in their veins, he'd like to know. For his part he wished he was out of it. Such things might do for kids, but it was too contemptible to think of for college students.

Foster wisely waited till the outburst had been ended and then said, "Well, Will, you're up against it, whatever you say. What are you going to do about it?"

"Do about it? I'm going to pass that exam. There isn't any other way out. I've got to do it! but that doesn't make it any nicer for me, does it?"

"Splinter's here and is likely to stay. And if you and I are going to stay too, I suppose we'll have to come to his tune."

"I fancy--you should hear Splinter say that."

"Say what?"

"'Fancy,' only he calls it 'fawncy'. I 'fawncy' my father is dead right when he says that I'll find a splinter everywhere and just as long as I live; but I don't believe I'll ever find one as bad as this one is."

"He may be worse. Don't you remember that little bit of Eugene Field's verse where he tells how when he was a boy he was sliding down hill with some other little chaps in front of the deacon's house? And how their yelling annoyed the deacon till at last he came out and sprinkled ashes on the path? Well, Eugene said he always had found since that there was some one standing ready to throw ashes on his path, it didn't seem to make any difference where he was."

"I don't remember, but it's like my father's words about finding splinters everywhere. Oh, no, I'm mad about it, but I'm not running away. I'm going to do it if that's the thing to be done."

And when a month had gone by Will had passed the examination, and was facing his work without the drag of work undone to hinder him.

The final influence had come one Sunday in the college chapel where the pulpit from week to week was occupied ("filled" was a word also occasionally used) by men of eminence, who were invited for the purpose of speaking to the college boys. Some of these visitors by words, presence, and message were a great inspiration to the young men, and others were correspondingly deficient, for in the vocabulary of Winthrop there was no word by which to express the comparative degree.

Will Phelps had regularly attended the services, not only because such attendance was required by the college authorities but also from the habit and inclination of his own life. With his fellows he had enjoyed some speakers and had disliked others in his thoughtless manner, and in the preceding week had laughed as heartily as any one over the unconscious escapade of Mott. The preacher for the day had been unusually prosy, having length without much breadth or thickness as Foster had dryly described the discourse, and in the midst of the hour, Mott had fallen asleep in his pew. Short and stout in figure, doubtless doubly wearied by the late hours he had kept the preceding night, in the midst of his slumbers he had begun to snore. From low and peaceful intonations he had passed on to long, prolonged, and sonorous notes that could be heard throughout the college chapel. Nor would any one of his fellows disturb his slumbers, and when at last with an unusually loud and agonizing gasp Mott was awakened and suddenly sat erect and stared stupidly about him, the good-hearted, but boyishly irreverent audience, it is safe to affirm, was decidedly more interested in the slumbering sophomore than in the soporific speaker, though few doubtless thought them related as cause and effect.

On the following Sunday Will was thinking of Mott's experience and wondering if he would give another exhibition. This thought was even in his mind when the visiting speaker entered the chapel pulpit and reverently began the service of the day.

He had not been speaking long before it was evident that every eye was fastened upon him. It was evident that here was first of all a man, and then a man who was present because he had something to say and not merely because he had to say something.

"I am appealing to those of you," he was saying, "who are eager and earnest, not to you who are indifferent or weaklings. Those of you who are members of your college teams, who are leading spirits in the college life, who are not living lives that are above reproach because you have no temptation to be bad, but because if you do right it is because you have to struggle and fight for it--it is to you I am speaking this morning."

Will was listening intently, as was every one in the chapel, and then there followed a sentence that seemed to him almost electric with life and that made a lasting impression upon his life.