Latta Griswold

“ By this time only Tony and Kit were playing and some half-a-dozen smaller boys were squabbling on the benches. Tony glanced at the master, and saw beyond him, standing outside on the deserted tennis-courts, the forlorn Finch who looked about him in a bewildered fashion as if he did not know what to do.
As Mr. Roylston finished making his notes, he fixed Tony and Kit with a glare of unmitigated contempt. “The delight of doing nothing for some boys,” he said in a sharp, jerky tone, “is only equalled by their incapacity to do anything. ”

“ Across the morning haze gleamed the shores of a broad peninsula known as Strathsey Neck. In the midst of the river,—or bay, for it was really that,—a pile of rocks jutted from the waters, on which was situate a lighthouse, marked in the charts as Deigr Light.
Tony was a little bewildered by the unexpected impelling beauty of the situation. The cab turned into the school driveway then, and at the end of a graveled elm-shaded avenue, he saw a low long building of gray stone—of Tudor architecture, he learned afterwards—approached by a broad flight of stone steps. ”

“ Gradually too Finch’s shyness wore off a little when he was alone with Tony; and though it can hardly be said that even in his most un-selfconscious moments he ever seemed a full-blooded care-free boy, he thawed into a semblance of humanity. He reminded Tony often of a dog that has been treated cruelly in its puppyhood, which never recovers fearlessness but shrinks even under a friendly hand.
And like a dog Jacob Finch began to idolize Anthony Deering. ”

“ That is to say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite as exciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school or college team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watch a fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though the fate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at last behind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. ”

“ Then, just as the Deal boys rose to a man, with a frantic cheer, the supreme moment was come. The line was reached, but suddenly Deering felt a jolt; the quarter’s arms were about his waist, as they went sprawling toward the goal-line; but another arm clothed in a red sweater had thrust itself next Tony’s body and given the ball a terrific shove. In an agony of horror, as he fell heavily to earth, he saw the football fall out of his arms, bound to the ground in front of them, and Chapin and the Boxford quarter lunge together, as they all went down in the mêlée. ”

“ Our other friends, following Kit’s ardent but injudicious leadership, were making a detour to the north on their way to their cave with an intention of taking a peep at the nefarious doings at the shanty.
It was a long walk, and a cold one. Tony and Jimmie had little heart for it, but the irrepressible Kit led them gaily on. They skirted Beaver Pond, threaded their way along the ridges over familiar paths, and at last debouched upon the little clearing in which the abandoned shanty was situated. On every side stretched the thick woods, traversable only by those who knew their devious paths. ”

“ Tony walked up the beach alone, thinking, feeling intensely. The silent somber beauty of the night, the great stars, the lazy splash of the little foam-flecked waves upon the sands, the cool frosty dark, appealed to him deeply. He could scarcely have told of what he was thinking: of various things—the day’s events, the celebration, Betty and the violets she had given him, Finch and his hungry eyes, [167] life. ”

“ He was consciously happier than he had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and a quivering ocean, [39] it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School. ”

“ Why, honest, Reggie, even the Gumshoe just eats out of his hand. It’s marvelous—don’t understand it—or I guess I do understand it. You can’t help it, can you?”
“No, you can’t; but note this;—the more Tony cares for, the more it seems he can. And I tell you what, Kit, with Tony or with anyone else, the loss of one friend can never be made up by gaining others. If you and Tony don’t make up, you will never forgive yourselves later. As it is, you have lost nearly a year of school life.” ”

“ The splendid loveliness of the dying afternoon, the biting cold of the wind, the thrill of doing the forbidden, filled Tony with a delicious sense of happiness and adventure.
Each boy had his arms full of cooking utensils, food, boxes—the varied paraphernalia of a cave. It had been an ancient custom at Deal during the winter for boys to have caves in Lovel’s Woods, where they cooked weird messes during the afternoons when there was no skating. ”

“ Signals got twisted,—at any rate, there was a fumble and a scrimmage, and twenty boys were scrambling in a heap, when the attention of the spectators was arrested by the shrill cry of the Boxford quarter, for Tony Deering, with the ball tucked under his arm, had emerged from the mass of players, and was speeding like a frightened deer down the field toward the Boxford goal. ”

“ For an hour or more, long after the excitement had ebbed without and the boys had got back and gone noisily to bed, long after he had heard the watchman make his stealthy midnight rounds, Carroll sat there in bed, gazing dreamily out of his window upon the moonlit sea and the misty outlines of Lovel’s Woods and at the ruby intermittent glow of Deigr Light, and now and then he jotted down a line or word upon the pad. ”

“ It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. ”

“ Tony’s voice took on a sharp note of contempt.
Finch shook like an aspen leaf.
“Answer me!” demanded Tony. “You weren’t trying to hear, were you?”
No reply. Poor Jake moistened his dry lips.
“Pah!” exclaimed Deering. “So the fellows are right, are they? you are a sneak?” He turned away in disgust, and started across the room. His hand was on the knob of the door, when Finch threw himself in his way, and grasped him tightly again by the arm.
“For God’s sake, Deering,” he cried in a queer cracked voice, “don’t throw me over. You are the only friend I’ve got. Don’t throw me over. ”

“ He had taken Tony superficially, and was surprised in the course of the term to find how much he had grown to like him; how much, too, he was depending on Tony’s judgment and feeling in the various matters with which the Head Prefect in a large school may have to deal.
“I’m slow; you’re quick,” he said to Tony one night. “I’m fairly sure, I suppose, when I make up my mind,—but it takes me the deuce of a long time to see things straight. You seem to see into a situation, to know a fellow, right off.” ”

“ Tony gave a little gulp and squeezed Jimmie’s hand. “Oh, Jimmie, I never felt so great in all my life.”
The night before the game they were in Jimmie’s rooms in Standerland and a crowd of Third Formers came trooping in. “No school to-night,” cried Kit Wilson, “there’s to be a P-rade around the campus at eight-thirty sharp. Tony, you lucky dog, don’t it feel good even to be a despised scrub?”
Tony laughed. “Say, fellows, you don’t know how it all strikes a greenhorn like me. Why, it makes me feel bully to be alive.” ”

“ But unfortunately he was not the type that could perceive that his difficulties largely lay in his own fundamental lack of sympathy with boy nature; and, resenting what he felt was the boys’ unjust attitude toward him, he had not it in his soul then to forgive such an offense as Tony had been guilty of. As he looked back over their four or five years at Deal, the incident of The Spectacle seemed to him but the culmination of a long series of systematic attempts on the part of that particular “crowd” to belittle and annoy him. ”

“ A little later, after Tony had gone to bed, Carroll went in to see Mr. Morris, and repeated the substance of this conversation.
“It’s as I thought,” he said in conclusion, “we shall hear no more of it from Tony. Do you still think, sir, that we should hold our tongues?”
“For the present, yes,” answered Morris. “If you don’t mind, Reggie, I want to manage this myself. In the course of time, I shall see Chapin, if he takes no action to clear Deering. It will be infinitely better if he confesses of his own accord. ”

“ With that Tony rose, shook hands with the Head Master, and took his leave.
Doctor Forester watched him as he walked across the campus, at a brisk pace, head up, shoulders back. “There,” he said, turning to his wife who had just slipped into the room, “there goes a rare boy, my dear. He has made it harder for me to do my duty than any one I have ever known.”
“Tony Deering make it hard for anyone to do his duty! Why, my dear, did you not appoint him Head Prefect? Every one wanted him; every one expected that he would be.” ”

“ Here and there a field was stained literally purple with Michaelmas daisies,—a vivid contrast to the deep green of the meadows.
Tony could scarcely contain himself as the fly crawled up the steep road. Then, just as they reached the summit, a few paces before they turned into the school drive, another splendid view opened to them unexpectedly. On the other side of the school grounds the hill descended much more precipitously toward a point of rocky land which jutted into the sea; to the east the land bent with an enormous curve, embracing a wide beach about a mile in length ”

“ From the first day, when Deering, with his sparkling eyes and bright, clear-cut, eager face, had come to him for a seat in the schoolroom, he had felt for him that keen attraction which, as he grew to know the boy’s high spirits, lively sense of honor, and sunshiny nature, had deepened to a real affection. ”

“ There were other parties there, including the parents and sisters and cousins and an occasional aunt of various boys; a gathering of the clans loyal to Deal; a score or so of Old Boys, mostly from Kingsbridge, back for the game, who had overflowed from the crowded school into the Inn. In the proud consciousness of their undoubted superiority as college men, the Old Boys somewhat cast their younger brethren in the shade, and treated them with patronizing airs, asking them occasional questions in a patriarchal manner.
Tony alone amongst his companions seemed to shine that evening. ”

“ Finch yelled. “I’m going to throw.” He raised his arm, but something paralyzed his vicious intention. It seemed to him that he tried to throw and could not. The big stone fell crashing from his hand, and rolled harmlessly down the bank. Finch turned, and with a cry sprang toward the icy surface of the Pond. When the boys got to the top of the bank, he was already a dozen feet out on the Pond.
“For God’s sake, Jake, don’t try to cross the Pond. The ice is rotten.” Tony and Jimmie were now at the edge of the shore. “The ice is rotten.” Deering repeated, “it can’t hold you.” ”

“ Morris on the beach the night of the Boxford game had solidified in Tony’s mind a good many resolutions. And, though it is not usually the case that the generous ideals and ambitions of boys find particular expression, since the flash of intuition into Finch’s starved life had been in part the occasion of his forming good resolutions at all, it was not unnatural that he should have settled upon Finch as a concrete opportunity for putting them into effect. ”

“ Mr. Roylston slowly unfolded the paper, adjusted his spectacles, and read to his colleagues Tony’s effusion. He read it well, did full justice to the sarcasm, the animus that had been in the writer’s mind [247] at the moment of composition. Some of the men, conscious of the invasion it made upon magisterial dignity, were plainly in sympathy with Roylston’s indignation; others found difficulty in concealing their enjoyment of its wit, and a little perhaps, in hiding their satisfaction in seeing a colleague, none too popular with themselves, held up to ridicule. ”

“ The original cause of your misunderstanding has long since passed away. Deering is simply holding off because you are. He doesn’t know how you will take it if he makes advances.”
Still Kit kept silence.
“Come on, Wilson, don’t take it like that. I haven’t any axe to grind; as a matter of fact in school days, Deering’s intimacy with you meant that I see a lot less of him, and I can tell you I didn’t relish that. You like Tony, don’t you, really?”
“Like him!” cried Kit. “Doesn’t everybody like him—even the odious Gumshoe? Like him! Why, Carroll, I like him better than any fellow I ever knew.” ”

“ For myself, I have always disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a universal in loco parentis, a grim determination to make people think every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible, and as undesirable as it is unreal. ”