The Soul of a Child Part 26

XI

It was the afternoon of the last day before commencement. The atmosphere in the cla.s.s was solemn and more than a little wistful.

"It is our last hour together," said Dally when all were back in their seats after the pause. "History is on the schedule, but--schedules are not made for moments like these. Let us just have a friendly talk."

He did practically all the talking, and he talked to them more as an older boy, a chum with somewhat wider experience, than as a teacher and cla.s.s princ.i.p.al. It made them feel their own importance rather heavily, but still more it made them conscious of an irreparable loss. They knew that school would not be the same in the fall, when Dally no longer was with them. In accordance with established custom, he would go back to the first grade and start piloting a new generation up to the point where they had just arrived.

The cla.s.s would break up, too. Some would have to stay behind. One or two had gone as far as they could and would make a premature transfer from school to life. Others were bound for other schools or other cities. The rest would split in two and join with the corresponding parts of the parallel section to form two entirely new cla.s.ses. It gave them a foretaste of what it would mean to graduate into the _gymnasium_, and from there into the university. And it filled their hearts with wistful pride.

The last hour was drawing to a close and everybody was talking at once, when Dally unexpectedly asked them to give him their full attention once more for few minutes.

"An act of justice remains to be performed," he said. "There is a boy among you who has not received all that he had justly deserved. It was withheld from him by me for his own welfare. The time has now come when he and you should know all about it."

As he paused for a moment, the boys looked around at each other with something like consternation. Their curiosity was intense. He spoke with a tensity of feeling they had hardly ever noticed in him before, and not one of them had an inkling of what he was driving at.

"It means that some of you have received more than they deserved," he resumed. "That also should be known--for the good of all. It is a reflection on no one but myself, however, and I think you know me well enough by this time to be sure that I have been moved by no other consideration than the future good of the one most nearly concerned."

Again he stopped, the cla.s.s waiting breathlessly for him to go on. At that moment Keith became aware that the teacher's gaze rested firmly on him with an expression that sent the blood in a hot stream to his face.

"Wellander," Dally began again, and in spite of the beating of his own heart, Keith noticed that the teacher's voice trembled a little as he spoke. "Will you do me the favour of rising a moment? You are the boy I have in mind."

Keith rose like an automaton. His eyes clung to the lips of the teacher, and he seemed to expect from those lips some utterance that must make his whole future life different. As often happened in moments of intensified emotion, he became strangely oblivious of all the little eddies and cross-currents of thoughts and feelings that made up his ordinary, every-day consciousness of himself.

"For two years I have kept you number two in the cla.s.s," Dally said, speaking in an easier tone as if to lighten the strain on everybody.

"You should have been number one. Davidson, whom I placed above you has at no time been your superior in anything but self-control. But it was just your--what I have sometimes called your fuzzy-wuzziness, that made me afraid of placing you where you rightly belonged, at the head of the cla.s.s. It is my belief that you have in you greater gifts than any other boy in this cla.s.s, but I am not yet sure of what you will do with them.

It was my eagerness to see you make full use of them that made me poke fun at you and keep you out of the place that rightfully was yours.

Perhaps I did wrong, but my meaning was right. I shall always watch you closely, and I hope you will try your best not to disappoint me. Will you promise that?"

"I will," gasped Keith.

The clock had already struck three. The moment Dally stopped, the cla.s.s broke up, but only to gather about Keith--every one of them except Davidson, who slipped out of the room with a face white as chalk. Keith caught a glimpse of that face, and a sense of reckless elation shot through him.

He sped as never before on his way home. It was still impossible for him to think the matter through. First he must tell his parents and hear what they had to say about it.

On hearing what had happened, his mother hugged and kissed him, her face all smiles while big tears dripped down her cheeks. Then the father came home and was told everything. His mother looked serious by that time, and Keith noticed a wavering expression in her voice.

"Your teacher evidently knows you," was the father's first remark to Keith, but by his tone the boy knew that he was pleased. Then he hesitated, and after a while he said as if speaking to himself: "But if Keith really had earned the first place...."

"That's what I have been thinking," the mother broke in with blazing eyes. "Do you remember what I said about that boy Davidson? He was the richest boy in the cla.s.s, and Lector Dahlstrom simply did not dare to put Keith above him. Now he is trying to make up for it when it's too late."

"Perhaps," said the father thoughtfully. "The sum of it is what I have always said: the coin that was made for a farthing will never be a dollar."

"But Keith was not made for a farthing," the mother retorted sharply and indignantly. "That is the main point of what his teacher confessed in school this very day."

"Well, if not," said the father wearily, "it is up to him to prove it."

And Keith, too, all of a sudden felt very, very tired.

XII

Keith was one of the first to enter the cla.s.s room on the morning of Commencement Day. He was still standing near the door when Davidson appeared and evidently meant to walk past him without a greeting.

"Say, Davidson," Keith cried impulsively, holding out his hand, "I don't mind!"

"Well, what do you think I care," the other boy asked icily as he turned on his heel and walked out of the room again without taking the proffered hand.

It was the first time that Keith felt the sting of real hatred. He could never have acted like that--not even toward one who had wronged him seriously. What galled him most was that he had been made to look as if he were apologizing. Then a sense of triumph returned little by little, but it was not very vivid, and what he missed utterly was the fact that no other situation could have been quite so hard on Davidson's pride as the one in which Dally had placed him. A realization of that fact came only years afterwards.

Then Dally himself arrived, and soon the commencement exercises were in full progress, Keith feeling quite superior to any curiosity or excitement. Again he received a prize, and again it was in the form of money, but a smaller sum not accompanied by any special encomiums. He walked home very quietly with his parents, and they had not much to say either.

Had Keith known what an anti-climax was, he would undoubtedly have used that word to describe the experiences of his second Commencement Day at Old Mary.

XIII

The summer was spent quietly on the same island where he had been so happy a year before. Oscar was not there. Other boys took his place, but no real intimacy sprang up between them and Keith. They certainly did not talk of love, and what they knew of s.e.x took Keith back to the days spent around the big rock. He had a good time on the whole, but more and more a sense of missing something fretted him, and he could not tell what it was. For emotional outlet he was wholly dependent on his mother, and though he seemed as devoted to her as ever, he had queer spells of wis.h.i.+ng to get away from her. The father was more in the background than ever during the summer. Once in a while he would show up on a weekday evening very tired, and leave again with the first morning boat. During the week-end he wanted above all to rest, and Keith was partly happy and partly unhappy at being left alone.

Once only during that summer did his father appear under circ.u.mstances that impressed themselves on the boy's memory. It was the day of the annual regatta of the Yacht Club. When the races were over, the yachts were towed back to the city by a large steamer, escorted by a whole flotilla of every kind of craft loaded with sightseers. It was the gala evening of the season. As the tender twilight of the August night descended on the smooth waters of the Lake Maelaren, every villa along the sh.o.r.es became brightly illuminated, while the progress of the fleet was marked by incessant bursts of fireworks.

The Wellanders had a splendid view from the little platform on which their cottage stood. Some friends had been invited for the day, and the father had brought with him from the city a package of fireworks. But instead of wasting money on sky-rockets or other expensive pieces, he had concentrated almost wholly on blue and red lights, which he placed among the trees and over the plateau and set off in batches, first one colour and then the other. Because the place was so high up, apart from the rest, and so heavily wooded, the effect was probably very pretty from the water. Anyhow a burst of applause was heard from the pa.s.sing flotilla.

"That's for us," said Keith's father, "and not for those rich people down by the sh.o.r.e."

As usual when very much pleased, he laughed while speaking so that it was hard to hear what he said. But Keith heard, and a glow of pride swelled his chest. It was the crowning climax of a scene that touched the boy with a sense of joy bordering on pain. "Beautiful" was a word used repeatedly by the grown-up people about him. He knew now that beauty was something that turned ordinary life into a pleasure more keen than could be had out of eating, or playing, or reading, or getting presents at Christmas even. To this wonderful thing his father had added a personal triumph in which the whole family partic.i.p.ated. It silenced incipient criticism for a long time.

Nevertheless there was another side to that self-satisfied remark of his father, and it also stuck in his memory. Back of the proud words lay envy and deference, and a suggestion of hopeless separation. In Keith's mind it became tied up with his memories from Loth's party, and all of it formed a complex of thought from which he tried his best to get away--and most of the time successfully.

XIV

For lack of sufficient accommodations in the over-crowded old building, one cla.s.s had to use the a.s.sembly hall. To make the many disadvantages more palatable, this location was presented as an honour reserved for the cla.s.s shepherded by the old Rector himself. Of this "honour" Keith became a partic.i.p.ant when the fall term opened.

There were no desks--only benches without backs. The rest of the school left with a sense of relief after using them only during the fifteen minutes of morning prayer. To sit on them hours at a stretch turned the day into torture before it was half done. The only way of resting was to bend far forward with humped back, and no sooner did the Rector discover a boy in that position than he descended on the sinner:

"Straight in the back, boy! What do you think you are--an old hag sorting rags?"

No attempt was made to arrange the boys according to merit. On the first day every one chose a seat to suit himself, and so Keith found himself number five without knowing how it had happened. Number four was a boy of his own size and age named George Murray, who seemed to be as friendless as was Keith.

Instead of one teacher, they had a dozen at least, few of whom gave instruction in more than a single subject. It smacked of university and made the boys feel much advanced. The curriculum showed an imposing array of new subjects--Latin, French, universal history, physics, chemistry, and so on. Their novelty caught and carried Keith for a good while.

Latin was still the most important study of all. It was taught by the Rector himself, who wors.h.i.+pped everything cla.s.sic with a religious devotion and who maintained in so many words that a man's culture was measured by his mastery of the Roman tongue. In the lower grades it had been spoken of with bated breath. Keith had looked forward to the first lesson with trembling impatience. He plunged into the declination of _mensa_ with the fervour of a convert. He translated the text-book's _colomba est timida_ with a sense of performing a sacred rite. Days went by before he dared to admit to himself that his interest was waning,

Even then he went on studying without a thought of rebellion. The habit of application had become deeply rooted. The pride born out of his first easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered. But there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general att.i.tude toward the school. Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred precincts. Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil. Until then he had never felt that he had to study. Now fear of the old Rector and of his father entered more and more as conscious motives.