That afternoon Cal experienced his first and last touch of homesickness. School began at half-past one and lasted until three-thirty. For Cal the last half-hour was spent in the gymnasium, where he was introduced to dumb-bells and chest-weights and taught to lie on his back on a mattress and perform a number of interesting and picturesque—and, at first, extremely difficult—exercises. Each class had three sessions a week in the gymnasium. Cal followed the others into the dressing-room after the class was dismissed and made the acquaintance of a shower-bath. He liked that so much and stayed under it so long that he was one of the last fellows to get dressed, and when he reached the Green Ned and all the other West House boys had disappeared. They were not very far away, as it happened, having only strolled down to the[103] athletic field below the gymnasium. But Cal didn’t know that. Nor was he likely to discover it, since the gymnasium hid the field from sight. He stood around for a few minutes, hoping that someone he knew would appear, and at last crossed the road and returned to West House. So far there had been no time to feel lonesome, but now that sensation began to envelop him. At the bridge he stopped and leaned over the railing and let his gaze wander around the little lake. It came to him suddenly that he ought not to have come to Oak Park; that he wasn’t like the other boys; that he couldn’t dress well enough, was rough and uncultivated beside them, and that they would never like him. Why, even his roommate was ashamed of the clothes he wore! He took his elbows from the rustic railing and went on along the path. Even Claire Parker was better fitted for these surroundings than he was. Claire had been abroad four times, had lived in the city and knew a hundred little things which, not vastly important in themselves, combined to give him an ease of manner and a conversational ability that Cal was certain he sadly lacked. No one, he reflected, ever cared to talk[104] to him. And when he was with the others all he could do was to sit silent and listen to their chatter, and wonder more than half the time what it was about! Gee, he wished he had never come! He wished he were back in West Bayport this minute.
The house was silent and deserted when he reached it and slowly climbed the stairs to the Den. The bay windows were open and the afternoon sunlight slanted in warmly under the half-drawn shades. He tossed Ned’s cap aside, dumped his new books on the table and seated himself on the window-seat and gazed across the afternoon landscape. He felt pretty dejected. He cal’lated he was the only fellow in school who wasn’t having a jolly good time at that moment. Ned Brent knew about everybody and didn’t need him a bit. Even Claire had made friends with one or two of the younger chaps; Cal had seen him with them before afternoon school. No one wanted to know him, though; no one cared whether he was lonely and homesick! He had half a mind to pack some things in his bag and walk back to the town and take the first train toward home!
But at that moment a door opened downstairs[105] and an eloquent odor of cooking came up to him, an odor that brought to him a sudden picture of the little kitchen at home and his mother peering anxiously into the oven. Steps sounded on the stairs and he heard Mrs. Linn puffing her way up.
“Boys,” she called. But there was no answer. Cal heard her knock on the doors at the back of the house and then come along the corridor. His own door was almost closed and he hoped that she would be satisfied to leave him in peace with his sorrow if he made no reply to her knock. But she wasn’t. She pushed the door wide open and saw him at the window. And she guessed instantly what the trouble was.
“Why, John, you all alone?” she asked in simulated surprise. “Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Yes’m, thank you.”
“I suppose you’re sort of tired after your first day here. Well, here’s something that will make you feel lots better.” She came in and set a great plate of smoking-hot gingerbread on the table. “I don’t believe you ought to eat quite all that yourself, but perhaps it won’t hurt you.” She rolled her arms under[106] her apron and looked across at him kindly. “I suppose your mother makes gingerbread, don’t she?”
“Yes’m,” replied Cal, looking interestedly at the pile of red-brown cake.
“Then of course you like it. What is it the boys call you? Cal, is it? Well, I shall call you Cal too after this. Somehow I never could seem to resist the nicknames; they’re so much easier to remember, aren’t they? Why, I just have to stop and think when I want to remember Spud’s real name, or Dutch’s. Now, don’t let it get cold. It’s a great deal better when it’s hot. Maybe you’d like a glass of milk with it. Would you?”
“No’m, thanks. I—I ain’t hungry.”
“Ain’t hungry! Sakes alive, what sort of a boy are you? Why, of course you’re hungry, though maybe you don’t know it. Here, you try that nice crusty corner piece and tell me whether it’s as good as your mother’s.” She held the plate out and after a moment’s hesitation Cal obeyed. Somehow, as soon as he had sunk his teeth in the gingerbread his troubles looked much dimmer. Mrs. Linn seated herself in a chair and beamed across at him while he ate, having first thoughtfully[107] deposited the plate beside him on the window-seat.
“You live by the ocean, don’t you?” she asked. “That’s what I’d like to do. I’m that fond of the ocean! I was at Old Orchard Beach for three weeks this summer and it was just heavenly. Seems as though I could just sit on the sand all day long and look at the waves and be perfectly happy! Is there a beach where you live, Cal?”
“Yes’m, two fine beaches.” And once started, Cal had a lot to say about West Bayport and the surrounding coast, and Mrs. Linn let him talk to his heart’s content, occasionally throwing in a question or dropping an interested “I want to know!” And while he talked the gingerbread on the plate grew less and less. Finally Mrs. Linn declared that she must go back to the kitchen.
“I’ll leave the rest of that for Ned,” she said. “But you mustn’t let the others know about it or there won’t be any for supper.”
“No’m. Thank you very much. It’s awfully nice gingerbread; just like my mother makes. I—I like lots of molasses in it, don’t you?”
“Molasses is just the making of gingerbread,” asseverated Mrs. Linn. “Molasses[108] and spices. You’ve got to be particular about the spices too.”
“Yes’m, I cal’late you have.” He remembered that he had observed the other boys rise when Mrs. Linn entered or left the room and so he got up rather awkwardly from the window-seat and stood while she bustled out. It was funny, he reflected, how that gingerbread had altered the outlook. Oak Park didn’t seem nearly so bad now and he thought that perhaps, after all, he might be able to stick it out. He mustn’t expect to make friends the first day. And ten minutes later there was a sound of noisy footsteps on the porch, and a wild rush up the stairs and Ned and Spud burst into the room.
“Where did you get to?” demanded Ned, throwing his cap at Cal and subsiding on his bed. “I looked everywhere for you. Spud said he’d seen you coming over this way, but I didn’t believe him. Spud’s such a cheerful liar, you know.”
“You’ll believe me next time,” said Spud resignedly. “Hello, what do I smell?” He sniffed the air knowingly. “Smells like—” But Ned had already sighted the gingerbread and fallen upon it.
[109]
“Where’d this come from?” he asked with a full mouth. “Marm bring it up? No wonder you sneaked home, you foxy rascal! Spud, he’s making love to Marm already.”
“Gee, but it’s good!” said Spud, munching hungrily. “You didn’t leave much, Cal, did you?”
“I’m sorry. I—I didn’t think.”
“Don’t worry,” laughed Ned. “If you’d been Spud you wouldn’t have left any.”
“Huh! I’d like to know who fed you on perfectly good marshmallows last night,” said Spud indignantly.
“Were those yours?” asked Ned innocently. “If I’d known that I’d eaten more of ’em.”
“More! You couldn’t. You ate about half of them as it was.”
“Come on,” said Ned, when the last crumb had disappeared. “Let’s go down on the porch. It’s too hot up here. What time is it, anyway?” He looked at the gold watch he carried at the end of a handsome fob. “Quarter past five. Is that all? My, but I’m hungry. I hoped it was near supper time. I wonder if we could get Marm to let us have a few more hunks of the heavy sweet, Spud?”
[110]
“We could try,” beamed Spud. “Come on.”
For once, though, the matron resisted their blandishments and Ned and Spud sought the porch dejectedly.
“How did you get on today, Cal?” asked Ned.
“All right, I cal’late. It don’t look like it would be very hard,” he added cautiously.
“It’s awful,” sighed Spud. “You simply have to wear your young life out in study. If it wasn’t that I want to go to college mighty bad I’d throw up the grind and be a pirate. Did you ever see a pirate, Cal?”
“No,” was the laughing reply.
“Well, I thought maybe you had. Aren’t there any pirates at West Something—Bayport, is it?”
“I never saw any. But there’s a man there who was in a fight with pirates once.” And Cal told about Old Captain Macon, one of the town characters, who, in addition to having led a highly picturesque existence as a young man, was possessed of an equally picturesque imagination as an old one. By ones and twos the other West House fellows came wandering home and joined the group on the porch. The[111] conversation turned on school affairs and soon Cal was listening to a fervid discussion of the chances of the House Football Team to beat the Hall that Autumn. If Sandy was to be believed things were in a fearfully bad shape and the future held nothing but gloom. But Cal had already reached the conclusion that Sandy’s position as head of the House had developed an overwrought sense of responsibility and a pessimistic attitude toward life. Dutch, on the other hand, saw only certain victory ahead.
“The Hall hasn’t the ghost of a show this year,” he declared emphatically. “We’ve got the men to do them up brown. Cal, you don’t want to forget to report for practice tomorrow afternoon right after school.”
“Wish they’d let us play outside teams,” sighed Hoop.
“Don’t they?” asked Cal in surprise.
Hoop shook his head. “Not football. They say it’s too dangerous. Don’t see much difference, myself. Naughton bust his silly old collar-bone last year tackling the dummy. I dare say he’d have gone through four or five outside games without getting a scratch.”
[112]
“But you play other things with other schools?” asked Cal.
“Yes,” answered Sandy. “Baseball and hockey and such. I think Faculty’s right about it, Hoop.”
“I know you do,” replied Hoop disdainfully. “You think anything Faculty does is all right.”
“No, I don’t, but I do think they’re right about football. Why, some of the big colleges have cut it out! And look at the way they’re trying to make the game over!”
“Yes, they make me tired,” said Dutch. “Every year they change the rules so you never know where you are. First thing we know we’ll be playing football with bean-bags in the drawing-room of an evening, with ice-cream and angel cake between halves!”
“Sounds good to me,” said Ned. “That would be quite like cricket, wouldn’t it?”
“Guess Faculty would like to have us play cricket instead,” said The Fungus disgustedly. “Fellow Wests, I am opposed to a paternal government.”
“Whatever that is,” said Spud. “Fungus has been studying politics, fellows.”
[113]
“Glad he’s studying something,” murmured Ned. “Speaking of study—”
“Oh, let’s not,” groaned Spud. “Let’s speak of supper. It’s most time for it. Come on up, Sandy, and wash your dirty face.”
“Everybody wash his dirty face,” cried Hoop, jumping up. “Last man upstairs gives me his preserves!”
There was a wild exodus from the porch and a frenzied rush up the stairway, followed by a stiff argument between Hoop and Dutch, the latter, who had been the last to reach the top, declaring that he had not subscribed to the terms of the contest, and that if he had he could easily have beaten Hoop.
After supper—and never, Cal thought, had he been so hungry—there was almost an hour of leisure. There was a doubles in tennis on the court at the side of the house between Sandy and Hoop and Ned and The Fungus, and the others watched from the porch. At eight o’clock study hour began and lasted until nine. Cal spread his books out on his side of the table and Ned closed the door. It was a rule that during study hour doors must be closed and no visiting was allowed. Then Ned drew his chair up to his side of the table, fixed[114] the drop-light with mathematical precision in the center of the left end of the green cloth and—took up a story-book! Cal viewed him in surprise.
“Aren’t you going to study?” he asked.
“No. What’s the use? I looked lessons over this afternoon. Besides, no one is really expected to know much the second day. Want a good book? Ever read this?”
Cal hadn’t, but he resisted the temptation to examine the picture which Ned held forth for his inspection. “I cal’late I’d better study this French a little. I never had much luck with French.”
“Me either,” said Ned with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s a foolish language and oughtn’t to be encouraged.” He leaned his elbows on the table-top and was soon absorbed in his book. Cal studied religiously until Sandy put his head out of his door and cried:
“Time up, fellows!”
Then followed a pleasant hour before bedtime. Cal and Ned went to the Ice Chest, where Sandy and Spud dwelt, and the rest of the House joined them there. The evening ended in a grand rough-house up and down the corridor[115] and in and out of the rooms, and Cal, wielding a pillow in the thick of the fight, quite forgot that he had ever been either lonesome or homesick.