CHAPTER VIII
HOW IT FEELS TO BE A HERO
Several weeks had pa.s.sed since Deacon Young had become a cla.s.s hero, and a great many things had happened.
The Freshmen had published and posted their own proclamations since then (with a good crack on a man named Ballard), and the Soph.o.m.ores had torn them down, long ago. The Ninety-blank cla.s.s football team had been started, and Young was trying for the position of right guard--and finding football not so much a matter of mere muscle as it looked; the cla.s.s glee club had been organized; a great many friendships had begun; nearly everybody had joined Whig or Clio Hall (whether they cared to debate or not); and they were all becoming thoroughly accustomed to being at college and had begun to love it. But Freshman Young was not yet accustomed to having people treat him with so much consideration, and he did not know quite what to make of it.
It was still amazing to him that such a comparatively small matter could make such a difference in the way he was regarded. One day he was the most obscure and despised man in the Freshman cla.s.s, and the next day--he was the most talked of character on the campus. He did not wake up to find himself famous; he had become famous all in a minute, before he had a chance to go to sleep. Ever since, it had been, "How are you, old man," from the very ones who used to laugh and say, "Here comes "Thank you marm."" Prominent fellows in the cla.s.s who formerly merely nodded to him, said, "You must drop up to my room some evening." The Soph.o.m.ores bothered him no more; Channing and Ballard--somehow they were always looking in the other direction when Young met them on the walk.
Even upper-cla.s.smen said, "h.e.l.lo there, Young," condescendingly but pleasantly, and that fellow Linton stopped him one day and congratulated him. "Only," he added, puffing his pipe, "only don"t get stuck on yourself, Young."
"h.e.l.lo-o-o, Deacon, hold up a minute," called Minerva Powelton one day on the way from Recitation Hall. "Say, Deacon, old man, come over to my room, I want to talk to you." He threw an arm carelessly over one of the Deacon"s good shoulders.
"It"s about something important," he said in an undertone as they pa.s.sed between the Bulletin Elm and Old Chapel, where the crowd was always thickest. More than one Freshman, looking on, wished he could be on such familiar footing with Young. There were others who wished they could be thus sought out by Powelton.
It was right here, Young remembered, Powelton put this same arm in the same way about Lee that day he first heard about the proclamations.
Powelton ignored Young that day. But that was before the Ballard episode.
"Deacon," said Powelton, when they had reached the latter"s room--everyone called him "Deacon" now, and he liked it--"a crowd of us fellows are getting up a new eating-club, so we can all be together; at present, you know, the gang is scattered all over town. We thought we"d go some place where we could have an extra room to loaf and read the papers in, like the upper-cla.s.smen clubs, besides getting better grub, even if we have to pay a little more for it. There"ll be Lucky, of course, and Stevie and Todd--Polk would come, only he has been taken to the "Varsity training table" (that was the football man who was next to Young in the rush), "and White, and, well the whole gang of us, you know, and we want you to join us. It"s the best crowd in the cla.s.s, all right enough, even if I do say it myself."
"Much obliged for asking me," Young interrupted, "but I can"t afford it."
A few weeks ago Young would have given some other excuse, or would have blushed and hemmed and hawed before he got out this one. And a few weeks before, the other Freshman might not have known how to reply to it: but they had both gained some new ideas since they came to college, and also had lost some old ones, which is equally important.
"Lucky told me you were hard up this year," Powelton said, as if he were often equally hard up himself. "As I was going on to ask, what would you say to managing the club--would you mind the bother? Then it wouldn"t cost you a cent. It wouldn"t be much bother. Somebody"s got to run it, and we want somebody that"s congenial. Come on, won"t you?"
"Well, Minerva," said Young, finally, "I"ll think about it and tell you."
"That"s right. Think it over. You"ve got a week to make up your mind in.
So long."
"Thank you for asking me. Good-by."
Young had no objections to managing a club; that was not the reason he hesitated. It was because he did not agree with Powelton that the fellows named were the best crowd in the cla.s.s. In fact, he did not approve of most of them, and some of them seemed not to realize what they had been sent to college for.
He walked on to his room, debating the matter, and finally wrote a letter to his mother.
"DEAR MOTHER:
"... The sixteen fellows composing the proposed club are the most prominent men in the cla.s.s. It is a great compliment to be asked to join them, I suppose, and what is more important, I should be saving money by it. But although they are all nice to me, I do not altogether like them--except that little fellow, Lee, I told you about, and one or two others.
"To be sure, I do not know much about them, but I know enough to know they do not study much--or "pole," as we call it--and more than that, some of them--well, I don"t think you would like them. Now my friends at my present eating-club all study hard and have a definite aim in life.
They are helpful and congenial friends. I should not like to leave them. They say they would hate to have me go, too. But they also say I would be foolish, for financial reasons, not to accept the offer."
When Mrs. Young read this letter, she at first wanted to say, "keep out of fast company, whatever you do!" But on second thoughts she saw that if Will did not embrace this opportunity he might not be able to stay in college at all--and as for the new a.s.sociates, she knew that her boy was no weakling. Finally she agreed with Will"s friends that he would be foolish to let the chance go by, and wrote immediately, saying so. "And your own conduct will be a good example to the others," she wrote.
Will had already made up his mind that way before receiving this letter, and felt so glad and relieved about it that he played very well at right guard that day; twice he broke through and stopped the opposing quarter-back from pa.s.sing the ball, and was duly applauded by those watching from the terrace behind Witherspoon Hall. He was commended even by Nolan, the Junior who coached the team. "Now that you"re learning to use your weight," said Nolan, "you"re improving a little. By next year you will know something about the game; by Junior year you might run a chance of making the "Varsity." And this was a good deal for a reserved man like Nolan to say, and quite enough to make Young"s heart beat faster, though it was going pretty fast already from the hard exercise.
"Wait a minute, Young," said the Freshman captain, "we"re going to let you stay at right guard. Come up to my room to-night and get measured for your suit." This meant that he was no longer trying for the Freshman eleven, but had earned his place upon it. So he dog-trotted back to his room, feeling exuberant and strong and hopeful, and very glad that he had determined to run the new club. "Well, it"s beginning to look now as if I might get through the year," he said to himself as he jogged along.
"Haven"t any board to pay now, and if I get through this year, I guess I can manage as a Soph.o.m.ore all right. There"s the Freshman $200 prize--I run a chance at winning that at the end of the year; and I"ll still have this club next year. I"ll still have tuition remitted. Perhaps I can get one of those rooms in Old North: the rent is free there, and the rooms are big, too; and maybe I can get some newspapers to correspond for, or else I can get some tutoring. Oh, I"ll manage somehow, all right, if I"m careful. Then, what"ll father say?"
Panting and perspiring he hurried upstairs to his room, sponged off and rubbed down with witch-hazel, put on dry clothes, and then walked over to the club--the old club still; the new one was not to begin till next week--glowing and glad to be alive.
They all shouted, "Yea-a-a, Deacon!" at him when he came in, and jumped up to congratulate him on making the team and pounded him on the back, for Barrows had overheard what the captain said. Young could tell from their manner that they were genuinely glad of his success.
After eating a huge meal with his congenial clubmates he returned to his room, spent a studious evening with Xenophon, went to bed and slept like a bear, or rather like a healthy young athlete that is in perfect condition and has a clear conscience. Oh, these were happy days!
The next day Young made the arrangements with a woman in Na.s.sau Street who was famous for good cooking, secured two fine front rooms, subscribed for a number of New York and Philadelphia daily papers, and showed Powelton, the president of the club, and the other members of the Board of Directors, how skilful he was in business affairs. His experience in the bank helped him here.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE INVINCIBLES."
They had a dignified negro waiter, and they dined in the evening and it all seemed very fine and luxurious.]
On the following Wednesday he took his place at the head of the table.
"The Invincibles" the club called itself, and they had a dignified negro waiter and they dined in the evening, and it all seemed very fine and luxurious to Young. He missed Barrows and old Jim Wilson, the long, thin fellow who was studying for the ministry, and he felt a little abashed at first before these more noisy, jolly fellows. He was afraid they would think him very green.
But they respected him all the more for being quiet, and his soberness of mien, which had formerly made him ridiculous, now impressed these fellows as something fine. They were younger than he.
"He doesn"t say much," one of them remarked after the first day at the new club.
"No," said another, "but when the time comes he can act."
"He"s matured, and has reserved strength and all that. You can see it in his face." That was Lucky Lee, who had reason for admiring Young"s strength.
Naturally it was quite flattering to Young--and so it would be to you or me--to find these fellows of whom he had been half afraid, treating him as if they were half afraid of him. He could not help discerning how pleased some of the younger members were to find themselves walking to chapel or recitation with the right guard of the cla.s.s team--"the man that did up Ballard." Nor could he help being pleased at it.
And, Young soon decided, they were not such a bad lot as he had at first thought. Undoubtedly they were not a poling crowd and perhaps some of them were "sporty," but not so many of them as he had feared. College was a great place to broaden your mind, he concluded.
However, as he remarked to some of his former clubmates, when they asked how he liked the new crowd: "They may be doing a great many things when I"m not around that I don"t know anything about. Sometimes at the other end of the table they make references to things, and they seem not to want me to understand. I know the other day when I came in late from football practice, I heard one of "em say, "Shut up, Billy, here comes the Deacon!""
And this shows why Wilson, the man studying for the ministry, told Young, when alone, "Deacon, you have an excellent opportunity for exercising a steadying, sobering influence upon that set of gay, thoughtless fellows--they all respect you heartily."
The Divisional examinations came along soon after the organization of the club, and Young was in great demand by those taking the academic course like himself. Few of the Invincibles had studied conscientiously during the preceding weeks. They had rather prided themselves on not being "greasy polers" as they called fellows like Young"s former clubmates, but now they were all poling at a great rate themselves, and some of them declared they would not get through, though to Young"s amazement they seemed not to care whether they were to be conditioned or not; they considered it a joke.
Perhaps one or two of them would not have pa.s.sed, if it had not been for Young. "The old Deacon is a valuable man to have around," said Billy Drew. Most of them landed in the lower divisions, but one of them proved quite a wonder to Young. His name was Todd, and he had never opened a book, apparently, since the term began. To Young"s knowledge he took long walks into the country--up over the hills to the north of town--every afternoon after examination instead of studying, and invariably he was the first to finish his paper and leave the examination-room. And yet when the lists of divisions were posted, much to everyone"s surprise, Todd"s name was in the First division--along with Young"s.
They jokingly called him "Poler Todd," and made him treat the whole club to cigars on the way back from dinner. Apparently he was as much surprised as anyone, but he seemed not to care very much, and the dignified Deacon did not know what to make of him. Young himself felt very much gratified over his success and wrote home to the minister about it, and confided to him, that he was going to try to capture the Freshman First Honor prize. The minister wrote back a fine, long letter, wishing him success and congratulating him on his progress, and also upon his making the team. Will had no idea the minister would be so pleased over athletic success.
So, every day now it was, "Deacon, how many lines of Homer do we have to-day?" "How do you demonstrate this, Deacon?"
At first he liked to have them appeal to him, but after awhile it became a little tiresome; not that he minded the trouble--it was no trouble; but he did not like to be thought of only as a man who always knew where the lesson was. He began to wish they would treat him more in the hail-fellow well-met way they treated each other. With Todd, for instance, they were as familiar and free and easy as they were with Billy Drew, and yet Todd was a First division man, like Young. Sometimes he found himself watching them after dinner, and it was a matter of wonder to him how Todd could always answer Powelton back, with a witty piece of repartee, quick as a flash, without looking up from the dessert-plate at which he was aiming tobacco-smoke. Somehow, Will thought, he would like to be able to do that way.
The truth was they did not dare to be familiar with Young; they respected him too much. Sometimes he felt tired of cold respect and wanted warm liking.
You see he was a hero to these boys. You and I know that he was made of flesh and blood, and weakness and strength, like the rest of us.