was never displayed on his way to the recitation building), and now it was his own boy who was sharing in the life of old Winthrop and doubtless he himself was in the minds of the young students relegated to that remote and distant period when the "old grads" were supposed to be young. Doubtless to them it was a time as remote as that when Homer"s heroes contended in battle or the fauns and satyrs peopled the wooded hills and plains. And yet how vital it all was to him. He watched the groups of students moving across the campus, and as the sound of their shouts or laughter or the words of some song rose on the autumn air, it seemed to the man that he needed only to close his eyes and the old life would return--a life so like the present that it did not seem possible that a great gulf of thirty years lay between.
Mr. Phelps" meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Will, who burst into the room with the force of a small whirlwind.
"Here I am, pop!" he exclaimed as he tossed his books upon his couch and threw his cap to the opposite side of the room. "Old Splinter stuck me good this morning, but I can stand it as long as you are here."
"Who is Splinter?"
"Why, don"t you know? I thought everybody knew Splinter. He"s our professor of Greek and the biggest fraud in the whole faculty."
"What"s the trouble with him?" Mr. Phelps spoke quietly but there was something in his voice that betrayed a deeper feeling and one that Will was quick to perceive and that gave him a twinge of uneasiness as well.
"Oh, he"s hard as nails. He must have "ichor" in his veins, not blood. I don"t believe he ever was a boy. He must have been like Pallas Athenae.
Wasn"t she the lady that sprang full-fledged from the brain of Zeus?
Well, I"ve a notion that Splinter yelled in Greek when he was a baby.
That is, if he ever was an infant, and called for his bottle in dactylic hexameter. Oh, I know lots about Greek, pop," laughed Will as his father smiled. "I know the alphabet and a whole lot of things even if Splinter thinks I don"t."
"Doesn"t he think you know much about your Greek?"
"Well, he doesn"t seem to be overburdened with the weight of his opinion of me. He just looks upon me, I"m afraid, as if I was not a bright and shining light. "Learn Greek or grow up in ignorance," that"s the burden of his song, and I"ve sometimes thought that about all the fun he has in life is flunking freshmen."
"How about the freshmen?"
"You mean me? Honestly, pop, I haven"t done very well in my Greek; but I don"t think it"s all my fault. I"ve worked on it as I haven"t worked on anything else in college. I"ve done my part, but Splinter doesn"t seem to believe it. What am I going to do about it?"
Will in spite of his light-hearted ways, was seriously troubled and his father was silent for a brief time before he responded to the boy"s question.
CHAPTER XI
THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM
"I was aware that you were having trouble with your Greek," said Mr.
Phelps quietly, "and that was one of my reasons for stopping over here."
"You were? How did you know?"
"I had received word from the secretary of the faculty. He sent me a formal note announcing that your work was so low that it was more than probable you would fail in your mid-year examination."
For a moment Will Phelps was silent. His face became colorless and his heart seemed almost to rise in his throat. Fail in his mid-year"s? A "warning" sent home to his father? To the inexperienced young student it seemed for a moment as if he was disgraced in the eyes of all his friends. He knew that his work had been of a low grade, but never for a moment had he considered it as being at all serious. So many of his newly formed friends in the college had been speaking of their conditions and low grades as a matter of course and had referred to them laughingly, much as if they were good jokes to be enjoyed that Will too had come almost to feel that his own trouble was not a serious one. And Splinter was the one to be blamed for the most of it, he was convinced.
The words of his father, however, had presented the matter in an entirely different light, and his trouble was vastly increased by its evident effect upon him. Will"s face was drawn and there was an expression of suffering upon it as he glanced again at his father and said:
"What shall I do? Will it drop me out of college?"
"I think not necessarily. You must pa.s.s off more than half your hours to enable you to keep on with your cla.s.s; but failure in one study will not bring that of itself, for your Greek is a four-hour course. But the matter is, of course, somewhat serious and in more ways than one."
"Yes, I know it," replied Will despondently.
"Well, if you know it, that"s half the battle won already. The greatest trouble with most unsuccessful men is that they have never learned what their own weaknesses and limitations are. But you say you know, and I wish you"d tell me what you think the chief difficulty is."
"My Greek," said Will, trying to smile.
"But what"s the trouble with the Greek?"
"The trouble is that the Greek troubles me. I suppose the Greek is all right and I"m all wrong."
"In what way?"
"I don"t know it as I ought to."
"Is that "Splinter"s" fault?"
"No, it"s mine. You know how hard I worked in the closing half of my last year in the high school, but that didn"t, and I suppose couldn"t, make up for what I hadn"t done before."
"Are you working hard now?"
"On my Greek?"
"Yes."
"I"m putting more time on that than on everything else."
"I didn"t ask you about the "time," but about the work."
"Why, yes. I don"t just see what you mean. I spend three hours on my Greek every day we have it."
"It"s one thing to "spend the time" and another to work. Some men will accomplish more in an hour than others will in three."
"I do my best," said Will gloomily. He felt almost as if his father was unfair with him and was disposed to question what he had said.
"Now, Will," said Mr. Phelps quietly, but in a tone of voice which his boy clearly understood, "it would be an easy thing for me to smooth over this matter and make light of it, but my love and interest in you are too strong to permit me to think of that for a moment. I believe in you, my boy, but there are some things in which I cannot aid you, some things which you must learn and do for yourself. Last year you faced your crisis as a man should, and I believe you will face this one too."
"It seems as if there was always something to be faced."
"There is. That"s it, exactly. My boy, Splinter, as you call your professor in Greek, is not limited to the faculty of Winthrop College.
In one form or another he presents himself all through your life. His name is simply that of the perpetual problem."
"I don"t see, then--" interrupted Will.
"No, you don"t see; but it is just because I do, and I am your father, that I am talking in this way. Why do you think I have sent you to college? It isn"t for the name of it, or for the fun you will get out of it, or even for the friendships you will form here, though every one of these things is good in itself. It is to have you so trained, or rather for you so to train yourself, that when you go out from Winthrop you will be able to meet the very problems of which I am speaking and master them. They come to all, and the great difference in men is really in their ability to solve these very things. I think it is Emerson who says, "It is as easy for a large man to do large things as it is for a small man to do small things." And that is what I want for you, my boy, the ability to do the greater things."
"But I"ll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in its place."
"Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim.
There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that"s the part of a coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that"s the part of the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it.
Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he must, and there is no escape."