At breakfast, the new seats for the term were assigned, and Leon found himself between Stanley Campbell and Mr. Boniface, with Max opposite him. Farther down the table were Alex and Louis, while Harry was across the room, next to Lieutenant Wilde. As the boys took their seats, Max introduced Leon to still another table-companion, George Winslow by name, who glanced up long enough to nod indifferently, then began to eat his breakfast with a perfect unconcern. Leon watched him with an instinctive feeling of repulsion, for he formed a complete contrast to the genial good-nature of the other boys around him; and his low, square head with its cold, steel-gray eyes and heavy under jaw, was as little agreeable as was his habit of taking in his food in stolid silence, and with an utter disregard for the needs of those about him. He was still deliberately turning over the pile of muffins, to select the brownest and lightest, when he caught Leon’s stare of amused astonishment. He paused long enough to give back one look of defiance which made Leon hastily drop his eyes, while his face flushed as if he had been struck a blow. That one look told Leon, plainly as words, that here he had found an enemy. When he glanced up again, Stanley was giving an account of their meeting with Jerry.
“Jerry’s a rare specimen,” commented Max, as with a fine unconsciousness, he slipped his hand under that of George Winslow, and brought away the last muffin on the plate. “Oh, beg your pardon; were you after that?” he asked innocently, then continued, “You just wait till you get inside the church this morning, you’ll see more odd people there than you ever supposed were in the world.”
When the long line of boys was marshalled into the little church, Leon was forcibly reminded of the remark which Max had made at breakfast for, accustomed as he was to the city and its ways, the place and people filled him with amazement. The church itself was a low, square room in which only the middle seats faced the minister, while along each side of the room were rows of pews slightly raised and facing each other, thus giving their occupants a fine opportunity to see everything that concerned the congregation. The warm September sun streamed in at the unshaded windows, making the two tall stoves with their long stretches of rusty pipe seem quite unnecessary. Huddled together in the corner, around the wheezy little organ, sat the half-dozen singers, while at the foot of the low pulpit lay a shaggy yellow dog with one eye, who had followed the minister up the aisle and taken his place with an air of calm assurance which told, as plainly as words could have done, that his appearance at church was as regular as the coming of Sunday itself. The congregation, except for the Flemming boys, was limited to a few women whose pleasant, gentle faces looked strangely overpowered by their vast and top-heavy bonnets, while here and there was a subdued-looking farmer in his ill-fitting suit of Sunday clothes, or a freckled, sun-burned child. The boys of the school occupied the seats along the left side of the room; and from his seat between Harry and Louis, Leon glanced about, now at the tin basins hung by wires underneath the joints in the stove-pipe, now at old Jerry who, from his seat by the door, was lending a vacant attention to all that was passing, now at the dog who seemed impressed with the solemn nature of his surroundings, and lay quiet, only scratching his head, now and again, with a deprecating, apologetic air.
“I seen them boys laughin’ at Bose, ma,” he heard a sharp-faced child say to her portly companion, as they were coming out of church.
“More shame to ’em, Sairy, to hev their thoughts on sech carnal things! But,” added the good dame severely, as she glared down at her little daughter, “ef your own eyes had ’a’ b’en where they’d ought to be, you wouldn’t ’a’ seen it.”
“That dog is another of Hilton’s characters,” Louis was explaining, as the boys walked away down the road. “He was brought up from his puppyhood to go to church, and he behaves better than most of the children.”
“He has the advantage over the kids though,” put in Max from behind, where he was walking with Harry. “Bose can go to sleep when the sermon gets too dry, and they aren’t allowed to. I saw old Mrs. Wilson wake up her little girl six and a half times to-day, Wing.”
“Which was the half-time?” asked Leon.
“The time she poked her and she didn’t wake up,” responded Max promptly, while the boys laughed at his mathematics.
So the nonsense ran on until the boys reached the steps of Old Flemming. There they separated, Harry, Stanley and Louis going to their rooms to write their home letters before the hour for dinner, while Alex, with Max and Leon, sat down on the steps in the sunshine.