Within a few days the college had opened and David had taken up his quarters in one of the dormitories. But he came home daily and either walked with Mr. Dean or read to him; after Christmas this daily visit acquired greater importance for his mother and perhaps also for the blind man. For Ralph had now gone to St. Timothy’s, his entrance there having been delayed, and much of the time the house seemed subdued and perhaps a little sad. David’s visits were cheerful episodes, and Katharine Vance contributed to her neighbors’ happiness. She made Mr. Dean her especial care and came in to see him two or three times a week; moreover, she got some of her friends to call and succeeded in imbuing them with the feeling that it might be a rather nice, pleasant charity occasionally to sacrifice themselves to the entertainment of the blind man. So, even with David in college and Ralph at St. Timothy’s, Mr. Dean was seldom lonely; and Mrs. Ives gradually found her place in the community and was happy in her tranquil, comfortable life. Only at times her mind took her back to the house that had been the scene of her greatest happiness and her deepest sorrow, and the tears would suddenly fill her eyes. She wondered whether the little cemetery lot was being well cared for; at those times she longed desperately to visit it and lay flowers on the grave.
In college David acquired the reputation of being a good all-round man of no special brilliancy. He always held a high rank in scholarship; he took part in athletics, though he never made a varsity team; he sang in the glee club; he was elected an editor of one of the college papers; and by reason of all his activities and the earnestness and enthusiasm with which he entered into them he became one of the most widely known and popular members of his class. He took no such conspicuous place, however, as that which his friend from St. Timothy’s, Lester Wallace, seized almost immediately and held throughout the college course. Lester captained the victorious freshman football team and was elected president of the freshman class; he played on the freshman baseball nine, and in subsequent years he won a place on both the varsity eleven and the varsity nine. Even if he had not been endowed with a brilliant talent for athletics, he could have danced and sung his way into popularity; there was no livelier hand at the piano than his, no more engaging voice when upraised in song, no foot more clever at the clog, the double shuffle, the breakdown, or the more intricate steps of the accomplished buck-and-wing performer.
David shared the general admiration for his gifted friend, even though he did not share Lester’s point of view on many subjects. Throughout his college course Lester so arranged matters that never on any day was he troubled with a lecture or a recitation after half-past two o’clock.
“Get the dirty work of the day over with as soon as you can and then enjoy yourself; that’s my motto,” he declared; and he expostulated with David for choosing courses that occasionally required laboratory work through long afternoons.
“But if you’re going to study medicine, you ought to have a certain amount of laboratory knowledge to begin with,” David replied.
“Oh, you can get it when the time comes,” Lester responded easily. “These four years are the best years of your life, my boy; it’s a crime to waste any part of them—particularly the afternoons and evenings.”
With that philosophy, with his attractive personality, and with the prestige of spectacular achievement on the athletic field, Lester was sure to have a gay and ardent following. Among those who attached themselves to him with an almost passionate devotion was Richard Bradley. Himself a youth of lively and humorous disposition, not of a studious turn of mind, an admirer of athletes rather than athletic, he found in Lester his beau ideal; and when in their sophomore year Lester consented to room with him, Richard felt a jubilant happiness similar to that, perhaps, which the young swain who has received a favorable reply from his sweetheart experiences. Richard’s family, with the possible exception of Marion, who was non-committal, were less happy about the arrangement.
“I am afraid you regard your college course merely as a social experience,” said Mr. Bradley when Richard told him that he was to room the next year with the most popular man in the class, already president of it and likely to be first marshal also. “It would do you more good to room with the best scholar than with the best athlete.”
“Just wait till you know him,” pleaded Richard.