David Ives

by Arthur Stanwood Pier

For an hour Dr. Ives had been pursuing his solitary explorations of the grounds and buildings of St. Timothy’s School. He and David had interviewed the rector, Dr. Davenport, had been shown the room in the middle school which David was to occupy and in which his trunk was already awaiting him, and had inquired the way to the auditorium, where David was now taking the examinations that were to determine his position.

For an hour Dr. Ives had been alone, and he was beginning to realize what the loneliness of his journey home would be, what the gap in the family life would be. From the time when he and David had started East they had been together every moment; his happiness in the companionship of his son and the novelty of the vacation journeying had kept his spirits buoyant; but now the shadows had begun to come over his imagination. He had taken pleasure in viewing the wide playing fields and the circumambient cinder track and in thinking of his boy happy and active there on sunny afternoons. He had taken pleasure in looking in upon the rows of desks in the great schoolroom, on the empty benches in the recitation rooms, on the quiet, booklined alcoves in the library, and in thinking of his boy passing in those places quiet, studious, faithful hours. He had enjoyed visiting the gymnasium and picturing his boy performing feats there on the flying rings and taking part with the others in brave and strengthening exercises. He had stood by the margin of the pond and in imagination had seen canoe races and boys splashing and swimming; even while he looked the season changed, and he had seen them speeding and skimming on the ice while their skates hummed and their hockey sticks rang, and always his boy had been foremost in his eye.

But now, though he had walked neither far nor fast, Dr. Ives found himself suddenly overcome with fatigue; he was near the study building and he sat down on the steps to rest. He grew tired so easily! He sat still for some time and was just rising to his feet when the door behind him opened and a tall man of about his own age, with a gray beard and heavily rimmed spectacles, came down the steps, glanced at him and said:

“You’re a stranger here, I think. Can I be of any assistance to you?”

“No, thank you,” said Dr. Ives. “I have a son in that building yonder, taking an examination. I’m just killing time till he comes out.”

“In that case wouldn’t you like me to show you round the place? I’ve been a master here for nearly forty years.”

“To tell you the truth,” Dr. Ives answered, “I’ve been wandering round till I’m played out. I was just on the point of going to the library in the hope of finding a chair.”

“I can offer you a more comfortable one; my rooms are in that yellow house—just beyond those trees. I’m at leisure for the rest of the day, and I shall be glad of your company. My name is Dean.”

In Mr. Dean’s pleasant rooms Dr. Ives was soon unburdening himself; the elderly master’s sympathy and friendliness invited confidences. So in a way did the character of the rooms, about which there was nothing formal or austere. They were the quarters of a scholar; although bookshelves crowded the walls, the library overflowed the space allotted; books were piled on the floor and on the table and on the chairs—books of all descriptions and in all languages, books in workaday bindings and in no bindings at all, ponderous great volumes and learned little pamphlets, works of poets and novelists, historians and essayists, philosophers and naturalists, from the days of ancient Greece to the end of the nineteenth century. From the depth of the big leather chair in which Dr. Ives found himself he looked across a massive oak table covered with papers, books, and pamphlets in a bewildering confusion and saw the thoughtful, kindly face of his host; he felt that Mr. Dean was a man on whose courtesy, consideration, and wisdom any boy or parent might depend. It was the master’s eyes that were so assuring, so inspiring, so communicative—gray eyes that sparkled and twinkled and watched and seemed even to listen; the spectacles behind which they worked deprived them of no part of their expressiveness; the smile that hardly stirred in Mr. Dean’s beard sprang rollicking and frolicsome from his eyes. They were eyes that seemed to miss nothing and to interpret everything wisely, kindly, humorously. So in a little while Dr. Ives was confiding his hopes and dreams about his son, and some—not all—of the misgivings that he had never breathed to his wife.