“Well, you saw the Latin books I brought home with me,” said Lester in an aggrieved voice.
“Yes, I saw them, but I haven’t seen you using them.”
“That’s all right; I’m going to. I studied on the train, didn’t I, Dave?”
And Mrs. Wallace came to his defense. “After all, boys shouldn’t be expected to study hard in their vacations.”
On the train returning to St. Timothy’s Wallace was again accompanied by his Latin books, and again invited David’s coöperation. David observed that he opened to the place at which on the homeward journey he had left off and concluded that Mrs. Wallace’s sympathy had not quickened his zeal. Lester was too full of reminiscences to keep long or steadily at work; he would interrupt his studies to relate to David anecdotes of parties that he had attended or of automobile trips that he had made. David listened with eager interest and from time to time conscientiously directed his friend’s thoughts back to the channels from which they so readily escaped. With all his help the amount of ground covered in Vergil during that trip was not appreciable.
The opening of the spring term marked an acceleration of activities. Outdoor sports at once began to flourish. The boat crews practiced every afternoon on the ponds; the runners and high jumpers, the shot putters and the hammer throwers engaged in daily trials at the athletic field; there was a race after luncheon every day for the tennis courts, and scrub baseball nines occupied the various diamonds. With all that outdoor activity to interest and divert him, Lester Wallace did not display the immediate improvement in scholarship to be expected of one ambitious to remove the blight of probation. Particularly in Latin did he continue to give imperfect readings; even when David tried to help him, he seemed unable to fix his attention on the lesson.
Mr. Dean showed less patience with him than ever in the Latin class. “No, it doesn’t do any good for you to guess at meanings,” he would say when Wallace tried to plunge ahead without having prepared the recitation. “You may sit down.”
Wallace did not seem disturbed by his failures. There was a whole month before the Pythian-Corinthian baseball game, in which he expected to play shortstop for the Pythians; in that time, when he set his mind to it, he could easily emancipate himself from the shackles of probation. Henshaw, captain of the Pythians, was more uneasy than Wallace. “Don’t you worry, Huby,” Wallace said in reply to Henshaw’s expression of uneasiness. “When the time comes, I’ll be all right.” And then he would utter some sneering and disparaging remark about “old Dean.” He was especially fond of making contemptuous comments on the master when David could hear them; he seemed to take a malicious pleasure in rousing David to defense or in seeing him bite his lip in vexed silence.
It seemed to David especially unkind that Wallace should cherish this grudge when Mr. Dean was in a depressed condition of spirits. David had noticed the change in the master during the preceding term; often he seemed abstracted and subdued: and occasionally when he sat with his green eye-shade shielding his eyes while David read aloud to him, something told the boy that he was not listening and that his thoughts were sad. Now since the spring vacation Mr. Dean’s manner had been even more that of one who was tired and troubled. David had perhaps the best opportunity of all the boys to judge his condition; Mr. Dean sent for him more frequently and, though he talked less than had been his wont, seemed to enjoy David’s presence in the room or by his side.
“I hope it doesn’t bore you, David,” he said one evening, “to come and sit with me and read. You mustn’t let me take you away from livelier companions.”