“Of course you can do anything you set your mind to,” he said heartily, linking arms with Wallace. “And I should think you would feel I was a fresh, conceited lobster to come butting in always as if I thought you couldn’t get along without me. The recitations you’ve been giving lately have been as good as any one’s; and of course you ought to have all the credit yourself when you get off probation. Your father will be awfully pleased.”
“Oh, I guess he won’t care. Just so long as I get through my examinations—that’s all that he takes any interest in.”
“He probably takes more interest than you think—of course he does—an old St. Timothy’s boy himself!”
“Oh, well, I dare say.” For some reason Wallace was out of sorts. He added, however, with more spirit: “Of course he’d like to see me play on the nine. He was on it when he was here. I wish I could always be sure of lining them out the way I did to-day.”
They talked baseball during the rest of the walk, and Wallace’s spirits seemed to improve.
Indeed, as the days went on David could see no reason for Wallace’s moodiness. On the ball field Wallace was playing so brilliantly and received from team mates and spectators so much appreciation that he had no reason to feel dissatisfied; never had his popularity and importance in the school been greater. And so far as scholarship was concerned, the improvement that he was making was notable. In mathematics, French, and English he had never been under any disqualifications, but he now was taking rank among the first in the class. In Latin, the study in which he had always been weak and indifferent, his translations had become surprisingly fluent and correct. He sat by himself in a corner of the recitation room, holding his book down between his knees and bending over it in an attitude of supreme concentration; his nearest neighbor seldom saw him raise his eyes and never had a glimpse of the text over which he pored. When Mr. Dean called on him, he rose and, raising the book in his arms and with bent head, read the Latin lines, then slowly but accurately translated, scarcely ever stumbling over a word. Mr. Dean had a variety of commendatory expressions for his work—“Good,” “Very well rendered indeed,” “Good idiomatic English—the kind of translation I like; I wish some of you other fellows would not be so slavishly literal.” Wallace would sit down with a face unresponsive to such comments and would again huddle over his book with absorbed attention.
David and some of the other fellows commented among themselves upon those recitations.
“I didn’t know Lester was so bright,” said Monroe. “I guess there’s nothing that boy can’t do if he puts his mind to it.”
“I guess there isn’t,” David agreed loyally. “He gets it from his father; Dr. Wallace is a wonder.”