David Ives

by Arthur Stanwood Pier

The bell rang, summoning him to the schoolroom, and Ruth walked away, feeling that she had been rebuffed by one of her friends.

It was impossible for her, however, and for such members of the Pen and Ink as were daily spectators of the Pythians’ baseball practice, not to admire Wallace’s playing, not to be enchanted by the speed and accuracy of his throwing, the cleanness of his fielding, and the strength and sureness of his batting. “The best infielder in the school,” the fellows said; “the best infielder there’s ever been in the school,” asserted the younger enthusiasts, as if from a fullness of knowledge. Any way, Ruth and even the most incensed members of the scorned society felt as they watched his enviable performances that they must forgive much to the possessor of such talent—and sighed in their different ways over his inaccessibility to advances.

“You’ve certainly got to get off probation,” said Henshaw to Wallace the day before the game.

“Oh, I’ll get off all right,” Wallace assured him. “I’m to have a special oral examination to-morrow at noon. You can count on me.”

The fifth-form Latin recitation came at the hour immediately preceding that set for Wallace’s test. On the way to the classroom he showed annoyance and irritation to those who crowded round him to express their eager wishes for his success. “You needn’t hang about and wait for news,” he said when Hudson, the Pythian short-stop, had hoped that the suspense would not last long. “I’ll be all right, and I don’t want a gang looking round when I come out.”

Hudson dropped back and remarked to David that he was afraid Wallace’s nerves were pretty much on edge.

At the end of the recitation hour, while all the other fellows were moving toward the door, Wallace kept his seat at the back of the room. Mr. Dean asked David to stop and speak with him a moment; he told him that Wallace’s examination would last about fifteen minutes, and that then he would as usual be glad to have David’s assistance in walking home. So David returned to the schoolroom and proceeded to work on the problems in algebra assigned for the afternoon. He had finished one and was halfway through another when a glance at the clock told him that it was time to be going to Mr. Dean’s assistance—and also, no doubt, to Wallace’s relief.

The examination was still proceeding when he entered the classroom and sat down near the door. Wallace had moved forward and was occupying a seat immediately under Mr. Dean; he looked up, startled, when David appeared and then at once huddled himself over his book, which he entirely embraced with arms and knees. He continued in a rather mumbling and hesitating voice with his translation, but the halting utterance did not disguise the accuracy of the rendering; David, listening, was glad to be assured that Wallace was acquitting himself so brilliantly. Mr. Dean interrupted the translation after a moment to say: