Mason went straight to his room, where he spent a most bitter night, scarcely closing his eyes in sleep. All night long he dreamed that he was pursuing flies that got away from him, or that ten thousand eyes were turned on him in withering scorn and contempt, seeming to glare at him as one great eye of fire.
His Southern pride had been touched to the quick. He felt that he could not endure the sidelong contemptuous glances of those who must look on him with scorn for what had happened. If it had not seemed cowardly, he would have contemplated getting away from college somehow for a while.
“But I can’t play ball any more!” he told himself. “I can’t! I can’t do it! Gamp would have caught that fly—both of them! He always catches anything he can get his hands on. He’s a Yankee, and everything sticks to a Yankee’s fingers! They can hold onto money harder than any class of people I ever saw.”
Mason was homesick. He did not confess it to himself, but he longed for a sight of his South Carolina home, with the red road winding past and running away into the pine woods. He longed for a sight of the negro cabins, with the old mammies smoking by the doors and the pickaninnies romping and playing and rolling their white eyes up to the passing stranger. He longed for the peaceful quiet that pervaded the air and the genial warmth of the bright Southern sunshine. He felt that the North was cold and heartless, and he wished himself away.
And so he tossed and turned till the gray light of morning sifted in at his window and reached his bed. In the morning light he slept dreamlessly for the first time, and there was a smile on his face, for at last he was at home and his misery was forgotten. Through his dreaming he seemed to hear the joyous singing of colored laborers in the fields, and the sound was sweet as the chime of heavenly bells.
It was six minutes of eight when Mason awoke. He came out of bed with one great leap. It was his habit to take a sponge bath in the morning, but there was no time for anything of the sort this morning. He flung on his underclothing, tore open his wardrobe door, yanked out a mackintosh and a pair of rubber boots, jumped into the boots, pulled on the mackintosh, seized an old hat, and tore out of his room.
In this rig, Mason appeared at chapel in due time, and he was not the only student present who was dressed in a wild and weird fashion.
To Hock it seemed as if the eyes of all present were on him. He did not dare look up, but felt his face burning. His sensitive nature suffered extreme torture until he could escape, when the service was over, and hurry to his room.
Merriwell had observed Mason, and Frank fancied he understood how the proud fellow felt.