Rough-Hewn

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"You went to school in the country," Neale reminded him. "We haven't any yards or barns here. We have the athletic field at school."

"Yes, that's so," his father admitted. After a time he made a further admission, "Athletics are all right, too." But something in his tone intimated that he was baffled rather than convinced. Since Neale considered that athletics were not only all right, but all there was to life, he found no comment to make.

A moment later, "But, great Scott," began his father with some heat as though struck afresh with some aspect of Neale's life. He seemed to hear the too-great vivacity of his accent and to wait until he could ask quite casually, "Aren't there any of your school-mates you'd like to have visit you?"

Neale considered. It hadn't struck him before, but it was a fact that after school and athletic practice, all the boys vanished to their various homes. Never having known any other than this city relation with school-mates it seemed to him obvious and natural. "Visit me?" he said, trying to imagine one of his classmates sitting at the Crittenden dinner-table, and then, "No, I don't believe I do. There wouldn't be anything special to do at home, would there?"

His father drew on his cigar thoughtfully, and walked on in silence.

But he had a long talk with Neale's mother that evening, the two country and village-bred parents putting their heads together, earnestly though helplessly. The only course which occurred to them was proposed to Neale, a week later, when Mother asked him if he would do something to please her. Incautiously Neale said, of course, yes, he would. He was always willing enough to please Mother, and he had never made the slightest objection to anything his parents planned for him. But this plan turned out to be something very alarming. It was all arranged, Mother told him, that he was to go to dancing-school in the Germania Club ball-room on Tuesday afternoons. Mother pointed out that, now he was fifteen years old, and half-way through prep.-school, he ought to learn to dance. Neale had no theoretic objections to offer and had given his word that he would not object. So hiding, except for his first wild look of dismay, the terror and repugnance which filled him, he wrapped up the newly bought patent-leather oxfords and started. There were limits even to the Iroquois stoicism of his acceptance of what Fate brought him. No power on earth could have made him walk through the streets in those patent-leather shoes. But Mother never pushed him anywhere near one of those limits. She did not even suggest that he wear his dancing shoes. She helped him find the paper and string to wrap them up. Also she did not fuss over him ... not much. She looked at him hard, picked a thread off the sleeve of the blue serge which was his dress-up costume, and called his attention to the fact that a button of his vest was unbuttoned. She did not offer to button it herself, or handle him in any way. Mother was all right, if she did want him to go to dancing-school.

So he went. And it was not so bad, not nearly so bad as he feared, the reassuring factor being that everybody else there was in the same boat. You could see how they all despised it. Except, of course, the girls. While he was changing his shoes in silent alarm and disgust in the cloak-room, who should come in but Jenkins, a "Lower Middle" at school. Neale didn't know Jenkins except by name, but at least he was some one to lean on. Neale was at once very cordial and Jenkins, surprised and flattered by this attention from an upper-class man, promised to show him how everything was done. They went into the ball-room, Neale clinging morally for dear life to Jenkins. A number of other young men of fifteen and sixteen, and girls who looked almost like young ladies, were sitting on opposite sides of the room. A bald-headed man to whom Jenkins referred as "One Lung" sat at the piano. The dancing master was young, German, energetic and thorough. He called the class to their feet, explained and illustrated the step and made them all practice it en masse, "One and two! One and two!" Then after a few minutes the music struck up and he left them to choose partners and dance. Neale, of course, did nothing of the kind, but pretended he couldn't find a partner (there were twice as many girls as boys), and went back to his seat. This was a tactical error. The Master spotted him at once. "Couldn't find a partner? Oh, dance with me, then." He whirled Neale about the room till his soul sickened, led him up to the other side of the room and sent him off with a bony, red-haired girl with freckles. Neale was caught that way twice, but no more after that. He had at least ordinary sense, he told himself. Next time the music started, he gulped down his objections to the whole proceeding and bowed to the prettiest girl in the room.

The course was very thorough, covering much that was obsolescent, and a good deal that was definitely dead. In that and succeeding lessons Neale received instruction in the steps of the Polka, the Schottische, the Varsovienne. The two-step he really learned, managing to "Yale" down the length of the hall without stepping on his partner's feet; and although he hated the waltz, he was forced by infinite repetition into mastering it. Oh, the misery of the hour-long waltz-lesson, with the Master's constant exhortation, "Don't hop! Slide!"

Neale carried into his dancing the same minute earnestness that won him success at his games and studies. He did not see the use of dancing, any more than he saw the use of learning German. But as the jobs seemed to have to be done, he tackled both of them conscientiously. He remembered to reverse in waltzing just as he remembered to put the auxiliary at the end of a sentence after "als." He came to be considered a good dancer. The girls did not claim to be tired when he asked them to dance with him. But he went no further. Even after he had mastered the steps and "leading," he did not talk as he spun methodically around. What was there to say? And even when he waltzed with Flossie Winters, the admitted belle, his heart beat no faster. It was nothing to him to put his arm around her waist. In spite of his long trousers and stick-up collar, the spirit of the thing escaped him; his time had not come.

After some months (they seemed very long months to Neale), the conscientious and thorough instructor gave him a printed testimonial of efficiency; there was no more he could teach Neale.