“No, don’t say a word. Don’t let him know that we heard what he said. I don’t want Walter to know.”
“Just as you say,” said Ned lightly. “If I can arrange with Samson I’ll get the fellows out for a little baseball to-morrow. You aren’t going in for football are you?”
“I don’t expect to.”
“Good! Of course football is all the rage in the fall. It’s a good enough game, but give me baseball every time.”
“I never saw a game of football.”
“How’s that?” laughed Ned lightly. “Where have you lived all these days?” Then as Dan did not reply he hastily added, as he recalled the sneering words of Chesty, “There’ll be time enough for all that. I just don’t want you to get switched off into football, that’s all. Of course we’ll have to wait till spring before we do much on the diamond. Football somehow has got the right of way in the fall, but we do a little trying out now, and that’s about all we can expect. I’ll let you know to-morrow about the practice. Now don’t fail to show up. And just forget all about Chesty and his cheap talk.”
Dan did not respond, but turned with Walter and went up the stairway to their room on the second floor. He did not betray by his manner that he had overheard the words of Chesty to Walter, and as the latter suggested that they should at once arrange their belongings in their rooms he quietly agreed. Dan’s trunk, a somewhat crude and manifestly antique affair, had been left outside the door and when Walter said, “Here, Dan, I’ll give you a lift,” and at once took hold of one end of the trunk, Dan somehow felt that his roommate was more eager to get the trunk into a bedroom where it could not be seen than he was to help. Dan, without a word, helped carry the heavy trunk to the bedroom which had been assigned him and as soon as Walter started to unpack his own trunk he too began.
There were three rooms in the suite, a bedroom for each boy and a sitting-room or study which both were to use. In spite of the simplicity and plainness of the furnishings—a condition duly emphasized by the school catalogue—Dan’s feeling was that he was surrounded by luxury. Certainly everything was unlike the plainness of his own little home on the farm near Rodman. The thought increased Dan’s feeling of depression. He had a vision of his brother Tom, who by this time had ended his chores and doubtless was sitting with his mother on the piazza, talking with her over their loneliness. He fancied he almost could hear his mother in her calm way, which was deceptive to many by its very calmness, say to Tom that she was glad Dan had such a good opportunity to secure an education. He wondered what she would say if she knew his own feelings at the moment. The sneering remarks of Chesty had cut deep. Up to this time Dan had not been aware that his manners or dress were very different from those of others.
Now that he had, for the first time in his life, been thrown into the midst of a crowd of boys of his own age, all of whom possessed, or at least seemed to possess, an indefinable something which he was aware was lacking in his own person, he felt strongly that something was wrong. Ned had been cordial, but his keen interest in the possibility of the nine securing a good pitcher doubtless accounted for that. Chesty had spoken frankly and without a suspicion that his words had been overheard. And Dan, in his quiet way, was suffering. His life had not been like that of the boys in the Tait School. He almost wished that he had not yielded to Mr. Borden’s persuasive words. At the normal school there were many who came from homes like his own. Several boys from Rodman had worked their way through that school. They had been waiters in the dining-room or cared for the grounds, served as aids to the janitor or had done various other humble duties by which they helped themselves.