“Yes, sir; I think I do,” said Dan thoughtfully.
“Don’t you know you do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’ll come out all right in the end. You come to school to get your brains in working order, but don’t forget that you must use your brains in your work as well as learn how to work your brains.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Some of the boys here, even when they are studying with a teacher, think they are studying just because they are holding books in their hands. They’re like poor old Dobbin, who kept up his weary round when there wasn’t any rope to be wound by the windlass.”
Dan’s eagerness to learn now increased with the passing days. He was determined to profit by the friendly advice of Mr. Hale. His own eagerness to learn was an additional incentive, born as it was of a daily increasing consciousness of his own deficiencies. His work in the classroom as yet was not sufficiently high to permit him to do his studying in his own room, but in his heart he was glad that the rule was enforced, for he thought that he could gain more in this way than if he had been left to himself. Dan’s mind did not work rapidly, but his steady and persistent efforts were already beginning to count and every passing week found him a little farther advanced. The work was hard and at times so discouraging to the new boy that he thought of giving it all up and returning to the farm. However, he did not refer to his feeling in the presence of his friends and fought so hard against it that the temptation to give up became less with the rapidly passing days.
Most of his friends in his own form or class were also among those who were denied the privilege of studying in their rooms, Ned being the only one to have a standing sufficiently high to obtain the privilege. Hodge, Smith, Gus Kiggins, and Walter were loud in their complaints at being compelled to do their work under the eye of Mr. Hale. Indeed, Walter asserted repeatedly that he was denied the privilege because of a prejudice against him, instead of his being judged on the merits of his work.
As for Gus, Dan soon found that the boy was so deeply interested in the work of the football team that apparently he had ignored or forgotten his anger at the new boy. The league between the four schools had been successfully arranged and the football games of the fall were to be included. The four officers of the league were made up of representatives of the different schools, Ned being the vice-president, while the Military Academy obtained the presidency by virtue of its success in the contests of the preceding year.
Carlton Hall too had gathered courage to meet at least a part of his problems. Though it was difficult for him to learn to rely upon himself, he had followed Dan’s advice and had no longer railed at the boys who made his life one of discomfort and his room difficult to live in. Even the threats of Gus Kiggins had, in a measure, ceased, for the school bully, in his deep interest in the work of the football team, had little time left for his petty tormenting of the homesick and innocent little lad who had been placed in the school by his mother in the fond hope that there he would acquire what she could not conceal from herself he was not having under her weak and selfish indulgence.