Ward Hill, the Senior

by Everett T. Tomlinson

But even stronger than his desire to win a high standing in his scholarship was his determination to carry off the prize in declamation. In lieu of the ordinary "graduating exercises," there was each year a contest for two prizes, in which all of the seniors and a few of the boys in the class below them whose standing was sufficiently high were permitted to compete. Preliminary contests were held and the number of contestants was somewhat decreased before the final trial occurred.

Ward and Henry already had succeeded in passing the first of these trials and were sure of a place on the program for the final and deciding contest. This was to occur in the evening of the last day of the term, and many of the parents and friends of the boys, as well as a large number of former students who came back to revisit the scenes of their school-days and perhaps strive to catch something of the contagion of the spirit of life and enthusiasm, were expected to be present. Jack Hobart was not to compete for the prize, as he had but little ability in that line; but he was almost as much interested in Ward's success as he would have been in his own. Together they went almost every afternoon to one of the secluded spots on the hillsides, and while Ward awakened the echoes by his eloquence, Jack sat by and listened in solemn admiration or passed such criticisms as occurred to him, and Ward found his friend's suggestions frequently of great value.

Only a week remained now before the prize speaking was to take place. Ward and Jack were returning from their daily visit to the woods, and as they walked on their thoughts naturally reflected their feelings.

"I don't know how it is," Jack was saying, "but somehow I have a mighty queer feeling at the close of this year. This makes four years I have been in the Weston school, and any one would naturally think I'd be glad to be out of it. Of course in a way I am, but somehow I'm broken up by it too. The first thing I do every morning is to take a good look at the Hump. The old hill is always there just the same, but I'm half afraid every morning to look out for fear he's hidden himself somewhere."

"It's become a part of your life, I fancy," said Ward soberly. "Last year when the end came, it almost seemed to me as if the mountains here were frowning upon me, but this year they seem like steps or ladders up to something better."

"And they are," said Jack enthusiastically. "I suppose we're somewhat broken up to think the end has come and that we've got to scatter now. Some of the fellows I sha'n't feel very bad about leaving, but when I think of some of the others, it almost seems to me as if I just couldn't go on without them, and that is all there is to it. It just seems to me, Ward, as if I couldn't go on without you. I don't believe, old fellow, you ever realized how much you are to me. I never had a brother; but it seems to me, Ward, that if we had both had the same father and same mother we couldn't be more to each other."

Jack was evidently affected, and Ward's heart responded to that of his impulsive friend in an instant.

"I never had a brother either, Speck, but I feel as if I had one now." Almost instinctively the boys stopped and clasping hands looked earnestly into each other's face. There was something almost sacred in the hand-clasp, as if it were a pledge of a lifelong love.

The love between brother and sister, father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife, are all sacred and beautiful, but the love between two boys or young men has in it also something that is very nearly sublime. God pity the man who has never known what it was to have a deep-abiding love for another of his own sex. Something is wanting in his make-up to cause such a lack, and his life too will never know the fullness of its best meaning without that experience. Friends and friendship! "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly," wrote a keen observer of men many centuries ago. But with a friendship once formed no true man ever ought to let anything break in upon it.

And these lifelong friendships are almost never formed in after years. They come, if they come at all, in the days of boyhood or young manhood. That is the seed-sowing time for friendship, as it is for a good many of the other good things of life.