Seated in the easy-chair was his father. Instantly Will's weariness was forgotten and with a shout he rushed upon his visitor throwing his arm about his neck and laughing in a way that may have served to keep down a stronger emotion.
"How long have you been here?" he demanded. "Where's mother? When did you come? How's everybody at home? Anything wrong? My, but I'm glad to see you! How long are you going to stay?"
The questions and exclamations fell from Will's lips in such confusion that it was impossible to reply and even Foster who was in the room joined in the laugh with which his room-mate's excitement was greeted."Not too fast, Will," laughed his father. "I had to come near here on business and I thought it would be a good thing to stop at Winthrop over night and have a little visit with my boy. I didn't know that I should be able to have one," he added smilingly, "for he wasn't anywhere to be found."
"I'm sorry! I wish I'd known it. I've been out for a walk with Mott. And we certainly have had one!" he added as he recounted some of the experiences of the afternoon.
His recital was greeted with laughter and even Will himself could enjoy it now that it was all past and he was once more safe in his room. For an hour Mr. Phelps remained in the room listening to the tales of the boys of their new life in the college, laughing as he heard of their pranks, and deeply interested in all they had to relate. At last when he arose to go to his room in the village hotel, he promised to come and attend church in the morning with the boys and then explained that he would have two hours to spend with Will on the morning following as his train did not leave until half-past ten.
"But I have a recitation the first hour," said Will blankly. "I'll 'cut' it, though, for it isn't every day one has his daddy with him, and I wouldn't lose a minute of your time here, pop, for ten hours with old Splinter. I have Greek, you know, the first hour in the morning. Oh, I've got 'cuts' to burn," he added hastily as an unspoken protest appeared in the expression on his father's face. "You needn't worry about that."
"I don't want you to lose any recitation because I am here," said his father quietly. "I sha'n't want to come again if my coming interferes with your work, and as it is I have serious doubts—"
"All right, pop," replied Will patting his father affectionately on the shoulder. "I'll go to Splinter's class, though I know he'll 'go for' me too. I won't do a thing that'll ever keep you from showing up here in Winthrop again."
On Monday morning after the exercises in the chapel, Mr. Phelps went to Will's room and waited till the hour should pass and the eager-hearted boy should return. As the great clock in the tower rang out the hour he arose and stood in front of the window peering out across the campus at the building where Will was at work, but the stroke had scarcely ceased before he beheld the lad run swiftly down the steps and speed along the pathway toward his room as if he were running for a prize. The expression in the man's eyes was soft and there was also a suspicious moisture in them as well as he watched his boy. Was it only a dream or reality? Only a few short years ago and he had been an eager-hearted boy speeding over the same pathway (he smiled as he thought how the "speed" was never displayed on his way to the recitation building), and now it was his own boy who was sharing in the life of old Winthrop and doubtless he himself was in the minds of the young students relegated to that remote and distant period when the "old grads" were supposed to be young. Doubtless to them it was a time as remote as that when Homer's heroes contended in battle or the fauns and satyrs peopled the wooded hills and plains. And yet how vital it all was to him. He watched the groups of students moving across the campus, and as the sound of their shouts or laughter or the words of some song rose on the autumn air, it seemed to the man that he needed only to close his eyes and the old life would return—a life so like the present that it did not seem possible that a great gulf of thirty years lay between.
Mr. Phelps' meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Will, who burst into the room with the force of a small whirlwind.