So, arm in arm, over the ruts of the four-mile road, which first took us up a steep hill and then around to the west through some dark, cool woods, the blind student and I walked, and talked of the Greek tragedy in which he was to play so realistic a part.
So Arm in Arm the Blind Student and I Walked
On our way back, as we neared the campus, Quarles said:
“Priddy, have you ever met ‘Squeem’ Hirshey? I’ve got to see him before supper, if you’ll take me to him. He’s one of the old men of the chorus, in the play, and wants me to help him with pronunciation.”
“No, I haven’t met him,” I said.
“A poor Georgian,” explained Quarles, “lives in a stuffy bit of a room with an Irish family, down at The Alley; you know where that is, of course.”
So while we walked in the direction of “Squeem’s” lodging, Quarles gave me full information about this student, one who lived in the back-waters of college life.
“In some unaccountable way,” said Quarles, “Squeem managed to get a decent preparatory education in the South, in a place where most of the people lived in huts. Missionary education, I think. However, he came here, passed entrance exams all right, and was awarded a couple of scholarships that bring him in about a hundred and fifty dollars a year. He tells me that he manages to get enough work to support him: that he earns his room rent with the Gibboneys by doing chores, though what chores such a poor family can have for him to perform, I cannot understand. He cooks his own meals on an oil stove, and, for that purpose tries never to go over seventy-five cents a week for his food. As for clothes, well—he patronizes ‘Eddie’, the old clothes-man, and manages to get cast-off shoes and clothes at ridiculously low prices. A suit for four dollars and a decent pair of shoes, not much worn, for fifty cents!”
“I must have seen him,” I explained, “but of course, I cannot place the name. A queer one, too; reminds one of Dickens’ Squeers, the ugly schoolmaster.”