His association with Ben at the armory when they were engaged in a common task could not help but result in a certain kind of friendship. But it did not develop at any time into comradeship, nor even into close companionship. Through the years that slipped by, they were friends and fellow-students, nothing more.
[CHAPTER IV]
It was the Fourth of July in the year 1913. In accordance with the law of precedent and of patriotism every town and city in the United States should have had a public celebration of the day. But Fairweather was to have none. With the exception of a flag-raising on the plaza in front of the Barriscale mills the national anniversary was to go entirely unrecognized in the town so far as any public demonstration was concerned. But the flag-raising in itself was to be no inconsiderable event. Through the liberality of certain public-spirited citizens, principally gentlemen belonging to the Barriscale Manufacturing Company, a tall and beautifully tapering staff had been erected, capped with a gilded ball, and a handsome American flag had been procured and was ready to be drawn aloft.
It was a rare July day. The air was fresh and clear, the sky was cloudless, the heat was not oppressive.
The exercises were to take place at three o’clock, and it now wanted twenty minutes of that hour, but people were already beginning to come. They were strolling lazily down the four streets that led into the plaza, standing expectantly at the corners, hugging the shade of the big mill building on the west.
On the southerly curb, talking with each other, stood Halpert McCormack and Ben Barriscale. They had both reached the age of eighteen years. The one straight, slender and fair-haired, was telling the other that he had obtained employment in the Citizens’ Bank and was to begin work there the following day. The career thus to be begun was not the one that had been planned for him. He was to have gone to college and then into one of the learned professions. But the death of his father soon after his own graduation from a preparatory school made it necessary to change the plans for his future, and he was to go into business instead.
“It’s too bad,” said Ben, “that you had to cut out your college course. You should have been a professor of something or other, you’re so chock full of wisdom. What was it the boys used to call you? Socrates?”
“I believe so.”