Princeton Stories

by Jesse Lynch Williams

In a moment he started on toward Dickinson Hall again. "We are going to a lecture now," he explained to himself in a whisper, "and we're going to hear lots of interesting things. We can talk over all those other matters later on. There's plenty of time, plenty of time."

He took a long, full breath, as though to hold on tight, and threw up his head and looked squarely into a pair of brown eyes that were gazing intently at him. It was That Freshman.

He had often wondered why he was constantly running across this same little freshman with the sensitive mouth and the large, thoughtful eyes. He did not know his name, but he enjoyed observing from the patronizing height of a senior an air of delicate refinement in the features and movements of the boy. Sometimes when in a good humor he nodded to him. But just now the peculiar wistful gaze breaking in on him in his tossed-up state of mind seemed eerie. For an instant he had a feeling of guilty fright, as if caught doing something. And then, because angry with himself for being startled by a freshman, he blurted out, in a husky voice, "Oh, what do you want?"

The under-classman blushed and stepped back. He said something incoherent ending with "Why—er—nothing— I beg pardon." He attempted a smile, failed, colored more than ever, dropped his eyes in embarrassment, and with a sort of shiver turned on his heel.

The senior, with his own harsh voice still echoing in his ear, stood there with his hands in his pockets watching the younger boy shrinking before him. Then something inside of him was touched. He felt how brutally rude he had been, and he wanted to make amends for it. He felt more than that. He wanted to be kind to this boy with the refined face; he wanted to be tender toward him, to protect him, or something queer and wild like that. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself tears were ready to come to his dark, blood-shot eyes with the dark rings under them, and he had an impulse to throw his arm about the freshman's shoulder and say: "You dear little fellow!" Neurasthenia could account for some of this.

As it was he turned and followed the freshman from the side of the new bulletin-elm, where this took place, to the corner of the Old North. Here, hardly realizing what he was doing, he touched his shoulder and said, in a gruff voice, though he did not mean it to be, "Don't you want to take a walk?"

But even if he had stopped to think about its being an odd thing to do, it would have made no difference. He was hardly in a mood for considering conventionalities.

After awhile he found himself walking with the freshman way out toward the Prep. school. To the left was the old view of rolling fields and the gentle hill. Underfoot were the uneven stones of the old walk with water-puddles in the hollowed-out places. And there beside him walked the freshman, talking in a natural tone about a fine tennis-player that he thought was coming to college next year. It was all quite as if it were an ordinary occurrence.

Lawrence could remember the freshman's look of surprise as they started across the campus, and he recollected murmuring some apology for his rudeness by saying that he thought it was someone else at first. Then he must have started the conversation by asking the freshman what recitation he had just had. But after that it was all a blank until now. He was under the impression that he had been nodding to people, but he could not remember who they were or anything about them except a big-visored, faded crimson cap that someone had on. Probably he had been carrying on the conversation automatically with the freshman, but it must have been all right, for the boy did not look as though anything strange had happened. But a very great deal had.

Perhaps it was a sort of hypnotism, though very likely it could be explained as nothing of the kind, but at any rate from the moment his thoughts had been stopped with a jerk at meeting the freshman they had taken a different turn. With the boy at his side and his gentle voice in his ears Lawrence had begun thinking about another red-cheeked boy he had known once; and it seemed much more than four years ago. He felt again the very expression of those old bright days at school when he took prizes and played on the eleven. He remembered the old field and how the afternoon sun used to reflect from one of the windows near by. There came back to him the very odor of the polished desk in the school-room where he scratched H. L. L., and all the little details of those dear old days of happy monotony and innocent amusements. He felt again the old excitement of an approaching vacation. He remembered how he used to check off the days on the calendar over the mantelpiece, and he remembered the first trip he took home alone and the blue serge suit he wore, of which he was so proud, and how he wondered who would meet him at the station, and best of all, how he used to jump out of the carriage and run up the steps of home and meet the one that came out into the hall to meet him. Joyously and innocently he used to look up into the soft gray eyes that seemed to say, "I am proud of my boy." But that was a peculiar thing to think of just now. A passage in his father's letter occurred to him. "Of course I did not, nor shall I advise your mother of all this"—he had had to turn the page, he remembered, to find the rest of it—"it would break her heart." "Of course," he said to himself, hurriedly, "it wouldn't do at all." Then he thought he did not care to dwell upon old times any more. It was at this point that he awoke, so to speak, and found himself walking with this freshman whose name he did not know.