Princeton Stories

by Jesse Lynch Williams

The little tutor had looked up timidly through his large spectacles and answered, in his thin, high voice: "I am not a member of any of the classes. I am to be one of the instructors in the academy."

He had smiled reassuringly, to show that he did not take any offence. But the tall young man did not seem to dream of embarrassment; he only said: "You are?" and passed on.

This happened early in September, the day before the term opened, and the little tutor had been busying himself looking about the campus and getting his bearings in the little city. He had never been in the West before, and this seemed very far out West; it was like a foreign country to him. The broad, evenly laid, well-kept streets lined with so many fine lawns, were a matter of great interest and speculation. He thought it queer that when a man could afford to have nearly a whole block of lawn that he should have only a frame house upon it, but some of these frame houses were very large and comfortable and invariably freshly painted, and he liked that. He admired the new and handsome business blocks of fine brick and stone. But what seemed most wonderful to him was the broad, level sweep of the prairie when he walked out into the country. It almost took his breath away.

But it was the campus, as being his future place of work, that occupied most of his attention and curiosity. He walked slowly over it all, examining each building and every feature thoughtfully and with a critical air as one about to buy. There were only about a half-dozen buildings in all, including both the college and academy. It struck him as odd that both institutions should be on the same grounds and apparently of the same importance. The buildings were rather new, and he missed the dignified, patriarchal aspect of the old campus he had been accustomed to. He thought he could never feel any veneration for all this brand-newness as he had toward those old landmarks he loved so well. Indeed, it all seemed small and puny viewed in this light, and he walked about with rather a patronizing air, as he thought with pride of his Alma Mater, and it seemed to him that this institution was favored in obtaining for an instructor a graduate of such a famous old institution—and an honorman, too, he said to himself, with a blush of satisfaction.

Of course, this preparatory school teaching was only temporary with him. Only a preparation for something else, and that but a step to something higher, until he became—but the little tutor never acknowledged just how high his ambition aimed. It was at this point, as he was leaning against a tree, that the young man had come up and asked him what class he belonged to.

But he had not minded that in the least; he knew how boyish-looking he was. It was very natural for them to make such mistakes. A little thing like that would not discourage him. They did not know him; wait a few days, and they would learn who he was.

And he was right. The whole college and academy learned who he was the very next afternoon in chapel. And even the townsfolk soon learned to know him by sight; they thought it odd that such a little fellow should be a professor. By the end of the month the children coming home from school had learned to point out his small figure with the large head, carried with his peculiar, springing strides, and they would say to one another, "There goes the Little Tutor."

But as they watched him walking briskly by, holding his body stiff and straight, they little knew what was going on behind that smile, which was a curious mixture of gravity and good nature.

For some reason or other things had not gone as he had expected, and so far, at least, they were not tending toward the future he had pictured.

He had thought that out there they would appreciate that he came from such a large, famous old institution, and that he had stood so well in his class and all that; but neither the attitude of the faculty, college, nor academy indicated anything of the kind, he thought. And this wasn't all. No one seemed to take any interest in him as an individual. That is, beyond a cold curiosity.