Princeton Stories

by Jesse Lynch Williams

He smiled grimly as he recollected how that, when he first came, he had rather expected that some of them might invite him to dine. This he deemed would be proper in view of his position as an assistant, especially as this institution was so small that the faculty was not large enough to be divided into many cliques. And he had even pictured himself enjoying a delightful conversation with that old, white-haired professor whom he had taken such a fancy to, or, perhaps, holding an animated discussion with some of them as to the respective merits of Western and Eastern colleges.

But he could have endured their attitude if only his plans would work in regard to his classes. It was about his pupils that he thought the most. He made a study of each man and each mind and learned what to expect from each: which were good at one kind of work and which at another; which were the bright, indolent fellows and which were the plodders. They nearly all worked quite hard, that was the one encouraging thing. But he could not understand them. The little tutor had never been to a preparatory school himself, but he felt certain that these fellows were not like most preps. He certainly could not understand their attitude toward himself. He wanted to be friendly with them all, and tried to laugh and joke occasionally to make the relations easy, but it was of no use, they only looked at him inquiringly, as if he were doing something they hadn't bargained for. They all came to recitation in a business-like way, which seemed to say, "Here we are, now you teach us."

They never thought of bowing to him as they came in. They seemed to regard him only as an automaton that was paid—and by their money—to stand up there and teach, and he would not have believed that he was thought of by them outside, that he entered into their existence at all, if he had not one day come into the room with rubber over-shoes on his feet and heard them say something about the "Little Tutor." That was the time he learned his nickname, and he felt rather glad when he heard them say it, though they were somewhat confused when they turned and saw him.

When recitations were over, when they had gotten their money's worth, they returned to their lodgings in the same brisk business-like manner, for dormitories are scarce out there. The little tutor thought perhaps this had something to do with the lack of college feeling in the institution. There was no esprit de corps. They were, the whole collection of them, college and academy, simply a lot of young men who came together in one place, paid their money and got an education by which they would earn more than enough to repay them. So you see it was a good bargain. Perhaps this was putting it too strongly, he reminded himself, for there was some feeble exhibition of class spirit once or twice, and a football team, too, that practised after supper in their shirt-sleeves. But, oh! how he longed for a sight of those old familiar figures he used to see slouching carelessly across the campus in corduroys and sweaters, with pipes and songs and all that easy good friendship, and the practising at the 'varsity grounds. But these are bitter thoughts.

He hoped that these pupils of his would not always wear linen shirts. He wished their vests were not cut so low. He longed for a sight of a familiar cheviot shirt and a carelessly tied bow at the neck. He would have given a good deal, he thought, just to see one man walking by with a sweater tied by the arms about his neck, a dirty sweater perhaps, and his hands deep down in his pockets. Sometimes he felt that he would enjoy, yes, actually, hearing somebody flunk in one of his classes. Who would have thought that of little poler Stacy?

You see the boy was almost hysterical with this morbid homesickness. He was brim full of it, and a very slight jar would have been enough to upset him and spill it all.

Sometimes he realized that he was making a fool of himself and then he used to take himself in hand for being so childish. But he had always had these little boyish ways of thinking about the people and things around him. He remembered how it was at college; when he first came as a freshman his poor little brain was nearly worn out with wondering and imagining, and when he fell to thinking of those days long ago, it seemed impossible to him that he was a grown man now and teaching in an academy. But it was true, and the framed diploma hung in his room. And, what was more to the point, he was making money. He had felt encouraged when he received his first earnings.

On a Saturday evening he had called around at the treasurer's office and received his money, carefully counted and put in an envelope with a blue lining. The treasurer was an old man with a hard face, and when the little tutor came in he did not say "How do you do," or anything, but simply turned toward the safe and took out the money, keeping the pen in his teeth as he did so, and only taking it out to ask, as he looked up at the little tutor, "That is right," in an exact tone, "is it not?"

He hated this proceeding, and hoped that next time there would not be the right amount, so that he might have a cheque. But he felt light-hearted when he carried the money to his room and wrote his letter home and enclosed a certain share of his profits. Prospects seemed brighter and his hopes ran high, and his dreams ran away out into the future when all his drudgery would be over and he would be recognized as a great man, an authority on—but somehow it was hard to hold those old aspirations that had seemed so realizable about commencement time, when he was an honor man. This cold western climate and these common-sense practical New Englanders seemed to have a chilling effect upon his ambitions, especially as his self-confidence was never very firmly rooted, for he was not, strangely enough for a young man, very much of a believer in himself, and his conceit was not spontaneous, but was of the bolstered-up kind, so that when he halted in his castle-building he was in a very dangerous position, for, if you take a young man's conceit away from him, is he not in a very dangerous position indeed?

He was also, he told himself, learning this life lesson: that to win what men call success in this world required something that he was afraid he did not possess: he did not know exactly what to call it. When he was in college he used to comfort himself with saying: "Never mind, you may not amount to much here, but when you get out in the world individual worth will not be handicapped by modesty." But he was beginning to despair of this. It would do well enough in books, but it took what they call bluff to get along with men, even if you want to do them good, and this, he knew very well, he did not, and never could, possess. And when he followed this line of thought, he used to sigh and come to the conclusion that what the world called success was not worth the struggle when one had to use such manœuvring to win it. But he reminded himself that he must not allow himself to sink into such pessimism, as in his case those at home had a claim upon him.