At the school-house, which was a place of fascination for Humphrey Meadowcroft, who had never attended public school, the two talked long—about books, about boys and, to a lesser extent, about girls. Appleton had taught for twenty years, the last twelve here in Paulding, and some of his boys and girls were already men and women out in the world. Maude Harrow, who had been graduated ten years ago, must have been this Rose’s aunt, for she had come from the South village. And there were children in the lower schools of all three villages now who would be coming to him within a few years just as their fathers and mothers had done before them. And lean, homely, spectacled, awkward, though he was, as he talked the school-master reminded his guest of some gentle mediæval saint to whom each human being represents a marvelous, immortal soul.
And now as he sat alone musing, Humphrey Meadowcroft told himself that the man’s life was truly ideal. To know boys and girls so well—particularly, these genuine, unsophisticated country boys and girls—to love them so simply and frankly, to be such a power among them, to be so happy in imparting the knowledge dear to himself as to be insensible of the toil and drudgery involved, to lead them on and on and higher and higher in his endeavor to prepare them for whatever was to come after they should have passed from his mild sway—what satisfaction could compare with a life like that? It was a lot to have chosen out of ten thousand!
Had he himself been poor, perchance he might have been forced into a position which held all these potentialities. It was, perhaps, the one thing which a lame man of his tastes might have done. And how very different his life would have been from the lonely, empty, useless existence he had thus far dragged out. He might not have made of it what Appleton had made of his life, but for all that he might not have been a failure.
CHAPTER XIII
IT seemed almost like coming home to Humphrey Meadowcroft to return to South Paulding at the end of the summer. He didn’t remember experiencing such a sensation of assurance and well-being and expectation since his boyhood. But it wasn’t his sister’s house that was home so much as the village; for the house was practically empty. Mrs. Phillips was to spend the autumn at the mountains, and besides himself there were only Herbie and a cook and the gardener about the place. Meadowcroft had not only returned early, but he had made a point of arriving three days before the opening of the high school in Paulding.
He had heard during the summer from all three of his young friends. Rose Harrow, whom he didn’t particularly take to, and in whom he would have felt no genuine interest but for Betty, already wrote very creditable-appearing letters by means of a contrivance Tommy had made for her from a bread-toaster. But her letters hadn’t been informing; neither had Betty’s beautifully written, stilted, formal epistles. And Tommy’s smudgy scrawls, though characteristic and amusing, had been chiefly concerned with magic. Wherefore he was eager to learn how matters had progressed and what the present situation might be with regard to them.
Before he had gone away, Meadowcroft had walked to Mrs. Harrow’s and back, though under cover of darkness. On the day after his return, he created, unawares, a sensation in the village by walking to the post office for the noon-day mail. He did this partly to confirm a resolve he had made, partly to advertise his arrival. And what he had expected to prove an ordeal was quite the reverse. Instead of staring or betraying secret curiosity, the few people he met greeted him with a friendliness that seemed to adopt him among their number. And it seemed very good to be adopted, to be walking the village street, a man among his fellow-men. Thereafter he walked the length of the avenue twice daily when the weather admitted.
Tommy Finnemore’s father brought the news home at noon, and the moment Tommy had swallowed his dinner he hurried down to the Phillips house to greet his friend. He found him just sitting down to luncheon. The boy’s unfeigned delight at seeing him warmed the man’s heart. Meadowcroft made him sit down at table with him, and Tommy, quite unabashed at what was really magnificence to him, consumed three helpings of pudding while he related the full course of his experiments in magic, beginning with the day after Meadowcroft’s departure, going on to a day in July when he had inadvertently destroyed a silver table fork, and continuing after a break of three weeks. Mr. Meadowcroft showed his genuine interest, and Herbie was evidently deeply impressed by what bits he caught. The latter pressed the pudding upon Tommy and brought forth some marshmallows, apparently feeling that he was serving a celebrated magician.
After luncheon they went out to the garden—not the little walled enclosure, but into the heart of the great handsome garden whose plots and parterres had been trained and tended for a quarter of a century. Tommy frankly admired Mr. Meadowcroft’s handling of his crutches and, after they were seated, asked if he might try them. For some moments he hopped about with manifest enjoyment.
“It ain’t so bad,” he remarked, as he dropped down upon the other end of the bench with Mr. Meadowcroft. “I suppose you played they were stilts when you were a boy?”