During the winter he became interested in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society, that held frequent debates and discussions before the school, and regarded itself as being an institution of great importance. For exercise and sport he went in for hockey, where his fleetness counted as much toward success as it did in football. The Deal boys had capital hockey grounds, one on Deal Water which lay at the foot of the hill between the school and Monday Port; and the other on Beaver Pond, under the lee of Lovel’s Woods which though smaller usually froze earlier.
It was customary for the Dealonian to elect a Fifth Former as its president at the beginning of the winter term. This office was supposed, and usually did, register the boys’ somewhat premature choice for a head prefect for the school for the following year. Deering was elected president of the Dealonian by a unanimous vote, after very little campaigning on the part of his friends. He was generally popular, and his exploit in the Boxford game had brought him more prominently before the school than ever before. In the opinion of his particular friends he was also developing qualities of leadership, which made him the logical candidate of their group for general honors. Tony valued the position of president highly. And in the fine fervor of his good resolutions he determined that through it he would do a lot for the school. The Dealonian held frequent meetings at which the entire school were invited, and at which topics of general interest were discussed by the boys themselves. It was indeed through these meetings that the public opinion of the school was largely formed and guided by the older boys.
The walk with Mr. Morris on the beach the night of the Boxford game had solidified in Tony’s mind a good many resolutions. And, though it is not usually the case that the generous ideals and ambitions of boys find particular expression, since the flash of intuition into Finch’s starved life had been in part the occasion of his forming good resolutions at all, it was not unnatural that he should have settled upon Finch as a concrete opportunity for putting them into effect. The talk with Mr. Morris, though Finch’s name had not actually been mentioned, had also brought the matter before Tony’s mind, for Morris had been the first to suggest to him the possibility of his being of use in that direction. To be sure, the sympathy with Finch had been intuitive and had not stayed with him as vividly as it had impressed him on the night of the bonfire, but then it had flashed so intensely that it was not soon altogether to expire. It glowed in the depths of his consciousness like sparks amongst the embers of a dying fire, capable of blazing forth again if fresh fuel should be added. Tony proposed to add the fuel.
He made a point, for instance, of dropping in at Finch’s room in Standerland two or three times a week and chatting with the boy the odd quarters of an hour that he otherwise would have spent in genial loafing with his cronies. And though he certainly would not have kept on going there for the sake of anything that Finch could contribute to the joy of life for him, when the awkwardness of deliberately performing a kindness had somewhat worn off, he found a certain amount of compensating satisfaction in noting the light of pleasure that came into Jake’s pale blue eyes, and in the relaxation of the corners of his mouth from bitter rigidity into friendly appreciation and welcome. Gradually too Finch’s shyness wore off a little when he was alone with Tony; and though it can hardly be said that even in his most un-selfconscious moments he ever seemed a full-blooded care-free boy, he thawed into a semblance of humanity. He reminded Tony often of a dog that has been treated cruelly in its puppyhood, which never recovers fearlessness but shrinks even under a friendly hand.
And like a dog Jacob Finch began to idolize Anthony Deering. This was the first time in all his barren life that a fellow boy had treated him with kindness, who had not showed in his manner the repulsion the unhappy little chap had the misfortune to stir in his kind. Tony’s image loomed large in his thoughts. The intense worship he paid him secretly did much to atone for the slights of others, to blot out other boys from his consciousness. He cringed and shrank still under jibes and jokes, trembled with unreasoned fear before masters, quivered with fright when he found himself alone in a crowd of boys; but he did his work faithfully and with the success that comes from persistence even when a keen intelligence is lacking. More and more, however, his inner life was absorbed in his devotion to Deering.
From his seat in the chapel he could just see the wavy, copper-colored top of Tony’s head. By straining a little he could frequently see his face,—bright, sensitive, mobile, smiling often that smile of a singular and rare sweetness that made Tony beautiful to others beside Finch. To Jake he was as perfect, as spotless, as wonderful, as a god. The fervor of his adoration was akin to the enthusiasm of a devotée for his idol. All this of course he hid, not altogether but mostly, from Deering; never voiced, though he could not help looking his devotion. He would spend hours during a day standing about in various places on the mere chance that he would get a glimpse of Tony; haunted the woods above Beaver Pond in the hockey season, where he would lie, flat and shivering, upon a projecting rock, and follow with weak, straining eyes the skaters on the ice below, his eager gaze seeking always for one bright slim form. And when he had found it, he was as happy as he often had been.
Even Tony’s friends occupied but a small place in Finch’s consciousness. He was grateful to Kit for his protection against Ducky Thornton and his gang of tormentors, but the only real admiration he had for Kit was because he possessed qualities—Finch could not have named them—that had induced Tony to choose him for a friend.
Occasionally Tony and Jimmie would have their protégé in Number Five study, but on these occasions Finch seemed to suffer so much from shyness that they did not long attempt to repeat them.
Mr. Morris watched the process with inward approval and outward indifference. His own advances toward Finch had been received in a manner that gave him little encouragement. He was sorry for the boy, and he was proud of Tony’s efforts to help him on and bring him out, but even his sanguine optimism and unselfish good will failed to convince itself that the Head had been wise in bringing Finch to Deal. As for Doctor Forester, with the best intentions in the world, he had few opportunities of seeing the boy intimately, and he trusted absolutely to Morris as being the one who could do the most and the best for him.
Number Five study Standerland had become during the winter term the sanctum of a privately published and privately circulated magazine, issued weekly as a rule, in pamphlet form under the title of The Spectacle. The inspiring genius, editor-in-chief, business manager, printing department and reportorial staff was Jimmie Lawrence. Jimmie had always had a literary turn, and usually had received A’s for his weekly themes in English from Jack Stenton, who combined with athletic prowess a genuine appreciation for good literature. In addition to required work for the masters he had written yards of short stories, poems, plays, essays and the like for the waste-paper basket and his secret scrap-book. Jimmie was likewise a great reader and he had taken more kindly than the majority of his classmates to the Sir Roger de Coverly papers from The Spectator that Stenton had inflicted on the Fifth Form that year. He was able to appreciate the genial sympathy and quiet humor of the Eighteenth Century essayists, and more than once he had dipped his pen in ink to attempt a crude imitation of them. Practice improved his style. He had himself a fund of subtle humor that was becoming more and more evident as he matured, for it was a humor that had found little opportunity for expression in the crude horseplay and practical joking of the Lower School.