We went out on the porch. Mr. Perrin dropped behind to get his cap and stick, and the three of us looked at each other questioningly. Billy was frowning and Pete looked blank. I remember I shook my head. Mr. Perrin joined us then, and we set out around the house. He showed us his stable and barn and greenhouses and piggery and a cellar where he raised mushrooms, and a lot of things like that. Pete got full of enthusiasm right away and asked a lot of questions. Pete subscribes to Country Life and draws plans of model farms at lectures. Somehow, out of doors we all forgot to be gloomy, and the first thing we knew we were laughing at the colts in the paddock and chatting away just as if there wasn’t any Stupendous Crisis. After we’d seen everything Mr. Perrin led the way across a meadow to a little hill that had pine trees clumped on top of it and brown needles underneath. It was when we were climbing the hill that Mr. Perrin said:
“You must forgive me for being a bit slow. This leg of mine isn’t as spry on the grades.”
I noticed then for the first time that he limped a little and bore pretty heavily on his stick. I slowed down with him and asked: “Accident, sir?”
“Yes,” he said. “I broke it in football.”
“Oh!” said I. I couldn’t think of anything else to say just then.
“It was in a game with Pennsylvania a good many years ago now,” he went on. “We used to play on Jarvis Field in those days.”
“Where the tennis courts are now?” I asked. “Were you—were you on the Varsity, sir?”
“Yes. I was captain that year. This break kept me out of the Yale game, and I remember that I felt pretty badly about it.”
“It was pretty tough luck,” I muttered. I did a whole lot of thinking the rest of the way up the hill.
When we got to the top we sat down on the pine needles in the sunlight, and Mr. Perrin filled a pipe. “Perhaps,” he said as he started to light it, “I shouldn’t do this, as you chaps are in training.” Billy and Pete told him it didn’t matter any to them. It didn’t to me because I didn’t smoke. I’d promised my folks not to until I was twenty-one. There was a fine view from where we sat, and the country was as pretty as a picture, with the sun getting low and sending long shafts of golden light across the fields. It was quiet, too, so quiet you could hear a cowbell tinkling half a mile away. Billy put his hands under his head and stretched himself out on his back with a sigh. Pete hugged his knees and looked blissful. I suppose he was thinking of the place he meant to have when he was through college. There was a rock near me with moss growing all over it, and I settled my back against it and blinked at the sun. After a minute Mr. Perrin said: