Guarding His Goal

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Toby went back to his room and closed the door behind him and kept his agreement to the letter. That is, he recalled very carefully all that Doctor Collins had told him and weighed it. And agreed with it, too. As to that temper of his, thought Toby, the Doctor was absolutely right. It did need controlling. Normally good tempered, when he did let go he let go altogether. He could almost count on the fingers of his two hands the times when he had been thoroughly angry, but each time, as he recalled, the result had been disastrous. Always he had made himself unhappy and usually some one else. And always he had been horribly sorry afterwards, when it was too late. He wondered how one went about learning to control one’s temper. The Doctor hadn’t told him that. Well, he would find a way. The Doctor had said he could do it, and so he would. The Doctor had been mighty nice to him, too; not at all the stern and severe person that Toby had thought him. He was glad he had made a clean confession of the whole silly business. For it was silly, frightfully silly. The idea of quarreling with Arn like that! Why, he would do just about anything for Arn! And Arn—well, maybe Arn didn’t care as much as he did, but that had nothing to do with it, because the Doctor had said that friendship must be unselfish, and demanding a return for what you gave, even of affection, was selfish! And the Doctor was right, too, as right as anything! If you—cared for some one you just naturally wanted to do things for him, and you didn’t stop to think what you were getting in return. No, sir, you didn’t care!

Toby aroused from his communing and looked startledly at the clock. But it was all right. He still had fourteen minutes before his English recitation. And fourteen minutes was more than enough to do what he wanted to do in. He jumped up and found a sheet of paper and an envelope and wrote hurriedly:

“Dear Arn:

“I’m awfully sorry I was such a rotter. I wish you would forgive me and forget all about it if you can. If you want me to apologize to F. L. I will. Maybe he didn’t do it, anyway. I guess he didn’t. Anyhow, I never meant to say anything about it only I got angry and did say it, for which I am very sorry and hope you will forgive me.

“Your friend,

“Toby.”

Toby didn’t knock on Arnold’s door, for he wasn’t sure whether Arnold was out, and, while he had the courage to write the note, to hand it to him would be a different matter. So he slipped it under the door and hurried across to Oxford, feeling much happier than he had felt for several days.

He caught only a brief glimpse of Arnold that forenoon and when dinner time came he awaited his chum’s arrival anxiously. He knew Arnold too well to expect him to fall on his neck, so to speak, but it wouldn’t be hard to discover whether he was willing to make up. Arnold would probably say “Hello, T. Tucker,” and grin a little, and that’s all there’d be to it, and Toby would know that it was all right! But it didn’t happen that way at all. Arnold came in late, seated himself without so much as a glance across the table at Toby and entered into conversation with Kendall. Toby’s heart fell. Arn wasn’t going to forgive him! Then the comforting thought came to him that perhaps Arnold hadn’t been to his room yet and so hadn’t read the note. That was undoubtedly the explanation, and Toby recovered his spirits and ate a very satisfactory dinner. It was almost as though they were friends again, for, although Arnold didn’t know it, there was that note awaiting him upstairs, and when he had read it everything would be fine once more! So Toby got up from the table quite contentedly and rattled up two flights of stairs to his room in order to put in a quarter of an hour at history before a two o’clock recitation. And he whistled merrily until he threw the door open and saw a square blue-gray envelope lying there. It was one of Arnold’s envelopes. He had written instead of—of—Toby picked up the note sadly and went to the window with it.

“Just being sorry (he read) doesn’t make up for what you said. You made accusations that you knew were false. When you acknowledge that they are false I will accept an appology and not before.