The room in which the two boys were sitting on the afternoon of the day preceding the beginning of the fall term was, in spite of Bert’s grumblings, pleasant and homelike. It was well furnished, and if the walls were stained and cracked, the dozens of pictures which Bert had just finished hanging concealed the fact. Through the double window, which formed a recess for the comfortable window seat, the mid-afternoon sun was pouring in, and with it came a fresh breeze and scented from the beech forest which sloped away up the hill behind the school buildings. To the right of the window an open door showed the white unpapered walls of the small bedroom. In the center of the room, beneath an antiquated chandelier, stood a green-topped study table, at the present moment piled high with books awaiting installation in the two low cases which flanked the fireplace. Had you lifted the brown corduroy cushion from the window seat you would have discovered the bench beneath to be engraved quite as completely and almost as intricately as any Egyptian monolith. For Prince Hall is well over eighty years old, and succeeding generations of students have left their marks incised with pocket-knife or hot poker on the woodwork of the rooms.
The residents of Prince Hall professed to be, and probably were, proud of the antiquity and associations of their building. But they couldn’t help being sometimes envious of the modern improvements, large, well-lighted rooms, and up-to-date appointments of the rival dormitory, Weeks Hall. Weeks stands at the other side of the academy grounds, with the Academy Hall between it and Prince. The three buildings form a row in front of which the well-kept gravel driveway passes ere it disappears to circle the ivy-covered red brick walls of the laboratory at the rear. Across the drive stand the gymnasium and library, the former a modern brick and sandstone structure more ornate than beautiful, and the latter a granite specimen of the unlovely architecture of fifty years ago, charitably draped in a gown of green ivy leaves, which in a measure hides its rude angles.
Beyond the gymnasium and library the ground slopes in a gentle terrace to a broad meadow, which, known as the Green, is the academy’s athletic field, and has two wooden stands in various stages of disrepair. Then comes the winding country road which leads to the village of Bevan Hills a half mile or more away.
Beechcroft is encompassed on three sides by parklike forest, in which the smooth gray boles of beech trees are everywhere visible. As yet their pale-yellow leaves still rustled on the branches, for in the Massachusetts hills the heavy frosts do not come until October at the earliest. To-day, a Wednesday in the last week of September, summer still held sway, and the thick woods were full of golden sunlight and green gloom.
When, having recovered from his mirth, Harry Folsom raised himself and looked out of the open window, he saw spread before him a sunlit vista of yellowing fields, with here and there a white farmhouse amid a green orchard. But the scene was a familiar one, and his gaze passed it by to the village road along which was rattling a barge filled with returning students.
“There’s a load of ’em coming around now,” announced Harry. “I think I saw Larry out front with the driver.”
“That’s where he would be naturally,” answered Bert, some of the despondency clearing from his face. “For years he’s been trying to get Gibbs to let him drive the nags. Some day he will do it, and somebody will get killed. I suppose Hansel was on that load; he wrote he was coming on the 4.12.”
“I guess I’ll have to stay and see this Fidus Achates of yours, Bert.”
“Fidus Achates!” exploded the other. “Fidus poppycock! I wish he was—was——”
“Careful, now!” cautioned Harry with a grin.