An old-fashioned school of one hundred and fifty students seated at rows of desks, the boys on one side of the room, the girls on the other. The principal sat at one end, surrounded by blackboards. Gray found a seat for John at the back of the room, out of the range of curious eyes, and he sat there and watched and listened—wonderingly.
The classes went up and recited one by one or demonstrated mathematical problems on the blackboards. John heard with amazement youngsters answer questions which he could not comprehend at all, and yet he noticed that their faces were care-free and happy, as if they had never known what trouble was. The faces he knew, young and old, bore distinctly the traces of care and hardship. He was intensely interested and enjoyed the whole session keenly.
When noon came, Gray approached, as he thought, to return to the hotel with, him, but to his surprise he was marched up to the principal's desk and introduced to Professor Marston. John was awe-stricken, but the principal knew boys thoroughly, and soon put him at his ease.
"Will you come with us?" asked Mr. Marston after a while.
"I wanted to, but I guess not now." Somehow John's resolve seemed rather foolish in the presence of this kindly faced man with the high forehead.
"Why? What is the trouble?"
"Oh, I changed my mind."
"What's your reason?" persisted the professor. "You don't look like a fellow who changes his mind with every wind."
His manner was so kindly, his interest so evident, that John let go his reserve and told of his ambitions and hopes and then of the futility, as he thought, of a fellow at his age beginning at the very lowest rung of the ladder when boys much younger than he were so far advanced. This applied not only to actual schooling but to all the little things wherein he saw he was different from these town-dwelling youngsters.