While I was reflecting upon these things the Doctor had finished his rebuke to the tardy boy and left the room. Others came and went. The boys’ faces were all familiar, and my heart brimmed over with delight as I recognized those whom, in my dream of college and business, I had thought of as sober, work-a-day men. Here was the round-eyed, mischievous fellow whom I had fancied to be a learned physician; another, a librarian; a third, a student and teacher of German, but now, bereft of whiskers and bass voice, once more a boy, and the scapegrace of the class. Then there were the teachers. One, whose fair, scholarly face I had never expected to see again on this earth, was busily explaining a Latin exercise to the class, with the aid of several old vellum-bound books he had brought from his own private library. Another bustled in with a carpetbag and a hearty, cheery air; compared the school clock with his watch (of whose almost superhuman accuracy we boys always stood in awe), and heard us recite in French. This lesson passed off with a briskness and good will that waked us all up as if we had been out in the fresh air, and left us keen for the next study. Meanwhile I caught glimpses of other teachers, all more or less associated with the dearest and best days of my life. There was he who once invited us all out to skate on his pond, in the country; who knew how to be stern with wrong-doers, but who was known to stay late in the afternoon, day after day, to hear a sick boy recite lessons in his home, that the little fellow might not fall behind his class, and so lose a possible chance for a prize. In my after-dream, his hair had been threaded with gray; but now it was brown, as I remembered it of old. Still another was a young man whose even-handed justice—“squareness,” we used to call it—was proverbial among my schoolmates. I had heard that his own son had since grown old enough to pass through college most honorably, and that he himself had taken the place of the grim Doctor in some strange air-castle of a new schoolhouse, far from its former site. Now I realized that I was back in the old days, and laughed to myself so loud that nothing but a disingenuous cough, into which I dexterously turned my mirth, saved me a mark for misconduct.
But now the room was hushed, as the master addressed us in quiet, earnest tones. He was bidding us good-bye for a few days, and ended by wishing us all a Merry Christmas.
Bless me, how we did throng around the desk on our way out, and return his hearty greeting! In spite of my sense of the reality of the whole scene, I could not dispel a strange foreboding that I was saying farewell to school and master forever. The twilight shadows of the short winter afternoon—it was storming furiously now, and had grown quite dark within doors—gathered about the old man’s form as he sat there shaking hands with one after the other, his eyes twinkling in their deep sockets, and meeting with kindly glance the fresh young boy faces around him. In a moment more this was all forgotten, for we had reached the street, and were rioting about in the snow as only boys let out from school for a week’s vacation can do. How we did assail policemen and wagon-drivers and pretty girls, to be sure! These last were on their way home from school, too, and many were the laughing glances and shy smiles that were flung us in return for our harmless pats of snow.
Full of the merriment of the day, although not yet aware that it was really Christmas Eve, I made my way up to Boylston Market, which was completely transfigured from a rather jail-like and dreary receptacle for unpleasantly red shoulders of mutton and beef, to a wonderland of evergreen and holly; it had not yet given place to a great dry-goods emporium. Here I saw my former teachers—God bless them, every one!—approach in a group, very much like boys themselves, for the time, and select various wreaths and bunches of green for home. I touched my “B. L. S.” cap respectfully as they passed, but a flurry of snow came between and they did not see me. I stretched out my hand to them, but they were gone. Again the aching sense of loss, the dread of finding that I was in the midst of unrealities came over me, and I shivered from head to foot. Pulling my cap low over my ears, I hurried back to Bedford Street. Alas! my worst fears were realized. The old schoolhouse was gone. Strange faces stared at me through the darkening storm. I leaned against the black iron fence, which still remained, and hid my face in my hands. As I did so, the wind moaned drearily overhead, and I heard the snow and sleet drifting against—what? My own window-panes!
Yes, the dream was truth, and the truth was a dream. I shivered again, in my easy chair, felt of my beard, stretched myself and rose stiffly to my feet. The fire had burned low, had fallen in entirely between the andirons, and the room was growing more chilly. I took some good birch sticks from the wood-box, encouraged them with a handful of dry cones, and, as they threw out their cheerful warmth, I became more and more content to remain a man, and leave my boyish days tied up, like old letters, in an out-of-the-way corner where I could take them out and live them over again at will.
