Part 12 (2/2)

On the night of Easter Monday, Neale was bent over his desk with a green eye-shade, trying various combinations to solve a problem in a.n.a.lytical geometry, when his father knocked at the door, walked in and sat down on the bed. This was so remarkable that Neale knew something was up. One of the things that Neale had always taken for granted in his home-life was that his room was practically inviolate when he was in it. His father and his mother respected his privacy in this as in other things with scrupulous exact.i.tude. It was a little corner of the world which was his, where he could come out from his tightly-clutched sh.e.l.l, and move about freely with no fear of intruders spying on his nakedness. The security of this privacy had been one of the well-squared stones Neale had found ready to his hand, when slowly, rather later than most boys, he began to build. Hence it was now apparent to him that Father must have something on his chest. He looked up, nodded and greeted him with, ”h.e.l.lo, Dad.”

”h.e.l.lo, Neale,” said Father quite as casually. ”Don't want to interrupt your studies. How late do you expect to keep at them?”

”Sometime between eleven and twelve, I guess. His Nibs gave us some stinkers, and I haven't touched the German prose yet.”

”That would be pretty late for me. We'd better take a few minutes now.

The fact is, Neale, we mustn't let you slide along any more without some sort of an idea what you are going to do next.”

Neale having no idea beyond that night's work, said nothing.

”The work you're doing this year has given your mother and me a great deal of pleasure,” Father went on. ”Your marks are getting better and better. I did think of putting you through an engineering school, but I notice you seem to do better at the liberal subjects. Have you set your heart on any college in particular?”

”I'm not sure I want to go to any college.”

Oh, now for a break into the Open Road, and a flaming neckerchief and far lands!

Mr. Crittenden looked thoughtful.

”I'll admit it's a waste of time for some, but I don't think it would be for you. I understand your wish to get to work, and begin to make your own way, but it's wiser not to start with too little preparation. And there's no need for it yet. It's no hards.h.i.+p for me. It's a real pleasure for us to be able to help you to an education....”

Neale chewed his pen hard. How hard it was to have things out with a father! When a man takes it for granted that if you don't want to go to college you must want to be a bank-clerk or sell shoes, how are you to make him understand anything about Freedom and the Open Road and Comrades.h.i.+p and Vagabondia, distant countries and s.h.i.+ps that smell of tar and salt like the wharves. How could a man in a three-b.u.t.ton, pepper-and-salt cut-away understand? A man who wore a derby hat and went to his office in the city every day? And Father was getting fat, too, the three-b.u.t.ton cut-away was heavily rounded. No--all that was in another world. There weren't any words to express any of it to a Father.

So he said nothing, jabbing his pen into the blotting paper. Presently Father went on, ”Of course, I should like to have you go to my old college, Williams, but Mother feels--we both feel--that it would be a pity to break up the family circle. What would you think of Columbia?

They say since it has moved up to Morningside Heights there is more college life--and of course it's one of the leading Universities....”

Another pause, so long that Neale felt bound to say something.

”Oh, I guess I would like Columbia as well as any,” he finally brought out.

Father looked at him several minutes. Then he stood up, ”We needn't settle it to-night, of course. Think it over; we'll talk it over again.”

But of course they never did. They never talked anything over. The subject was not raised again. Nevertheless it was somehow understood in the family that Neale was going to enter Columbia. And Neale made no protest. To tell the truth, as spring advanced and all his cla.s.smates began talking over their plans for next year, the uniformity of having a recognized respectable destination was not disagreeable. It saved talk, and useless talk about his affairs was one of the things Neale detested.

Till he could be really independent and do as he liked without suffering the ignominy of having people know about it and talk him over, it might be better just to slide along the grooves provided, get the usual labels stuck on you. It couldn't do you any harm. They'd soak off easy enough, later on.

CHAPTER XV

With June came examinations at Hadley. Long, long experience and concentration on the subject had taught Hadley administrators exactly how to time their training so that when examinations came, the boys would be in the pink of condition. Two weeks later they would be stale, horribly, sickeningly stale, but n.o.body at Hadley cared a continental what happened two weeks after examinations. That was no business of theirs. Weary, but still docilely answering the crack of the ring-master's questions, the thoroughly disciplined Troupe of Trained Boys went through subject after subject, with the automatic rear and plunge of circus-riders breaking paper hoops. That was all right. Those were only the Hadley examinations. They expected to be able to pa.s.s those.

But now for the College Entrance examinations, the Apollyon which from afar their professors at Hadley had pointed out to them, straddling over all their roads, belching out brimstone-fire on all who tried to pa.s.s.

With much trepidation hidden under his usual decent impa.s.sivity, Neale journeyed up to take his first examinations at Columbia. He was glad that the first chanced to be in history. That was one of his good subjects. He stood a better chance there. With a careful air of carelessness, he went up to the proctor's desk, took one off the pile of the printed examination sheets, and with it in his hand, not entirely steady, he went back to his seat. Safe from observation there, he laid it before him and his eyes leaping to know the worst, took in the first three questions at one glance. Holy Smoke! Was this all? Was it for this he had sweat blood! There was an outline map of the United States, with a request to mark on it the location of such idiotically well-known places as Acadia, Pittsburgh, New Orleans. There was ”_French and Indian Wars. State causes immediate and remote._” There was, ”_What do you consider to be the relation between the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War? Justify your opinion in 500 words._”

Neale leaned back in his chair faint with relief. Why, he could eat it up like candy. And he ate it up like candy; emerging from it, his head in the air and the world at his feet. This aspect caused him to be chastened by a gang of Soph.o.m.ores who played hare and hounds with him (he was the hare), through Riverside Park from 120th to 81st Street, where his long legs finally distanced them.

The other examinations were of the same sort, exactly the same sort, of a childish facility compared to anything the Hadley professors had described. Why--it came to Neale with a shock--why, the Hadley purpose had not been to enable them to pa.s.s the exams,--it had been to use Hadley boys to exalt the name of Hadley throughout the collegiate world!

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