Part 19 (2/2)
”Can you give me any suggestions how to do better work, professor?”
inquired Will mildly.
”My advice to you is to secure Mr. Franklin of the present junior cla.s.s to tutor you for a time.”
”Thank you. I'll try to see him to-night,” said Will rising and preparing to depart.
”That might be wise. I trust you will call upon me again, Mr. Phelps. I have enjoyed this call exceedingly. You will not misunderstand me if I say I had slight knowledge of your cla.s.sic tastes before, and I am sure that I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Phelps. I do indeed.”
”Thank you,” replied Will respectfully, and he then departed from the house. He was divided between a feeling of keen disappointment and a desire to laugh as he walked up the street toward his dormitory. And this was the man who was to stimulate his intellectual processes! In his thoughts he contrasted him with his professor in Latin, and the man as well as the language sank lower and lower in his estimation. And yet he must meet it. The problem might be solved but could not be evaded. He would see Franklin at once, he decided.
CHAPTER XV
A REVERSED DECISION
In the days that immediately followed, Will Phelps found himself so busy that there was but little time afforded for the pleasures of comrades.h.i.+p or for the lighter side of college life. Acting upon the one good point in the advice of his professor of Greek he secured a tutor, and though he found but little pleasure in the study, still he gave himself to it so unreservedly that when a few weeks had elapsed, a new light, dim somewhat, it was true, and by no means altogether cheering, began to appear upon his pathway. It was so much more difficult to catch up than to keep up, and perhaps this was the very lesson which Will Phelps needed most of all to learn. There was not much time given to recreation now, and Will acting upon the advice of the instructor in athletics had abandoned his projected practice in running though his determination to try to secure a place on the track team was as strong as ever. But he had subst.i.tuted for the running a line of work in the gymnasium which tended to develop the muscles in his legs and keep his general bodily condition in good form. He was informed that success in running was based upon nerve force as well as upon muscular power, and that ”early to bed” was almost as much a requisite here as it was in making a man ”healthy and wealthy and wise.” This condition however he found it exceedingly difficult to fulfill, for the additional work he was doing in Greek made a severe draught upon his time as well as upon his energies.
”I hate the stuff!” he declared one night to his room-mate after he had spent several hours in an almost vain effort to fasten certain rules in his mind. ”You don't catch me taking it after this year.”
”You don't have to look ahead, Will,” suggested Foster kindly.
”No, the look behind is bad enough. If I had worked in the early part of the high-school course as I ought to I'd not be having all this bother now.”
”And if you work now you won't have the trouble ahead,” laughed Foster.
”I suppose that's the way of it.”
”Of course it is. A fellow reaps what he sows.”
”I'd rather _rip_ what I sewed,” said Will ruefully. ”Do you know, Foster, sometimes I think the game isn't worth the candle. I'd give it all up, even if I had to leave college, if it wasn't for my father.”
”You wouldn't do anything of the kind and you know it, Will Phelps!
You're not the fellow to run when the pinch comes.”
”I'd like to, though,” said Will thoughtfully. ”My fit in Greek was so poor I'll never get much of the good from studying it.”
”You'll be all the stronger for not giving up, anyway.”
”That's the only thing that keeps me at it. I'm so busy I don't even have time to be homesick.”
”Well, that's one good thing.”
”Perhaps it is, but if I flunk out at the mid-year's--”
”You won't if you only keep it up and keep at it.”
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