CHAPTER II

NEW QUARTERS

Freeburg, Connecticut is like so many other New England towns that to describe it would be a waste of time. A central street, broad and elm-shaded; two blocks of modest buildings devoted to business; old-fashioned residences, generally white, with green blinds, set back from the thoroughfare; a few more modern and much smaller houses tucked around the corners on the side streets; churches, schools, a town hall, a library, a fire house; irritatingly detached from the village proper, a railroad station at which trains bound northward for Massachusetts and southward for New York pause on their way. Not all of them, either, for there are at least two hoity-toity trains that go straight through with only a careless, half-contemptuous shriek for the little town.

The one-seventeen from the south, however, wasn’t one of those. The one-seventeen slowed up cumbrously, sifting gray dust over Clif as he stood on the platform, and sighed pneumatically as it came to a halt. There were three parlor cars at the rear, and from these and the coaches ahead descended the first considerable contingent of Wyndhamites to a number close on a hundred. The late afternoon train would bring perhaps half as many more, others would come on the southbound express and not a few would arrive by automobile. By six o’clock there would be just short of two hundred of them at Wyndham, of which number two score or so would be junior school youngsters seeing Wyndham for the first time, round-eyed, shyly curious, a little bit homesick under a pathetic assumption of ease. Quite a few of these were already on the platform, alone or in charge of parents, clinging desperately to shriekingly new suit cases and staring avidly. The two school buses, new this fall and resplendent in dark blue paint and varnish, honked invitingly, free-lance taxis squawked, and the confusion grew. Up ahead trunks were being crashed and thumped desperately from baggage car to trucks. At the windows onward-bound passengers gazed down interestedly at the scene.

For several moments Clif thought Tom Kemble hadn’t come, and just when doubt was becoming certainty he spied him. It was, Clif reflected with an affectionate grin, just like Tom to be the last one out of his car and then to descend as though there was all the time in the world! Clif pushed his way across the platform and made a grab at a battered suit case. “Porter, sir? Porter?” he inquired. Tom saw him then, cried “Alphonse! Alphonse!” in a voice that turned many heads his way, dropped the suit case and a bag of golf clubs and threw his arm about Clif, bestowing a resounding smack on the latter’s left cheek. But when he would have planted a similar salute on the other cheek the other cheek was out of range.

“Tom, you blamed idiot!” fumed Clif. “Cut it out!”

“_Ah, mon cher ami!_” cried Tom, still clasping Clif tightly. “_Mon petit chou!_”

“Will you shut up?” cried Clif, struggling, amused but annoyed. “Don’t be an ass, Tom! Quit it, I tell you!”

Tom quit it, grinning. The custom of embracing and kissing between Frenchmen had made a great hit with Tom during his visit to Paris, and later he and Clif had amused themselves considerably in Switzerland by staging meetings in such public places as station platforms and hotel lobbies. “_Ah, mon cher Alphonse!_” Tom would ejaculate in tones of delighted surprise. “_Mon cher Armande!_” Clif would rejoin ecstatically. Then they would rush together, embrace and kiss, to the great amusement of Loring Deane and the scandalizing of Wattles, his attendant. Sometimes Tom followed with the rest of his French, declaring fervidly that the view was magnificent, asking Clif how he did and ending up with the seemingly unconnected announcement that his window looked into the garden.

Well, that sort of thing had been all right over there, away from home, where folks did pretty much as they pleased, anyhow; but being embraced and kissed on the station platform at Freeburg, Connecticut, U. S. A., was quite another proposition, and Clif looked distinctly uncomfortable as he pushed his way around the corner of the station, followed by the amused stares of his schoolfellows and the excited piping of a newly arrived junior who asked in a shrill voice: “Dad, did you see that boy kiss the other one?”

“You haven’t as much sense as――as I thought you didn’t have!” Clif declared irately as he tossed Tom’s suit case into a flivver. Tom chuckled and climbed in.

“_Aller, cocher! Vit, vit!_” he directed. The driver turned a slow, inquiring gaze upon him over a shoulder.

“How’s that? Ain’t you fellers for the school?”

“Yes,” answered Clif. “West Hall. Don’t mind this chap. He’s nutty.” He leaned back and smiled at the nutty one. “Well, how are you?”

“Never better,” replied Tom. “Say, what’s the colossal idea? Thought you were going to be at the junction, you rotter!”

Clif explained while the taxi bounded schoolwards, and Tom accepted the explanation with a shrug. “Huh,” he said. “All right, but you only got what was coming to you back there on the platform, old son. I owed you that!”

“Seen Loring?” asked Clif.

“No, there wasn’t time. He telephoned yesterday, though. Wanted me to come up with him, but I knew there’d be a crowd in the car. He’s bringing a couple of fellows along, and, of course, his folks and Wattles. Besides, you’d said you’d be at the junction, and there wasn’t any way of getting word to you.”

“That was sort of low down, my not keeping the date,” said Clif; “but I didn’t have the courage. Wasn’t it frightfully hot on the train?”

“Hot? It was awful! Say, any of the crowd back?”

“I haven’t seen any of them, but ‘G. G.’ says ‘Swede’s’ here. And Guy Owens. Some of them came up with you, didn’t they?”

“Four or five. Treader and Sim Jackson and two or three more. How’s Mr. Otis?”

“Hale and hearty. Looks like an Indian. All tanned up. Practice at three-thirty, so you’ll just have time to bathe and rest up a few minutes.”

Tom groaned. “Practice on a day like this? Is the man not so well in his mind, perhaps?”

“Says we can’t afford to miss a day, Tom. We’re out for big things this year. Going to clean up. Through the season without a defeat; that sort of thing, you know.”

“He say that?”

“We――ell, no; but he did say it would be worth trying. I think so, too. ‘Wyndham’s undefeated eleven!’ Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Say, what’s to keep us from making a stab at it?”

“Stab all you please,” grumbled Tom. “But we’ve got about as much chance to do it as――” He hesitated, lacking a simile, and was spared further effort by the arrival of the taxi in front of the dormitory.

Wyndham School is all under one roof, if we except the gymnasium. When Dr. John Wyatt Wyndham started the institution a quarter of a century ago it consisted of one building. Subsequently a larger hall was built to form an L, presenting a fine example of the tail wagging the dog. However, Wyndham School prospered exceedingly and not many seasons passed before the dog had two tails and the L had changed to an E, an E with the middle projection lacking. The old building is now but a connecting link between the new ones and is devoted entirely to recitation rooms. The original entrance remains facing a courtyard of sward and shrubbery and a graveled circle in which a sundial reigns, but it is no longer used. It is, in fact, of no more practical value than the sundial which, since it stands in shadow fully half of the day, owes its presence there solely to æsthetic principles.

The school stands well back from the streets, from the principal thoroughfare of the town, Oak Street, which runs along the western side of the grounds, and from Elm Street which lies to the south. From Elm Street one looks across a gently rising expanse of excellent turf, and over a long bed of scarlet sage and white cosmos, straight into the little courtyard. On the right is the front end of East Hall, on the left the corresponding elevation of West. The old building is known now as Middle Hall. But one doesn’t approach from our present point of view. Instead, a curving drive, shaded by a double row of maples, leads from the junction of the two streets. Here a pair of stone posts, surmounted by globular lights, indicates the way. Up this graveled drive the rattling flivver had sped, to stop, as is the manner of such vehicles, with disconcerting suddenness, in front of the first pair of wide stone steps.

Clif and Tom struggled out, Tom paid the driver――adding a ten-cent tip and the seemingly irrelevant statement, “_Ma fenêtre donne sur le jardin_”――and they went up the steps, occupied by several hesitant youths and a number of bags, and entered West Hall.

“Welcome home,” murmured Clif.

Tom grinned and led the way to the slate stairway beyond the empty reception room. Across the wide corridor was the recreation room, its great stone fireplace offering no appeal to-day. Leather-cushioned couches and easy chairs, a massive table and many smaller ones stood about on the warm-hued carpet. Back of the recreation room was the library. Then, opening from the latter, was the reading room. Across the corridor the corresponding space was occupied by the office. At the far end of the corridor a wide entrance, at present barred by heavy oaken doors, admitted to the dining hall.

“Well, at that,” remarked Tom above the clatter of his shoes on the stone treads, “getting back doesn’t seem so bad, Clif.”

“Bad? I’ll say it doesn’t! I was tickled to death to get here. Say, Number 40 is all right, Tom. You see for a thousand miles from the rear window!”

“_Le coup d’oeil est magnifique_,” agreed Tom.

They climbed two flights to reach Number 40, passed a dozen other rooms, turned finally to the left and were there. Tom slid his bag along the floor, Clif tossed the golf clubs onto a bed and they sank into chairs to mop their faces and inspect the new quarters. Clif had already taken possession of his half――first arrival had given him choice of sides――and his brushes and comb and soap box and other gimcracks were neatly arranged on the fresh white cover atop his chiffonier. There were two framed portraits there, besides; one of his mother, long since dead, and one of his father. Tom noted and sighed.

“I’ve got to unpack, too,” he murmured. “The trunk won’t be along before practice, though.” He slipped out of his coat and unfastened his tie. “Say, I’ll tell you one thing, old timer; having two window seats is going to be expensive.”

“Yes, I thought of that,” said Clif. “But they’re worth it. Each of us has his own, you see.”

“Yes, but which is mine?” asked Tom suspiciously.

“Well, I selected this side of the room,” replied Clif carelessly, “so I suppose you take the window seat nearest your bed.”

“Sounds all right,” muttered the other; “but I’ll bet there’s a catch to it somewhere!” He studied the situation frowningly. Then: “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed sarcastically, “I get the north window, eh? Fine in winter, what?”

Clif laughed. “Not so good in winter, Thomas; but think of the long, dreamy days of spring! And look at it to-day. Your window’s nice and shady and has a breeze――”

“Breeze!” protested Tom.

“――While mine’s got the sun full on it. You see, don’t you? You know I wouldn’t take advantage of you, old thing.”

“No, you wouldn’t! What time is it? I’m going to have a ger-lorious shower right now! Say, did you get the stuff out of the storeroom?”

“I did, sir. Everything’s attended to. You’ll find your togs hanging in your closet, your shoes on the shelf――By the way, Tom, I hate to tell you, but you need a new pair of brogans.”

“Heck, do I? Life’s just one expense after another! All right. Got a towel? Mine are in the trunk. Thanks. Where’s your bath robe?”

“In my closet. Any other little thing you need? Soap――sponge――wash cloth――”

“Yeah, soap. Toss it to me. Atta boy. See you in five minutes, Clif.”

The five minutes were nearer ten, and then Tom reappeared looking considerably refreshed, and, sketchily swathed in Clif’s bath robe, stretched himself on the bed. “You said you had a talk with ‘G. G.,’ Clif,” he prompted. “What did he have to say?”

“Well, for one thing, he said he wanted me to try playing tackle.”

“Tackle! Tackle? My sainted Aunt Jerusha! What for?”

“Says we need tackles more than ends. Raiford’s not coming back, he says.”

“Well, what of it? He wasn’t such a much, was he? Think you can do it?”

“I don’t know, Tom. I told him I’d have a try at it, of course. I suppose I can learn, eh?”

“Why, yes, you can learn; but, heck, I don’t savvy the idea at all! You’re a thundering good end, Clif, and you mightn’t be a good tackle; not an awfully good one, I mean. You don’t suppose ‘G. G.’ has been exposed to the sun, eh?”

“Well, I don’t have to keep on at it if I don’t show the goods.”

“No.” Tom sought a new position and kicked one muscular leg free of the robe. “No, of course not. Oh, I guess you’ll make good at it. You generally manage to deliver. And with me to help you――Say, he didn’t happen to suggest making me into a guard or a center or anything, did he?”

“Well, he said he had been considering it, but he guessed it wouldn’t be possible to make you into anything, and so he’s going to let you tag along behind the team as usual.”

“Is that so? Don’t get fresh, young feller. I suppose Joe Whitemill will be back. Of course _he_ couldn’t be the one to quit school. Just the same, he wasn’t going so frightfully well toward the end of last year, and I’m out to beat that guy!”

“I think you will, Tom. By the way, how’s your father? I meant to ask before.”

“Top-hole, Clif. He’s on his way to the coast this minute. He’s got some sort of a deal on with some folks out there who make oil; refine it, I mean. If it goes through he will be off to England next month and I suppose I won’t see him for a whale of a time. I tried to argue him out of starting in business again. You know he’s been out of it ever since the War. But he says we need the money; says having a son is a bit expensive. Heck, I don’t cost him much. Still, there’ll be college after next year, and college educations do cost, I suppose.”

“I’ll bet it broke your heart to let him make that trip alone,” laughed Clif. “Or has the wanderlust left you since you got back from abroad?”

“No, that little trip just sort of whetted my appetite,” answered Tom. “Never mind, though. Summer will be around again before you know it, and I’m going to make dad take me to China.”

“China? For Pete’s sake, why China?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why not China? For one thing, I want to see how they make it.”

“Make what?” asked Clif.

“China.”

Clif launched himself on the other and several moments of rough-house followed, during which Tom managed to become so involved with the bath robe that he was eventually helpless. Clif applied punishment and resumed his seat, considerably warmed up, while Tom, with disgusted grunts and mutters, untangled himself.

Tom was an extremely good-looking chap, with rather extraordinary gray eyes, hair that came close to the copper tone and a skin that in spite of its warm tan was remarkably clear. His chin was a wee bit aggressive, but it went well with a short, straight nose and a good-tempered mouth. He was a little heavier than Clif, while lacking an inch or so of height; but he invariably carried himself with such military erectness that it would have occurred to none that any advantage of height belonged to his companion. The two had known each other for just a year and in that time had become warm friends. Tom was seventeen years of age, and so was Clif, but Tom would see eighteen some six months before the other.

Clif Bingham――Clifton Cobb Bingham, to give him his full name――was a bit more slender than Tom, in spite of those added seven pounds of whose presence he had assured Mr. Otis, and had a wide-awake, alert appearance not so noticeable in the other. If you wouldn’t have thought of calling him very good-looking, at least you would have conceded an attractiveness of expression that answered fully as well. You would have liked the way his face lighted up when he smiled, and you’d have liked the smile particularly. It had made lots of friends for Clif. Both he and Tom were in the second class this year, a fact which had been of assistance to them in securing as good a room as Number 40.

Corner rooms were ever in demand at Wyndham, and the new occupants of Number 40 considered themselves fortunate. Of course it was rather a nuisance to have to climb two flights of particularly hard stairs――slate held an advantage from the point of view of the builder whose thoughts were on fireproof construction, but it was rather deadly on the feet!――but the view made up for that. From the north window you had, as Clif had announced, a wide view of fields and hills near at hand and of the blue peaks and slopes of the Berkshires in the distance. From the west casement you could look across the side lawn and between the already yellowing maples that lined the road to a sloping meadow recently slashed by a new street along which, here and there, tiny and not unattractive two-story colonial houses were appearing. Beyond, topping the long hill, was a farm; the big red barn and the more humble white house, elm-shaded, just poked their roofs over the summit. By craning your neck a bit you could look toward the village proper, and at almost any time of the day or evening you could watch the automobiles whizz past. Sometimes they didn’t whizz. Infrequently one lessened its speed at sight of the ivy-clad buildings and curious occupants stared forth and debated whether what they beheld was a school or a hospital or――who knew?――an insane asylum!

All the rooms, whether in East Hall, most of which was devoted to the Junior School, or in West, were much the same in size and shape, and Number 40 was consequently not very different from Number 34, in which Tom had resided last year, or from Number 17, which had been Clif’s. It was sixteen feet the longest way and fourteen the other. On each side of the door, accounting for the little passage beyond it, was a good-sized closet. Along the right wall were the two single beds, jutting halfway into the room, two slim chiffoniers and a straight-backed chair. The space between the foot of the beds and the opposite wall was rather thoroughly taken up by a study table, four chairs, two window seats and a radiator. Underfoot was a brown linoleum and on that rested three grayish rugs with blue borders. Brown was the prevailing color of the room, for the furniture was brown oak――or what passes for oak these days――and the walls were tinted a lighter shade of the same color. It was all extremely harmonious, as Tom remarked, but he favored “jazzing it up a bit” with a few touches of color. He suggested red silk curtains for the windows, but Clif was of the opinion that faculty didn’t allow one to recurtain――the present draperies were, of course, brown――and prevailed on Tom to confine the color to the pillows on the window seats and such wall decorations as the rules permitted.

“You’ve got a couple of pillows somewhere, haven’t you?” he asked.

Tom suddenly sat up with an exclamation of dismay. “Why, heck!” he cried. “I forgot to pack ’em! They’re over in 34 and I’ll have an awful time making Billy give ’em up.”

Clif chuckled. “I’ll say you will; and Billy’s too big to lick! Never mind, I’m going to buy a couple I saw in the village this noon. Not half bad, although I don’t believe the stuff inside them ever grew on a chicken. It felt more like cotton batting.”

“What good will your pillows do me?” demanded Tom. “Can’t keep shifting ’em from one window to t’other! I’ll just have to go over some time when Billy’s out of the room and get mine.”

“Who’s he got in with him this year?” asked Clif.

“Jeff Ogden. And if he gets to sprawling his old carcass on those pillows they won’t be anything but pancakes! Say, what time is it?”

Well, it was time to get into old canvas pants and blue jerseys and scuffed shoes and head for the football field, and Tom pulled himself off the bed with a deep sigh of resignation.