Chapter 10 A VISITOR

The boys both hastily leaped to the ground and the old farmer quickly spoke to his team and started on, leaving his recent passengers in such a frame of mind that they even forgot to thank him for his courtesy and kindness. As the wagon drove off, Will fancied that he heard a sly chuckle from the driver but he had disappeared around the bend in the road before the young freshman recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to speak of it.

"That old chap wasn't such a fool after all," said Mott glumly.

"That's what he wasn't," responded Will beginning to laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" demanded Mott sharply.

"At ourselves."

"I don't see the joke."

"Might as well laugh as cry."

"You'll sing another song before you're back in Winthrop to-night. Ten miles isn't any laughing matter after we've tramped as far as we have to-day."

"But it'll help us for our track meet," suggested Will, laughing again.

"Bother the track meet!"

"It'll help our longevity then. I've always heard that walking was the best exercise."

"The old fellow was foxy. He never said a word but just let us talk on. I'd give a dollar to hear his account of it when he gets home."

"Cheap enough. But say, Mott, have we got to tramp all the way back to Winthrop?"

"Looks that way."

"Can't we get a car here somewhere?"

"Hardly. We might try it at that farmhouse over yonder," replied Mott pointing toward a low house not far away as he spoke.

"Come ahead! Let's try it anyway," suggested Will eagerly.

The boys at once hastened to the place, and after a brief delay succeeded in summoning the young farmer who lived there. They made their wishes known, but in response the man said, "Can't do it anyhow. My wife's sick and I'm goin' for the doctor now."

"Where is he?" demanded Will eagerly.

"Over at the Junction."

Will knew where the Junction was, a little hamlet about seven miles from Winthrop. How far it was distant from the place where he then was, however, he had no idea. It was easy to ascertain, and in response to his question the farmer explained that it was "about three mile."

"You might take us there, then," said Will quickly. "I don't know just how the trains run for Winthrop, but it'll be three miles nearer anyway."

"Yes, I'll be glad to take you there."

"How much are you going to charge us?" demanded Mott who did not plan to be caught again by the "guilelessness" of any of the people of the region."Oh, I sha'n't charge ye anything. Glad t' do ye the favor," responded the farmer heartily.

In a brief time his car was ready, and, acting upon his suggestion, the boys at once took their places on the seat, and the driver soon was briskly speeding down the roadway.

Conversation lagged, for the boys were somewhat wearied by their long tramp and the young farmer was silent, doubtless anxious over the illness in his home. When a brief time had elapsed he deposited the boys on the platform of the little station at the Junction, and again declining any offer on their part to pay for the service he had rendered them at once departed in his search for the physician.

Approaching the little window in the ticket office Mott inquired, "What's the next train we can get for Winthrop?"

"No more trains to-night," responded the man without looking up from the noisy clicker over which he was bending.

"No more trains?"

"That's what I said. The last one passed here fifteen minutes ago."

"Isn't there any way we can get there?"

"I s'pose there is."

"What is it?" demanded Mott eagerly.

"Walk."

"How far is it?"

"Seven miles."

"And there's no other way?"

"You won't be the first that have counted the ties between Junction and Winthrop.""Isn't there a freight train that comes along pretty soon?" inquired Will.

"There's one that's due in 'bout an hour. But you never can depend on it. It may be here in an hour and it may be three hours. You never can tell."

"What shall we do, Phelps?" inquired Mott, turning sharply to his companion.

"I don't care much, but I believe it would be better for us to start. It isn't so very far and besides it'll be good for our longevity and help us for the meet."

There was an exclamation of anger from Mott who doubtless had become somewhat sensitive to the frequent references to his favorite expression of the day, but he made no protest and the two boys at once started up the track. Both were hungry and weary but the distance must be traversed, and there was no time or breath to waste in complaining. Steadily they trudged onward, the monotony of the walk increased by the deepening darkness. They had been gone from the station only about an hour when the shrill screech of the whistle from a locomotive approaching from behind them was heard, and in a few minutes the long and noisy freight train thundered past them.

Mott was almost beside himself with rage as he watched the passing cars and heaped all manner of maledictions upon the head of the station agent, who, he declared, must have known the train was coming, and with malice aforethought had withheld his knowledge and advised the boys to walk. "Everybody was against the college boys," he declared, "and looked upon it as legitimate to take advantage of them in every possible manner." But Will only laughed in response and made no protests though he was as thoroughly wearied as his companion.

At last the lights of the college could be seen and shortly after ten o'clock they arrived at their dormitory. "We'll remember this walk, I take it," said Mott glumly as he turned toward his room.

"We certainly shall," replied Will. "The 'longevity' of that old farmer was something wonderful."

"Bother his longevity!" exclaimed Mott as he turned quickly away.

Left to himself Will slowly climbed the stairs until he arrived at his own room, but as he was about to enter he suddenly stopped and listened intently to the sound of voices within. Surely he knew that voice, he thought, and in an instant opened the door and burst into the room.

Seated in the easy-chair was his father. Instantly Will's weariness was forgotten and with a shout he rushed upon his visitor throwing his arm about his neck and laughing in a way that may have served to keep down a stronger emotion.

"How long have you been here?" he demanded. "Where's mother? When did you come? How's everybody at home? Anything wrong? My, but I'm glad to see you! How long are you going to stay?"

The questions and exclamations fell from Will's lips in such confusion that it was impossible to reply and even Foster who was in the room joined in the laugh with which his room-mate's excitement was greeted."Not too fast, Will," laughed his father. "I had to come near here on business and I thought it would be a good thing to stop at Winthrop over night and have a little visit with my boy. I didn't know that I should be able to have one," he added smilingly, "for he wasn't anywhere to be found."

"I'm sorry! I wish I'd known it. I've been out for a walk with Mott. And we certainly have had one!" he added as he recounted some of the experiences of the afternoon.

His recital was greeted with laughter and even Will himself could enjoy it now that it was all past and he was once more safe in his room. For an hour Mr. Phelps remained in the room listening to the tales of the boys of their new life in the college, laughing as he heard of their pranks, and deeply interested in all they had to relate. At last when he arose to go to his room in the village hotel, he promised to come and attend church in the morning with the boys and then explained that he would have two hours to spend with Will on the morning following as his train did not leave until half-past ten.

"But I have a recitation the first hour," said Will blankly. "I'll 'cut' it, though, for it isn't every day one has his daddy with him, and I wouldn't lose a minute of your time here, pop, for ten hours with old Splinter. I have Greek, you know, the first hour in the morning. Oh, I've got 'cuts' to burn," he added hastily as an unspoken protest appeared in the expression on his father's face. "You needn't worry about that."

"I don't want you to lose any recitation because I am here," said his father quietly. "I sha'n't want to come again if my coming interferes with your work, and as it is I have serious doubts-"

"All right, pop," replied Will patting his father affectionately on the shoulder. "I'll go to Splinter's class, though I know he'll 'go for' me too. I won't do a thing that'll ever keep you from showing up here in Winthrop again."

On Monday morning after the exercises in the chapel, Mr. Phelps went to Will's room and waited till the hour should pass and the eager-hearted boy should return. As the great clock in the tower rang out the hour he arose and stood in front of the window peering out across the campus at the building where Will was at work, but the stroke had scarcely ceased before he beheld the lad run swiftly down the steps and speed along the pathway toward his room as if he were running for a prize. The expression in the man's eyes was soft and there was also a suspicious moisture in them as well as he watched his boy. Was it only a dream or reality? Only a few short years ago and he had been an eager-hearted boy speeding over the same pathway (he smiled as he thought how the "speed" was never displayed on his way to the recitation building), and now it was his own boy who was sharing in the life of old Winthrop and doubtless he himself was in the minds of the young students relegated to that remote and distant period when the "old grads" were supposed to be young. Doubtless to them it was a time as remote as that when Homer's heroes contended in battle or the fauns and satyrs peopled the wooded hills and plains. And yet how vital it all was to him. He watched the groups of students moving across the campus, and as the sound of their shouts or laughter or the words of some song rose on the autumn air, it seemed to the man that he needed only to close his eyes and the old life would return-a life so like the present that it did not seem possible that a great gulf of thirty years lay between.

Mr. Phelps' meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Will, who burst into the room with the force of a small whirlwind.

"Here I am, pop!" he exclaimed as he tossed his books upon his couch and threw his cap to the opposite side of the room. "Old Splinter stuck me good this morning, but I can stand it as long as you are here."

"Who is Splinter?"

"Why, don't you know? I thought everybody knew Splinter. He's our professor of Greek and the biggest fraud in the whole faculty."

"What's the trouble with him?" Mr. Phelps spoke quietly but there was something in his voice that betrayed a deeper feeling and one that Will was quick to perceive and that gave him a twinge of uneasiness as well.

"Oh, he's hard as nails. He must have 'ichor' in his veins, not blood. I don't believe he ever was a boy. He must have been like Pallas Athen?. Wasn't she the lady that sprang full-fledged from the brain of Zeus? Well, I've a notion that Splinter yelled in Greek when he was a baby. That is, if he ever was an infant, and called for his bottle in dactylic hexameter. Oh, I know lots about Greek, pop," laughed Will as his father smiled. "I know the alphabet and a whole lot of things even if Splinter thinks I don't."

"Doesn't he think you know much about your Greek?"

"Well, he doesn't seem to be overburdened with the weight of his opinion of me. He just looks upon me, I'm afraid, as if I was not a bright and shining light. 'Learn Greek or grow up in ignorance,' that's the burden of his song, and I've sometimes thought that about all the fun he has in life is flunking freshmen."

"How about the freshmen?"

"You mean me? Honestly, pop, I haven't done very well in my Greek; but I don't think it's all my fault. I've worked on it as I haven't worked on anything else in college. I've done my part, but Splinter doesn't seem to believe it. What am I going to do about it?"

Will in spite of his light-hearted ways, was seriously troubled and his father was silent for a brief time before he responded to the boy's question.

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