Читать книгу The Adventures of a Freshman - Jesse Lynch Williams - Страница 6

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There were very important reasons why this particular Freshman had made up his mind to do well at college. He had done very well at the High School out at home, and it was one of the best in all Illinois. But that was not the reason, nor had he graduated first in his class, indeed; one of the girls did, as usual, though, to be sure, Young had done outside studying with the minister and that was a handicap. He had a different sort of reason for wanting to do well, now he was here at last.

He could recall, as vividly as though it were yesterday, how his father looked the time he said: "And I tell you now, once and forever, I ain't going to spend my hard-earned money making a dude of any son of mine; and that's all I have to say about it. On the first of next month you're going to get to work in the bank; and you ought to be glad of it. Few farmers' sons have such chances."

Young remembered how sarcastic seemed his father's answer to the question, "Won't you just lend me the money, father? I'll pay it back with interest, in time?"

"Lend you money!—where's your collateral, hey?" and Mr. Young laughed.

"Then that is your final decision, father?"

"Final as I can make. If you go to college you pay your own way. Good-night. I guess that settles it."

Until this offer of the place in the bank came, just after Will's graduation from the High School, his father had only said, "What's the sense of going to college? You can't make any more money by it." And Will had quietly gone on with his Greek lessons, not doubting that his father would give his consent in the end. But now it was: "This is too good a chance to miss, Will—why, you'll soon make a rich man of yourself. Of course, you must take it. What's the use of having your father a director of the Farmers' National Bank, any way? You'll soon get over your fool notions. Charlie hasn't any fool notions about 'higher education.' He's my right-hand man on the farm." And the farm was one of the most prosperous in the county.

Will knew his father and said nothing more, and on July 1st took the place in the bank and began to work at $5 a week. But he did not get over his fool notions.

You see, ever since Young could remember, he had dreamed and planned about going to college, and what is more he had put in a great many hours of good, solid study with the minister during the past years preparing himself for it, and in consequence it was often 'way after the dark by the time he had driven out home and had finished his "chores." And he did not propose to let all that work count for nothing. He had made up his mind to get a university education.

It was out of the question now to study all summer and enter the next fall, but the minister told him he was still young; he could enter the following year.

"Your boy Will's catching on quicker than Henry Johnson or any of the young men that ever worked under me yet." That's what the cashier said to Mr. Young.

"That means he's getting over his fool notions," thought Mr. Young. Really it meant that he still had them. Will never mentioned the word college to his father again; and to those of his old friends who said, "Oh, so you aren't going East after all: why's that?" he merely replied in effect that that was his business, and bent over the ledger again.

He knew that most of the town was talking and laughing about him because from the time he first announced (with a somewhat superior air, perhaps) what he intended to do after leaving the High School, more than one of them thought, and said, that it was a queer idea for Will Young to go to college when he did not want to be a preacher or a professional man; not so very many boys went to college from that part of the country.

But Will did not worry about that very much. He did not have time. He was working every day in the bank from eight o'clock in the morning until five or six in the evening—until nine or ten at night, sometimes, on the first of the month—and was besides doing all the chores for Miss Wilkins, with whom he boarded. And that was not all the work he did, either. Those who passed by Miss Wilkins's house late at night generally noticed a light in the little third-story window long after all the other boarders' rooms were dark. And the nights he was not studying in his room he was reciting at the minister's.

It is no easy thing to save money on $5 a week, and pay board and buy clothes and incidentals out of it besides. That was the reason he did the chores for Miss Wilkins. He got his board for that, and he earned it.

Out of the first month's salary Will saved $10. Fifty per cent of earnings saved is not a bad proportion. Out of the second month's earnings he saved $25.

That may sound impossible, but you see they had raised his salary to $10 a week as they promised to do as soon as he had made himself worth it. Besides, Mr. Young was a director.

It was very slow and sometimes it seemed very discouraging, and he did not know how he could have succeeded if it had not been for the Sunday afternoon talks with his mother, who was with him from the start in the project; and for the minister, who used to say, "You seem to think a fellow must be a millionaire to go to college."

The minister had a frank, friendly unstilted manner of talking, that made some of the older people shake their heads and think him unclerical.

"Why, there are hundreds of fellows," the minister said, "paying their own way through every year, and if you can't do it I'm mistaken in you. That is one reason," the minister explained, "though not the most important one, why I advised you to go to a large college. There are so many more ways of earning money. There are more eating-clubs to be managed (and all the manager has to do is collect a tableful of congenial fellows and then he gets his own board free). There are more men that want tutoring at a large institution, and the price of tutoring is better, too—(a man in my class in the seminary used to get $3 an hour); and there are more newspapers to correspond for and shoe-stores and steam-laundries and railroads to act as agents for—why, there are any number of ways to earn money if you only look out for them. And, as I told you before, the college authorities will remit your tuition if you show that it is necessary and if," said the minister, smiling, "if you can give testimonials of high moral character. All you have to do this year is to make enough to get started on, and that's what you are rapidly doing."

One day after Will Young had been working in the bank for nearly a year his father burst into the kitchen. "Mother," he shouted to his wife, almost excitedly, "what do you think? Will is going to resign from the bank! I just now heard it in town."

"Yes," said Mrs. Young, gently, "I know."

"What does he mean by it! He has had his salary raised twice inside of a year. He'll be made assistant cashier soon. Why, the boy's a fool. Does he expect to get a better place up in Chicago?"

"No," said Mrs. Young. "He only went to Chicago on his vacation to take his examinations for college and——"

"For college! Chicago!"

"And to buy his clothes—yes, they hold the examinations all over the country." Then she went on, "You remember, father, you said Will could go if he earned his own money, and now——"

"When did I say that?" thundered Mr. Young; and then the storm broke. It was rather severe while it lasted, but it did not last as long as she had feared it would. Mr. Young was just, and he had to acknowledge, inwardly, that Will was right from his standpoint, though it was a sore disappointment: and he saw no reason why Will should be forgiven.

"We'll see how long you stay there," was what Mr. Young said in bidding Will good-by. He knew about how much his son had been able to save.

"All right, sir," said Will, feeling sorry his father would not give his approval even now. "Good-by, sir." And he glanced at his mother once more and then looked away again, and the train pulled out. A moment later he had a last, distant view of the straight white farmhouse, as the cars dashed by, and of the big red barn with white trimmings, and the wind-brake of tall, straight poplars, to the north, in even row, planted by his father's own hand before Will was born; he saw their tops waving in the breeze as they were cut off from view—and all that seemed years and years ago, though, in reality, it was only Monday, the day before yesterday, and here he was at last, actually at college and sitting in chapel listening to the President's kind words of welcome; and feeling somewhat important at being one of those particularly addressed by such a famous and learned man and feeling very proud at the thought that he was part of such an ancient and mighty seat of learning—and hoping that the small account he had opened at the Princeton Bank was going to tide him over till an opportunity for earning money turned up.

As he and his many classmates trooped forth into the sunny outdoors again some orange-and-black-bedecked Sophomores on the steps murmured, "right, left, right, left," in time to their footsteps, and then Will Young did not feel so proud and important.

But this big, green Freshman did not take off his hat to them as some of his classmates did. In fact his hat did not come off until the evening of the following day—and then not quite in the way you might expect.