________________________________________________
_ Claude waited for his elders to change their mind about where he
should go to school; but no one seemed much concerned, not even
his mother.
Two years ago, the young man whom Mrs. Wheeler called "Brother
Weldon" had come out from Lincoln, preaching in little towns and
country churches, and recruiting students for the institution at
which he taught in the winter. He had convinced Mrs. Wheeler that
his college was the safest possible place for a boy who was
leaving home for the first time.
Claude's mother was not discriminating about preachers. She
believed them all chosen and sanctified, and was never happier
than when she had one in the house to cook for and wait upon. She
made young Mr. Weldon so comfortable that he remained under her
roof for several weeks, occupying the spare room, where he spent
the mornings in study and meditation. He appeared regularly at
mealtime to ask a blessing upon the food and to sit with devout,
downcast eyes while the chicken was being dismembered. His
top-shaped head hung a little to one side, the thin hair was
parted precisely over his high forehead and brushed in little
ripples. He was soft spoken and apologetic in manner and took up
as little room as possible. His meekness amused Mr. Wheeler, who
liked to ply him with food and never failed to ask him gravely
"what part of the chicken he would prefer," in order to hear him
murmur, "A little of the white meat, if you please," while he
drew his elbows close, as if he were adroitly sliding over a
dangerous place. In the afternoon Brother Weldon usually put on
a fresh lawn necktie and a hard, glistening straw hat which left a
red streak across his forehead, tucked his Bible under his arm,
and went out to make calls. If he went far, Ralph took him in the
automobile.
Claude disliked this young man from the moment he first met him,
and could scarcely answer him civilly. Mrs. Wheeler, always
absent-minded, and now absorbed in her cherishing care of the
visitor, did not notice Claude's scornful silences until
Mahailey, whom such things never escaped, whispered to her over
the stove one day: "Mr. Claude, he don't like the preacher. He
just ain't got no use fur him, but don't you let on."
As a result of Brother Weldon's sojourn at the farm, Claude was
sent to the Temple College. Claude had come to believe that the
things and people he most disliked were the ones that were to
shape his destiny.
When the second week of September came round, he threw a few
clothes and books into his trunk and said good-bye to his mother
and Mahailey. Ralph took him into Frankfort to catch the train
for Lincoln. After settling himself in the dirty day-coach,
Claude fell to meditating upon his prospects. There was a Pullman
car on the train, but to take a Pullman for a daylight journey
was one of the things a Wheeler did not do.
Claude knew that he was going back to the wrong school, that he
was wasting both time and money. He sneered at himself for his
lack of spirit. If he had to do with strangers, he told himself,
he could take up his case and fight for it. He could not assert
himself against his father or mother, but he could be bold enough
with the rest of the world. Yet, if this were true, why did he
continue to live with the tiresome Chapins ? The Chapin household
consisted of a brother and sister. Edward Chapin was a man of
twenty-six, with an old, wasted face,--and he was still going to
school, studying for the ministry. His sister Annabelle kept
house for him; that is to say, she did whatever housework was
done. The brother supported himself and his sister by getting odd
jobs from churches and religious societies; he "supplied" the
pulpit when a minister was ill, did secretarial work for the
college and the Young Men's Christian Association. Claude's
weekly payment for room and board, though a small sum, was very
necessary to their comfort.
Chapin had been going to the Temple College for four years, and
it would probably take him two years more to complete the course.
He conned his book on trolley-cars, or while he waited by the
track on windy corners, and studied far into the night. His
natural stupidity must have been something quite out of the
ordinary; after years of reverential study, he could not read the
Greek Testament without a lexicon and grammar at his elbow. He
gave a great deal of time to the practice of elocution and
oratory. At certain hours their frail domicile--it had been
thinly built for the academic poor and sat upon concrete blocks
in lieu of a foundation-- re-echoed with his hoarse, overstrained
voice, declaiming his own orations or those of Wendell Phillips.
Annabelle Chapin was one of Claude's classmates. She was not as
dull as her brother; she could learn a conjugation and recognize
the forms when she met with them again. But she was a gushing,
silly girl, who found almost everything in their grubby life too
good to be true; and she was, unfortunately, sentimental about
Claude. Annabelle chanted her lessons over and over to herself
while she cooked and scrubbed. She was one of those people who
can make the finest things seem tame and flat merely by alluding
to them. Last winter she had recited the odes of Horace about the
house--it was exactly her notion of the student-like thing to
do--until Claude feared he would always associate that poet with
the heaviness of hurriedly prepared luncheons.
Mrs. Wheeler liked to feel that Claude was assisting this worthy
pair in their struggle for an education; but he had long ago
decided that since neither of the Chapins got anything out of
their efforts but a kind of messy inefficiency, the struggle
might better have been relinquished in the beginning. He took
care of his own room; kept it bare and habitable, free from
Annabelle's attentions and decorations. But the flimsy pretences
of light-housekeeping were very distasteful to him. He was born
with a love of order, just as he was born with red hair. It was a
personal attribute.
The boy felt bitterly about the way in which he had been brought
up, and about his hair and his freckles and his awkwardness. When
he went to the theatre in Lincoln, he took a seat in the gallery,
because he knew that he looked like a green country boy. His
clothes were never right. He bought collars that were too high
and neckties that were too bright, and hid them away in his
trunk. His one experiment with a tailor was unsuccessful. The
tailor saw at once that his stammering client didn't know what he
wanted, so he persuaded him that as the season was spring he
needed light checked trousers and a blue serge coat and vest.
When Claude wore his new clothes to St. Paul's church on Sunday
morning, the eyes of every one he met followed his smart legs
down the street. For the next week he observed the legs of old
men and young, and decided there wasn't another pair of checked
pants in Lincoln. He hung his new clothes up in his closet and
never put them on again, though Annabelle Chapin watched for them
wistfully. Nevertheless, Claude thought he could recognize a
well-dressed man when he saw one. He even thought he could
recognize a well-dressed woman. If an attractive woman got into
the street car when he was on his way to or from Temple Place, he
was distracted between the desire to look at her and the wish to
seem indifferent.
Claude is on his way back to Lincoln, with a fairly liberal
allowance which does not contribute much to his comfort or
pleasure. He has no friends or instructors whom he can regard
with admiration, though the need to admire is just now uppermost
in his nature. He is convinced that the people who might mean
something to him will always misjudge him and pass him by. He is
not so much afraid of loneliness as he is of accepting cheap
substitutes; of making excuses to himself for a teacher who
flatters him, of waking up some morning to find himself admiring
a girl merely because she is accessible. He has a dread of easy
compromises, and he is terribly afraid of being fooled. _
Read next: Book One: On Lovely Creek: Chapter 6
Read previous: Book One: On Lovely Creek: Chapter 4
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