Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin
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Are you satisfied with your college life thus far?”
(“They have n’t told her anything. That ‘s good,” thought Edgar.) “Oh yes; fairly well! I don’t—I don’t go in for being a ‘dig,’ Mrs. Oliver. I shall never be the valedictorian, and all that sort of thing; it does n’t pay. Who ever hears of valedictorians twenty years after graduation? Class honors don’t amount to much.”
“I suppose they can be overestimated; but they must prove some sort of excellence which will stand one in good stead in after years. I should never advise a boy or girl to work for honors alone; but if after doing one’s very best the honors come naturally, they are very pleasant.”
“Half the best scholars in our class are prigs,” said Edgar discontentedly. “Always down on the live fellows who want any sport. Sometimes I wish I had never gone to college at all. Unless you deny yourself every pleasure, and live the life of a hermit, you can’t take any rank. My father expects me to get a hundred and one per cent. in every study, and thinks I ought to rise with the lark and go to bed with the chickens. I don’t know whether he ever sowed any wild oats; if he did, it was so long ago that he has quite forgotten I must sow mine some time. He ought to be thankful they are such a harmless sort.”
“I don’t understand boys very well,” said Mrs. Oliver smilingly. “You see, I never have had any to study, and you must teach me a few things. Now, about this matter of wild oats. Why is it so necessary that they should be sown? Is Margery sowing hers? I don’t know that Polly feels bound to sow any.”
“I dare say they are not necessities,” laughed Edgar, coloring. “Perhaps they are only luxuries.”
Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly. “I know there may be plenty of fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,—a youth finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process, I should think, and they are surely no stronger men because of the ‘wild oats,’ but rather in spite of them.”
“I suppose so,” sighed Edgar; “but it’s so easy for women to be good! I know you were born a saint, to begin with. You don’t know what it is to be in college, and to want to do everything that you can’t and ought n’t, and nothing that you can and ought, and get all tangled up in things you never meant to touch. However, we ‘ll see!”
Polly peeped in at the door very softly.
“They have n’t any light; that ‘s favorable. He ‘s sitting on my footstool; he need n’t suppose he is going to have that place! I think she has her hand on his arm,—yes, she has! And he is stroking it! Oh, you poor innocent child, you do not realize that that soft little hand of my mother’s never lets go! It slips into a five and three-quarters glove, but you ‘ll be surprised, Mr. Edgar, when you discover you cannot get away from it. Very well, then; it is settled. I ‘ll go back and put the salt fish in soak for my boarder’s breakfast. I seem to have my hands rather full!—a house to keep, an invalid mother, and now a boarder. The very thing I vowed that I never would have—another boarder; what grandmamma would have called an ‘unstiddy boy boarder!”
And as Polly clattered the pots and pans, the young heathen in the parlor might have heard her fresh voice singing with great energy:
“Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,—
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?”
Chapter IX.
Hard Times
The new arrangement worked exceedingly well.
As to Edgar’s innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak with any authority. Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of time for any great foolishness.
Certain unpleasant things had transpired on that eventful Friday night when he had missed his appointment with his fellow-students, which had resulted in an open scandal too disagreeable to be passed over by the college authorities; the redoubtable Tony had been returned with thanks to his fond parents in a distant part of the state, and two others had been temporarily suspended.
Edgar Noble was not too blind to see the happy chance that interfered with his presence on that occasion, and was sensible enough to realize that, had he been implicated in the least degree (he scorned the possibility of his taking any active part in such scurrilous proceedings), he would probably have shared Tony’s fate.
Existence was wearing a particularly dismal aspect on that afternoon when Edgar had met Polly Oliver in the Berkeley woods. He felt “nagged,” injured, blue, out of sorts with fate. He had not done anything very bad, he said to himself; at least, nothing half so bad as lots of other fellows, and yet everybody frowned on him. His father had, in his opinion, been unnecessarily severe; while his mother and sister had wept over him (by letter) as if he were a thief and a forger, instead of a fellow who was simply having a “little fling.” He was annoyed at the conduct of Scott Burton,—“king of snobs and prigs,” he named him,—who had taken it upon himself to inform Philip Noble of his (Edgar’s) own personal affairs; and he was enraged at being preached at by that said younger brother.
But of late everything had taken an upward turn, and by way of variety, existence turned a smiling face toward him. He had passed his examinations, most unexpectedly to himself, with a respectable percentage to spare. There was a time when he would have been ashamed of this meagre result. He was now, just a little, but the feeling was somewhat submerged in his gratitude at having “squeaked through” at all. A certain inspired Professor Hope, who wondered what effect encouragement would have on a fellow who did n’t deserve any, but might possibly need it, came up to him after recitations, one day, and said:—
“Noble, I want to congratulate you on your papers in history and physics. They show signal ability. There is a plentiful lack of study evinced, but no want of grasp or power. You have talents that ought to put you among the first three men in the University, sir. I do not know whether you care to take the trouble to win such a place (it is a good deal of trouble), but you can win it if you like. That’s all I have to say, Noble. Good-morning!”
This unlooked-for speech fell like balm on Edgar’s wounded self-respect, and made him hold his head higher for a week; and, naturally, while his head occupied this elevated position, he was obliged to live up to it. He also felt obliged to make an effort, rather reluctantly, to maintain some decent standing in the classes of Professor Hope, even if he shirked in all the rest.
And now life, on the whole, save for one carking care that perched on his shoulder by day and sat on his eyelids at night, was very pleasant; though he could not flatter himself that he was absolutely a free agent.
After all ordinary engagements of concerts, theatres, lectures, or what not, he entered the house undisturbed, and noiselessly sought his couch. But one night, when he ventured to stay out till after midnight, just as he was stealing in softly, Mrs. Oliver’s gentle voice came from the head of the stairs, saying, “Good-night, Edgar, the lamp is lighted in your room!”
Edgar closed his door and sat down disconsolately on the bed, cane in hand, hat on the back of his head. The fire had burned, to a few glowing coals; his slippers lay on the hearth, and his Christmas “easy jacket” hung over the back of his great armchair; his books lay open under the student-lamp, and there were two vases of fresh flowers in the room: that was Polly’s doing.
“Mrs. Oliver was awake and listening for me; worrying about me, probably; I dare say she thought I ‘d been waylaid by bandits,” he muttered discontentedly. “I might as well live in the Young Women’s Christian Association! I can’t get mad with an angel,