“Of course I’m glad you’ve rented your room,” said Poke with hesitancy, “but—but it isn’t going to be much fun having a faculty in the house.” “We had two in hall,” said Gil.
“Yes, but what’s two when there are forty fellows to look after? That’s different. Here there are only four of us, and, besides, he’s right next door. Not, of course,” he continued, assuming an air of conscious virtue, “that I would think of doing anything—er—out of the way, but I—one resents the—the espionage.”
“Come again,” requested Gil.
“I’m sorry,” said Jim. “I didn’t think about that.”
They were talking it over on the porch before supper. Mr. Hanks was already installed in the room behind Jeffrey’s, his luggage consisting of four huge boxes of books, one small[90] trunk and a battered valise, having arrived simultaneously with Gil and Poke.
“Piffle!” said Gil. “It doesn’t matter. I dare say Nancy isn’t the sort to bother us much. He’s a queer old duffer.”
“Old?” questioned Jim thoughtfully. “I don’t believe he’s so terribly old, fellows.”
“He looks as though he might be anything from twenty-five to forty,” said Gil. “I dare say he’s really about thirty, eh?”
“I dare say,” responded Poke. “Well, it doesn’t matter as long as he behaves himself and leaves us alone to our innocent amusements. I’d hate to have to report him to J. G., though. Here comes Latham. He manages to get along pretty well on those sticks of his, doesn’t he?”
“It’s too bad he’s that way,” said Gil. “He seems a good sort. Wonder why he doesn’t wear a thick-soled shoe on that foot. Seems to me that would be better than using crutches.”
“It’s something about the muscles of that leg,” explained Jim. “Some of them don’t work right; I think he said they were the—the extensive muscles,” ended Jim doubtfully.
“Extensor,” corrected Gil. “He’s mighty cheerful considering everything, I think. Hello, Latham! Where have you been?”
[91]
“Seeing the world,” replied Jeffrey. “Stumping all over the place. I watched football practice awhile and went down along the river afterwards. It’s awfully pretty, isn’t it?” He seated himself in a chair, leaning his crutches against his knees. “I saw you two fellows playing,” he added.
“You saw us working like dogs,” replied Poke grimly. “Football for the first month is a whole lot like hard work, Latham. By the way, Hazard, what happened to you? Aren’t you going to try for the team? Dun asked where you were to-day.”
“I wouldn’t have time,” answered Jim. “Besides, I can’t play; I’ve tried it.”
“Can’t play? How do you know you can’t play? You let Johnny get at you for a couple of weeks. Then if he says you can’t play I’ll believe it. Johnny can make a football player out of a lump of wood!”
“He did something more wonderful than that,” said Gil. “He made one out of you, Poke.”
“Your wit is very cheap, Mr. Benton.”
“Who is Johnny?” asked Jim.
“Johnny? Johnny is Mr. John Connell, the best little trainer in the country. He’s a wonder![92] Why, half the big schools have been after him for years, and last spring he had an offer from Dartmouth! You go and let Johnny look you over. If he says there’s no hope for you, all right.”
“I’d like to play well enough,” said Jim, “but there’s too much to do about the house.”
“Why? What sort of things?”
“Oh, chopping kindling, bringing up coal, running to the village, cutting grass—”
“Get your coal up in the morning, cut your kindling at night, telephone to the village and forget the grass,” said Poke glibly. “It won’t do to waste yourself on—on domestic duties, Hazard; you look to me just like a chap who has the making of a good back in him. Say, now, you come out to-morrow afternoon with us and we’ll hand you over to Johnny and see what happens. Will you?”
But Jim shook his head, with a smile. “I know what might happen,” he said. “There might be no coal to cook supper with.”
“Get a fireless cooker,” suggested Jeffrey with a laugh.
“Joking aside, Hazard,” said Gil soberly, “they really need you on the field this fall. We’re short of good men. See if you can’t[93] fix your chores so as to have the afternoons for football.”
“Oh, I think they can do without me,” laughed Jim. “If they ever saw me play they wouldn’t want me a minute. No, I guess I’ll get my exercise right around here.”
“Let me go as his substitute,” said Jeffrey with a smile.
“At that you’d get around a heap quicker than some of the fellows who try for the team,” replied Poke. “Well, let’s wash up, Gil. It’s meeting night, you remember.”
“What’s meeting night?” asked Jim.
“Plato Society meets this evening. I’d ask you along, but it’s business meeting to-night. Glad to have you some other time, though; you, too, Latham, if you’d like.”
At supper the household had increased to seven, for Mr. Hanks occupied the seat of honor at Mrs. Hazard’s right. He was introduced to the boys and shook hands with each, smiling in his absentminded way. At first his presence at table rather dampened the spirits of the others, excepting Mrs. Hazard who did her best to make conversation with the newcomer. Her efforts, however, were not very successful. Mr. Hanks replied politely but embarrassedly,[94] showing that he was far more ill at ease than the boys. On the whole, supper was a quiet meal, and almost as soon as it was over Gil and Poke left the house for the meeting.
At Crofton the faculty keeps a gentle but firm hold on the societies by assigning to each a Counsellor, one of the younger faculty members. He is responsible to the Principal for the conduct of his society, although his office is merely an advisory one. Plato’s Counsellor was Mr. Brown, better known as “Brownie,” instructor in Greek and one of the more popular of the faculty members. Plato, like the other three societies, had a home of its own, a small cottage near the campus on Academy Road in charge of an elderly man and his wife who received the rear part of the house rent-free in return for their services as housekeeper and gardener. There was a little yard in front, what Poke called an “open-faced porch”—there being no railing on it—and four downstairs rooms, of which two were used by the society. On the second floor were four bedrooms, occupied principally by visiting friends. The room on the right on the first floor was the Meeting Room, and it was quite ample in size[95] to accommodate the thirty boys who had congregated there this evening.
It was already well filled when Gil and Poke arrived, although the meeting had not yet been called to order. Mr. Brown was the center of a group of fellows which the two new arrivals joined. The instructor had a handshake and a word of welcome for each. Then other friends demanded recognition, and for the next five minutes the hum of talk and laughter filled the square, old-fashioned room. The two windows on the front of the house were wide open, for the flaring gas-jets in the big chandelier were making the room uncomfortably warm. The side windows were kept closed and curtained, for it was not beyond the possibilities that prankish or curious members of a rival society might eavesdrop; such a thing had occurred before now, and the heavy shrubbery outside offered excellent concealment for the enemy. The room was papered with plain gray cartridge paper above the white-painted paneling, and a half-dozen good engravings decorated the walls. There was an oak desk between the front windows with a few straight-backed chairs about it, while some forty folding chairs filled[96] the body of the room. There was no carpet on the floor and the broad mantel was bare of adornment. The apartment, save at commencement time, was used only for business purposes. At commencement the chairs were moved against the wall and visiting relatives and friends took possession and the floor was waxed for dancing.
Presently the president of the Society, Ben Atherton, who was also captain of the crew, rapped on the desk with a little silver-mounted gavel and the fellows took their places. What passed at the meeting we, as outsiders, have no right to know. I do not believe, however, that it was a very important affair, for it lasted less than half an hour. Then the boys trooped into the room across the hall or emerged onto the porch. Banjos, mandolins and guitars were taken from their cases. “Punk” Gibbs seated himself at the piano—a long-suffering instrument constantly in need of tuning—and wandered through some chords while the other musicians, seated around or leaning about it, tuned up.
The Social Room, as they called it, was well and comfortably furnished. There were many brown oak chairs and settles upholstered in[97] dull red leather, some fairly good rugs on the polished floor, a broad couch, filled with cushions—and, just now, with boys as well—in front of the fireplace, a good-sized bookcase moderately well filled and many pictures on the walls. The word picture here means all sorts of things in frames, for there were originals of cover-designs for the school weekly, The Crow, posters of all sorts, drawings and other trophies and mementos, all crowded together in interesting confusion. Visitors to Plato Society found the walls of the Social Room highly amusing.
The room was soon noisy with talk and laughter, the jangle of the piano and the strum-strum of strings. Gil and Poke had found places at one of the windows, which opened clear to the floor, where, seated on cushions, they were in position to see and hear what went on both inside and out. Mr. Brown was on the porch telling an interested group about his summer walking trip through Switzerland. On the big couch in front of the empty fireplace a very hilarious group were recounting their own vacation experiences and, incidentally, “rubbing it into” one youth on whom they apparently had a very good joke. He was[98] grinning in an embarrassed way and half-heartedly retaliating on his chief tormentor with a cushion. Then Gibbs started up “Old Plato” and the banjos and guitars and mandolins, six or seven in all, joined in as best they could. Fingers were stiff, however, from lack of practice, and the music was pretty wobbly at first. But by the time Gibbs had reached the refrain the orchestra was doing fairly well, and when the pianist started over again, first one voice and then another began the words, and presently the whole assemblage was singing the Society Song. It wasn’t an especially edifying production, but it went with a swing and Platonians had sung it for years.
Old Plato was a good old soul,
Old Plato, Old Plato!
He loved his pipe and he loved his bowl,
Old Plato! Old Plato!
But more than all he loved a scrap;
He’d argufy at the drop of the cap;
Oh, he was a fine old sporting chap,
Old Plato! Old Plato!
Hurrah, hurrah for Plato,
Hurrah for our Patron Saint!
He was a hot potato
In the good old days that ain’t![99]
A very lucky man was he,
A lucky man as you’ll agree,
For “Greek ain’t never Greek to me,”
Said Plato, Old Plato!
Old Plato dealt in philosoph-ee;
Old Plato! Old Plato!
And he founded this great Societ-ee;
Old Plato! Old Plato!
He wrote the Protagoras, too,—
Which wasn’t a thoughtful thing to do—
And made much trouble for me and you;
Old Plato! Old Plato!
Old Plato lived in Ancient Greece;
Old Plato! Old Plato!
And when he died he died in peace;
Old Plato! Old Plato!
They buried him under a cypress tree,
And said, as they danced with joy and glee;
“No more of your fool philosoph-ee,
Old Plato! Old Plato!”
Hurrah, hurrah for Plato,
Hurrah for our Patron Saint!
He was a hot potato
In the good old days that ain’t!
A very lucky man was he,
A lucky man as you’ll agree,
For “Greek ain’t never Greek to me,”
Said Plato, Old Plato!
[100]
Afterwards they sang “Crow, Crow for Crofton!” and then “Follow the River”:
Follow the river up from the sea,
Through sun and shadowy tracery,
Over the shallows and past the green pools;
You’ll come at last to the School of Schools.
Then came the old college songs, “Mother Yale,” “Fair Harvard,” “Old Nassau,” and the football songs, “Boola,” “Veritas,” and many more. And then it was bedtime—Mr. Brown was the first to discover the fact—and instruments were put away, the lights extinguished and by twos and threes and larger groups the Platonians dispersed. The Counsellor lived in Browne Hall—most appropriately—and as Browne was the last dormitory on the campus the instructor was accompanied homeward by some dozen or more students. Gil and Poke were amongst the number, for it was quite as near for them to walk to the school and then go home through the woods as to follow the winding road. Besides, there was a full moon to-night to light their way.
They talked about the new students and speculated as to whom they would draw into Plato[101] when the elections came. This was a subject of unfailing interest, although it was too early in the school year for the interest to wax intense. The societies took their members from the three upper classes in January and each sought to select fellows who had in some way distinguished themselves.
“There’s one thing,” said Mr. Brown, as they passed into the black shadows of Academy Hall, “that we ought to keep in sight, fellows, and that is that the men we want for Plato are the men who have not only done things but who think things. Don’t let’s just make the Society a group of athletes and First Honors men and commencement officers. Let’s try and pick the fellows who are honorable and earnest and fine and manly. Remember that Plato isn’t over with when you leave Crofton; the Society goes right on, bringing other fellows together just as it has brought us together. Let’s see that when we leave it we leave it in shape to do the work it was designed to do, let’s see that we leave a fine, big lot of chaps to carry on the work in our stead. It’s character we want, fellows, and not merely athletic honors, nor social honors, nor even merely scholastic honors.[102] Let’s judge our members to be as men first; then consider the honors they’ve won. Remember the motto, fellows: ‘For the Good of the School, and so for the Good of Myself.’ Good night, everybody.”