The Diary of a Freshman

I have n't seen very much of the fellows lately, except, of course, at meals – that is to say, at luncheon and dinner, for I can't stand their comments at breakfast. They greet me with "Hello, old man – what's this I hear about your trying for the Phi Beta Kappa?" "Is it true that you're going to get your degree in three years?" "I should n't go in for a summa cum if I were you; a magna is just as good;" and all that sort of thing. They evidently find it very humorous, for it never fails to make them all laugh. I 've taken to breakfasting at The Holly Tree, as I don't often meet any one I know there. I did one morning, however, come across the little instructor who had charge of the Freshman registration and made quavering remarks at me in a kind of Elizabethan dialect. He's a most extraordinary person. As he does n't say more than half he means, and as I don't understand more than half he says, I find conversation with him very exhausting. But I like him, somehow.

I was reading a newspaper when he came in and did n't realize that he was standing near me until I heard a slow, tremulous, reproachful voice saying, —

"Who's been sitting in my chair?" It seems that he always has his breakfast at the same table in the chair that I, in my ignorance, had taken. I jumped up, of course, and after he had sat down and leaned back, he murmured feebly, "I 'm an old man; but I know my place." I did n't know why he said this, as he is n't an old man at all; he can't be more than thirty-six or thirty-seven.

"I'm a young man, but I seem to know your place, too," I laughed, as I looked around for another chair.

"You clever boys chaff me so," he replied mournfully. "You mustn't chaff me; I'm only a simple villager." Just then the waitress appeared at a hole in the buff-colored fence that deludes itself into thinking it differentiates the kitchen from the dining-room, and the little man pounded softly and gently on the table, exclaiming, —

"What ho – Katy; some sack – some sack!" A request that Katy evidently understood better than I did, for she withdrew and came back in a moment with a cup of tea.

"How now, Sir John – is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?" the instructor inquired of me; which caused Katy – who had lingered to hear what we wanted for breakfast – to twist a corner of her apron around her finger and gurgle ecstatically, —

"Now, Mr. Fleetwood, you stop."

We sat there talking for more than an hour, and I don't know when I 've had so improving a conversation. We talked mostly about books and plays. Mr. Fleetwood seems to care a great deal about both and discussed them differently from the way most people do. At our table at Mrs. Brown's, for instance, a book or a play is always either "rotten" or a "corker." But Fleetwood has no end of things to tell about them. He seems to know all the people who do the writing and acting, and remembers all the clever remarks they 've made to him at various times, and the even cleverer ones he made in reply. Finally, when I got up to go he relapsed suddenly into his more doleful manner and said, —

"You will come to my Wednesday Evenings – won't you?" I felt as if I ought to have known what they were; but I 'd never heard of them, so I suppose I looked mystified.

"The lions roar at my Wednesday Evenings," he explained, turning on the tremolo in his voice, "but they won't hurt you – because they like me. They 'll like you, too, if you 'll come." I said I should like to come very much.

"When do you have your Wednesday Evenings?" I asked; for he was so dreadfully vague. He looked at me vacantly and then stared at the ceiling awhile, as if trying to think.

"On Wednesday evenings," he at last petulantly quavered; and I left, for I began to think I was losing my mind.

With the exception of Fleetwood that morning I have n't met any one else I know at The Holly Tree. To tell the truth, I haven't been very sociable of late. The result of the exams was rather depressing, and besides – I can't help realizing that solitude is inexpensive, if nothing else. I don't like to go in town unless I can pay my share, and, as I have n't been able as yet even to get my watch out of hock, in spite of mamma's urgent telegram, I don't see my way to going to the theatre and eating around at expensive hotels. Of course I could have the tickets charged – but they 're the least of it. And anyhow I owe so much already I hate to make it worse. Berri advised me to pawn the old-fashioned fob that belongs to my watch and get the watch back. (The fob has a huge topaz or some such thing in it that ought to bring a lot.) But I 'm tired of disposing of heirlooms.

I went to the first Symphony in Sanders' Theatre the other night. Duggie gave me his ticket, as the head coach, and the doctor who looks after the team told him he was n't feeling well and made him go to bed instead. It was a wonderful concert, and I enjoyed it very much, although I could n't help wondering all the time why I was enjoying it; for a man who looked like a Skye terrier played beautiful, sad things on the 'cello until I felt so lonely and homesick and as if I had wasted my life and broken my mother's heart, that I began to sniff; and the lady who was sitting next to me (she had a huge music book on her lap and was following every note with her finger and swaying from side to side like a cobra) turned and glared at me.

On Saturday afternoon they would n't let Duggie play in the game, and advised him to go home for Sunday. He came into my room where I was sitting by the fire feeling pretty blue, and after talking awhile said he wanted me to go with him. Berrisford came in while I was getting ready, and when he saw how little I was taking with me he exclaimed: "Good Heavens, man – you can't go that way! Duggie wouldn't mind, and neither would his family; but you must show someconsideration for the servants. And you 'd better take a piece of bread in your pocket, to munch when nobody 's looking, as you 'll get there too late for tea, and they don't dine until sometime during the middle of the night." He made me pack my dress-clothes (they've been mended) and gave me his hairbrushes, as they have ivory backs with black monograms on them. I can't feel thankful enough that he warned me in time; for everything turned out just as he said. (Berri isclever; there's no getting around it.)

I can't write about my visit to-night; it's too late to do justice to the novel and delightful time I had. I enjoyed every minute of it; even the thing that Duggie told me on Sunday morning did n't spoil it. (Berri said he probably took me home with him in order to break the news gently.)

We had been sitting on the rocks in the sun, looking out to sea and listening to the lazy waves break over the beach about half a mile away (at that distance they looked like a flock of sheep playing on the sand), when Duggie told me in as nice a way as one possibly can tell disagreeable news that the Administrative Board had decided to put me on probation.

VI

It's curious how little you know, after all, about the fellows here of whom you know most. As time goes on I suppose you gradually learn more – although I 've been told by upperclassmen that they 've seen certain fellows every day for years, and, while apparently intimate with them, have never taken the trouble to find out their real names – their first names, that is to say. And as for knowing what their families are like – what they 've been used to before they came to college – you can only guess; and you usually guess wrong. At least, I do. Berrisford, however, is very wonderful. He has a mind as comprehensive in its scope as the last seventy-five pages of an unabridged dictionary, and his talent for sizing people up and telling you all about them is really remarkable. He is the last person in the world, though, that I should have picked out as a citizen of Salem, and one day I told him so. He explained himself by saying that his mother had made an unfortunate marriage. I felt very sorry, as the only time I saw his mother I thought her lovely.

"He was very handsome and had a great deal of money, and was the best and most delightful man I ever knew," Berri went on.

"Well, I don't see anything so dreadfully unfortunate in all that," I ventured.

"Ah, but he was n't from Salem," Berri explained simply. "He didn't even have any cousins there, although for a time mamma's family tried to delude themselves into believing they were on the track of some. They traced him back to Humphrey de Bohun and Elizabeth Plantagenet, but there they lost the scent; and as mamma's people – perhaps you know – came from the King of Navarre and Urracca, Heiress of Arragon, why – of course – well, you know how people talk. It was all very sad. Naturally mamma never cared to live in Salem after that, and I think my grandparents were rather relieved that she preferred to stay most of the time in France. They used to come over and see us every few years, but of course no one in Salem ever knew about that; every one believed that grandfather had to take a cure at Carlsbad – at least that was what was given out whenever he went abroad. I suppose I can't help seeming somewhat crude now and then," he mused dismally; "dilute the strain and it's bound to show sooner or later. But there – I don't know why I've told you all this; it is n't the sort of thing one can discuss with everybody."

"All this" was intensely interesting and mysterious to me, but I don't think I can ever get on to it entirely; just when I 'm beginning to feel that I 've mastered the details I collide with a perfectly new phase and find I don't know anything at all. My ignorance has led to several discussions with Berri – the heated kind that always result in coldness. When I told him, for instance, that I 'd met Billy in town one morning and he 'd taken me home for luncheon, Berri said, "How nice," and proceeded to effect a union of his eyebrows and the top of his head.

"Now what on earth is the matter with Billy?" I exclaimed indignantly, for I 'd enjoyed my luncheon exceedingly, and the house was the biggest thing I had ever seen.

"Oh, Billy 's all right. He 's really very nice, I imagine – although, of course, I don't know him very well," said Berri. "Why do you ask?"

"Who wouldn't ask when you hang your eyebrows on your front hair that way at the mere mention of his name?" I demanded. "Why do you say 'of course,' and why do you always make a point of the fact that you don't know him well? Who cares whether you do or not?" I pursued, for I wanted to clear this mystery up once and for all.

"Well, you seem to care a good deal," Berrisford laughed.

"Oh, not personally," I assured him, "only in the interest of science."

We squabbled for an hour, and at the end of that time I had discovered that (1) Billy's family spell their name with an e– a most incriminating thing to do, apparently, and (2) their house is on the left-hand side of the street as you go up, which (3) makes it easier for a rich man to pass through the moat into Heaven than to draw a beam of recognition from the eye of his neighbor. It was all very confusing – especially as Berrisford insisted that no one had ever told him these things – he had known that they were so when he came into the world.

"Well, I don't see how you 've allowed yourself to be so friendly with me," I wondered sarcastically. "You 've been pretty reckless, it strikes me. How do you know what side of the street our house is on in Perugia, Wisconsin – or whether, indeed, we live in a house at all?"

"Oh, you 're different," Berri laughed.

"Different from what?"

"From everything; that's why I 'm willing to run the risk. You 're a strange, barbarous thing, and I like you immensely."

That was all the satisfaction I got. The reason I thought of this was because Duggie and I discussed it among other things that Sunday morning on the rocks.

It was perfectly evident that Duggie's family lived on the right side of the street, and didn't "spell their name with an e," although I should never have seen them in this light if Berrisford hadn't opened my eyes ("poisoned my mind," Duggie called it). Duggie's father resembles the Duke in Little Lord Fauntleroy, and his mother – well, his mother is like Duggie; one could n't say very much more than that. My impression of them is that they are between nineteen and twenty feet high, and when they and Duggie and his elder sister and two younger brothers were assembled, they looked the way family groups of crowned heads ought to look and don't.

The sister met us at the station with a cart and two ponies.

"They told me to take care of myself," Duggie said to her sort of doubtfully.

"He 's afraid of my nags," she explained to me as I clambered up beside her.

"I 'm afraid of your driving," Duggie answered. "I brought Jack Hollis down here to rest one Saturday and Sunday," he said to me, "and after she'd whirled him around the country for several hours on two wheels and run into a few trees and spilled him over a cliff, the poor thing went back to town with heart disease and has never been the same since."

Now, of course, Duggie merely meant to give me an exaggerated idea of his sister's driving, and she, of course, knew that his remark was quite innocent; but nevertheless she began to blush (it was then, I think, that I first noticed how pretty she was) and abruptly gave one of the horses a slap with the whip that sent us plunging and nearly snapped my head off.

"Hold on, Tommy," Duggie called to me. "This is what I go through every time I come home." Then, as a flock of terrified hens scuttled shrieking from under the ponies' feet, he added: "Tell them I was very brave and hopeful to the end and that my last words were about the team." But pretty soon the horses settled down into a fast, steady trot, and we bowled along the prettiest road I 've ever seen – between thick woods, and, farther on, great, uneven meadows marked off in irregular shapes with low fences of rough stone. The meadows to the right ran back to the woods, but the ones on the left stretched away ahead of us into a vast plain. It gave me a queer, happy feeling that I can't explain – as if I were going to soar out of the cart and over the meadows – straight on into space. I could n't imagine where such a sweep of luminous horizon led to – it seemed extraordinary to come across anything so much like a prairie in New England. The air, too, had a lot to do with the way I felt. It was wonderful air – not cold exactly, and not wet; although I thought every minute that it was going to be both. It had a peculiar smell to it that, without knowing why, I liked. I filled my lungs with it, and somehow it made me feel bigger than I usually do. Then all at once the ponies scampered over the top of a little incline, and, although Miss Sherwin was telling me something, I gasped out:

"Oh-h-h-h – it's the ocean!" and forgot what she was saying, and even that she and Duggie and the cart were with me at all. For I had never seen it before; and it was right there in front of me – brimming over in long, slow, green, pillowy things that rolled forward and slipped back, forward and back, until all at once they got top heavy and lost control of themselves and tumbled over the edge in a delirious white and green confusion that slid across the sand in swift, foamy triangles almost up to our wheels and made the ponies shrink to the other side of the road in a sort of coquettish dance. Then there was a very slim, refined-looking lighthouse on a gray rock bordered by a little white frill where it touched the water, and beyond that, putting out to sea, was a great ship with bulging sails, and a steamer that left a lonely trail of black smoke sagging after it for miles.

I don't know how long I stared at these things, or how long I should have kept on staring at them, if I had n't happened to glance up and see that Miss Sherwin was looking down at me and laughing. I think she expected me to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to come out with either of the only two things that occurred to me – one of which was that as it looked so exactly as I always thought it was going to, I did n't see why I felt almost like bursting into tears when we came over the hill-top and actually saw it; and the other was – that I should have very much liked to get down and taste it. However, Miss Sherwin had about all she could do to attend to the horses and did n't insist on an explanation; so we said hardly anything all the rest of the way, and just let the wind blow in our faces and watched the waves tumble across the hard sand for miles.

At first nothing at the Sherwins' seemed in the least real to me. Even Duggie struck me as altogether different, although he was, of course, just the same – only seen in unexpected surroundings.

First of all, when we arrived, a groom popped up from behind a hedge and took the horses; then two young men in dark green clothes with brass buttons and yellow waistcoats bustled down from the piazza to get our things out of the cart. They were rather handsome, but had very troubled expressions, and looked as if they worried a good deal for fear they shouldn't do it right. Duggie nodded to them over his shoulder, and I think they were secretly gratified at this – although I suspect them of having worried terribly for fear they might betray it. They helped us off with our coats and hats when we got inside, which is all well enough, and makes you feel as grand as you do in a barber-shop, but has its disadvantages, for they run away with everything you have, and lock them up somewhere in a safe, and when you want to go out to play with the dogs or take a walk and think it all over, you usually have to tell Vincent to tell Dempsey to tell Chamberlain that you would like a hat.

Miss Sherwin led me through some beautiful rooms, and as we walked along she turned to me and exclaimed, —

"Aren't you fearfully keen for your tea?"

I really don't care in the least for tea; in fact, I rather dislike it. But she seemed to take it so for granted that I should be in a sort of tea-guzzling frenzy by half-past five o'clock that I hated to disappoint her, and was going to say, "Oh, yes – fearfully," when it flashed through me that I could make my reply more elaborate and interesting than this, and thought it would be rather effective to murmur, "One gets so out of the habit in Cambridge." Then (all this took only about a second) it occurred to me that I 'd never in my whole life drunk a cup of tea in the afternoon with the exception of the time that Berrisford had some people out to his rooms. So I merely said – which was perfectly true: "I don't like tea; but I like those thin, round cakes that are brown at the edges and yellow in the middle." This made her laugh, and I was glad I had n't said the other thing, because she 's very pretty when she laughs.

One corner of the piazza is enclosed in glass, and we had tea out there where we could watch the sunset and the pink lights on the water as it rolled up almost to the lawn in the front yard. The two younger brothers came in – one of them has a tutor and the other goes to St. Timothy's – and while we were waiting for the tea things to be brought, Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin sauntered across the grass. I forget whether they had been gathering orchids in the conservatory or merely feeding the peacocks, but they were both exceedingly gracious and glad to see me. Yet their very way of taking me so for granted (just as Miss Sherwin had about the tea) made me uncomfortable at first. They could n't, of course, have asked me to explain myself – to tell them what right I had to consume cakes in their crystal palace and enjoy their sunset; but the mere fact that they did n't seem to expect me to justify myself in any way made me feel like an impostor.

The man who brought in the tea things had a good deal to do with this. I 'm quite sure that he disapproved of me from the first. He was older than the two who met us at the door, and I think he had probably long since ceased to worry on his own account; but he worried a lot over me. Later – at dinner – he just gave up all his other duties and stood behind my chair, mentally calculating the chances of my coming out even or behind the game in the matter of knives and forks. Whenever I used too many or too few (which I did constantly) he would glide away and remedy the defect, or craftily remove the damning evidence of my inattention. In writing to mamma about my visit I ended my letter by saying: "I had a delightful time – but it would take me years to get used to their butler." To which mamma replied: "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, dear; they must live charmingly. But I simply can't see why they should n't have good butter. It's so easy to get it now almost anywhere. Perhaps they don't eat it themselves and don't realize that they are being imposed upon." (This will be one of the greatest triumphs of papa's declining years, as he is always blowing me up about my handwriting.) Whenever Dempsey (the other servants call him "Mr. Dempsey") came into the glass place I waited in a sort of trembling eagerness, half expecting him to announce "Lord and Lady Belgrave and Miss Muriel Fitz Desmond," but the only person who dropped in was an old man named Snagg, and although Dempsey made as much out of his arrival as any one possibly could – you can't, after all, do miracles with a name like Snagg. However, I was grateful to Mr. Snagg for coming, as it brought me back to earth again.

To tell the truth, before the evening was finished I began to get over the unreal sensation I had at first, and saw very plainly that whether or not I felt at home depended entirely on me. Duggie and his family – poor things – did n't have any idea that their Dempsey paralyzed me with fright, or that (just as Berri had predicted) by the time dinner was ready I was shaky in the knees with hunger. They assumed that a friend of Duggie's naturally would feel at home and know beforehand what was going to happen. This dawned on me when I realized that Duggie was exactly as he always is, and that the others were probably exactly as they always were, and I couldn't help appreciating after a time that if they took me so calmly, it was rather unreasonable of me not to feel the same way about them. No one made any effort to entertain me, which is very nice – after you get used to it. Mrs. Sherwin played solitaire after dinner, while Duggie and his sister (she was embroidering something) and I sat around a fire that Miss Sherwin said was built of driftwood from an old whaler, and Duggie declared was manufactured with chemicals by a shrewd person in Maine. I don't know who was right, but with the sea murmuring just outside the windows and coming down every now and then with a great thud on the little beach at the end of the lawn, I preferred to believe in the old whaler theory. Mr. Sherwin would appear every few minutes to read us something he had come across in a volume of literary reminiscences which reminded him of something entirely different that had happened to Thoreau or Emerson or Hawthorne or Margaret Fuller – all of whom he had, as a young man, known very well, indeed. He was delightful.

The next day was Sunday, and as no one awoke me, I found when I got downstairs that it was after ten o'clock and that everybody, with the exception of Duggie, had gone to church. Duggie had been up for hours taking a long walk with the dogs. He came into the glass place on the piazza, where I had breakfast, and read aloud about the game of the day before. Out-of-doors it was almost as warm as in summer, so we took some books and strolled along a cliff to a sheltered place on the rocks, and sat down in the sun. I did n't feel much like reading, although when you 're sitting out-of-doors in the sun I think it's rather pleasanter, somehow, to have a book on your lap. Duggie had a shabby little volume that he read for a minute or two at a time; then he would stop for five or ten and look at the sea swirling around a rock away below us. After a while I became curious to know what the book was, and the next time he closed it over his finger I reached out and took it. The name of it was M. Aurelius Antoninus, and it seemed to be a series of short, disconnected paragraphs with a great many footnotes. A good many of the paragraphs were marked. The only one I can remember went something like this, —

"Don't act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest – while it is in thy power, be good."