Barry didn’t wait for the conductor’s announcement. He was at the car door before the little Connecticut village came into sight. There was a glimpse of South Street, shaded, asleep in the afternoon sunshine, and then the freight-shed interposed a blank yellow countenance. Barry shifted the light overcoat on his arm—he had wanted to put it in the trunk, but his mother, suspicious of September in the hills, had overruled him—and picked up his suit-case just as the conductor bawled past him, into the hot, dusty interior:
“Wessex! Wessex! Change for Sanborn Mills, Mount Sippick, and Alden! We-e-essex!”
The station threw a welcome shadow and the train stopped. Barry descended, his brown eyes alight, a smile, slightly shy, already curving his lips. Others, crowding about him, sent him deeper into the shade of the platform, his gaze still questing. At least a score of boys had alighted, and these, mingling with almost as many previous occupants of the platform, made for sound and confusion. Friends parted since June sighted one another with loud hails and plowed determinedly toward a reunion, heedless of all between.
No one, however, took notice of the fifteen-year-old boy who, puzzled and disappointed, still viewed the fast thinning throng. He was worth notice, too. Very straight he was, and rather slender; although the slenderness suggested the process of development rather than the lack of it. He had brown hair, and eyes that may have been intended to match it but didn’t because they were very much warmer in tone. Rather arresting eyes they were, and perhaps the best feature of a countenance which, while in no way suggesting the classic beauty of Apollo, was undeniably attractive. The nose was a perfectly good nose, but you had to stop there; and the mouth was all right, too, and had a nice smile; and there was the usual chin and forehead, and a coating of tan, and—well, that’s about all there is to tell—and I haven’t made you see John Barry Locke as he really looked, after all.
I fancy it was Barry’s expression rather than his features that made folks warm to him and want to know him and do nice things for him, and expressions are difficult to portray in print. Perhaps the simplest way to describe him is to say that Barry looked, in his boyishly eager yet shy fashion, as though he were ready to like everybody else! Yes, I think that was the secret of his attraction—just friendliness. And yet there was something beyond that, too; something promised in those deep-brown eyes that looked at one so straightly. Maybe it was loyalty.
The last flivver had honked off into silence and the afternoon’s event, the arrival and departure of the four-eighteen train, had passed into history. Barry gave up his quest and followed the route taken by the others, along the platform to the corner of the station and thence across an area of sun-smitten gravel to the main thoroughfare of Wessex. His suit-case wasn’t heavy, and he wasn’t going to mind the walk; only, he didn’t understand why Clyde hadn’t met him as he had promised. And then, quite abruptly, Clyde was there.
Clyde was rather warm of face and a trifle breathless, a condition that caused him to voice his greeting in tones of resentment rather than apology:
“Well! Got here, eh? Gosh, but it’s warm! How are you?”
“Great,” answered Barry, with an enthusiasm the other considered quite uncalled for. “What time did you get here, Clyde?”
“About a quarter-past two. We had a flat, and lost ten minutes, I guess. That new chauffeur of Dad’s is a dumb-bell. All thumbs.”
“Dumb-bells are like that,” chuckled Barry. Clyde Allen glanced questioningly at him and then frowned. Barry had an irritating way of making jokes that Clyde didn’t fathom. The boys were proceeding unhurriedly along Main Street, Barry still in possession of bag and overcoat. Clyde had made a none too emphatic reach for the suit-case, but Barry had shaken his head and tightened his grasp on it. Now the latter asked:
“How far is this room of mine, Clyde?”
“Oh, just a little way. Not quite out to the school. You understand how it was about the other place, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, I guess so,” replied Barry. “Anyhow, it’s all right. I mean—oh, of course I’m disappointed, Clyde, because I did want to get into a dormitory, but if I can’t, I can’t.”
“Sure!” agreed the other, with evident relief. “Anyhow, you aren’t missing anything. Lots of the fellows would be glad to be where you are. Being outside gives you a heap more—more freedom. And Mrs. Lyle’s is the best of all the private houses. Gosh! I was disappointed, too, old top, when Hal sprung it on me! I thought of course he was going in with Pete Johnston, but Pete fixed up a deal with another chap so he could get into Meddill, and so—well, Hal had no place to go and the least I could do was to tell him to stay. I thought of course you’d be able to get on the campus. But everything’s chockablock this fall. A whole bunch of chaps have had to go outside, I hear.”
“Are there any other fellows at Mrs. Lyle’s?”
“Yes, I believe she said she had two others. You’ll like it there. She’s a good scout—Mrs. Lyle. I knew a fellow who was there last year and he was crazy about it.”
“Is he there now?” asked Barry.
“No, he’s in Dawson this year. He’s in the First, and of course First-Class fellows want to be on the campus. Last year, you know, and—and all that.”
“I suppose so,” Barry responded. “Well, I dare say I’ll get along fine at Mrs. Lyle’s, Clyde, and you mustn’t bother about me.”
“Sure! And you must use our room like it was your own, Barry. Hal said I was to tell you that. Lots of times you won’t want to go back to Lyles’ between recitations, and you can come up to Forty-two and make yourself at home.... That’s the Town Hall over there. Looks like a relic, doesn’t it? And that’s the Methodist church.”
“Sort of a pretty town,” said Barry.
“Well, yes, but it’s a dead old hole. Only one movie, and that’s upstairs over the post-office! But the school’s all right. Corking lot of fellows. I’ll take you around to-morrow and show you the ropes. It’s a bit late to-day. Say, why didn’t your folks bring you over in the car? I was sure surprised when you ’phoned me yesterday that you were going by train.”
“Dad had to go to Hudson on some business and needed the car. He wanted me to take it, but I didn’t see any sense in that. Besides, the train was pretty good fun. I hadn’t been on one for a couple of years.”
“I haven’t, either. I’ve got no use for them. Give me an auto every time. Say, I shouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t any railroad trains pretty soon! Almost every one has some sort of a car. Oh, well, for long trips, like out to Chicago, or to San Francisco, maybe. But I guess we’ll be doing that by airships before long.... You can see Croft Hall now, if you look past the end of that barn. Dawson’s this side of it, but it’s behind the trees. The Lyles’ house is beyond this one. This is Stimson’s. He’s our math instructor.”
Barry wasn’t following Clyde’s chatter very closely. For one thing, the lightest suit-case will become a burden toward the end of three quarters of a mile, and an overcoat on a warm day is no comfort, even if hung over the arm. Besides, Barry found more interest in the scene than in his friend’s remarks. There were times when he thought Clyde’s talk a trifle vapid, and this was one of them. He always tried to banish that thought, however, for he liked Clyde, and, too, owed him a debt of gratitude. They had left the town well behind and were going southward on a well-paved road beside which, at intervals, modest houses, usually flanked by barn and stable, stood back of neat shaded lawns.
On the right stretched a wide meadow. Now and then Barry caught the glint of sunlight on the surface of a little river that wound through it, and, far ahead, a cluster of farm buildings well away from the road dozed in the shade of four giant elms. What interested him more, though, was the white dwelling that presently emerged to view beyond the end of an old red barn.
As they neared it Barry experienced a sense of disappointment. It was two stories in height, and the peaked roof presented so many warped and broken shingles that it was difficult to credit it with efficiency. But the white paint was fresh, there were flowers about the low veranda across the front, and the windows, between their green blinds, were hung with clean muslin curtains. Rather a box of a house, thought Barry, and one promising few luxuries. Not that he demanded luxuries, exactly; but, until a few days since, he had looked forward to being in Dawson Hall, and this was very unlike what he had pictured Dawson to be.
There was a somewhat decrepit picket fence in front, and a gate which obligingly swung inward or outward, but creaked complainingly either way. A short brick walk between narrow beds of salvia and geraniums and flaming nasturtiums led to the open doorway. It also led to a boy who sat on the edge of the low porch and, clasping a knee in a pair of very brown hands, unwinkingly observed their approach. However, when they had traversed half the walk he spoke.
“Hello, Allen,” he said.
“Hello,” answered Clyde; and then, as Barry dropped his suit-case and reached for his handkerchief, he added perfunctorily: “This is Mr. Locke, Mr. Jones. You fellows might as well get acquainted. Didn’t know you hung out here, though, Jones.”
The boy on the porch arose and shook hands with Barry. He had hair that was neither brown nor red but some shade between, a lean, deeply tanned face, two very blue eyes, and a smile that Barry liked immensely. But the smile vanished when the youth dropped again to his seat and replied to Clyde:
“That’s strange, I’ve been here some time.”
“Oh,” said Clyde, in the tone of one dismissing an unimportant topic. “Well, we’d better find Mrs. Lyle, Barry.”
“She’s gone to town,” said Jones. “Locke’s room is in front, on this side.” He pointed a thumb over his left shoulder. “You can’t miss it.”
“I’ll go up with you,” said Clyde. “Oh, by the way, what about your trunk? Did you give your check to the man at the station?”
Barry shook his head ruefully:
“I didn’t think a thing about it!”
“You’re a wonder!” jeered Clyde. “Guess it’s a good thing you’ve got me here to look after you, kid.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Jones, somewhat surprisingly.
“I was speaking to Locke,” answered Clyde, shortly. Barry saw the scowl that accompanied the words, and wondered. Jones nodded imperturbably.
“My error,” he murmured. His gaze returned to the road.
Clyde led the way inside, along a narrow hall, and up a stairway. He was muttering to himself, but Barry caught fragments. “Fresh bounder” was one of them. Evidently Clyde and the brown-skinned youth downstairs were not very friendly. Clyde seemed to have regained his equanimity, however, by the time they reached the second floor. There were four doors in sight, one at the head of the stairs, one, that of the bath-room, half-way along the hall, and two more after the stair-well had been passed. That to the right was barely ajar, the other stood wide. Clyde, in advance, paused impressively on the threshold and waved a hand.
“Here you are,” he proclaimed congratulatingly. “How’s this, old top?”
Barry looked past him over a shoulder. There was a protracted moment of silence. Then, rather haltingly, rather faintly, Barry replied:
“Why, it—it’s very nice, isn’t it?”
“You’d better get the expressman on the ’phone pretty soon,” advised Clyde, from across the front gate a few minutes later, “and have him call for your check. He will probably ask you seventy-five cents, but don’t pay more than fifty. That’s the regular price. Well, glad you like the room, Barry. Come over a little before six and I’ll take you around to Bates. Wish I could stay longer, but I promised to see a fellow at five.”
“That’s all right,” said Barry. “Thanks for getting me fixed up.”
Clyde nodded and went briskly off in the direction of school, a rather large, fairly tall lad, well set up, very carefully and a trifle expensively dressed. He was bareheaded, and his dark hair glistened in the sunlight, every lock carefully plastered into place. Clyde Allen was a good-looking fellow, and he wasn’t entirely unconscious of the fact. Barry thought him extremely handsome and didn’t blame him in the least for being—well, just a bit vain. He watched until Clyde passed from view, and then went back to the porch.
Jones had disappeared during their visit to the room. Barry wasn’t sorry, for he had already concluded that he wasn’t going to like Jones very well. Barry found it difficult actually to dislike any one, but there were degrees of liking. He took Jones’s place on the edge of the porch and, stretching his knickered legs before him, thrust his hands into his pockets and surveyed the world and the future.
The world was quite all right, a warm, scented, sunlit world. Wessex lay in a hollow formed by two ranges of hills, disputing the little valley with the East Fork River. Directly in front of Barry, across the road, stood a white house very like the one behind him. From an upstairs window of it came faint, tentative sounds as of a bow being drawn lightly across the strings of a violin. They were not unpleasant. Beyond the opposite dwelling the land ran levelly to a marsh streaked in the lengthening rays of the sun with russet and pinkish brown. Half a mile away the hills began, climbing steeply to a dome-shaped mountain on the north and waving southward in a series of lesser elevations. Cows were grazing below the knoll that held the shaded farm buildings, and a bell tinkled at intervals. Yes, the world was a perfectly good world, and Barry approvingly dismissed it from his thoughts and reverted to that second subject, the future.
Somehow Broadmoor School had disappointed him. Or, since save for a hasty glance from a window of his room he had not yet seen the school, the circumstances attending his arrival had disappointed him. First there had been Clyde’s failure to meet him punctually. Then there had been his introduction to that upstairs room. It had been five days since he learned that he was not to share Number 42 Dawson with his friend, and so that disappointment was no longer fresh, but—well, the substitute for the dormitory room was rather awful. Barry had assured Clyde that it was quite satisfactory, but that was just because he hadn’t wanted to hurt Clyde’s feelings.
To be sure, the room was clean and neat, but it was also threadbare; and the five pieces of furniture, a nondescript assemblage, looked horribly inadequate. There were the remains—Barry couldn’t think of a kinder word—of an ingrain art-square in the middle of the floor, a thing of faded greens and yellows, its borders frayed and its startling pattern relieved by many lapses of the fabric. It looked very lonely, for it was not a large carpet and the room, whatever else might be said of it, was spacious. Between the edges of the carpet and the walls lay broad expanses of painted floor, expanses of awful greenish gray that jarred Barry’s sensibilities. As though in atonement for the floor, the plastered walls had been unevenly calcimined in pale pink. Barry shuddered at the recollection.
He couldn’t help contrasting that upstairs chamber of horrors with his rooms at home, and he wondered if it were possible to live contentedly with that floor and those bare walls for eight long months. Of course he could send home for things or buy them in the village, but what could any one put up there that would look as though it belonged? He wondered whether, after all, he was going to like Broadmoor. He had taken Clyde’s word for everything. They had been chums—well, not exactly chums, perhaps, but friends—for years, had gone to high school together, lived within three houses of each other in Hazen, New York, and shared acquaintances and interests.
Clyde had come to Broadmoor the year before; he was sixteen years old to Barry’s fifteen, and a class ahead of him, and Barry had quite naturally chosen Broadmoor too. His parents had approved enthusiastically, for they shared Barry’s admiration for Clyde. The two boys were to room together, of course; that had been understood right along, until last week. Then this Stearns fellow, a Second Classman like Clyde, had spoiled that. Barry wondered whether or not Clyde was really disappointed. He had said he was, but somehow his tone hadn’t carried conviction. And, after all, it was natural enough for Clyde to prefer a fellow of his own age as room-mate. Barry could understand that, of course, only—well, gee! look what it had done to him!
He hadn’t forgotten about his trunk, but in his present mood that article didn’t seem very important. Nevertheless, if the matter were to be attended to it was high time he bestirred himself, for it was almost a quarter after five. He got up with a sigh for wasted dreams and sought the telephone inside. He was putting the receiver back when the doorway was darkened and a pleasant voice said:
“Is that you, Crawford? Would you mind taking this basket of grapes before—”
“Not at all,” said Barry. “I’m not Crawford, though. I suppose you’re Mrs. Lyle.” He rescued the grapes and drew aside, smiling.
“Why, gracious!” exclaimed the lady; “so you aren’t! You must be the new boy. Is it Key? No, not—”
“Locke!” laughed Barry. “It’s the next thing to Key, though. Shall I take these—”
“Oh, you mustn’t trouble!” Mrs. Lyle was plainly flustered. “If you’ll just put them on top, I’m sure—”
“Better not, I guess,” Barry demurred. The landlady’s arms were already laden to capacity with packages, and one, plainly labeled “Fresh Eggs,” looked none too secure.
“Then if you’ll just bring them into the dining-room,” said Mrs. Lyle. “I hate to take any one into it, too.” She opened a door at the end of the hall. “Betty’s been away all day and I’ve been so busy—”
Evidently unfinished sentences were the fashion with her, Barry decided as he followed her into a room which, while it had apparently not been “picked up” since morning, was pleasantly homy in spite of its shabbiness. Evidently, too, it was Mrs. Lyle’s custom to give the maid the whole day off. He set the small basket of grapes on the bright-red cloth of the table and rescued the eggs, now on the very verge of demolition. Mrs. Lyle murmured relief, disencumbered herself of the remaining packages, and smiled at Barry. And right then Barry became her devoted subject.
She was small and slight, faded and rather tired-looking; but one knew that not so many years before she had been a very pretty girl. When she smiled she was still pretty. There was a quality in that smile that imbued Barry with an instant desire to perform some service for her. He wondered if she needed any wood chopped or—or anything. He couldn’t remember ever having chopped any wood, but he was eager to do it!
“I hope you found everything all right in your room,” Mrs. Lyle was saying. “I meant to be here when you arrived, but I forgot my purse and had to come back for it, and so—”
“Oh, yes, thanks!” he declared emphatically. “Everything is fine! That is—well, I wonder, Mrs. Lyle, if I might have a table. Of course if you don’t happen to have one on hand I can get along perfectly.”
“A table? Why—but—goodness gracious! there is a table! I mean there was a table! Are you sure—”
“It really doesn’t matter,” Barry said earnestly. Mrs. Lyle’s agitation made him regret extremely the introduction of the subject.
“But of course it matters! I’ll go up and see what—”
Barry followed her. Mrs. Lyle looked perplexedly at Barry.
“Why, I don’t see what—where—” Then, however, perplexity vanished. “I know where it is.” She nodded, with conviction. “You wait a minute.”
She went out and along the hall. Curious, Barry followed as far as the door. Mrs. Lyle had stopped before the closed portal at the head of the stairs and was knocking on it.
“Toby! Toby Nott!” she called. There were faint sounds from beyond the door, then a slightly querulous voice answered:
“Yes’m Mrs. Lyle?”
“Open the door, Toby.”
“I can’t! I—oh, well, all right; only, I’m terribly busy, Mrs. Lyle.” The end of the sentence was delivered through a six-inch aperture.
“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Lyle, “but you can’t have that table, Toby.”
“Huh? What table?”
“The one that was in Mr. Key’s room. You’ll have to put it back, Toby.” Mrs. Lyle strove to speak firmly, but succeeded only in sounding apologetic.
“Oh, thunder!” replied an aggrieved voice. “I need that table, awfully.” The door opened wider, disclosing a strange apparition—a boy in a bath-robe of barbaric coloring; a tall, extremely thin youth with unkempt black hair above a pale, annoyed countenance, and a pair of round spectacles which lent him the likeness of a perturbed owl. One hand held a glass jar in which some livid object floated nauseatingly in a cloudy fluid, the other a squirming, palpitant green frog of heroic proportions. There was a shriek from Mrs. Lyle, a startled grunt from the boy, and the frog leaped into space.
“Now!” cried Toby Nott, anguish on his face. “Now see what you’ve done!”