The Soul of a Child

Keith next day was permitted to have a good look at the five twenty-crown pieces found in the package handed to him by the Rector. Their weight and brightness made them delightful to handle, but they were not "toys for children" his father remarked, and with that remark they passed out of sight for ever. Once or twice he put timid questions to his mother, who never answered directly, but reminded him of all the money his father had spent and was spending on him for food and clothes and schooling and all sorts of things. Keith almost wished that he had received some nice books instead, or anything that could make him feel that he really had got a big glorious reward for something he really had done. Now the achievement seemed as illusive as the reward.

He tried to reason the case out with himself, and the conclusion at which he arrived was that his father probably was entitled and certainly welcome to the money, but that as he, Keith, had earned it and owned it, something should be said to him about the use of it. And as so often was the case, it became a question of abstract justice. The value and possibilities of the money lay beyond his grasp, but the ethics of its disposal, from his simple childish point of view, seemed too clear for serious discussion. Once or twice he stole a look at his savings bank book, which his mother kept among her own papers, but no new entry appeared on its meagre credit side. By and by he almost lost sight of the whole incident, engrossed as he was with the experiences of the current hour, but the memory of it recurred fitfully, and in moments of dissatisfaction it tended to assume the shape of a grievance, if not a charge, against the father. From this tendency he fled instinctively to an idea of money as not worth bothering about. And that idea also helped when the atmosphere of worry about money matters surrounding his mother became too intense and depressive.

There was comparatively little of it that summer. His mother was in better health and spirits than he had seen her for a long time, and she was as happy as Keith when the father announced that they would have a summer place of their own on one of the islands in Lake Maelaren, somewhat farther out than the one where Uncle Laube lived. It was too far away to have become absorbed by the rapidly growing city, and yet too close at hand to be quite desirable as a summer location for the more prosperous. The island was of sufficient size to hold a couple of real farms in the centre, while the shore line was occupied by occasional villas. Halfway between these two mutually foreign regions, on a sharp slope that still remained largely uncleared, stood a little red house with just two rooms in it. One of these was occupied by the old couple that owned the house. The other one had been rented to the Wellanders for the summer, and in that one room the mother, the grandmother and Keith established themselves, with the father appearing as a regular week-end guest.

Taking it all in all, it was the freest, and in many ways the happiest summer of Keith's childhood. He was permitted to roam around pretty much as he pleased, and there were several other small boys to play with, none of them enterprising enough to arouse the distrust of Keith's mother. They were all city boys however, as foreign to nature as Keith, and there was no older person on hand to give their excursions and games a constructive twist without turning them into lessons. There was plenty of wild life about, and it helped in many ways to give them a better time, but that was as near as they got to it. Exactly the same thing happened during subsequent summers, and so the boy always looked upon flowers and trees and birds and insects as delightful but puzzling representatives of a world of which he did not know the language.

It was good fun, however, and temporarily it took Keith farther away from himself and from his cherished books than he had been since his first discovery of the latter. The boys proved decent, wholesome company, more bent on discharging their surplus energy than on doing mischief. Much of their time was spent in or near the water, so that Keith developed into a pretty good swimmer for his age, though always of the cautious type. And between games they would discuss the world from a boy's point of view. There was particularly one boy of the same age as Keith with whom he had talks of a kind quite new to him. Oscar's parents were still very young, and he spoke of them more as chums than as masters. And he spoke of them with a sort of restrained enthusiasm that set Keith thinking very hard. He loved his parents, especially his mother, and admired them, especially his father at certain times, but he was not conscious of any feeling about them corresponding to the one displayed by Oscar, whose father, after all, was nothing but a captain on one of the small steam sloops running between the city and some of the surrounding islands.

Oscar was especially eloquent when he spoke of the love his parents had for each other. He gave examples that seemed exaggerated to Keith, but nevertheless impressed him. In return Keith boasted similarly of his own parents, and he meant every word he said, but always what he had to tell fell short of the pictures drawn by Oscar.

"You don't understand," cried Oscar one day when again they were debating this fascinating topic all by themselves. "It's all right for your mother to kiss your father when he leaves and when he returns, and to be looking for him all the time. But that's not enough. That's not the way my parents love each other. And I don't think your father cares so very much for your mother. But my father is so much in love with my mother that he would like to eat what she has chewed!"

"No--o!" protested Keith, rather appalled by the illustration used, and yet feeling as if he had beheld some undiscovered country. There was a pause during which he stared incredulously at Oscar.

"I mean just what I said," insisted Oscar a little more quietly after a while. "Anything that has to do with my mother is sweet to my father, I tell you. And that is love. If you don't know it, you don't know what love is either."

"But why," demanded Keith, his mind still so full of the disturbing image called forth by Oscar that his jaws moved uneasily as if he had taken into his mouth something unpalatable.

"Because," Oscar hesitated ... "because it is that way."

Keith left shortly afterwards to think it over in solitude. It was probably the first time the word love had been presented to him as anything but a commonplace term for laudable but commonplace feelings. He puzzled over it, but to little purpose, and for some reason he thought it useless or unwise to ask his mother for information.

The third grade proved merely a continuation of the second. Little had changed over summer. A few boys had been dropped behind and a few others overtaken. That affected the bottom of the class, but not the top. Dally remained their principal, and when he welcomed them back at the opening of the fall term, Keith waited excitedly for the distribution of places. Few changes were made however. Davidson remained primus as before, with Keith next. Then came Runge and Blomberg as before. For a day or two Keith swung violently between fits of rebellion and deep depression. It seemed almost incredible that he could have received the highest prize bestowed on any pupil in the school.

Then the routine of instruction and study seized him. New text-books were acquired, not without some grumbling on his father's part. New interests were stirring and, as usual, cleverly nursed by Dally. Above all, the magnetic power of the teacher asserted itself once more, until Keith felt that the only thing really worth while in life was to please him.

Algebra was one of the new subjects, and the use of letters instead of figures amused Keith for a while. But it took no serious hold on his mind. The whole field of mathematics left him strangely uninterested although he was good at arithmetic. He thought the problems of Euclid stupid. Once he had learned how to prove a theorem, it seemed so ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly admitted by Dally himself.

Literature was another new subject. They read and analysed and criticized classical Swedish poetry--Tegnér and Runeberg and Geijer. Most of the poems chosen for the purpose were historical and took their themes from the old viking days or from the glorious centuries of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, when Sweden so nearly rose to be a great power. Keith liked to take certain sonorous passages into his mouth. There was a satisfying fullness and richness about them that seemed somehow to enhance his own feeling of self-importance. Their rhythm also pleased him and became a sort of substitute for the singing of which he was incapable. Chiefly, however, it was the stories told by the poems that interested him, and on the whole he did not think much of poetry. But this opinion he never dared to put into words. To do so in the face of Dally's clearly manifested reverence would have been like openly confessing a particularly degrading form of inferiority.

Nor did it seem to matter so very much what he studied. The main thing always remained what Dally said and did in his efforts to bring out something within the self of each boy for which only he seemed to have an eye. Keith at times felt as if he would give anything to know what Dally expected of him in particular. He felt sure that it must be something wonderful, and he had odd moments of almost being on the verge of grasping it, but in the end it always eluded him, and no sooner was he out of Dally's presence than the whole thing seemed very unreal and foolish.

Young Davidson had a bent toward sarcasm that sometimes lured him out of his usual cold aloofness. In one of these rare communicative moments he said of little Loth that he crossed the equator at least once a week and didn't mind. He referred to the fact that Loth was more frequently moved than any other pupil but always managed to retain a place near the centre. And no matter what fate might bring him of ups or downs, Loth always retained a perfect composure. Yet he was small and nervous and highstrung like Keith and Bauer. One day Keith asked him how he could stand being shoved about like that.

"Because my father says I am going into business anyhow," answered Loth, "and I don't know whether I hate business or books most."

"What would you like to do," asked Keith looking puzzled.

"Draw," said Loth vaguely, "and play the piano, and go to the theatre, and--yes, and read poetry books that don't teach you anything."

This view of life was so new to Keith that he really tried to become acquainted with Loth in order to learn more about it. His own indifference to anything but books promised small success, but in the end a tie was found in their common love of tin soldiers. So he was admitted to Loth's particular circle and was even invited to Loth's home for a birthday party--the first and last of its kind that he attended during his five years at Old Mary. Before permitted to go, he was warned that the servant girl would come for him at nine. No amount of pleading helped to ameliorate that condition.

Loth's father was a prosperous storekeeper on West Long Street and lived in a spacious and richly furnished apartment above the store. It was a home like that revealed to Keith through his shortlived friendship with Harald. The impression on Keith, however, was quite different because of his own growth since that first year at school. And the actions of the eight or ten boys who were the other guests impressed him still more. They wore gloves when they arrived. They showed neither forwardness nor timidity, but greeted each other and their host with grown-up dignity and formality. They seemed to know what to do at every moment, and how to do it. Keith was accustomed to decent manners. Social intercourse in the parental circle was not without grace, but this was something different. At the time he was utterly incapable of telling where the difference lay, and years afterward he realized what subtle shadings it depended on. The main thing at the time was that something in himself responded instinctively to the higher degree of polish and self-assurance which he now for the first time was able to observe at close quarters.

The principal entertainment of the evening was a monster battle with tin soldiers on the cleared floor of the huge dining-room. The battle was at its height and supper was not yet in sight, when Keith learned that the girl was waiting for him. There was nothing to do but to obey, but the hostess could not think of letting him go without having eaten. A special service was prepared for him in the kindest way possible, and Keith enjoyed very much the many dainties offered him. Nevertheless he felt the situation as humiliating and was actually glad when he got away at last. But the gladness was only a surface gloss on a burning core of regrets and dissatisfaction.

In a way that evening, which was never repeated, proved a new starting point in his life. He had had his first close contact with life on a higher social level, and he could not forget it. New standards had been furnished him, and unconsciously he was applying them all the time to all sorts of things--his parents included. Until then he had blindly accepted them and their ways and their environment as representing the best this world had to offer. Now the basis had been laid for doubts that gradually developed into positive criticism.

The immediate result seemed quite irrelevant. He developed a sudden objection to running errands for his mother, and especially to doing anything that involved the carrying of bags or bottles or baskets through the streets. Packages looking as if they might contain books remained unobjectional. There was a time when being sent to the grocery store was a privilege and a distinction. Later it became an opportunity for clandestine meetings with Johan. Even during his first year at Old Mary he continued to perform such tasks without any thought of what others might think of them. He must have heard things, however, and inner resistances must have developed, which were now brought into sudden appearance by the inner echoes of Loth's birthday party.

He did not dare to breathe a word about his new state of mind in his father's presence. And it was long before he gathered courage to voice it openly before his mother. But he used all the arguments and evasions and tricks he could muster to escape what had become a dreaded ordeal. It developed into a test of will and strength between Keith and his mother--the first of its kind, and the forerunner of numerous others still more deep-reaching. After a while the father discovered or learned what was going on, but, contrary to custom, that was not enough to settle the matter. In this case, neither argument nor threats had any effect on Keith. He avoided open conflict with his father for good and sufficient reason, and he did what could not be escaped, but he did it in a spirit of passionate rebellion that introduced a new element of division and strife the home. Both parents seemed instinctively to interpret the boy's changed attitude as a reflection on themselves, and they resented it keenly, but to no avail. While pretending to insist on full obedience as before, they gave way in reality by making the servant girl do the errands in place of Keith.

"One of these days I suppose we shall not be good enough for you any longer," said his mother bitterly one day while the contest was still on.

"Why, mamma," cried Keith, disturbed by the emotional appeal back of her words, "what has that to do with my not wanting to be laughed at by other boys?"

"I almost wish I hadn't persuaded your father to send you to the public school," the mother rejoined.

The school year was drawing to its close again Dally's tone grew less bantering. On several occasions he delivered little impromptu sermons on the seriousness of life and the difficulties of living. One afternoon about two weeks before commencement he told them to close their books.

"I want each one of you to tell me what you expect to become in life, or what kind of a career your parents have chosen for you."

A stir of excitement swept over the class.

Then Dally went on to explain why he wished to know. The first three grades were divided into A and B classes, but that had nothing to do with the teaching, which was the same in both classes. The fourth and fifth grades, on the other hand, were divided into a "Latin" and an "English" branch, with quite different curricula. Boys headed for the various professions ought to choose the former branch, while the second one led to more practical pursuits.

"You are going to be an officer, I understand." Dally said, turning to primus.

"Yes, sir," the young Jew answered with a self-importance that even Keith could not miss. "My father wants me to try for the General Staff, and so I have to specialize on mathematics."

"Humph," was Dally's only audible comment as he made a note, but he looked as if he had tasted something unpleasant.

"And you, Wellander," asked the teacher.

"I am going to be an explorer," replied Keith without moment's hesitation, and the whole class broke into a roar of laughter with Dally joining them.

Keith, as usual, blushed a deep crimson, but did not move.

"That's neither a trade nor a profession," said Dally after a while, still smiling. "I fear you are fuzzy-wuzzying again, Wellander. What do you mean by an explorer?"

"One who explores rivers and deserts and unknown countries and such things," said Keith brazenly.

"And you really mean that you are going in for that sort of thing?"

"I do," Keith insisted, while the whole class watched him in a hush that might easily turn either into derision or into approval.

"There isn't much exploring left to be done," Dally mused, looking intently at the small boy at the other end of the room. "Most of the globe is mapped already."

"There is a lot left in Africa," Keith retorted eagerly.

"And what does your father say about it," was Dally's next question.

There was a long pause broken only by some gigglings by the irrepressibles down at the bottom of the class.

"I have not asked him," Keith admitted at last. "But I am going to be an explorer just the same."

"In these days that means you have to become a scientist," Dally remarked in a changed tone. "It is your only chance, and so I advise you to choose Latin. It is what I think a boy with your head should take anyhow."

"All right, Sir," assented Keith, flattered by the last part of Dally's remark and utterly ignorant of what his choice implied.

That evening he told his father that he had been asked whether he wanted to enter the Latin or the English branch of the fourth grade, and that he had chosen the former.

"Why," asked his father.

"Because Dally says I ought to," replied Keith.

"Well, he ought to know," said the father.

But when Keith appeared in the schoolyard during one of the pauses next day, he was met from every side by the cry:

"There's the explorer! There's the explorer!"

The younger boys jeered openly at him. The older ones pretended to ask him serious questions about his plans. For days he was the laughing stock of the whole school, and even on his way to and from school he was pursued by jibes and taunts. Through it all Keith stuck quietly to his guns, without a sign of retraction or evasion. And in the end his seriousness conquered. But from that day he was known to the entire school as "the explorer," and he heard that term more often than his own name.

It was the afternoon of the last day before commencement. The atmosphere in the class was solemn and more than a little wistful.

"It is our last hour together," said Dally when all were back in their seats after the pause. "History is on the schedule, but--schedules are not made for moments like these. Let us just have a friendly talk."

He did practically all the talking, and he talked to them more as an older boy, a chum with somewhat wider experience, than as a teacher and class principal. It made them feel their own importance rather heavily, but still more it made them conscious of an irreparable loss. They knew that school would not be the same in the fall, when Dally no longer was with them. In accordance with established custom, he would go back to the first grade and start piloting a new generation up to the point where they had just arrived.

The class would break up, too. Some would have to stay behind. One or two had gone as far as they could and would make a premature transfer from school to life. Others were bound for other schools or other cities. The rest would split in two and join with the corresponding parts of the parallel section to form two entirely new classes. It gave them a foretaste of what it would mean to graduate into the gymnasium, and from there into the university. And it filled their hearts with wistful pride.

The last hour was drawing to a close and everybody was talking at once, when Dally unexpectedly asked them to give him their full attention once more for few minutes.

"An act of justice remains to be performed," he said. "There is a boy among you who has not received all that he had justly deserved. It was withheld from him by me for his own welfare. The time has now come when he and you should know all about it."

As he paused for a moment, the boys looked around at each other with something like consternation. Their curiosity was intense. He spoke with a tensity of feeling they had hardly ever noticed in him before, and not one of them had an inkling of what he was driving at.

"It means that some of you have received more than they deserved," he resumed. "That also should be known--for the good of all. It is a reflection on no one but myself, however, and I think you know me well enough by this time to be sure that I have been moved by no other consideration than the future good of the one most nearly concerned."

Again he stopped, the class waiting breathlessly for him to go on. At that moment Keith became aware that the teacher's gaze rested firmly on him with an expression that sent the blood in a hot stream to his face.

"Wellander," Dally began again, and in spite of the beating of his own heart, Keith noticed that the teacher's voice trembled a little as he spoke. "Will you do me the favour of rising a moment? You are the boy I have in mind."

Keith rose like an automaton. His eyes clung to the lips of the teacher, and he seemed to expect from those lips some utterance that must make his whole future life different. As often happened in moments of intensified emotion, he became strangely oblivious of all the little eddies and cross-currents of thoughts and feelings that made up his ordinary, every-day consciousness of himself.

"For two years I have kept you number two in the class," Dally said, speaking in an easier tone as if to lighten the strain on everybody. "You should have been number one. Davidson, whom I placed above you has at no time been your superior in anything but self-control. But it was just your--what I have sometimes called your fuzzy-wuzziness, that made me afraid of placing you where you rightly belonged, at the head of the class. It is my belief that you have in you greater gifts than any other boy in this class, but I am not yet sure of what you will do with them. It was my eagerness to see you make full use of them that made me poke fun at you and keep you out of the place that rightfully was yours. Perhaps I did wrong, but my meaning was right. I shall always watch you closely, and I hope you will try your best not to disappoint me. Will you promise that?"

"I will," gasped Keith.

The clock had already struck three. The moment Dally stopped, the class broke up, but only to gather about Keith--every one of them except Davidson, who slipped out of the room with a face white as chalk. Keith caught a glimpse of that face, and a sense of reckless elation shot through him.

He sped as never before on his way home. It was still impossible for him to think the matter through. First he must tell his parents and hear what they had to say about it.

On hearing what had happened, his mother hugged and kissed him, her face all smiles while big tears dripped down her cheeks. Then the father came home and was told everything. His mother looked serious by that time, and Keith noticed a wavering expression in her voice.

"Your teacher evidently knows you," was the father's first remark to Keith, but by his tone the boy knew that he was pleased. Then he hesitated, and after a while he said as if speaking to himself: "But if Keith really had earned the first place...."

"That's what I have been thinking," the mother broke in with blazing eyes. "Do you remember what I said about that boy Davidson? He was the richest boy in the class, and Lector Dahlström simply did not dare to put Keith above him. Now he is trying to make up for it when it's too late."

"Perhaps," said the father thoughtfully. "The sum of it is what I have always said: the coin that was made for a farthing will never be a dollar."

"But Keith was not made for a farthing," the mother retorted sharply and indignantly. "That is the main point of what his teacher confessed in school this very day."

"Well, if not," said the father wearily, "it is up to him to prove it."

And Keith, too, all of a sudden felt very, very tired.

Keith was one of the first to enter the class room on the morning of Commencement Day. He was still standing near the door when Davidson appeared and evidently meant to walk past him without a greeting.

"Say, Davidson," Keith cried impulsively, holding out his hand, "I don't mind!"

"Well, what do you think I care," the other boy asked icily as he turned on his heel and walked out of the room again without taking the proffered hand.

It was the first time that Keith felt the sting of real hatred. He could never have acted like that--not even toward one who had wronged him seriously. What galled him most was that he had been made to look as if he were apologizing. Then a sense of triumph returned little by little, but it was not very vivid, and what he missed utterly was the fact that no other situation could have been quite so hard on Davidson's pride as the one in which Dally had placed him. A realization of that fact came only years afterwards.

Then Dally himself arrived, and soon the commencement exercises were in full progress, Keith feeling quite superior to any curiosity or excitement. Again he received a prize, and again it was in the form of money, but a smaller sum not accompanied by any special encomiums. He walked home very quietly with his parents, and they had not much to say either.

Had Keith known what an anti-climax was, he would undoubtedly have used that word to describe the experiences of his second Commencement Day at Old Mary.

The summer was spent quietly on the same island where he had been so happy a year before. Oscar was not there. Other boys took his place, but no real intimacy sprang up between them and Keith. They certainly did not talk of love, and what they knew of sex took Keith back to the days spent around the big rock. He had a good time on the whole, but more and more a sense of missing something fretted him, and he could not tell what it was. For emotional outlet he was wholly dependent on his mother, and though he seemed as devoted to her as ever, he had queer spells of wishing to get away from her. The father was more in the background than ever during the summer. Once in a while he would show up on a weekday evening very tired, and leave again with the first morning boat. During the week-end he wanted above all to rest, and Keith was partly happy and partly unhappy at being left alone.

Once only during that summer did his father appear under circumstances that impressed themselves on the boy's memory. It was the day of the annual regatta of the Yacht Club. When the races were over, the yachts were towed back to the city by a large steamer, escorted by a whole flotilla of every kind of craft loaded with sightseers. It was the gala evening of the season. As the tender twilight of the August night descended on the smooth waters of the Lake Maelaren, every villa along the shores became brightly illuminated, while the progress of the fleet was marked by incessant bursts of fireworks.

The Wellanders had a splendid view from the little platform on which their cottage stood. Some friends had been invited for the day, and the father had brought with him from the city a package of fireworks. But instead of wasting money on sky-rockets or other expensive pieces, he had concentrated almost wholly on blue and red lights, which he placed among the trees and over the plateau and set off in batches, first one colour and then the other. Because the place was so high up, apart from the rest, and so heavily wooded, the effect was probably very pretty from the water. Anyhow a burst of applause was heard from the passing flotilla.

"That's for us," said Keith's father, "and not for those rich people down by the shore."

As usual when very much pleased, he laughed while speaking so that it was hard to hear what he said. But Keith heard, and a glow of pride swelled his chest. It was the crowning climax of a scene that touched the boy with a sense of joy bordering on pain. "Beautiful" was a word used repeatedly by the grown-up people about him. He knew now that beauty was something that turned ordinary life into a pleasure more keen than could be had out of eating, or playing, or reading, or getting presents at Christmas even. To this wonderful thing his father had added a personal triumph in which the whole family participated. It silenced incipient criticism for a long time.

Nevertheless there was another side to that self-satisfied remark of his father, and it also stuck in his memory. Back of the proud words lay envy and deference, and a suggestion of hopeless separation. In Keith's mind it became tied up with his memories from Loth's party, and all of it formed a complex of thought from which he tried his best to get away--and most of the time successfully.

For lack of sufficient accommodations in the over-crowded old building, one class had to use the assembly hall. To make the many disadvantages more palatable, this location was presented as an honour reserved for the class shepherded by the old Rector himself. Of this "honour" Keith became a participant when the fall term opened.

There were no desks--only benches without backs. The rest of the school left with a sense of relief after using them only during the fifteen minutes of morning prayer. To sit on them hours at a stretch turned the day into torture before it was half done. The only way of resting was to bend far forward with humped back, and no sooner did the Rector discover a boy in that position than he descended on the sinner:

"Straight in the back, boy! What do you think you are--an old hag sorting rags?"

No attempt was made to arrange the boys according to merit. On the first day every one chose a seat to suit himself, and so Keith found himself number five without knowing how it had happened. Number four was a boy of his own size and age named George Murray, who seemed to be as friendless as was Keith.

Instead of one teacher, they had a dozen at least, few of whom gave instruction in more than a single subject. It smacked of university and made the boys feel much advanced. The curriculum showed an imposing array of new subjects--Latin, French, universal history, physics, chemistry, and so on. Their novelty caught and carried Keith for a good while.

Latin was still the most important study of all. It was taught by the Rector himself, who worshipped everything classic with a religious devotion and who maintained in so many words that a man's culture was measured by his mastery of the Roman tongue. In the lower grades it had been spoken of with bated breath. Keith had looked forward to the first lesson with trembling impatience. He plunged into the declination of mensa with the fervour of a convert. He translated the text-book's colomba est timida with a sense of performing a sacred rite. Days went by before he dared to admit to himself that his interest was waning,

Even then he went on studying without a thought of rebellion. The habit of application had become deeply rooted. The pride born out of his first easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered. But there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general attitude toward the school. Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred precincts. Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil. Until then he had never felt that he had to study. Now fear of the old Rector and of his father entered more and more as conscious motives.

He missed the kind guidance of Dally. The Rector never became the soul and guardian of the class in the manner of Dally. The other teachers came and went without other interest than to insure a decent showing in their respective subjects. All had favourites chosen from those pupils who showed most aptitude for mathematics, natural history or whatever it happened to be. No one was interested in the class as a whole, and no one cared for its individual members as human beings in the make. Within a short time Keith was simply drifting, although neither he nor those appointed to guide him were aware of it at the time.

Keith took a liking to George Murray from the start. During the first couple of days he looked at him frequently as if to invite acquaintance, but the other boy always appeared deeply attentive to the subject of the hour. During the pauses he withdrew into a corner as if to forestall possible advances. At the end of the second day Keith and Murray reached the stairway simultaneously and started for the street side by side. Murray's pale, aristocratic and very narrow face with unduly prominent teeth still bore a look of indifference, but his attitude had lost a little of its previous stiffness.

"Where do you live," Keith ventured with for him rare forwardness.

"On the Quay," replied Murray in a voice that neither encouraged nor discouraged.

"Where," asked Keith eagerly.

"Corner of St. John's Lane."

"That's my corner," cried Keith. "I live in the lane, and we have the same way home."

"All right," was Murray's only answer, which Keith accepted in the affirmative.

Little more was said until they reached the top of the hill above Carl Johan Square, when Keith explained that he always kept to the left along the shore of Lake Maelaren.

"I always take the other way," rejoined Murray, suiting his actions to his words.

"All right," said Keith in his turn, going along toward the saltwater side of the harbour as if it had been the route of his own choice. They stopped for a moment to watch the sloops in the fish market loaded almost to the point of foundering with live fish. Further out a number of large sailing vessels rode at anchor. Still further away, where the southern shore drew close to the point of the island with the turreted red fort, a big black steamer was seen slowly creeping toward its landing place at the Quay. For a moment Murray studied it intently, shading his eyes in sailor fashion to see better.

"That's one of our steamers," he said at last.

"Do you mean you own it," gasped Keith incredulously.

"The company does," explained Murray.

"Which company?"

"The one of which my father is managing director."

"Are there many of them," Keith asked to be polite. It sounded too much like a fairy tale.

"Seven," replied Murray casually. "They are all painted black and sail on foreign ports."

"Did you ever travel on one," inquired Keith with something like awe in his voice.

"Yes," said the slim youngster by his side as if it had been the most natural thing in the world. "Many times, as far as the pilot station, with papa. And last summer he took me along on a real journey to England. That's where our family comes from, and we were gone three whole weeks."

"Were you scared," Keith asked almost in a whisper.

"No." Murray shook his head with quick assurance. "That is, not much. We had a storm in the North Sea coming back, but papa said it was nothing to be afraid of, and for a while I was too sick to care."

"Sick!" Keith echoed. "And were you not awfully scared?"

"No," Murray insisted, looking rather pleased. "Not much."

Keith was too overwhelmed to ask more questions just then. The rest of the way home was traversed in silence. At the corner of the lane they parted with a mutual nod. Then Keith bolted up the lane and up the three nights of stairs. Entering the kitchen breathlessly, he yelled out with his cap still on his head: "I walked home with Murray who lives at the corner and whose papa owns seven ships and who sits next to me in the class."

"Little boys should be civil," suggested Granny with a glance at the cap. "And they should also remember that equals make the best playmates, and that all is not gold that glistens."

"Oh, he's my equal," Keith declared triumphantly.

"With plenty to spare," retorted Granny. "But are you his?"

It made Keith walk home alone the next day, and as he shuffled along listlessly, the almost obliterated memory of Harald came back to him.

The attraction had been established, however--on one side at least--and it would not let itself be smothered. Nor did Keith make any strong effort in that direction. It was not his way. He found it as hard to abstain from what gave him pleasure for the moment as to bear whatever seemed unpleasant or painful.

Murray made no approaches of any kind, but he did not resist. His acceptance of Keith's friendship was purely passive, and there was always a limit to it. At first they simply walked home together from school. Of course, they sat side by side during the lessons, but Murray gave his whole attention to the teacher or to his book. If Keith tried to whisper to him, Murray merely frowned at him. During the pauses they were often together, chatting or playing, but it could also happen that Murray chose to mix with some group of fellow pupils in such a manner that Keith could not get near to him. Sometimes Keith would then also join them. More often he would hover on the outskirts in a state of utter misery.

Even when the school closed for the day, it depended entirely on Keith if they were to have company home. Murray never waited. If Keith was not in sight when he reached the street, he went right on. Several times Keith had to run several blocks to overtake his friend.

"Why couldn't you wait a minute for me," he asked when he had recovered his breath after one of those pursuits.

"Oh, that's so silly," was Murray's only reply, and a repetition of the question on two or three subsequent occasions brought no more satisfactory response. Keith did not press the matter beyond that point and uttered no protest at Murray's real or assumed indifference.

Until then Keith had always taken East Long Street on his way to school in the morning. Now he turned invariably down the lane to the Quay. On reaching the corner, he took a long look at the corner house where Murray lived. Two mornings he saw no one and walked on. The third morning Murray happened to appear just as Keith reached the corner. After that Keith waited for his friend, and they walked together to as well as from school. Having waited very long one morning and fearing that his friend had passed already, Keith ventured into the house, when he caught sight of Murray coming out of a door reached by a little spur of the main stairway.

"Is that where you live," asked Keith.

"That's the kitchen door," said Murray. "Our main entrance is in front on the landing above. It's quicker for me to get out this way in the morning, and I don't have to disturb anybody."

A few mornings later, Murray was late again, and Keith after long hesitation walked up to the kitchen door and knocked. A pleasant-faced serving girl opened.

"Oh, you are the little fellow who waits for George every morning," she said with a smile. "Come in and wait here. He'll be ready in a moment."

After that Keith went straight up to the kitchen every morning. It was a room as large as a hall, shiningly clean, and well furnished as a dining and living-room for the three women serving there. Keith became quite familiar with it, but he always remained by the door, and he always felt that he ought not to be there. Yet he could no more resist going there than he could stop breathing, it seemed.

That kitchen was the only part of Murray's home he ever saw. He never caught a glimpse even of his friend's mother, who evidently was a very exclusive lady. Two or three times he saw Murray on the street after school hours in company with a tall, portly and handsome gentleman, whom he took to be the father. Later his guess was confirmed, but Murray never showed any inclination to let his parents become aware of Keith's existence.

For a long while this did not matter to Keith. In fact, he was not aware of anything but his own devotion. Murray's willingness to accept it only when nothing else was in sight did not bother him. He had found some one to worship at last, and he gave himself to that feeling with an abandon that knew of no reserves and that asked no questions. He looked up to the other boy as, in ages long gone by, a faithful vassal used to look up to his liege lord. And it seemed only meet that such a superior being as Murray should bestow or withhold his favour in accordance with his own sweet pleasure.