Through the school: The experiences of a mill boy in securing an education

THE double bed had two depressions plainly visible on the mattress where two previous occupants had maintained their respective sleeping rights. The double quilt, patterned after a gaudy Chinese puzzle, sank into the depressions of its own, warm weight.

“The best thing about that quilt,” explained Thropper, “is that when my eyes get weary with study or tired from writing, I look at the combinations of colors, and my eyes are rested. It’s great for that. By the way, I’ll call you Al if you’ll call me Jim,” he suggested.

That bed occupied the major portion of the floor. Its edge left just a narrow alley between it and two kitchen tables that were covered with black oil-cloth. One of the tables—farthest from the window, in the dim light,—was bare of books, and Jim said that it would be mine. The other had about a dozen text books on it, some scraps of paper, and an open Bible, marked with purple and red ink where Jim told me he was busy emphasizing all the texts that he might preach sermons from—some day.

The chair allotted me was a plain kitchen affair, as hard as a tombstone; but Jim’s was fearfully and wonderfully stuffed. There it stood like a parody on a fluffy Morris, library chair. It was a kitchen chair grotesquely stuffed and upholstered within a faded, torn, and highly colored bed comforter. When Jim noted that I took an interest in it, he said,

“Padding made quite a difference in that chair, Al. It’s real comfortable, though there isn’t much seat left; it’s so thickly padded. I was out in the fields one day, and near the fence I picked up a sheep’s skin of thick wool. I thought then that I could make good use of it, so I brought it back, left it on the clothes-line at the back of the building to let the air sweeten it, for it was pretty strong; then I came to the conclusion that I could use it to stuff the chair—real wool, you know. The comforter was left in the back room by a fellow and I used that, too. It’s a real comfortable chair; almost makes you fall asleep when you sit in it.”

“You didn’t manage to sweeten all of the wool, did you, Jim?” I asked dubiously as I noted the dank odor that came from the chair; an odor that was reminiscent of a junk shop after a rain.

“Why,” replied Jim, in good humor, “I don’t notice it a bit. I think it must be your imagination.”

“Well,” I concluded, ungraciously, “probably it’s like the gas. You’ve got used to it.”

Between the gas stove and the wash stand stood a galvanized water pail, three-quarters filled and with a fuzzy growth on its oily surface.

“That ain’t drinking water, is it?” I asked in alarm.

“No,” laughed Jim. “That’s in case of fire. I ought to have changed that water two weeks ago, but I guess I’m getting lazy.”

By this time I had my coat off and had accepted Jim’s invitation to wash the train dust off my face.

For this purpose I scraped around in the soap dish until I had secured two thin wafers of soap, one a transparent reminder of perfumed toilet soap, the other a dull yellow, and odorous with naphtha, which I recognized as the remnant of a powerful disinfecting and wash-day soap; used by my Aunt to drive black oil from overalls. I had to rub these two antagonistic wafers together to make sufficient lather for washing. Then, too, I had to hurry my toilet, for the flowered wash bowl had a yellow crack on its under side, through which the water dripped rapidly while I washed.

Jim said,

“Until you get some, Al, you must use my towel.” He took it down from the wire behind the stove and let me have it, with the remark:

“There’s a dry corner, there near the fringe.”

The window was open, and while I was busy brushing the dust from my clothes, a gust of wind came in and I heard a rip on the wall followed by an exclamation from Jim,

“There it goes again! The wall will be going next!”

On examination I found that the wall paper, with its highly conventionalized lotus leaves, had lost its grip on the wall behind the gas stove and had uncovered a great area of plastered wall. Jim produced some tacks, and using a flat-iron for a hammer managed to return the paper to its place and to keep it anchored there through a liberal use of tacks.

He apologized, when he came down to the floor,

“All this is miserable enough, Al, and I don’t blame you for thinking so.”

“Uh,” I retorted, “I ain’t grumbling. Beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, I don’t see what more the college can do for ninety dollars a year, board, room, and teaching.”

“‘Tuition’ you ought to say,” corrected Jim. “I’m glad you’ve got the right spirit about this place, Al. You’re right, we can’t expect any more for ninety dollars! I don’t see how they can do for us what they can. It’s worth a mighty lot for you and me to get a chance, and if education should cost more, where would you and I be?”

“That’s just what I think!” I replied with spirit. “It is just the chance we want. Here I am, with only three dollars to begin on and a poor foundation for study in the bargain. What other place is there where I could be given a start on such easy terms?”

“A lot of fellows come here,” commented Jim, “who don’t look at the matter in that way—and they soon leave and don’t have any chance at all. I know you’ll appreciate the hard scrabble to get the education. Besides, poor buildings, poverty-stricken rooms, cheap board, and limited privileges ought to make us get the most out of our studies. That’s something.”

“But suppose they don’t let me begin?” I gasped; for up to this time I had not let a doubt of my acceptance at Evangelical University mar the afternoon.

“I don’t think they’ll let a fellow like you go begging, Al,” responded Jim. “You might as well count yourself one of us, right off.”

Just then, out in the upper end of the corridor, went up a high, lisping, effeminate voice, calling,

“Oh, Brother Thropper; Brother Thropper!”

Jim went to the door and replied,

“All right, Jason!” Then he turned to me and whispered,

“Hardwick is one of the smartest fellows in the University. He’s a poet, too. He’s got a hymn set to music in this book,” and he waved a much worn, manila paper covered Gospel hymn book. “It’s very popular; sung in many of the big revivals!”

With a throb of excitement I waited for the advent of this real poet. I had seen men who had called themselves poets in the mill; but their productions were local in theme, personal in lines, unpoetic in metre and never reached a further fame than insertion in the “Original Line” column of the papers. But I was now to view a real poet; one whose words were sung in churches. I was thoroughly subdued when I heard the poet’s fingers searching for the knob, outside.

He was all that the comic papers and the actors suggest for poets. There was not a bit of the world about his aspect. In reaching for the dwelling places of the muses he had lengthened out until his head, covered with a thick cluster of curls, roamed through the higher levels of the atmosphere. He had to incline his head in order to get through the doorway. His face had a poetic paleness and his lips were pulled out as if he were on the verge of inspired speech. He wore a clerical vest and all his clothes were of a very spiritual black. He carried a mandolin.

I was formally introduced and on my part, in acknowledging the introduction, I agreed that I was “right glad to know” Mr. Hardwick.

The poet had come to rehearse some hymns with Jim. The latter produced his guitar; both musicians sat on the edge of the bed before a nickel-plated music stand, the Gospel hymn book was put in place, and to the strumming of the instruments, the vocalists sang some revival hymns with such effect as to produce from me the comment, “My, that sounds fine!”

Then, growing bold through intimacy, I said,

“I wonder, Mr. Hardwick, if you will sing that song you wrote, please?”

The poet said that he would be pleased to sing it as a trio, and asked me, when he had found the place, if I could join in with the bass. I thought I could.

So the three of us, I between the two musicians, sat on the edge of the bed and sang the lilting reiterations of the hymn,

We were interrupted by the ringing of a bell, on the University tower, which, I learned, was the call to the Sunday afternoon preaching service. As my roommate was trying to urge me to attend, and while I was protesting that my clothes were not good enough, the head waiter came into the room and said,

“Priddy, I’m going to give you a try as a waiter at supper. Don’t go to the preaching service. I will try to rig you up with an apron and jacket.”

Oh, what inspiration those words had in them! It meant that the University was already willing to give me a chance to show what I could do. I should not have to get work in the glass factory. I should not have to wait before I could enroll myself in the University. My chance had come. I cried for joy; tears of which I was not ashamed, even though Brock, the head waiter, saw them.

“I’m only poor, and a big blunderer, without any manners,” I protested, “but if you give me a chance, I’ll do my utmost.”

At five o’clock Brock came into the room carrying on his arm a well-starched waiter’s jacket and a patched white apron.

“I had these on the side,” he announced. “They are worth forty cents. You may pay for them when you are able. Don’t be worrying about the matter. Be over at the dining-room at quarter past five.”

After that I moved as if in the midst of a grand dream. Was I actually in a dormitory, at a college? Was it true that in a quarter of an hour I should be trying to wait on a group of real students?

The dining-hall was a squat wooden bungalow with a great many windows in it. The front hall floor bent under my weight as I crossed it. I unlatched one of the double doors and viewed the roomful of tables with the dull reflector lamps hanging above them. White jacketed students were busy with plates and plated silver cutlery. Brock, himself in glorious white, came down the room with a word of greeting. I was introduced to the student-waiters, was told that I was on trial only, and that I should be carefully watched, as there were many trained waiters among the students who coveted the position. Brock indicated two tables near the door, the farthest away from the kitchen of all the tables.

“You will wait on them,” he said. “There will be ten to a table. When they come in, before the blessing, they will stand behind their chairs. You must go around, find out what they want to drink; hot water, tea or cold water, then you must go to the other end of the room, get one of the trays and fill it with twenty cups. Then you must get them served just as soon as you can. You will find plenty of chores to do when they are seated.”

With a wild, thumping heart, and with a maximum of terror, I heard the first of the students enter the outer hall. Brock stood at the opposite end of the room, near the slides that connected with the kitchen, his finger on a Sunday-school bell. The students, well-dressed young men and women, swept past me, crowded me, stared at me, stood at my tables; went to the different parts of the room chattering, bantering, laughing, and accosting one another familiarly with such abandon and effect that I felt like an intruder. No one spoke to me. The young men and women at my two tables commented about something in a low murmur. They cast doubting looks toward me.

For a minute I was in a panic, then, because I was tall, I could see Brock’s eyes telling me to do something. I went through the crowded aisles, around my tables, saying to each person, in a trembling, very English way,

“Will you ’ave ’ot, cold water, or tea, please?”

I received eighteen orders for hot water and tea and two orders for cold water. I came out from the ordeal of having addressed so many students and went perspiring to the upper end of the room where the urns and trays were. I put the weighty cups and the thick glasses on a tray the size of an ordinary five o’clock tea table, filled them by twisting the tray under the spigots of the urns, and with the weighty load raised as high as my long arms could exalt it, pushed my way nervously down the aisle, past the students whose backs were turned to me, and conscious that all the inquisitive and critical eyes in the world were watching me to see how I should manage. I was very fortunate in being able to squirm my way to the lower end of the room and to reach the vicinity of my own tables without accident. It helped me, too, to hear the students singing a hymn. It took their minds off me, the green mill boy trying to wait on college tables! Thus encouraged, I tried a bold thing, which I saw the other waiters doing. As there were no stand tables to rest our trays upon, while steadying mine against my body as it lay on the palm of my hand, I took off a cup of hot water from the lowered tray, and tried to reach the cup around the waist of the young woman who had called for hot water. The balance would have been maintained had not the person next to me suddenly drawn back, jolted the tray from my hand, and sent the hot liquids streaming down the skirts and shoes of those in the vicinity. There followed, too, the crash and thump as the heavy cups clattered to the floor. The two glasses splintered into bits, and while the students were sitting down, I found myself growing more and more conspicuous until the seated throng looked up from every part of the room, to see me furiously red, with tears gathering, and with untold chagrin over the mishap.

I waited, among the ruin, for Brock to come to me, get me by the scruff of the neck, hurl me outside to say,

“Get back to the mill. What right have you to pretend to know how to act among cultured people? You’re too green!”

I imagined, too, that the students at my table must be delegating one of their number to go to the head waiter to say,

“We don’t want that clumsy person bothering with us. He’s spoiled a couple of fine dresses and made a regular bothersome mess. Throw him out! Send him back to where he came from!”

But I had mistaken the temper of Evangelical University. Brock came down, and with great kindness patted me on the back and said, encouragingly,

“Don’t let a thing like that bother you, Priddy. I know how they crowd. Cheer up, old fellow.”

Then the student who had jolted the tray bent back and said,

“It was all my fault, Brock. He wasn’t to blame a bit. It was downright careless of me. I’m sorry.”

Then, after he had assisted me in bringing the hot water and other drinkables to the tables, Brock took pains to introduce me to the twenty young men and women, saying,

“Mr. Priddy, I hope, will see that you do not go hungry as much as you might!”

I walked on air after that; for the head waiter had called me, “Mr. Priddy!”