For an hour Dr. Ives had been pursuing his solitary explorations of the grounds and buildings of St. Timothy’s School. He and David had interviewed the rector, Dr. Davenport, had been shown the room in the middle school which David was to occupy and in which his trunk was already awaiting him, and had inquired the way to the auditorium, where David was now taking the examinations that were to determine his position.

For an hour Dr. Ives had been alone, and he was beginning to realize what the loneliness of his journey home would be, what the gap in the family life would be. From the time when he and David had started East they had been together every moment; his happiness in the companionship of his son and the novelty of the vacation journeying had kept his spirits buoyant; but now the shadows had begun to come over his imagination. He had taken pleasure in viewing the wide playing fields and the circumambient cinder track and in thinking of his boy happy and active there on sunny afternoons. He had taken pleasure in looking in upon the rows of desks in the great schoolroom, on the empty benches in the recitation rooms, on the quiet, booklined alcoves in the library, and in thinking of his boy passing in those places quiet, studious, faithful hours. He had enjoyed visiting the gymnasium and picturing his boy performing feats there on the flying rings and taking part with the others in brave and strengthening exercises. He had stood by the margin of the pond and in imagination had seen canoe races and boys splashing and swimming; even while he looked the season changed, and he had seen them speeding and skimming on the ice while their skates hummed and their hockey sticks rang, and always his boy had been foremost in his eye.

But now, though he had walked neither far nor fast, Dr. Ives found himself suddenly overcome with fatigue; he was near the study building and he sat down on the steps to rest. He grew tired so easily! He sat still for some time and was just rising to his feet when the door behind him opened and a tall man of about his own age, with a gray beard and heavily rimmed spectacles, came down the steps, glanced at him and said:

“You’re a stranger here, I think. Can I be of any assistance to you?”

“No, thank you,” said Dr. Ives. “I have a son in that building yonder, taking an examination. I’m just killing time till he comes out.”

“In that case wouldn’t you like me to show you round the place? I’ve been a master here for nearly forty years.”

“To tell you the truth,” Dr. Ives answered, “I’ve been wandering round till I’m played out. I was just on the point of going to the library in the hope of finding a chair.”

“I can offer you a more comfortable one; my rooms are in that yellow house—just beyond those trees. I’m at leisure for the rest of the day, and I shall be glad of your company. My name is Dean.”

In Mr. Dean’s pleasant rooms Dr. Ives was soon unburdening himself; the elderly master’s sympathy and friendliness invited confidences. So in a way did the character of the rooms, about which there was nothing formal or austere. They were the quarters of a scholar; although bookshelves crowded the walls, the library overflowed the space allotted; books were piled on the floor and on the table and on the chairs—books of all descriptions and in all languages, books in workaday bindings and in no bindings at all, ponderous great volumes and learned little pamphlets, works of poets and novelists, historians and essayists, philosophers and naturalists, from the days of ancient Greece to the end of the nineteenth century. From the depth of the big leather chair in which Dr. Ives found himself he looked across a massive oak table covered with papers, books, and pamphlets in a bewildering confusion and saw the thoughtful, kindly face of his host; he felt that Mr. Dean was a man on whose courtesy, consideration, and wisdom any boy or parent might depend. It was the master’s eyes that were so assuring, so inspiring, so communicative—gray eyes that sparkled and twinkled and watched and seemed even to listen; the spectacles behind which they worked deprived them of no part of their expressiveness; the smile that hardly stirred in Mr. Dean’s beard sprang rollicking and frolicsome from his eyes. They were eyes that seemed to miss nothing and to interpret everything wisely, kindly, humorously. So in a little while Dr. Ives was confiding his hopes and dreams about his son, and some—not all—of the misgivings that he had never breathed to his wife.

“Of course,” he said, “I realize that probably most of the boys here are the sons of rich men—rich at least by comparison with me. And for some time I wondered if it were altogether wise or fair to David to put him into a school where, financially, anyway, he would be at a disadvantage.”

“It all depends upon the boy,” said Mr. Dean. “Not all our boys are rich—though most of them are. The spirit of the place is to take a fellow for what he is. If your boy is the sort who is simple and straightforward—as I have no doubt he is—he has nothing to fear from association with the sons of the rich. Is he an athlete?”

“He runs—he’s a pretty good quarter-miler. And he plays baseball. But he hasn’t any false notions of the importance of athletic success. You’ll find him a good student; he led his class at the high school.”

“We give a double welcome to every boy who comes with the reputation of being a good student; we have unfortunately a good many who have not been brought up to appreciate the importance of study.”

“David knows the importance of it. He knows that he’ll have to study in college and in the medical school, and the earlier he forms the habit of work the better. Dr. Wallace, whom of course you know—I’ve said to David that Dr. Wallace couldn’t be what he is if he hadn’t early formed the habit of work.”

“I wish that his son would form it,” remarked Mr. Dean. “Lester Wallace is not one of our hard workers.”

“No doubt he will develop; otherwise he could hardly be his father’s son. Dr. Wallace is our most able and brilliant surgeon. Indeed, it’s largely because I should like to get my boy started on a career similar to his that I have brought David to St. Timothy’s.”

“Well,” said Mr. Dean, “I’ve had a good opportunity to note the careers of those who have passed through the school. And, generally speaking, those after lives have been most creditable have been the boys who while they were at school received from their fathers the most careful, sane, and intelligent interest—not those whose fathers felt that boarding-school had taken a problem off their hands. A good many fathers do feel that. It’s an extraordinary thing, the number of intelligent, successful, wide-awake Americans who do not seem to realize the importance of holding standards always before their sons.”

“I suppose,” Dr. Ives suggested, “that the very successful and active men are too busy.”

Mr. Dean shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that. A physician like yourself is probably much more busy and active than many of those eager, money-making men. No; the trouble with them is their egotism and ambition. They feel that their offspring derived importance and distinction from them, and they expect vaingloriously to shine in light reflected from their offspring. But there’s an interval when they regard their offspring as not much else than a nuisance, and for that interval they turn them over, body and soul, to a boarding-school to be developed into youths such as will shed luster on their parents. The school might possibly do it if there were no vacations, but three weeks at home at Christmas often undoes the good of the three preceding months at school.”

“You seem to be a pessimist about the value of home life for a boy.”

“No, not in the least. But I am a pessimist about the influences prevailing in the homes of some of our excessively solvent citizens. Boys of fifteen and sixteen go home and with other boys of the same age constitute a miniature aristocracy, a miniature society, that copies the vices and mannerisms and foppishness of the grown-up social aristocracy, and that is encouraged and even educated in all the vulgar, useless, expensive, and demoralizing details by this purblind aristocracy. I tell you, Dr. Ives, there are boys in this school that the school is struggling to save from the pernicious influences to which they are exposed at home—but their fathers and mothers can’t be made to see it. Fortunately, there are not a great many of them. Our most common difficulty is with the boy whose father is too busy to give any thought to him, to stimulate him, or help him, or advise him. Well, it’s easy to see that your boy’s father is not that kind.”

“No,” said Dr. Ives. “David and I have always been too close to each other for that to happen.”

“You’re starting home to-day?”

“Yes, I’m just waiting round to see David again; my train leaves in a couple of hours.”

“The examinations close very soon. I will walk over to the building with you; I should like to meet your boy.”

So it happened that on emerging from the test David found himself shaking hands with an elderly gentleman whose kindly eyes and pleasant voice won his liking.

“He looks like the right sort,” said Mr. Dean, turning to Dr. Ives with a smile. “How did you find the examinations?”

“Not very hard,” replied David.

“Good; then you’ll be in the fifth form without a doubt; the Latin class will assist us to a better acquaintance. Good-bye, Dr. Ives; we’ll take good care of your son.”

Dr. Ives looked after the tall figure of the master as he swung away, gripping his stout cane by the middle, and said:

“David, my boy, there’s a gentleman and a scholar. Be his friend, and let him be yours.”

“Yes, father,” David said obediently.

They walked slowly to the building in which David had his room, climbed the stairs, and sat down by the window. Dr. Ives looked out in silence for a time, wishing to fix in his mind the view that was to become so familiar to his son—the grassplots bounded by stone posts and white rail fences, the roadways, lined with maple trees, the clustered red-brick buildings above which rose the lofty chapel tower in the sunlight of the warm September day.

“This should be a good place to study in, David,” he said. “It’s in the quiet places that a man can prepare himself best.”

“I don’t know how quiet it will be to-morrow,” said David, “when about two hundred and fifty old boys arrive.”

“Oh, yes, it will be lively enough at times, and I’m glad of that, too. And you’ll go in for all the activities there are; I needn’t urge that. The thing I do want to emphasize, David, is the importance of making full use of all the quiet hours.”

“I will do my best, father.”

“And you will remember, of course, that it’s more necessary for you than for most of the fellows you will associate with to practice economy.”

“Yes, father, I shall be careful.”

There was silence, and during it they saw a motor-car turn in at the gateway and a moment later draw up before the steps of the building. They both knew what it meant, yet each shrank from declaring it to the other.

“Write to us often, David,” said Dr. Ives. “You will be always in our hearts; we shall be thinking and talking of you every day. Don’t forget us.”

David found himself unable to speak. He shook his head and squeezed his father’s hand. They sat again in silence for a little while.

“Well, my boy—” said Dr. Ives.

Hand in hand they went along the corridor and down the stairs. Outside the building the father turned and took his son into his arms. That last kiss became one of David’s sweetest and saddest memories.

It was surprising even to himself how soon he fitted into place. His seat in chapel, his desk in the schoolroom, his locker in the gymnasium, his place in the dining-hall—at the end of a week he thought of them as if they had always been his. In the same short time he was recognized as the fellow who was likely to lead his division of the fifth form in scholarship. His uncomfortable zeal for study and his tendency to forge instantly to the head of his class, regardless of being a “new kid,” were not conducive to the attainment of popularity. So, although in superficial ways the school soon became a second home to him, he felt that in the things that counted he remained a stranger.

He was disappointed in his expectation that Lester Wallace would come forward and welcome him. When in Mr. Dean’s Latin class he first heard Wallace called on to recite, he glanced round in eager interest. A stocky, smiling, good-natured-looking youth was slowly rising to his feet; his voice, as he began to translate, was lazy, yet had a pleasant tone; his manner when he came to a full stop in the middle of an involved sentence that had entangled him suggested that he was humorously amused by a puzzle rather than concentrating his mind on the solution. He acquiesced without rancor in Mr. Dean’s suggestion that he had better sit down. Later when David was called on to recite, he wondered whether Wallace was looking at him with any interest; he wondered whether the name of Ives had any significance for Wallace. Apparently it had not, for after the hour Wallace passed David on the stairs without pausing to speak.

When the noon recess came some of the fellows, instead of dispersing to the dormitories, lingered in groups outside the study building. Among them was Wallace, and with the faint hope that Wallace might now come up to him, David lingered, too. He was too shy to make any advances to one who was an “old” boy, too proud to court the friendship of one who was obviously well known and popular; yet Wallace, with his pleasant, lazy voice, twinkling eyes, and leisurely air of good nature, attracted him. While he stood looking on, a girl, perhaps fifteen years old, came through the rectory gate just across the road; she was tossing a baseball up and catching it and now and then thumping it into the baseball glove that she wore on her left hand. She was slender and graceful, and the smile with which she responded to the general snatching off of caps seemed to David sweet and fascinating; her large straw hat prevented him from determining how pretty she was, but he was sure about her smile and her rosy cheeks and her merry eyes.

“Here you are, Ruth!” Lester Wallace held up his hands.

She threw the ball to him, straight and swift, with a motion very like a boy’s, and yet oddly, indescribably feminine. He returned it, and she caught it competently.

“Isn’t any one going to play scrub?” she asked. At once Wallace cried, “Yes; one!” She cried, “Two!”—and they danced about while the others shouted for places. When they had all moved off toward the upper school with the girl and Wallace in the lead, David followed, partly out of curiosity and partly also out of reluctance to dismiss quickly such a pleasant person from his sight.

He watched the game of scrub behind the upper school and was struck by the girl’s skill, her freedom and grace of action, her fearlessness in facing and catching hard-hit balls, and also by the rather more than brotherly courtesy of all the fellows; they seemed to try to give her the best chances and yet never to condescend too much. Apparently she and Wallace were especially good friends; she reproached him slangily, “O Lester, you lobster!” and he was often comforting or encouraging—“Take another crack at it, Ruth!” “Beat it, Ruth, beat it!” and once in rapture at a stop that she had made, “Oh, puella pulchrissima!”

Looking on, David felt there was another person in the school besides Wallace that he would very much like to know. He ventured to ask a boy standing by who the girl was.

“The rector’s daughter—Ruth Davenport. Peach, isn’t she?”

“Yes, peach,” said David.

He continued to look on until the ringing of the quarter bell for luncheon put an end to the game.