A Far Country, Book 1

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"What did you want to come here for?" he demanded.

"Say, what did you?" Mr. Krebs retorted genially. "To get an education,
of course."

"An education!" echoed Tom.

"Isn't Harvard the oldest and best seat of learning in America?" There
was an exaltation in Krebs's voice that arrested my attention, and made
me look at him again. A troubled chord had been struck within me.

"Sure," said Tom.

"What did you come for?" Mr. Krebs persisted.

"To sow my wild oats," said Tom. "I expect to have something of a crop,
too."

For some reason I could not fathom, it suddenly seemed to dawn on Mr.
Krebs, as a result of this statement, that he wasn't wanted.

"Well, so long," he said, with a new dignity that curiously belied the
informality of his farewell.

An interval of silence followed his departure.

"Well, he's got a crust!" said Tom, at last.

My own feeling about Mr. Krebs had become more complicated; but I took my
cue from Tom, who dealt with situations simply.

"He'll come in for a few knockouts," he declared. "Here's to old Harvard,
the greatest institution of learning in America! Oh, gee!"

Our visitor, at least, made us temporarily forget our homesickness, but
it returned with redoubled intensity when we had put out the lights and
gone to bed.

Before we had left home it had been mildly hinted to us by Ralph and
Perry Blackwood that scholarly eminence was not absolutely necessary to
one's welfare and happiness at Cambridge. The hint had been somewhat
superfluous; but the question remained, what was necessary? With a view
of getting some light on this delicate subject we paid a visit the next
evening to our former friends and schoolmates, whose advice was conveyed
with a masterly circumlocution that impressed us both. There are some
things that may not be discussed directly, and the conduct of life at a
modern university--which is a reflection of life in the greater world--is
one of these. Perry Blackwood and Ham did most of the talking, while
Ralph, characteristically, lay at full length on the window-seat,
interrupting with an occasional terse and cynical remark very much to the
point. As a sophomore, he in particular seemed lifted immeasurably above
us, for he was--as might have been expected already a marked man in his
class. The rooms which he shared with his cousin made a tremendous
impression on Tom and me, and seemed palatial in comparison to our
quarters at Mrs. Bolton's, eloquent of the freedom and luxury of
undergraduate existence; their note, perhaps, was struck by the profusion
of gay sofa pillows, then something of an innovation. The heavy,
expensive furniture was of a pattern new to me; and on the mantel were
three or four photographs of ladies in the alluring costume of the
musical stage, in which Tom evinced a particular interest.

"Did grandfather send 'em?" he inquired.

"They're Ham's," said Ralph, and he contrived somehow to get into those
two words an epitome of his cousin's character. Ham was stouter, and his
clothes were more striking, more obviously expensive than ever.... On our
way homeward, after we had walked a block or two in silence, Tom
exclaimed:--"Don't make friends with the friendless!--eh, Hughie? We knew
enough to begin all right, didn't we?"...

Have I made us out a pair of deliberate, calculating snobs? Well, after
all it must be remembered that our bringing up had not been of sufficient
liberality to include the Krebses of this world. We did not, indeed,
spend much time in choosing and weighing those whom we should know and
those whom we should avoid; and before the first term of that Freshman
year was over Tom had become a favourite. He had the gift of making men
feel that he delighted in their society, that he wished for nothing
better than to sit for hours in their company, content to listen to the
arguments that raged about him. Once in a while he would make a droll
observation that was greeted with fits of laughter. He was always
referred to as "old Tom," or "good old Tom"; presently, when he began to
pick out chords on the banjo, it was discovered that he had a good tenor
voice, though he could not always be induced to sing.... Somewhat to the
jeopardy of the academic standard that my father expected me to sustain,
our rooms became a rendezvous for many clubable souls whose maudlin,
midnight attempts at harmony often set the cocks crowing.

"Free from care and despair,
What care we?
'Tis wine, 'tis wine
That makes the jollity."

As a matter of truth, on these occasions it was more often beer; beer
transported thither in Tom's new valise,--given him by his mother,--and
stuffed with snow to keep the bottles cold. Sometimes Granite Face,
adorned in a sky-blue wrapper, would suddenly appear in the doorway to
declare that we were a disgrace to her respectable house: the university
authorities should be informed, etc., etc. Poor woman, we were
outrageously inconsiderate of her.... One evening as we came through the
hall we caught a glimpse in the dimly lighted parlour of a young man
holding a shy and pale little girl on his lap, Annie, Mrs. Bolton's
daughter: on the face of our landlady was an expression I had never seen
there, like a light. I should scarcely have known her. Tom and I paused
at the foot of the stairs. He clutched my arm.

"Darned if it wasn't our friend Krebs!" he whispered.

While I was by no means so popular as Tom, I got along fairly well. I had
escaped from provincialism, from the obscure purgatory of the wholesale
grocery business; new vistas, exciting and stimulating, had been opened
up; nor did I offend the sensibilities and prejudices of the new friends
I made, but gave a hearty consent to a code I found congenial. I
recognized in the social system of undergraduate life at Harvard a
reflection of that of a greater world where I hoped some day to shine;
yet my ambition did not prey upon me. Mere conformity, however, would not
have taken me very far in a sphere from which I, in common with many
others, desired not to be excluded.... One day, in an idle but inspired
moment, I paraphrased a song from "Pinafore," applying it to a college
embroglio, and the brief and lively vogue it enjoyed was sufficient to
indicate a future usefulness. I had "found myself." This was in the last
part of the freshman year, and later on I became a sort of amateur, class
poet-laureate. Many were the skits I composed, and Tom sang them....

During that freshman year we often encountered Hermann Krebs, whistling
merrily, on the stairs.

"Got your themes done?" he would inquire cheerfully.

And Tom would always mutter, when he was out of earshot: "He has got a
crust!"

When I thought about Krebs at all,--and this was seldom indeed,--his
manifest happiness puzzled me. Our cool politeness did not seem to bother
him in the least; on the contrary, I got the impression that it amused
him. He seemed to have made no friends. And after that first evening,
memorable for its homesickness, he never ventured to repeat his visit to
us.

One windy November day I spied his somewhat ludicrous figure striding
ahead of me, his trousers above his ankles. I was bundled up in a new
ulster,--of which I was secretly quite proud,--but he wore no overcoat at
all.

"Well, how are you getting along?" I asked, as I overtook him.

He made clear, as he turned, his surprise that I should have addressed
him at all, but immediately recovered himself.

"Oh, fine," he responded. "I've had better luck than I expected. I'm
correspondent for two or three newspapers. I began by washing windows,
and doing odd jobs for the professors' wives." He laughed. "I guess that
doesn't strike you as good luck."

He showed no resentment at my patronage, but a self-sufficiency that made
my sympathy seem superfluous, giving the impression of an inner harmony
and content that surprised me.

"I needn't ask how you're getting along," he said....

At the end of the freshman year we abandoned Mrs. Bolton's for more
desirable quarters.

I shall not go deeply into my college career, recalling only such
incidents as, seen in the retrospect, appear to have had significance. I
have mentioned my knack for song-writing; but it was not, I think, until
my junior year there was startlingly renewed in me my youthful desire to
write, to create something worth while, that had so long been dormant.

The inspiration came from Alonzo Cheyne, instructor in English; a
remarkable teacher, in spite of the finicky mannerisms which Tom
imitated. And when, in reading aloud certain magnificent passages, he
forgot his affectations, he managed to arouse cravings I thought to have
deserted me forever. Was it possible, after all, that I had been right
and my father wrong? that I might yet be great in literature?

A mere hint from Alonzo Cheyne was more highly prized by the grinds than
fulsome praise from another teacher. And to his credit it should be
recorded that the grinds were the only ones he treated with any
seriousness; he took pains to answer their questions; but towards the
rest of us, the Chosen, he showed a thinly veiled contempt. None so quick
as he to detect a simulated interest, or a wily effort to make him
ridiculous; and few tried this a second time, for he had a rapier-like
gift of repartee that transfixed the offender like a moth on a pin. He
had a way of eyeing me at times, his glasses in his hand, a queer smile
on his lips, as much as to imply that there was one at least among the
lost who was made for better things. Not that my work was poor, but I
knew that it might have been better. Out of his classes, however, beyond
the immediate, disturbing influence of his personality I would relapse
into indifference....

Returning one evening to our quarters, which were now in the "Yard," I
found Tom seated with a blank sheet before him, thrusting his hand
through his hair and biting the end of his penholder to a pulp. In his
muttering, which was mixed with the curious, stingless profanity of which
he was master, I caught the name of Cheyne, and I knew that he was facing
the crisis of a fortnightly theme. The subject assigned was a narrative
of some personal experience, and it was to be handed in on the morrow. My
own theme was already, written.

"I've been holding down this chair for an hour, and I can't seem to think
of a thing." He rose to fling himself down on the lounge. "I wish I was
in Canada."

"Why Canada?"

"Trout fishing with Uncle Jake at that club of his where he took me last
summer." Tom gazed dreamily at the ceiling. "Whenever I have some darned
foolish theme like this to write I want to go fishing, and I want to go
like the devil. I'll get Uncle Jake to take you, too, next summer."

"I wish you would."

"Say, that's living all right, Hughie, up there among the tamaracks and
balsams!" And he began, for something like the thirtieth time, to relate
the adventures of the trip.

As he talked, the idea presented itself to me with sudden fascination to
use this incident as the subject of Tom's theme; to write it for him,
from his point of view, imitating the droll style he would have had if he
had been able to write; for, when he was interested in any matter, his
oral narrative did not lack vividness. I began to ask him questions: what
were the trees like, for instance? How did the French-Canadian guides
talk? He had the gift of mimicry: aided by a partial knowledge of French
I wrote down a few sentences as they sounded. The canoe had upset and he
had come near drowning. I made him describe his sensations.

"I'll write your theme for you," I exclaimed, when he had finished.

"Gee, not about that!"

"Why not? It's a personal experience."

His gratitude was pathetic.... By this time I was so full of the subject
that it fairly clamoured for expression, and as I wrote the hours flew.
Once in a while I paused to ask him a question as he sat with his chair
tilted back and his feet on the table, reading a detective story. I
sketched in the scene with bold strokes; the desolate bois brule on the
mountain side, the polished crystal surface of the pool broken here and
there with the circles left by rising fish; I pictured Armand, the guide,
his pipe between his teeth, holding the canoe against the current; and I
seemed to smell the sharp tang of the balsams, to hear the roar of the
rapids below. Then came the sudden hooking of the big trout, habitant
oaths from Armand, bouleversement, wetness, darkness, confusion; a
half-strangled feeling, a brief glimpse of green things and sunlight, and
then strangulation, or what seemed like it; strangulation, the sense of
being picked up and hurled by a terrific force whither? a blinding
whiteness, in which it was impossible to breathe, one sharp, almost
unbearable pain, then another, then oblivion.... Finally, awakening, to
be confronted by a much worried Uncle Jake.

By this time the detective story had fallen to the floor, and Tom was
huddled up in his chair, asleep. He arose obediently and wrapped a wet
towel around his head, and began to write. Once he paused long enough to
mutter:--"Yes, that's about it,--that's the way I felt!" and set to work
again, mechanically,--all the praise I got for what I deemed a literary
achievement of the highest order! At three o'clock, a.m., he finished,
pulled off his clothes automatically and tumbled into bed. I had no
desire for sleep. My brain was racing madly, like an engine without a
governor. I could write! I could write! I repeated the words over and
over to myself. All the complexities of my present life were blotted out,
and I beheld only the long, sweet vista of the career for which I was now
convinced that nature had intended me. My immediate fortunes became
unimportant, immaterial. No juice of the grape I had ever tasted made me
half so drunk.... With the morning, of course, came the reaction, and I
suffered the after sensations of an orgie, awaking to a world of
necessity, cold and grey and slushy, and necessity alone made me rise
from my bed. My experience of the night before might have taught me that
happiness lies in the trick of transforming necessity, but it did not.
The vision had faded,--temporarily, at least; and such was the
distraction of the succeeding days that the subject of the theme passed
from my mind....

One morning Tom was later than usual in getting home. I was writing a
letter when he came in, and did not notice him, yet I was vaguely aware
of his standing over me. When at last I looked up I gathered from his
expression that something serious had happened, so mournful was his face,
and yet so utterly ludicrous.

"Say, Hugh, I'm in the deuce of a mess," he announced.

"What's the matter?" I inquired.

He sank down on the table with a groan.

"It's Alonzo," he said.

Then I remembered the theme.

"What--what's he done?" I demanded.

"He says I must become a writer. Think of it, me a writer! He says I'm a
young Shakespeare, that I've been lazy and hid my light under a bushel!
He says he knows now what I can do, and if I don't keep up the quality,
he'll know the reason why, and write a personal letter to my father. Oh,
hell!"

In spite of his evident anguish, I was seized with a convulsive laughter.
Tom stood staring at me moodily.

"You think it's funny,--don't you? I guess it is, but what's going to
become of me? That's what I want to know. I've been in trouble before,
but never in any like this. And who got me into it? You!"

Here was gratitude!

"You've got to go on writing 'em, now." His voice became desperately
pleading. "Say, Hugh, old man, you can temper 'em down--temper 'em down
gradually. And by the end of the year, let's say, they'll be about normal
again."

He seemed actually shivering.

"The end of the year!" I cried, the predicament striking me for the first
time in its fulness. "Say, you've got a crust!"

"You'll do it, if I have to hold a gun over you," he announced grimly.

Mingled with my anxiety, which was real, was an exultation that would not
down. Nevertheless, the idea of developing Tom into a Shakespeare,--Tom,
who had not the slightest desire to be one I was appalling, besides
having in it an element of useless self-sacrifice from which I recoiled.
On the other hand, if Alonzo should discover that I had written his
theme, there were penalties I did not care to dwell upon .... With such a
cloud hanging over me I passed a restless night.

As luck would have it the very next evening in the level light under the
elms of the Square I beheld sauntering towards me a dapper figure which I
recognized as that of Mr. Cheyne himself. As I saluted him he gave me an
amused and most disconcerting glance; and when I was congratulating
myself that he had passed me he stopped.

"Fine weather for March, Paret," he observed.

"Yes, sir," I agreed in a strange voice.

"By the way," he remarked, contemplating the bare branches above our
heads, "that was an excellent theme your roommate handed in. I had no
idea that he possessed such--such genius. Did you, by any chance, happen
to read it?"

"Yes, sir,--I read it."

"Weren't you surprised?" inquired Mr. Cheyne.

"Well, yes, sir--that is--I mean to say he talks just like that,
sometimes--that is, when it's anything he cares about."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Cheyne. "That's interesting, most interesting. In all
my experience, I do not remember a case in which a gift has been
developed so rapidly. I don't want to give the impression--ah that there
is no room for improvement, but the thing was very well done, for an
undergraduate. I must confess I never should have suspected it in Peters,
and it's most interesting what you say about his cleverness in
conversation." He twirled the head of his stick, apparently lost in
reflection. "I may be wrong," he went on presently, "I have an idea it is
you--" I must literally have jumped away from him. He paused a moment,
without apparently noticing my panic, "that it is you who have influenced
Peters."

"Sir?"

"I am wrong, then. Or is this merely commendable modesty on your part?"

"Oh, no, sir."

"Then my hypothesis falls to the ground. I had greatly hoped," he added
meaningly, "that you might be able to throw some light on this mystery."

I was dumb.

"Paret," he asked, "have you time to come over to my rooms for a few
minutes this evening?"

"Certainly, sir."

He gave me his number in Brattle Street....

Like one running in a nightmare and making no progress I made my way
home, only to learn from Hallam,--who lived on the same floor,--that Tom
had inconsiderately gone to Boston for the evening, with four other weary
spirits in search of relaxation! Avoiding our club table, I took what
little nourishment I could at a modest restaurant, and restlessly paced
the moonlit streets until eight o'clock, when I found myself in front of
one of those low-gabled colonial houses which, on less soul-shaking
occasions, had exercised a great charm on my imagination. My hand hung
for an instant over the bell.... I must have rung it violently, for there
appeared almost immediately an old lady in a lace cap, who greeted me
with gentle courtesy, and knocked at a little door with glistening
panels. The latch was lifted by Mr. Cheyne himself.

"Come in, Paret," he said, in a tone that was unexpectedly hospitable.

I have rarely seen a more inviting room. A wood fire burned brightly on
the brass andirons, flinging its glare on the big, white beam that
crossed the ceiling, and reddening the square panes of the windows in
their panelled recesses. Between these were rows of books,--attractive
books in chased bindings, red and blue; books that appealed to be taken
down and read. There was a table covered with reviews and magazines in
neat piles, and a lamp so shaded as to throw its light only on the white
blotter of the pad. Two easy chairs, covered with flowered chintz, were
ranged before the fire, in one of which I sank, much bewildered, upon
being urged to do so.

I utterly failed to recognize "Alonzo" in this new atmosphere. And he
had, moreover, dropped the subtly sarcastic manner I was wont to
associate with him.

"Jolly old house, isn't it?" he observed, as though I had casually
dropped in on him for a chat; and he stood, with his hands behind him
stretched to the blaze, looking down at me. "It was built by a certain
Colonel Draper, who fought at Louisburg, and afterwards fled to England
at the time of the Revolution. He couldn't stand the patriots, I'm not so
sure that I blame him, either. Are you interested in colonial things, Mr.
Paret?"

I said I was. If the question had concerned Aztec relics my answer would
undoubtedly have been the same. And I watched him, dazedly, while he took
down a silver porringer from the shallow mantel shelf.

"It's not a Revere," he said, in a slightly apologetic tone as though to
forestall a comment, "but it's rather good, I think. I picked it up at a
sale in Dorchester. But I have never been able to identify the coat of
arms."

He showed me a ladle, with the names of "Patience and William Simpson"
engraved quaintly thereon, and took down other articles in which I
managed to feign an interest. Finally he seated himself in the chair
opposite, crossed his feet, putting the tips of his fingers together and
gazing into the fire.

"So you thought you could fool me," he said, at length.

I became aware of the ticking of a great clock in the corner. My mouth
was dry.

"I am going to forgive you," he went on, more gravely, "for several
reasons. I don't flatter, as you know. It's because you carried out the
thing so perfectly that I am led to think you have a gift that may be
cultivated, Paret. You wrote that theme in the way Peters would have
written it if he had not been--what shall I say?--scripturally
inarticulate. And I trust it may do you some good if I say it was
something of a literary achievement, if not a moral one."

"Thank you, sir," I faltered.

"Have you ever," he inquired, lapsing a little into his lecture-room
manner, "seriously thought of literature as a career? Have you ever
thought of any career seriously?"

"I once wished to be a writer, sir," I replied tremulously, but refrained
from telling him of my father's opinion of the profession. Ambition--a
purer ambition than I had known for years--leaped within me at his words.
He, Alonzo Cheyne, had detected in me the Promethean fire!

I sat there until ten o'clock talking to the real Mr. Cheyne, a human Mr.
Cheyne unknown in the lecture-room. Nor had I suspected one in whom
cynicism and distrust of undergraduates (of my sort) seemed so ingrained,
of such idealism. He did not pour it out in preaching; delicately,
unobtrusively and on the whole rather humorously he managed to present to
me in a most disillusionizing light that conception of the university
held by me and my intimate associates. After I had left him I walked the
quiet streets to behold as through dissolving mists another Harvard, and
there trembled in my soul like the birth-struggle of a flame something of
the vision later to be immortalized by St. Gaudens, the spirit of Harvard
responding to the spirit of the Republic--to the call of Lincoln, who
voiced it. The place of that bronze at the corner of Boston Common was as
yet empty, but I have since stood before it to gaze in wonder at the
light shining in darkness on mute, uplifted faces, black faces! at
Harvard's son leading them on that the light might live and prevail.

I, too, longed for a Cause into which I might fling myself, in which I
might lose myself... I halted on the sidewalk to find myself staring from
the opposite side of the street at a familiar house, my old landlady's,
Mrs. Bolton's, and summoned up before me was the tired, smiling face of
Hermann Krebs. Was it because when he had once spoken so crudely of the
University I had seen the reflection of her spirit in his eyes? A light
still burned in the extension roof--Krebs's light; another shone dimly
through the ground glass of the front door. Obeying a sudden impulse, I
crossed the street.

Mrs. Bolton, in the sky-blue wrapper, and looking more forbidding than
ever, answered the bell. Life had taught her to be indifferent to
surprises, and it was I who became abruptly embarrassed.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Paret," she said, as though I had been a frequent
caller. I had never once darkened her threshold since I had left her
house.

"Yes," I answered, and hesitated.... "Is Mr. Krebs in?"

"Well," she replied in a lifeless tone, which nevertheless had in it a
touch of bitterness, "I guess there's no reason why you and your friends
should have known he was sick."

"Sick!" I repeated. "Is he very sick?"

"I calculate he'll pull through," she said. "Sunday the doctor gave him
up. And no wonder! He hasn't had any proper food since he's be'n here!"
She paused, eyeing me. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Paret, I was just going
up to him when you rang."

"Certainly," I replied awkwardly. "Would you be so kind as to tell
him--when he's well enough--that I came to see him, and that I'm sorry?"

There was another pause, and she stood with a hand defensively clutching
the knob.