Winning His "W" Part 30

"I fancy--you should hear Splinter say that."

"Say what?"

"'Fancy,' only he calls it 'fawncy'. I 'fawncy' my father is dead right when he says that I'll find a splinter everywhere and just as long as I live; but I don't believe I'll ever find one as bad as this one is."

"He may be worse. Don't you remember that little bit of Eugene Field's verse where he tells how when he was a boy he was sliding down hill with some other little chaps in front of the deacon's house? And how their yelling annoyed the deacon till at last he came out and sprinkled ashes on the path? Well, Eugene said he always had found since that there was some one standing ready to throw ashes on his path, it didn't seem to make any difference where he was."

"I don't remember, but it's like my father's words about finding splinters everywhere. Oh, no, I'm mad about it, but I'm not running away. I'm going to do it if that's the thing to be done."

And when a month had gone by Will had pa.s.sed the examination, and was facing his work without the drag of work undone to hinder him.

The final influence had come one Sunday in the college chapel where the pulpit from week to week was occupied ("filled" was a word also occasionally used) by men of eminence, who were invited for the purpose of speaking to the college boys. Some of these visitors by words, presence, and message were a great inspiration to the young men, and others were correspondingly deficient, for in the vocabulary of Winthrop there was no word by which to express the comparative degree.

Will Phelps had regularly attended the services, not only because such attendance was required by the college authorities but also from the habit and inclination of his own life. With his fellows he had enjoyed some speakers and had disliked others in his thoughtless manner, and in the preceding week had laughed as heartily as any one over the unconscious escapade of Mott. The preacher for the day had been unusually prosy, having length without much breadth or thickness as Foster had dryly described the discourse, and in the midst of the hour, Mott had fallen asleep in his pew. Short and stout in figure, doubtless doubly wearied by the late hours he had kept the preceding night, in the midst of his slumbers he had begun to snore. From low and peaceful intonations he had pa.s.sed on to long, prolonged, and sonorous notes that could be heard throughout the college chapel. Nor would any one of his fellows disturb his slumbers, and when at last with an unusually loud and agonizing gasp Mott was awakened and suddenly sat erect and stared stupidly about him, the good-hearted, but boyishly irreverent audience, it is safe to affirm, was decidedly more interested in the slumbering soph.o.m.ore than in the soporific speaker, though few doubtless thought them related as cause and effect.

On the following Sunday Will was thinking of Mott's experience and wondering if he would give another exhibition. This thought was even in his mind when the visiting speaker entered the chapel pulpit and reverently began the service of the day.

He had not been speaking long before it was evident that every eye was fastened upon him. It was evident that here was first of all a man, and then a man who was present because he had something to say and not merely because he had to say something.

"I am appealing to those of you," he was saying, "who are eager and earnest, not to you who are indifferent or weaklings. Those of you who are members of your college teams, who are leading spirits in the college life, who are not living lives that are above reproach because you have no temptation to be bad, but because if you do right it is because you have to struggle and fight for it--it is to you I am speaking this morning."

Will was listening intently, as was every one in the chapel, and then there followed a sentence that seemed to him almost electric with life and that made a lasting impression upon his life.

CHAPTER XXII

A FRESH EXCITEMENT

"What I want every one of you young men to do," the speaker was saying, "is to give your better self a chance. There isn't one of you to-day who is not proud of his physical strength, not one of you who, if he should be urged to join one of the athletic teams, would not willingly, even proudly go through all the training that would be required of him. And that is right. In your intellectual work some of you see what the desired end is--the development of power, getting your brains into form so that you can meet and compete with the forces you will have to face when you leave your college days behind you and go forth to make your name and place in the great battlefield of life. Some of you, it may be, do not as yet see this clearly, and when you can evade a task or dodge a difficult demand upon you, count it as so much gained. But in your heart of hearts you know better, and are dimly conscious that you are losing and not gaining by your neglect."

The earnestness, the sincerity, and naturalness of the speaker acted upon Will Phelps with the effect of an electric shock. Never had he been so thoroughly aroused, and every nerve in his body was tingling when he left the chapel and started toward his own room.

"That's the kind of a talk the fellows like."

Will glanced up and beheld Wagner, who had overtaken him and now was walking by his side.

"I never heard such a man in all my life," said Will warmly.

"There isn't a man that comes here who has such a grip on the students as he has. One of the best things you have to look forward to is the treat you will have every year of hearing him. There isn't a spark of 'cant' or 'gush' about him, but what he says goes straight home. I don't think I'll ever forget some of the things he has said to us while I've been in college."

Accepting Will's cordial invitation, Wagner went with him to his room and remained there for an hour, and for the most of the time their conversation was of the man and the message they had that morning heard.

"I'll never forget one thing he said," remarked Wagner thoughtfully.

"What was that?" inquired Will, deeply interested at once.

"He was talking once about the reason why women were supposed to be so much more religious than men, and he said he didn't believe they were."

"There are more in the churches, anyway," suggested Will.

"Yes, that's what he said; but he said too, that the reason for it was because one side of the life of Christ had been emphasized at the expense of the other. He said so much had been made of his gentleness and meekness and the kindly virtues, which were the feminine side of his nature and appealed most to women, that he was afraid sometimes the other the stronger side and the one that appealed most to men had been lost. And then, he went on to speak of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and he pictured the temptation and the power of decision and the heroic endurance and strength, and all that. I never heard anything like it in all my life. It made me feel as I do when the team is in for a meet.

I'll never forget it! Never!"

"I wish I'd heard it."

"You'll have three more chances, anyway."

"Maybe more than that if I don't pa.s.s in all my work," laughed Will.

"Having any trouble?"

"A little with my Greek, but I've pa.s.sed off my condition now."

"I think you're all right then, though Splinter is a hard proposition.

Just imagine him talking like this man this morning."

Will laughed, and then becoming serious, he said, "Wagner, I've a cla.s.smate who is bothering me."

"Who is it?"

"Schenck. Peter John everybody calls him."

"What's he doing? What's the trouble with him?"

"Well, to be honest, he's drinking hard."

"Wasn't he one of the fellows who was down, with the typhoid when I had it?"

"Yes."

"An awkward, ungainly, redheaded fellow?"

"That's the one."

"What have you been doing for him?"

"Everything I could think of, but nothing seems to hold. He made all sorts of promises when he was sick and he hasn't kept one of them. He goes around with Mott and you know what that means."

"Yes," said Wagner thoughtfully.

"He's a queer chap. I was in school three years with him and in some ways he was absolutely idiotic. For a while he'd work all right and then without a word of warning he'd break out and do some of the most absolutely fool things you ever heard of."

"Not very much to appeal to, I fancy."

"There might be if a fellow knew how, but I confess I don't."