A Far Country — Complete. Winston Churchill
for Mrs. Bolton, our landlady. There followed a period of waiting in a parlour from which the light had been almost wholly banished, with slippery horsehair furniture and a marble-topped table; and Mrs. Bolton, when she appeared, dressed in rusty black, harmonized perfectly with the funereal gloom. She was a tall, rawboned, severe lady with a peculiar red-mottled complexion that somehow reminded one of the outcropping rocks of her native New England soil.
“You want to see your rooms, I suppose,” she remarked impassively when we had introduced ourselves, and as we mounted the stairs behind her Tom, in a whisper, nicknamed her “Granite Face.” Presently she left us.
“Hospitable soul!” said Tom, who, with his hands in his pockets, was gazing at the bare walls of our sitting-room. “We'll have to go into the house-furnishing business, Hughie. I vote we don't linger here to-day—we'll get melancholia.”
Outside, however, the sun was shining brightly, and we departed immediately to explore Cambridge and announce our important presences to the proper authorities. … We went into Boston to dine. … It was not until nine o'clock in the evening that we returned and the bottom suddenly dropped out of things. He who has tasted that first, acute homesickness of college will know what I mean. It usually comes at the opening of one's trunk. The sight of the top tray gave me a pang I shall never forget. I would not have believed that I loved my mother so much! These articles had been packed by her hands; and in one corner, among the underclothes on which she had neatly sewed my initials, lay the new Bible she had bought. “Hugh Moreton Paret, from his Mother. September, 1881.” I took it up (Tom was not looking) and tried to read a passage, but my eyes were blurred. What was it within me that pressed and pressed until I thought I could bear the pain of it no longer? I pictured the sitting-room at home, and my father and mother there, thinking of me. Yes, I must acknowledge it; in the bitterness of that moment I longed to be back once more in the railed-off space on the floor of Breck and Company, writing invoices. …
Presently, as we went on silently with our unpacking, we became aware of someone in the doorway.
“Hello, you fellows!” he cried. “We're classmates, I guess.”
We turned to behold an ungainly young man in an ill-fitting blue suit. His face was pimply, his eyes a Teutonic blue, his yellow hair rumpled, his naturally large mouth was made larger by a friendly grin.
“I'm Hermann Krebs,” he announced simply. “Who are you?”
We replied, I regret to say, with a distinct coolness that did not seem to bother him in the least. He advanced into the room, holding out a large, red, and serviceable hand, evidently it had never dawned on him that there was such a thing in the world as snobbery. But Tom and I had been “coached” by Ralph Hambleton and Perry Blackwood, warned to be careful of our friendships. There was a Reason! In any case Mr. Krebs would not have appealed to us. In answer to a second question he was informed what city we hailed from, and he proclaimed himself likewise a native of our state.
“Why, I'm from Elkington!” he exclaimed, as though the fact sealed our future relationships. He seated himself on Tom's trunk and added: “Welcome to old Harvard!”
We felt that he was scarcely qualified to speak for “old Harvard,” but we did not say so.
“You look as if you'd been pall-bearers for somebody,” was his next observation.
To this there seemed no possible reply.
“You fellows are pretty well fixed here,” he went on, undismayed, gazing about a room which had seemed to us the abomination of desolation. “Your folks must be rich. I'm up under the skylight.”
Even this failed to touch us. His father—he told us with undiminished candour—had been a German emigrant who had come over in '49, after the cause of liberty had been lost in the old country, and made eye-glasses and opera glasses. There hadn't been a fortune in it. He, Hermann, had worked at various occupations in the summer time, from peddling to farming, until he had saved enough to start him at Harvard. Tom, who had been bending over his bureau drawer, straightened up.
“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