One of Ours
Book I: On Lovely Creek
Chapter V
Claude waited for his elders to change their mind about where he should go to
school; but no one seemed much concerned, not even his mother.
Two years ago, the young man whom Mrs. Wheeler called "Brother Weldon" had
come out from Lincoln, preaching in little towns and country churches, and
recruiting students for the institution at which he taught in the winter. He had
convinced Mrs. Wheeler that his college was the safest possible place for a boy
who was leaving home for the first time.
Claude's mother was not discriminating about preachers. She believed them all
chosen and sanctified, and was never happier than when she had one in the house
to cook for and wait upon. She made young Mr. Weldon so comfortable that he
remained under her roof for several weeks, occupying the spare room, where he
spent the mornings in study and meditation. He appeared regularly at mealtime to
ask a blessing upon the food and to sit with devout, downcast eyes while the
chicken was being dismembered. His top-shaped head hung a little to one side,
the thin hair was parted precisely over his high forehead and brushed in little
ripples. He was soft spoken and apologetic in manner and took up as little room
as possible. His meekness amused Mr. Wheeler, who liked to ply him with food and
never failed to ask him gravely "what part of the chicken he would prefer," in
order to hear him murmur, "A little of the white meat, if you please," while he
drew his elbows close, as if he were adroitly sliding over a dangerous place. In
the afternoon Brother Weldon usually put on a fresh lawn necktie and a hard,
glistening straw hat which left a red streak across his forehead, tucked his
Bible under his arm, and went out to make calls. If he went far, Ralph took him
in the automobile.
Claude disliked this young man from the moment he first met him, and could
scarcely answer him civilly. Mrs. Wheeler, always absent-minded, and now
absorbed in her cherishing care of the visitor, did not notice Claude's scornful
silences until Mahailey, whom such things never escaped, whispered to her over
the stove one day: "Mr. Claude, he don't like the preacher. He just ain't got no
use fur him, but don't you let on."
As a result of Brother Weldon's sojourn at the farm, Claude was sent to the
Temple College. Claude had come to believe that the things and people he most
disliked were the ones that were to shape his destiny.
When the second week of September came round, he threw a few clothes and
books into his trunk and said good-bye to his mother and Mahailey. Ralph took
him into Frankfort to catch the train for Lincoln. After settling himself in the
dirty day-coach, Claude fell to meditating upon his prospects. There was a
Pullman car on the train, but to take a Pullman for a daylight journey was one
of the things a Wheeler did not do.
Claude knew that he was going back to the wrong school, that he was wasting
both time and money. He sneered at himself for his lack of spirit. If he had to
do with strangers, he told himself, he could take up his case and fight for it.
He could not assert himself against his father or mother, but he could be bold
enough with the rest of the world. Yet, if this were true, why did he continue
to live with the tiresome Chapins ? The Chapin household consisted of a brother
and sister. Edward Chapin was a man of twenty-six, with an old, wasted
face,—and he was still going to school, studying for the ministry. His sister
Annabelle kept house for him; that is to say, she did whatever housework was
done. The brother supported himself and his sister by getting odd jobs from
churches and religious societies; he "supplied" the pulpit when a minister was
ill, did secretarial work for the college and the Young Men's Christian
Association. Claude's weekly payment for room and board, though a small sum, was
very necessary to their comfort.
Chapin had been going to the Temple College for four years, and it would
probably take him two years more to complete the course. He conned his book on
trolley-cars, or while he waited by the track on windy corners, and studied far
into the night. His natural stupidity must have been something quite out of the
ordinary; after years of reverential study, he could not read the Greek
Testament without a lexicon and grammar at his elbow. He gave a great deal of
time to the practice of elocution and oratory. At certain hours their frail
domicile—it had been thinly built for the academic poor and sat upon concrete
blocks in lieu of a foundation— re-echoed with his hoarse, overstrained voice,
declaiming his own orations or those of Wendell Phillips.
Annabelle Chapin was one of Claude's classmates. She was not as dull as her
brother; she could learn a conjugation and recognize the forms when she met with
them again. But she was a gushing, silly girl, who found almost everything in
their grubby life too good to be true; and she was, unfortunately, sentimental
about Claude. Annabelle chanted her lessons over and over to herself while she
cooked and scrubbed. She was one of those people who can make the finest things
seem tame and flat merely by alluding to them. Last winter she had recited the
odes of Horace about the house—it was exactly her notion of the student-like
thing to do—until Claude feared he would always associate that poet with the
heaviness of hurriedly prepared luncheons.
Mrs. Wheeler liked to feel that Claude was assisting this worthy pair in
their struggle for an education; but he had long ago decided that since neither
of the Chapins got anything out of their efforts but a kind of messy
inefficiency, the struggle might better have been relinquished in the beginning.
He took care of his own room; kept it bare and habitable, free from Annabelle's
attentions and decorations. But the flimsy pretences of light-housekeeping were
very distasteful to him. He was born with a love of order, just as he was born
with red hair. It was a personal attribute.
The boy felt bitterly about the way in which he had been brought up, and
about his hair and his freckles and his awkwardness. When he went to the theatre
in Lincoln, he took a seat in the gallery, because he knew that he looked like a
green country boy. His clothes were never right. He bought collars that were too
high and neckties that were too bright, and hid them away in his trunk. His one
experiment with a tailor was unsuccessful. The tailor saw at once that his
stammering client didn't know what he wanted, so he persuaded him that as the
season was spring he needed light checked trousers and a blue serge coat and
vest. When Claude wore his new clothes to St. Paul's church on Sunday morning,
the eyes of every one he met followed his smart legs down the street. For the
next week he observed the legs of old men and young, and decided there wasn't
another pair of checked pants in Lincoln. He hung his new clothes up in his
closet and never put them on again, though Annabelle Chapin watched for them
wistfully. Nevertheless, Claude thought he could recognize a well-dressed man
when he saw one. He even thought he could recognize a well-dressed woman. If an
attractive woman got into the street car when he was on his way to or from
Temple Place, he was distracted between the desire to look at her and the wish
to seem indifferent.
Claude is on his way back to Lincoln, with a fairly liberal allowance which
does not contribute much to his comfort or pleasure. He has no friends or
instructors whom he can regard with admiration, though the need to admire is
just now uppermost in his nature. He is convinced that the people who might mean
something to him will always misjudge him and pass him by. He is not so much
afraid of loneliness as he is of accepting cheap substitutes; of making excuses
to himself for a teacher who flatters him, of waking up some morning to find
himself admiring a girl merely because she is accessible. He has a dread of easy
compromises, and he is terribly afraid of being fooled.