College freshmen -- Juvenile fiction; College stories; Male friendship -- Juvenile fiction
Oddly enough, after the first few minutes, Larry found himself getting
along very well indeed with the daughter of, perhaps, the richest man
he had ever shaken hands with. Which was something to Miss Holcombe’s
credit, too, for she was rather fond of taking “rises” out of bashful
young fellows. Most naturally, their talk went back to that day in the
Tourmaline Canyon at first, but it got around to more modern things
after a bit.
“You are taking the Mechanical course in Sheddon?” the girl asked, when
things present had been given a chance.
“Taking at it,” said Larry modestly.
“And Dickie Maxwell’s in Civil?”
“He is. His father is a C. E., you know.”
“Mr. Maxwell is a Sheddon old-grad., isn’t he?”
“Yes; that is how Dick and I come to be here. It’s a good old dump.”
The girl laughed.
“If you go on playing foot-ball the way you did this afternoon, you’ll
put Sheddon on the map,” she said. “Where did you learn?”
“Brewster High. We had a corking team for a bunch of kids. I’ll say
that much for it if it did have to count me in as right half.”
“That is where you’ll play on the ’Varsity, isn’t it?”
“Surest thing you know――if Coach Brock doesn’t find a better man.”
If any one had told Larry one short hour earlier that at half-past five
that same afternoon he would be talking thus chummily with a girl――any
girl, let alone Miss Elizabeth Holcombe――he would have taken a chance
and called that person a hopeless pipe-dreamer. More than that, he went
on talking with her, and still more, when the time came for the guests
to go to the eastbound train to which their private car was to be
attached, he made one of a group of Dick’s and MacClay’s intimates who
went to the station to see them off.
It was while they were walking together back to the college side of
the river over the reconstructed Main Street bridge that Larry said to
Dick: “Did you hear what Miss Bess said to me as I was putting her on
her car?”
“Asked you to come to see her if you ever came to New York, didn’t she?”
“That was it. I wonder if you could tell me if she really meant it.”
“Meant it? Of course she did. Why shouldn’t she?”
Larry’s answer was no answer at all, but what he said marked a distinct
milestone in his changing――and broadening――attitude toward the moneyed
minority.
“The Holcombes seem to be just ‘folks’ like the rest of us,” was his
summing up of the plunge into the social amenities; and Dick was wise
enough to let the remark stand just as it was made.
That evening Larry went over to the Omeg house to help Dick “bone” a
little more against some tests that were coming. After the work session
was over, Dick sat back with a quizzical smile and said: “I don’t think
you’ll have any more trouble with the Underhill lies now, Larry――after
what happened this afternoon.”
“Ump,” said Larry. “I’ve been thinking: I guess it wasn’t so much of a
‘happening’ as it might have been. Didn’t you know that I was the only
member of the team that wasn’t invited to the Samovar?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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