Chapter IX: The Major Gives Advice

Jerry discovered to his dismay that afternoon that his manipulation of the hedge shears had not improved his baseball playing. His wrists were lame and his fingers so cramped that it hurt him to even swing a bat, and when it came to throwing a ball he was fairly out of trim. But he wasn’t discouraged, for he knew that by to-morrow the complaining muscles would be accustomed to their work. To-day, however, he came in for more than one criticism, and he was heartily glad when the five-inning practice game was over and he could get under a comforting shower. When he had dressed he looked about for Tom, but that youth was not in sight and so he went leisurely out to the steps and, as he would have put it, pondered. He had thought to go back to his hedge-trimming for the half hour remaining before darkness, but he gave up the idea, for his arms were much too tired. Presently he went back and deposited the shears in his locker again, replying good-humoredly to Larry Thacher’s request for a hair cut. Going out again, he passed Wayne Sortwell in the corridor, and, having gained the steps, he waited until Wayne appeared and then, to that boy’s surprise, fell into step beside him.

“Well, how did it go to-day, Benson?” asked Wayne a bit embarrassedly.

“Poorly,” answered Jerry. “Using those shears sort of lamed me up.”

“I should think it might. Say, what’s the idea, anyway, Benson? Don’t you know the fellows here don’t do that sort of thing?”

“Meanin’ work out? Reckon I do, neighbor, but you see most of ’em’s got a right smart more money than what I have. Looks to me like it’s fairer to earn a little money that way than to make your folks pay it out to you. Me, I ain’t got any folks to do it, anyway, but if I had I reckon I’d feel like that just the same. Reckon I know how you fellers look at it, Wayne, but I can’t afford to be finicky.”

Wayne winced at the use of his first name, but beyond a quick glance of puzzled surprise he gave no sign. Instead, he walked on in silence for a long moment. Then, turning to Jerry, he said: “Look here, Benson, I did say something rather rotten this afternoon, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, really. I only wanted to get Tom Hartley’s goat. I hadn’t anything against you. If you want to cut Major Laurence’s hedge for him I reckon it’s no one’s business but yours. Reckon you’re right plucky to do it, knowing the way fellows feel about such things here. I’m sorry I said what I did, Benson, and I ask your pardon.”

“That’s all right,” replied Jerry. “I told Tom I reckoned you didn’t really mean to be insultin’. It didn’t worrit me none.”

“I didn’t. I just wanted to take Hartley down a peg or two. He’s spoiling for a scrap, and I reckon I am too.” Wayne laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had one before long.”

“What was it he did to you?” asked Jerry innocently.

“Did to me? When?” Wayne turned indignantly. “He never did anything to me, Benson, and if he says he did――――”

“No, he never told me he did anything,” interrupted Jerry mildly. “Only, you hating him the way you seem to, I just naturally thought he had.”

Wayne grunted. “I don’t hate him, I reckon. I just don’t like him. I never did, Benson. He’s always been like he is now, stuck-up and sneery. Thinks he’s too good for a lot of us, I reckon, the blamed Yank!”

“If you wouldn’t mind calling me Jerry, ’stead of Benson, I’d like it,” returned the other. “I can’t get used to being called Benson. Funny, though, about Tom,” he went on without waiting for Wayne’s agreement. “He’s been right nice to me all along. You know, I wasn’t very sightly when I came here first, Wayne, and I did things all wrong, I reckon. Lots of fellers’d have yelled like anything if they’d had to take me in with them, and I don’t know if I’d have blamed ’em much. But Tom didn’t seem to mind a bit. He was right fine about it, first off and all along. Seems like maybe you ain’t got him just right. Maybe if you was to forget about not liking him and start over again――――”

“Oh, he makes me sick,” protested Wayne. “I suppose I haven’t got anything against him, really, Ben――Jerry, but I just can’t stand him. Look here, did he ask you to――to――――”

“No.” Jerry shook his head. “No, he don’t know I’m talking to you. Reckon he’s just about as queer as you are. He told me he didn’t have nary thing against you, either.”

“Well, he doesn’t like me,” growled Wayne.

“Reckon he don’t know you any better’n you know him,” answered Jerry, with a laugh. “Well, I got to leave you here.”

“Night,” said Wayne shortly. But after he had taken a few steps toward McCrea House he stopped and turned. Jerry had paused at the entrance of Baldwin and was looking thoughtfully across the darkening campus, his hands deep in his pockets. “Say, Benson――I mean, Jerry!” called Wayne. “Come up and see me some time.”

“Yes, I’d be pleased to,” Jerry replied cordially. Then he climbed the stairs to Number 7. Tom had not returned and Jerry settled himself for a half hour of study before supper. What with working for Major Laurence and playing baseball, he wouldn’t have any too much time for studying.

Four days later the hedge clipping was finished and the Major set him to work with a spading fork on the beds in front of the house and the vegetable garden behind. That garden looked depressingly large after three hours of labor had finished the flower beds and almost finished his back! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the more work there was the more pay there’d be, and the next morning he arose almost with the sun and was turning up the rich black loam before the smoke had begun to curl up from the kitchen chimney. The first Saturday brought him commendation from his employer and five dollars and fifty cents in coin of the realm in return for a half-week’s labor.

Major Laurence, so Jerry learned, conducted a law business in Washington, but Jerry sometimes wondered when he attended to it, for at least four days in the week the Major was prowling around the grounds or sitting on the wide porch while the boy was at his labors. Now and then, to be sure, Jerry saw the big black automobile sweep out of the drive in the direction of the Capital or glimpsed it on its return, but he couldn’t help thinking that the law business, at least as conducted by the Major, provided a deal of leisure. Several times the Major sought Jerry and stood by and talked to him while he clipped or spaded, with the result that there very shortly developed something very much like a friendship between the middle-aged man and the boy. It wasn’t long before the former had learned about all there was to learn regarding Jerry, for he was a very easy person to confide in.

“What are you going to be when you get through your schooling?” asked the Major one afternoon.

Jerry leaned on his fork and pondered. “I don’t know yet, sir,” he answered finally. “I’m aiming to go to the university after I get through here, if I ain’t too old by that time.”

“How old are you now? Seventeen, you told me, didn’t you? And you’ve got two more years here after this? Well, that would make you only nineteen. You’d be through when you were twenty-three, Jerry. What college are you going to?”

“North Carolina, I reckon, sir. I’ve been thinking maybe I could get enough education in three years to do me.”

“A boy that’s as willing to work as you seem to be ought to get a whole lot out of three years in college, son. Maybe if you buckle down to it you might get through in that time and graduate. It’s been done often enough. Ever think of the Law as a profession?”

Jerry shook his head as he patted the lump out of a forkful of loaf. “No, sir. I reckon I ain’t――haven’t done much thinking yet about what I’ll be. Reckon there’s heaps of time for that, sir.”

“Yes, maybe, but don’t put it off too long,” replied the Major. “When you mean to hit something, Jerry, it doesn’t do any harm to get your aim some while before you shoot. Snapshots often prove misses. The Law is a fine profession and there’s something about you, my boy, that makes me think you’ll do well in it. Don’t think that I mean it’s any easier to succeed in the Law business than in any other, though, for it isn’t. Whatever you go into, son, you’ll have to work and work hard, and put your nose right down to the grindstone if you’re to win out. Well, you and I’ll see a lot of each other in the next two years, I reckon, and so there’s plenty of time to talk about this. But if I were you, Jerry, I’d make up my mind by the time I was through school what I meant to shoot at and begin to aim. You can’t afford to waste time, you know. Reckon it wouldn’t be wise for me to try to influence you now, but I’ll say this, Jerry Benson: If you do decide for Law you can count on me for help and advice. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an opening for a smart, hard-headed young fellow in my office in six or seven years’ time.”

The Major sauntered off, swinging his stick, before Jerry could find the words wherewith to thank him properly, and Jerry, skirting the asparagus bed with a busy fork, pondered deeply.

Two days later Jerry reverted to the subject. He was spading amongst the raspberry canes and the Major had paused to look on a moment. “I been thinking,” began Jerry, straightening and wiping a damp forehead with one sleeve.

“Have you, Jerry? Well, let me hear the result.”

“Well, I mean,” stammered the boy, “I been thinking about what you said day before yesterday, sir; about the Law.” The Major nodded encouragingly. “Of course,” continued Jerry, “I might not be smart enough for it, but, supposing I was, sir, what sort of studying would be proper for me?”

“Now, you mean? Just what you’re doing, Jerry. A lawyer has to have a sound general knowledge to build on. But you won’t do yourself any harm, whether you go in for Law later on or something else, if you read all the history you can lay your hands on, particularly the history of your own country. And you’d better pay some attention to Latin, son.”

Jerry sighed as he dug his fork again. “Yes, sir, that’s what I supposed. I――I’m having right smart trouble with that Latin!”

The Major laughed. “Never mind, Jerry, you’ll master it. Don’t let it scare you, son. Don’t ever let anything scare you, no matter how big or ugly it looks. Walk right up to it. The nearer you get the smaller it’ll be. Troubles always look bigger from a distance. Just remember that, my boy.”

“Reckon that’s so, too,” reflected Jerry when the Major had continued his progress toward the garage where a young colored chauffeur with a soul above hedge-clipping and garden digging was grooming the car. “This garden looked mighty big and discouraging when I looked at it from round front and now it ain’t so big after all!”

North Bank played her first baseball game the Wednesday of that week at Fenwood, a dozen miles away, but Jerry neither took part in it nor viewed it. Instead, he worked all the afternoon at the Major’s and earned the respectable sum of a dollar and seventy-five cents. The same thing happened the following Saturday, save that North Bank played at home that day and Jerry earned an even two dollars. The first contest was a victory for the Light Blue, but on Saturday Mount Saint Anne’s nosed out in the ninth inning of a loosely played game, the final score standing 11 to 10. Thereafter Wednesday and Saturday games were in order, North Bank meeting the less formidable of the opponents of her season’s schedule and halving the victories fairly evenly.

The Sunday after the Mount Saint Anne’s contest was cloudy but warm, with a heartening odor of newly turned sod and of green things growing in the soft, moist air. After dinner, always a hearty meal on Sunday, Tom stretched himself on the window sill of Number 7 with a book in his hands and the afternoon breeze creeping in through the wide-open casement. Jerry tried to study, but the outdoors was calling loudly to him, and after a few minutes of wasted effort he closed his book, pushed back his chair and donned his jacket. He had got over the idea that mental concentration necessitated the removal of most of his wearing apparel, including his shoes, but he still found it difficult to study with his coat on. Now, having got himself back into that garment, he thrust his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets and stared thoughtfully and in silence at Tom for a long moment.

Finally: “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

Tom drew his eyes reluctantly from the page. “Wh-what?” he asked.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Tom looked doubtfully through the window and longingly back at his book. Then he sighed. “What for?” he inquired.

“Just to be out,” replied Jerry, joining him at the window and gazing at the far wooded bank of the river. “I got a itching in my feet, Tom.”

“An itching, Jerry. Well, I can’t say I have. Still――how’d you like to paddle a canoe?”

“I’d rather walk, I’m sort of craving for exercise.”

“Well, canoeing’s exercise, isn’t it? How about rowing? Or what do you say to riding over to Annapolis on the train? You know you said you wanted to see more of the Naval Academy, Jerry, and this would be a fine day for it.”

“Train riding isn’t exercise,” said the other. “I’d rather walk, I reckon.”

Tom sighed again, deeply, dolorously, and laid down his book. “If you’d played through that baseball game yesterday, Jerry,” he said sadly, “you wouldn’t be so keen for exercise.”

“Wish I had. Reckon you didn’t do anything to tire you much, though, Tom. Two mean little hits ain’t awful wearing to the constitution, are they?”

“Maybe not, son, but trying to get those mean little hits was awful wearing! That fellow Bateman who pitched the first seven innings for them was a tough proposition! Well, all right, Jerry. Where’ll we go?”

“’Most anywheres. I ain’t particular. Let’s have a good tramp, though; five or six miles. Let’s――――”

“Five or six――say, how do you get that way?” exclaimed Tom indignantly. “I’ll go for a walk with you, son, but I won’t enter any blooming Marathon!”

Jerry smiled. “’Twouldn’t hurt you none, Tom. You’re getting fat and lazy. Say we go up toward the Ridge, through the woods. Seems like, this time of year, I just got to get into the woods, Tom.”

“Woods!” Tom groaned as he swung his feet to the floor and viewed the other reproachfully. “Gee, roads are bad enough, Jerry, but woods are worse. You certainly can think of some rotten ways of spending an afternoon! Sure you wouldn’t rather go canoeing?”

“Plumb sure,” answered Jerry mercilessly. “Come on and let’s get going. Golly, wish we had a dog!”

“What do you want a dog for? Better wish for a horse: I could ride that!”

“A dog’s a heap of company in the woods,” said Jerry musingly. “Back home――――”

“I like your cheek,” Tom protested. “You ask me to go to walk with you and then you wish you had a dog for company! I quit you, son! Too much is enough! Here’s where I stay at home in comfort.”

He reposed himself on the window seat again and reached for his book, but Jerry pounced on it first. “No, you ain’t staying at home,” declared the latter, “you’re coming with me. Better put your old shoes on. We might find some hard walking.”

“If we don’t, I miss my guess,” muttered Tom. “And――I hope you choke, Jerry! Get away from here and let me up, you tow-haired tyrant!”