VII.
“Who's the farmer?” whispered the boy on the back seat to his neighbor.
It was the examination in Greek. Richard's ears reddened to the tips. He sat two seats away. But the ears accustomed to note the falling of a leaf were keen, and the whisper was loud. He would have it out with the fellow at noon. Now he merely shrugged his shoulders a little and devoted himself anew to his verb. It was φιλεω and he had chosen it first to conjugate, as being the easiest thing on the paper. But it was unexpectedly difficult. He was confused. Emily's saucy eyes were coming between him and the page, snatching away its meaning. “I have loved—you have loved,” his pen scratched desperately on. How pretty she had looked that morning. And he had thought he was over it! He shook himself. “I shall love” He glanced despairingly at the clock. The time was nearly up. It must be the coming away from home that had upset him. She was not worth a thought. He gathered himself for a fresh start and wrote rapidly.
“Farmer's getting rattled,” whispered the boy on the back seat.
Richard made another mental note and plunged on.
“Time.” It was the voice of the assistant.
Richard dropped his pen and gathered up his scattered notes, running his eye hastily over them. They were enough to flunk him. He could see that at a glance. He handed them in with sullen face.
“In half an hour the oral examination will be held in this room,” announced the assistant in a stereotyped voice.
The boys plunged into the open. Richard sought out the boy of the back seat and salved his wounded feelings by hand-to-hand measures. The fellow got up, puffing and grinning a little sheepishly.
“You've got muscle,” he said enviously.
Two upper-classmen, passing, had stopped for a moment to watch the contest. “He'll have a try for the team,” said one.
They strolled on.
“It's the shoulders that count.”
“Partly—and muscle.”
“And grit. Did you see his face? Looked as if he was chewing iron.”
Richard and the boy shook hands and went back to the class-room. The Professor was on the platform. He had mild brown hair and a large nose, surmounted by spectacles. He glared through them. at the hapless youth. He had a sensitive ear for Greek accents and the entrance examinations wore on it. The assistant had been showing him the written work. It was very poor. His face was prepared for the worst. The oral examination would consist of reading in the original Greek.
The boys subsided beneath his glare and there was ominous silence.
“Next,” growled the Professor. He surveyed Richard—his heavy shoulders and big hands—and groaned inwardly. He resigned himself to his fate.
Richard struggled to his feet. His face was red and his throat dry. The words came with rasping hoarseness. Then the swing of the rhythm caught him. His voice opened and deepened and he was off on the lines. The silence of the woods was about him, and the sound of the cross-cut saw rose upon it. He swayed to its tune, the words rolling out—rising and falling to a kind of heavy chant. The Professor on the platform started a little. He pushed his spectacles high on his forehead and rubbed his great nose. The wrinkles smoothed from his brow and the peace of days settled upon his face. The boy on the back seat nudged his neighbor. “Farmer's getting there,” he whispered.
“H-s-h!” growled the Professor.
Richard came to a stop, looking up blinkingly. He had forgotten the class and the Professor. He and Tom had been swaying back and forth to the sound of the cross-cut saw, chanting the deep, monotonous sounds.
The Professor beamed on him. A faint, half-scared cheer went up from the class. The spectacles descended and glared at them. “Time to cheer when you are out of the woods,” he said. “Next.”
The next youth rose and blundered on. The hour wore away and the class escaped, but bruised and sore.
The Professor detained Richard by a gesture. “Where did you fit?” he asked brusquely.
“At home.”
“Where?”
“In Ashton.”
“Massachusetts?”
“Yes.”
“There's no school there.”
“No, sir, I studied by myself and with an old man.”
“Umph!” The spectacles regarded him.
“And did he read Greek the way you do?”
The boy's face reddened. “Not exactly. We did it that way, sawing logs—I got into the swing of it and forgot.”
The Professor leaned forward, tapping the Odyssey with his spectacles. “You recited Greek in the woods?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sawing logs?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Professor's face grew light. He chuckled. “And we think we can teach them indoors!”
“Is it all right, sir?”
“All right?” growled the Professor. “It's the way they did it in Greece—three thousand years ago. Go home and thank your lucky stars you had something besides boards over your head while you learned it.”