CHAPTER XXIX.

LETTERS HOME FROM THE BOYS.--d.i.c.k LEE'S FIRST GRIEF.

There was a large number of new scholars a.s.sembled in the "great room"

of Grantley Academy on the first Monday morning of that "fall term."

There were also many who had been there before, but the new-comers were in the majority. There were boys from the village, boys from the surrounding country, and boys from even farther away than the southern sh.o.r.e of Long Island; and they were of many kinds and ages. The youngest may have been "under twelve," and ent.i.tled to ride in a street-car at half-price; and several of the very older ones had already cast their first vote as grown-up men.

Counting them all, and adding those who were to make their appearance during the week, they made a little army of nearly two hundred. There was also a young ladies' department, with about a hundred pupils; and there was quite as great a variety among them as among their young gentlemen fellow-students.

The cla.s.s-rooms a.s.signed to the lady teachers and their several grades of learners were all on the northern side of the academy building. There was a large wing there that belonged to them, and they only met the boys face to face in the "great room" during morning exercises. Even those of them who lived or boarded in the southern half of the village found their way across the green, coming and going, under the shade of the most northerly row of trees.

As to the "great room" itself, there had been much trouble about the name of it. Dr. Brandegee called it "the lecture-room," and he did a great deal towards making it so. There were those who tried to say "chapel" when they spoke of it; but so many others refused to know what place they were speaking of, that they had to give it up. "Hall" would not fit, because it was square; and the boys generally rejected the doctor's name because of unpleasant-ideas connected with the word "lecture." So it came to be "the great room," and no more; and a great thing it was for d.i.c.k Lee to find himself sitting on one of the front seats of it, with his friends all in line at his right, waiting their turn with him to be "cla.s.sified," and sent about their business.

Dr. Brandegee made wonderfully rapid work of it; and his several a.s.sistants seemed to know exactly what to do.

"The fact is," said Ford, the first chance he had to speak to Dab, "I've been studying that man. He's taught school before."

"Guess he knows how, too. And I ain't afraid about d.i.c.k Lee, now I've seen the rest. He can go right ahead of some of them."

"They'll bounce him if he does. Tell you what, Dab, if you and I want to be popular here, we'd better wear our old clothes every day but Sunday."

"And miss about half the questions that come to us. d.i.c.k won't be sharp enough for that."

"He says he's going to write a letter home tonight. Made him turn pale too."

Those first letters home!

Ford's was a matter of course, and Frank Harley had had some practice already; but Dab Kinzer had never tried such a thing before, and d.i.c.k Lee would not come to anybody else for instructions. Neither would he permit anybody, not even "Captain Dab," to see his letter after it was written.

"I's been mighty partikler 'bout de p.r.o.nounciation," he said to himself, "specially in wot I wrote to Mr. Morris, but I'd like to see dem all read dem letters. Guess dar'll be a high time at our house."

It would be a long while before Frank Harley's epistle would reach the eyes that were anxiously waiting for it, but there were indeed "high times" in those three houses on the Long-Island sh.o.r.e.

Old Bill Lee was obliged to trust largely to the greater learning of his wife, but he chuckled over every word he managed to pick out, as if he had pulled in a twenty-pound bluefish; and the signature at the bottom affected him somewhat as if he had captured a small whale.

"Sho! De boy!" said Glorianna. "He's doin' fust-rate. Dar ain't anoder young gen'lman at dat ar' 'cad'my jes' like him. Onless it's young Mr.

Kinzer. I hasn't a word to say 'gin him or Mr. Foster, or dat ar' young mish'nayry."

"Glorianna," said Bill doubtfully, "do you s'pose d.i.c.k did all dat writin' his own self?"

"Sho! Course he did! Don't I know his hand-writin'? Ain't he my own blessed boy? Guess he did, and I's goin' ober to show it to Mrs. Kinzer.

It'll do her good to hear from de 'cad'my."

So it did; for d.i.c.k's letter to his mother, like the shorter one he sent to Ham Morris, was largely made up of complimentary remarks concerning Dabney Kinzer.

When Glorianna knocked at the kitchen door of the Morris mansion, however, it was opened by "the help;" and she might have lost her errand if Mrs. Kinzer had not happened to hear her voice. It is just possible it was pitched somewhat higher than usual that morning.

"Glorianna? Is that you? Come right in. We've some letters from the boys. Something in them about d.i.c.k that you'll be glad to hear."

"Sho! De boy! Course dey all had to say somet'ing 'bout him! I's jes'

like to know wot 'tis, dough."

In she went, but more than the Kinzer family were gathered in the sitting-room.

Mrs. Foster and Annie had brought Jenny Walters with them, and Ham was there, and all the rest; and they all sat still as mice while Glorianna listened to Dab's account, and Ford's, of the journey to Grantley, and the arrival, and the examination, and their boarding-house.

There was not a word of complaint anywhere; and it did seem as if Ham Morris was right when he said,--

"We've hit it this time, Mrs. Foster. I think I ought to write to Mr.

Hart, and thank him for his recommendation."

"Just as you please, Hamilton," said Mrs. Kinzer; "but this is their very first week, you know."

"Guess dey won't fool d.i.c.k much, anyhow," said the radiant Glorianna.

"But wot's dat 'bout de corn-sh.e.l.lin'?"

"That's all right," said Ham. "Sh.e.l.ling corn won't hurt him. Glad there's plenty of it. Mother Kinzer, you and Miranda must try that recipe Dab sent for the new pudding."

"New pudding, indeed! Why, she doesn't put in half eggs enough. But I'm glad she's a good cook. We'll have that pudding for dinner this very day."

"So will we," said Mrs. Foster.

"Miss Kinzer," said d.i.c.k's mother, "jes' won't you show me how to make dat puddin'? I's like to know jes' wot dey eat at de 'cad'my."

It was a great comfort to know that the boys were so well satisfied; but there was her usual good sense in Mrs. Kinzer's suggestion about its being the very first week.

There are never any more such letters as "first letters," nor any other weeks like the first. The fact that there were so many boys together, all old acquaintances, shut out any such thing as loneliness, and it was not time to be homesick. All that week was really spent in "getting settled," and there did not seem to be more than a day or so of it.

Sat.u.r.day came around again somewhere in the place commonly taken by Wednesday, and surprised them all.

They had all been busy enough, but d.i.c.k Lee had never in all his life found so little spare time on his hands.

"It's no use, Cap'n Dab," he remarked on Friday: "we can't eat up all de corn I've sh.e.l.led, not if we has johnnycake from now till nex' summer."

Dab was looking a little thoughtful at that moment.

"Ford," he said slowly, "has she missed a day yet?"

"A corn day? No."

"Or a meal?"

"No, I said I'd cut a notch on my slate first time she did, and it's all smooth yet."

He held it up as he spoke; and Frank remarked,--

"Yes, smooth enough on that side; but you've nicked it all down on the other, end to end. What's that for?"