CHAPTER VI
EXAMINATION DAY
It was plain that Fred and Charley had spread the news of their descent
into the Pit, and of their battle with the Simpson clan and the Fishes.
He heard the nine-o'clock bell with feelings of relief, and passed into
the school, a mark for admiring glances from all the boys. The girls,
too, looked at him in a timid and fearful way--as they might have looked
at Daniel when he came out of the lions' den, Joe thought, or at David
after his battle with Goliath. It made him uncomfortable and painfully
self-conscious, this hero-worshiping, and he wished heartily that they
would look in some other direction for a change.
Soon they did look in another direction. While big sheets of foolscap
were being distributed to every desk, Miss Wilson, the teacher (an
austere-looking young woman who went through the world as though it
were a refrigerator, and who, even on the warmest days in the classroom,
was to be found with a shawl or cape about her shoulders), arose, and
on the blackboard where all could see wrote the Roman numeral "I." Every
eye, and there were fifty pairs of them, hung with expectancy upon her
hand, and in the pause that followed the room was quiet as the grave.
Underneath the Roman numeral "I" she wrote: "_(a) What were the laws
of Draco? (b) Why did an Athenian orator say that they were written
'not in ink, but in blood'?_"
Forty-nine heads bent down and forty-nine pens scratched lustily across
as many sheets of foolscap. Joe's head alone remained up, and he regarded
the blackboard with so blank a stare that Miss Wilson, glancing over her
shoulder after having written "II," stopped to look at him. Then she
wrote:
"_(a) How did the war between Athens and Megara, respecting the island
of Salamis, bring about the reforms of Solon? (b) In what way did they
differ from the laws of Draco?_"
She turned to look at Joe again. He was staring as blankly as ever.
"What is the matter, Joe?" she asked. "Have you no paper?"
"Yes, I have, thank you," he answered, and began moodily to sharpen
a lead-pencil.
He made a fine point to it. Then he made a very fine point. Then, and
with infinite patience, he proceeded to make it very much finer. Several
of his classmates raised their heads inquiringly at the noise. But he
did not notice. He was too absorbed in his pencil-sharpening and in
thinking thoughts far away from both pencil-sharpening and Greek history.
"Of course you all understand that the examination papers are to be
written with ink."
Miss Wilson addressed the class in general, but her eyes rested on Joe.
Just as it was about as fine as it could possibly be the point broke,
and Joe began over again.
"I am afraid, Joe, that you annoy the class," Miss Wilson said in final
desperation.
He put the pencil down, closed the knife with a snap, and returned to
his blank staring at the blackboard. What did he know about Draco? or
Solon? or the rest of the Greeks? It was a flunk, and that was all there
was to it. No need for him to look at the rest of the questions, and even
if he did know the answers to two or three, there was no use in writing
them down. It would not prevent the flunk. Besides, his arm hurt him too
much to write. It hurt his eyes to look at the blackboard, and his eyes
hurt even when they were closed; and it seemed positively to hurt him
to think.
So the forty-nine pens scratched on in a race after Miss Wilson, who was
covering the blackboard with question after question; and he listened to
the scratching, and watched the questions growing under her chalk, and
was very miserable indeed. His head seemed whirling around. It ached
inside and was sore outside, and he did not seem to have any control
of it at all.
He was beset with memories of the Pit, like scenes from some monstrous
nightmare, and, try as he would, he could not dispel them. He would fix
his mind and eyes on Miss Wilson's face, who was now sitting at her desk,
and even as he looked at her the face of Brick Simpson, impudent and
pugnacious, would arise before him. It was of no use. He felt sick and
sore and tired and worthless. There was nothing to be done but flunk.
And when, after an age of waiting, the papers were collected, his went
in a blank, save for his name, the name of the examination, and the date,
which were written across the top.
After a brief interval, more papers were given out, and the examination
in arithmetic began. He did not trouble himself to look at the questions.
Ordinarily he might have pulled through such an examination, but in his
present state of mind and body he knew it was impossible. He contented
himself with burying his face in his hands and hoping for the noon hour.
Once, lifting his eyes to the clock, he caught Bessie looking anxiously at
him across the room from the girls' side. This but added to his discomfort.
Why was she bothering him? No need for her to trouble. She was bound to
pass. Then why could n't she leave him alone? So he gave her a particularly
glowering look and buried his face in his hands again. Nor did he lift it
till the twelve-o'clock gong rang, when he handed in a second blank paper
and passed out with the boys.
Fred and Charley and he usually ate lunch in a corner of the yard which
they had arrogated to themselves; but this day, by some remarkable
coincidence, a score of other boys had elected to eat their lunches on
the same spot. Joe surveyed them with disgust. In his present condition
he did not feel inclined to receive hero-worship. His head ached too
much, and he was troubled over his failure in the examinations; and
there were more to come in the afternoon.
He was angry with Fred and Charley. They were chattering like magpies
over the adventures of the night (in which, however, they did not fail
to give him chief credit), and they conducted themselves in quite a
patronizing fashion toward their awed and admiring schoolmates. But
every attempt to make Joe talk was a failure. He grunted and gave short
answers, and said "yes" and "no" to questions asked with the intention
of drawing him out.
He was longing to get away somewhere by himself, to throw himself down
some place on the green grass and forget his aches and pains and troubles.
He got up to go and find such a place, and found half a dozen of his
following tagging after him. He wanted to turn around and scream at them
to leave him alone, but his pride restrained him. A great wave of disgust
and despair swept over him, and then an idea flashed through his mind.
Since he was sure to flunk in his examinations, why endure the afternoon's
torture, which could not but be worse than the morning's? And on the
impulse of the moment he made up his mind.
He walked straight on to the schoolyard gate and passed out. Here his
worshipers halted in wonderment, but he kept on to the corner and out of
sight. For some time he wandered along aimlessly, till he came to the
tracks of a cable road. A down-town car happening to stop to let off
passengers, he stepped aboard and ensconced himself in an outside corner
seat. The next thing he was aware of, the car was swinging around on its
turn-table and he was hastily scrambling off. The big ferry building stood
before him. Seeing and hearing nothing, he had been carried through the
heart of the business section of San Francisco.
He glanced up at the tower clock on top of the ferry building. It was
ten minutes after one--time enough to catch the quarter-past-one boat.
That decided him, and without the least idea in the world as to where he
was going, he paid ten cents for a ticket, passed through the gate, and
was soon speeding across the bay to the pretty city of Oakland.
In the same aimless and unwitting fashion, he found himself, an hour
later, sitting on the string-piece of the Oakland city wharf and leaning
his aching head against a friendly timber. From where he sat he could
look down upon the decks of a number of small sailing-craft. Quite a
crowd of curious idlers had collected to look at them, and Joe found
himself growing interested.
There were four boats, and from where he sat he could make out their
names. The one directly beneath him had the name _Ghost_ painted in large
green letters on its stern. The other three, which lay beyond, were called
respectively _La Caprice_, the _Oyster Queen_, and the _Flying Dutchman_.
Each of these boats had cabins built amidships, with short stovepipes
projecting through the roofs, and from the pipe of the _Ghost_ smoke
was ascending. The cabin doors were open and the roof-slide pulled
back, so that Joe could look inside and observe the inmate, a young
fellow of nineteen or twenty who was engaged just then in cooking. He
was clad in long sea-boots which reached the hips, blue overalls, and
dark woolen shirt. The sleeves, rolled back to the elbows, disclosed
sturdy, sun-bronzed arms, and when the young fellow looked up his face
proved to be equally bronzed and tanned.
The aroma of coffee arose to Joe's nose, and from a light iron pot came
the unmistakable smell of beans nearly done. The cook placed a frying-pan
on the stove, wiped it around with a piece of suet when it had heated,
and tossed in a thick chunk of beefsteak. While he worked he talked with
a companion on deck, who was busily engaged in filling a bucket overside
and flinging the salt water over heaps of oysters that lay on the deck.
This completed, he covered the oysters with wet sacks, and went into the
cabin, where a place was set for him on a tiny table, and where the cook
served the dinner and joined him in eating it.
All the romance of Joe's nature stirred at the sight. That was life. They
were living, and gaining their living, out in the free open, under the sun
and sky, with the sea rocking beneath them, and the wind blowing on them,
or the rain falling on them, as the chance might be. Each day and every
day he sat in a room, pent up with fifty more of his kind, racking his
brains and cramming dry husks of knowledge, while they were doing all
this, living glad and careless and happy, rowing boats and sailing, and
cooking their own food, and certainly meeting with adventures such as one
only dreams of in the crowded school-room.
Joe sighed. He felt that he was made for this sort of life and not for
the life of a scholar. As a scholar he was undeniably a failure. He had
flunked in his examinations, while at that very moment, he knew, Bessie
was going triumphantly home, her last examination over and done, and with
credit. Oh, it was not to be borne! His father was wrong in sending him
to school. That might be well enough for boys who were inclined to study,
but it was manifest that he was not so inclined. There were more careers
in life than that of the schools. Men had gone down to the sea in the
lowest capacity, and risen in greatness, and owned great fleets, and done
great deeds, and left their names on the pages of time. And why not he,
Joe Bronson?
He closed his eyes and felt immensely sorry for himself; and when he
opened his eyes again he found that he had been asleep, and that the
sun was sinking fast.
It was after dark when he arrived home, and he went straight to his room
and to bed without meeting any one. He sank down between the cool sheets
with a sigh of satisfaction at the thought that, come what would, he need
no longer worry about his history. Then another and unwelcome thought
obtruded itself, and he knew that the next school term would come, and
that six months thereafter, another examination in the same history
awaited him.
