CHAPTER SEVEN

Entrance Exams

Adam splashed his face with cold water from the basin beneath the window.  He’d washed earlier, before dressing, but his face felt hot and he hoped the jolt of cold water would cool him down.  Nerves, nothing but nerves, he chided himself, the same reason he’d had a hard time getting to sleep last night.  All he’d been able to think about as he lay beneath the covers listening to Jamie’s soft snores, was the exam the next morning and the consequences if he failed.  Disappointment in himself loomed large at the top of the list, followed by the waning of his father’s pride, a short-changed reunion with Jamie and the death of his hopes for further education, for he’d never find the courage—or the funds—to try again if he failed now.  Finally, exhaustion had won out, and he had gotten some much needed rest.  Now he was too keyed up and too downright queasy to even think about how tired he was.

“You look like I feel,” Jamie said with a woeful shake of his head as he sat on the side of their bed.

Adam dried his face and then tested the warmth of his cheeks with the back of his hand.  The water hadn’t helped much, if any.  “I feel like putting anything on my stomach is a major risk,” he moaned.

Jamie smiled wryly.  “Some wise man once told me that you couldn’t house a sound mind in an unsound body.”

Adam winced as he recognized his own words from the night before.  “My mind’s still sound enough to know that fellow was right, but my body’s screaming that he was just an inexperienced dolt!  We’ll eat, but let’s keep it light, for mercy’s sake.  I don’t want to begin my career at Yale by depositing my breakfast on the examiner’s shoes.”

“My unsettled stomach is in complete agreement.”  Jamie rose and put a narrow-brimmed bowler hat on his head.  “You have your characters?”

Adam drew a set of envelopes from his coat pocket.  “All three of them.”

Jamie’s pocket crackled as he patted it.  “Just two for me.”

“I’m from further west,” Adam muttered.  “It might take more to convince them that I’m fit material for Yale.”

Jamie clapped a hand to his friend’s shoulder.  “Your test scores will do that.  Ready?”

“For breakfast?  Just barely.  For the exams?  Questionable.”  Shaking his head, Adam put on his flat-crowned black hat with a determined hand.  “Lead me to the lions’ den, kindly pastor.”

Jamie groaned.  “No pastorate for me until I pass these exams, and suddenly I feel as likely to end up some lion’s breakfast.”

“So pray God shuts the lions’ mouths,” Adam jibed.

“And opens ours when we’re called on to recite,” Jamie joked back.

Laughing, both boys left the room, made their way down to the street and headed back to the restaurant they’d patronized the night before for a light breakfast.

* * * * *

            The sky was overcast with threatening clouds of gray as the two young men walked northeast on Temple St.  I hope that’s not an omen, Adam thought morosely.  To further dampen his melancholy state of mind, the oatmeal he’d hoped would soothe his stomach was settling like a lead weight to its pit.

“Not far now,” Jamie said.  He pointed straight ahead.  “That’s the Green.”

Adam looked up and saw, on the right side of the street ahead, an attractive swath of lawn enclosed by an iron fence.  On its left side stood three churches and beyond them a stately building with impressive white columns.  Beneath the maple and buttonwood trees, some of whose leaves were just beginning to turn, a number of young men were frolicking about.  “Part of the college?” he inquired, for the players seemed about the same age as he and Jamie.

Jamie shook his head.  “No, that’s town property, but those might be some of our future classmates, working off nervous energy until Alumni Hall opens.”

“We’re still ahead of time, aren’t we?”  Adam couldn’t keep a note of anxiousness from his voice.  How ironic if he’d traveled day and night to reach New Haven, only to miss the exam because they’d dawdled too long over breakfast!

“Still early.”  Jamie grinned.  “If you’re that nervous, maybe you should go for a romp with those other fellows.  It might help, Adam.”

A touch of crimson crept over Adam’s countenance.  “I’d rather stay with you, my sedate and calming friend.”

Jamie released a sputtering laugh.  “Sedate and calming!  If only you could see the butterflies cavorting riotously through my stomach!”

Adam took a playful poke at his friend’s ribs.  “If you can come up with a description like that at a time like this, sir, you have nothing to worry about regarding these exams.”

“It’s not the literary portions I’m worried about,” Jamie said with a shudder.  “I’m good with words . . . but the math!”

“The only part I’m not worried about,” Adam chuckled.

“This is Chapel Street,” Jamie said as they turned left and walked past one of the churches on the Green.  At the end of the block he paused and pointed across the street.  “There!  That’s Yale.”

Weary as they were from lack of sleep, Adam’s eyes drank in his first sight of the row of brick buildings facing New Haven Green.  Stately, symmetrical, with a classic beauty he’d only seen in wood engravings within the covers of a book.  “Oh, it’s grand,” he murmured.  “All I dreamed and more.”  For a moment he forgot the uneasiness of his stomach and the persistent ache in his sleep-deprived head.

“Isn’t it?” Jamie agreed with starry eyes.  “And it’s ours, Adam.  Four years from now every building will seem like home.”

The nausea came surging back with a vengeance.  “If,” Adam croaked.  Having seen the goal made failure seem both more possible and more unthinkable.  “Which one is Alumni Hall?” he inquired as they turned onto a lane Jamie said was called College Street and began to walk northeast beneath the leafy canopy of elms that arched over the path from both sides.

“None of these,” Jamie replied.  “It’s on the back side of the college yard.”  He pointed to the second building in the row.  “That’s the Athenaeum.”

Adam whistled.  “Pretty fancy ‘dregs.’  Different from the other dorms.”  Impressive as those buildings were, architecturally they were rather plain, just long rectangles with four banks of windows, one above the other.

“Because it wasn’t one, to start with,” Jamie laughed.  “It was the old chapel.  The steeple was where that tower is now.  There’s a telescope up there I hope to get a look at.”

“First things first,” Adam advised.  “Let’s find Alumni Hall.”

“Northwest corner of the yard,” Jamie said, pointing.  “We can cut through this way.”

They moved between two of the brick buildings, one obviously another dormitory, and walked diagonally across the broad lawn behind the first row.  A crowd was gathered before the red sandstone building in the northwest corner.  “It’s a castle,” Adam gasped as he caught sight of the parapets at the top of the building and the twin, turreted towers flanking the arched entrance.

A merry laugh greeted his description.  Turning toward its source, Adam saw a set of twinkling blue eyes beneath an unruly crop of golden brown curls.

“It does rather look it, doesn’t it?” the other boy chuckled.  “Now, if they’d just lower the drawbridge and let us in!”

As if on command, the massive doors opened, and every young man in the yard instinctively moved toward them.  Adam, Jamie and the boy who had had no opportunity to introduce himself were far back in the pack.  As they drew near the door, the other boy bowed and gestured toward the door.  “After you, gentlemen,” he quipped.  “I’m in no particular hurry to be thrown in the dungeon.”

Adam suddenly felt a similar reluctance to walk through those imposing doors, and the sensation felt odd after rushing so frantically across the country for that very purpose.  He saw Jamie take a deep breath before entering, and he did the same—out of sympathy, he tried to convince himself.

Just inside he found himself facing a long table, behind which sat three official-looking men in black frock coats.  Their august presence made him painfully aware of just how provincial he appeared in his worn and, compared with theirs, shapeless suit.

“Your characters,” Jamie whispered.

Adam flushed and drew the envelopes from his jacket.  As he waited in line behind his friend, he glanced at the interior of the building.  The hall was a vast open rectangle with exposed beams above, and between tall windows its walls were adorned with portraits of men who must have had some connection with the college. The room itself was bare, but for row after row of small octagonal pedestal tables, each with its own straight-backed chair.  Must be a hundred or more, Adam mused, wondering if only a set number of candidates would be accepted and, if so, whether he had a chance of achieving the upper ranks.

“Your character, young man?”

The voice startled Adam, and as he hastily handed his envelopes to the man behind the table, one fell to the floor.  Adam dived for it and came up so quickly that he his hat hit the edge of the table and toppled off.  He scrambled to pick it up, started to put it back on his head and then remembered that he was indoors now and held it awkwardly to one side.  The college official smiled kindly, though he looked somewhat surprised when handed the final envelope.  “Three?” he asked.

“Y-yes, sir,” Adam stammered.  “I wasn’t sure what was customary, so I brought one from my minister, one from the head of my academy in Sacramento and one from a former Yale student, now a lawyer in Nevada.”

“Indeed!  An alumnus?  And his name?”

“Bill—uh, that is, William Stewart, sir.”

“Ah, yes!  I knew Stewart.  An excellent student, one we were loath to lose.  I would be interested, at another time, to learn how he is prospering,” the official said, “but we must attend to more important matters now.”  He laid the three envelopes aside and motioned toward another figure in a long black frock coat.  This one appeared younger, young enough, in fact, to be a student himself, though a few years older than those assembled for the entrance exams.  “Escort this young man to his table please, Mr. Perkins,” the official requested.

As Mr. Perkins nodded, he stared at Adam’s western-style hat as if it were as exotic and out of place as a Turk’s fez.  Then, seeing Adam’s attempt to hide it behind his back, Perkins remembered both his manners and his duty.  “Follow me, please.”  He turned and Adam fell into step behind him as they walked toward the rows of octagonal tables.  At about half of them nervous young men already sat, writing on a piece of paper.  Adam spotted Jamie nine rows back from the front of the room, but his escort didn’t stop until he’d reached the third row beyond that.  The desks were lined up four across, and Adam found himself sitting in the second from the end.

Perkins pointed to a blank form, which was lying on the desk.  “Please fill this out completely and then wait for the examiner.  Be sure to give the full name wherever asked.  Is there anything you don’t understand?”

“No, it seems clear,” Adam murmured.  He picked up the provided pen and dipped it into the inkwell.  On each line he filled in the requested information: name and residence, date and place of birth, name and address of father or guardian, place of preparatory study, chief preparatory instructor and the class he wished to enter.  Then, laying the pen down, he folded his hands and waited.  Someone came by to pick up the completed form, but no examiner appeared to begin his exam.  He saw men, probably professors, going to other desks, but he remained alone so long that he began to worry that he’d already been rejected, just on the basis of his residence and preparatory school.  How impressive could Nevada and Sacramento possibly sound, compared to Boston or Philadelphia?  Still, he saw an examiner stop at Jamie’s table, and St. Joseph and St. Louis, the location of Jamie’s preparatory school, weren’t much more illustrious, were they?  Surely, they’d at least give him a chance, even if he did hail from the wilds of the West.  Just when he was about to despair of that chance, an examiner appeared before him and asked his name.

“Adam Morgan Cartwright,” he responded somewhat shakily.

The examiner nodded and copied the name into a pocket-sized book.  Then he handed Adam a textbook and, after pointing to a passage, walked away.  Not quite sure what was expected of him, Adam read the designated selection from the orations of Cicero in the original Latin.  Then he read it again.  And again.  At the sound of a throat being cleared, he looked up and responded to the examiner’s invitation to translate the passage.  Twice he stumbled over a word, using the wrong tense in one instance and the definite, instead of the indefinite article in the other.  Though he corrected himself before proceeding, he saw the examiner making marks in the score book—not positive ones, he feared.  When he’d finished, the examiner thanked him and left, his face so studiously inexpressive that Adam couldn’t tell what the man thought of his performance.

Adam himself was thoroughly disgusted with it.  He knew every word of that passage, knew it cold!  He’d studied it in Sacramento, reviewed it on the stagecoach and then he’d made two utterly ridiculous errors, out of sheer nerves.  He expected better of himself and vowed it wouldn’t happen again.  The trouble with that vow, even he realized, was that his poor opening recitation had only added to his nervousness—and more nerves were likely to lead to more mistakes, not fewer.

The seemingly interminable wait for his next opportunity increased his tension, too.  Twenty minutes passed before a different examiner appeared at his table and handed him a paper with problems in mathematics for him to solve.  Adam felt himself relax, for mathematics had always been one of his best subjects.  He studied the problems carefully, however, determined not to let cockiness rob him of a single point.  When the examiner returned, he took a deep breath, to make sure nerves wouldn’t be a factor this time, and began to give each solution and explain his procedure.  When he’d finished, he exhaled with satisfaction; his recitation had been flawless and he knew it.

By the time the third examiner appeared, Adam was comfortable with the process, and since the subject this time was geography, his confidence continued to build.  He’d seen first hand much of his own country’s geography and had always felt a keen interest in foreign lands, so he found each question posed to him quite simple.  Only one caused him any hesitation, and he thought, though he wasn’t sure, that he’d answered that one correctly, as well.

And so it went throughout the morning.  The hardest part was the tedious wait between the appearances of examiners.  When Adam was working, he could stay alert, but sitting still and waiting sent waves of exhaustion surging through him.  Once his head even fell forward as his eyes closed, but he woke with a jolt and grasped the octagonal table tightly with both hands as he fought off the grogginess.  He didn’t fare particularly well with the recitation that followed that episode, but thought he’d performed acceptably with the next one.  Homer’s Iliad was a particular favorite of his, so translating it was more like visiting an old friend than being put to the test.

Not long after the Greek examiner left him, at about 1 p.m., an intermission of one hour was announced.  Eager for a breath of fresh air, Adam hurried outside and searched the surrounding grounds for Jamie.  Jamie was looking for him, as well, and waved when their eyes met.  The two friends quickly compared notes, both agreeing that the interminable waiting was worse than the actual exams; then Jamie suggested that they should get something to eat in the brief hour allotted to them.

Adam groaned.  “My stomach feels like it’s asleep.  Don’t see how it could properly digest a meal.  Besides, we don’t have time.  I won’t risk getting back late.”

“A little food will settle your stomach,” Jamie insisted.  “You’re right about the time, though.  Let’s just find an apple vender or something like that.  Look!  There’s a fellow over there.”

“An apple?”  Adam nodded soberly.  “Yeah, maybe I could handle that much.  Let’s try him.”

As they approached the vender, who had set up a small table beneath a towering elm, Adam noticed the black man’s clouded eyes and realized with a shock that he was blind.  Yet the disability didn’t seem to hinder the man’s ability to pitch his wares or count out the proper change for each customer.  “We’d like two apples, please,” he asked when the previous customer had been served.

The black man flashed a bright smile as he picked up a deep red McIntosh and polished it against his tweed vest.  “One for you, suh”—he gave the same attention to a second apple and held it out—“and one for yo’ mate.  Two bits, please, suh.”

Adam fished a quarter from his pocket and placed it in the wrinkled palm stretched toward him.

“I got de best confections on de campus, too,” the vender suggested.  “Dey don’t call me Candy Sam fo’ nuffin.”

“I don’t think something sweet would set well just now,” Adam replied, “but thank you for the offer.”

“Maybe ‘nother time,” the effervescent black man said.  “I goes to all de dorms ev’ry day, stops by each and ev’ry room.”

“We’re not in a dorm, sir,” Jamie told him.  “We’re lodging in town.”

The salesman seemed completely unperturbed.  “Well, den, young massas, Candy Sam be on de lookout fo’ you on campus.”

Adam couldn’t help wondering how a blind man could possibly spot them on such a large campus, but he had a feeling this enterprising fellow would find a way.  “If we make it in, we’ll look you up, Sam.”

“Oh, you will, suh, you will,” the vender assured him.  “Candy Sam got de nose fo’ sniffin’ out de good ones”—he tapped his nose—“and you got dat smell.”

Jamie laughed.  “Faith like that must be rewarded, Adam.  I’ll take a small bag of your candies, Sam, for a celebration after we pass our exams.”

White teeth gleamed as Sam’s smile broadened.  “Dat de spirit, young massa, dat de spirit!”  He placed several pieces of fluffy divinity in a small paper bag, collected the coin Jamie offered him, felt its size and rendered the correct change.  Both boys thanked Candy Sam and made their way to an accommodating shade tree, for the sun had finally come out and was shining brightly.  They threw themselves down on the grass and savored the sweet-sour taste of their apples as they shared in more detail the questions put to them in each subject.  They quickly discerned that the questions had been different, even when the subject was the same.

The hour passed all too quickly, and promptly at two the boys returned to Alumni Hall, taking the same seats as before.  As Adam settled into his, he decided that Jamie had been right.  He did feel better with something on his stomach.  Hope Candy Sam is right about how we’ll fare here, he thought when he saw his first examiner approaching.  Though he knew the vender actually knew nothing about what type of student he was, somehow it helped to have someone, even a stranger, express such strong confidence.

For Adam, the first subject of the afternoon was English grammar, followed by a quiz on the metric system of weights and measures and then a page of algebra equations to solve.  Then more Latin, more Greek, more of everything until his head began to throb.  He was mightily tempted to lay it on the desk between recitations, especially when one of his waits was almost an hour in length.  For mercy’s sake, he thought, there has to be a better way of determining a young man’s fitness for academic life.  This is the most inefficient . . . he had no time to complete the thought, for just then another examiner appeared.

Around five o’clock that afternoon, he saw a few fortunate scholars depart, with either a blue or white certificate in hand.  From a conversation overheard during the break, he knew what they meant.  The white was the most desirable, for it meant admission on probation to the freshman class; the blue meant the candidate had passed certain parts of the exams and would be admitted on condition of passing the others at a subsequent exam.  Oh, God, at least let me get a blue, Adam prayed.  Surely, surely he had done that well.  He had mistranslated a word here and there, missed some questions due to weariness, simply not known other answers, but he couldn’t possibly have performed below average on enough subjects to be rejected, could he?

At 6:30 he saw Jamie leave, empty-handed, and his heart sank.  It didn’t mean failure, of course.  Very few young men had received one of the prized certificates today; most would simply continue the process on the second day of exams.  Surely that was the case with Jamie.  If not, if his friend, whom Adam considered the better scholar, had been rejected so readily, what chance did he himself have?

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Perkins approached Adam’s desk with no sign of a certificate in his hand.  “Mr. Cartwright?”

Somehow Adam managed to say, though weakly, “Yes, sir?”

“We’ll see you tomorrow at eight o’clock,” Perkins advised.

Adam exhaled in relief.  He’d be back; hope wasn’t lost; he had another chance.  “Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir.”  As Perkins walked away, to deliver a similar message to another candidate, Adam rose stiffly and moved toward the door.

Jamie was waiting for him just below the short flight of steps descending from Alumni Hall.  “How do you think you did?” he asked earnestly.

“No certificate,” Adam replied with a tinge of disappointment, “but at least they didn’t send me home.  I must have made at least a somewhat favorable impression.”

Jamie threw an arm around him.  “Oh, Adam, you are such a worrywart; of course you did!”

Adam eyed him with disbelief.  “Aren’t you the least perturbed that you didn’t make it through today?”

Dropping his arm, Jamie laughed.  “How could I be?  I wasn’t even tested on algebra today, so I knew I’d have to come back for that, at the very least.  I think I did rather well on everything except geometry.”

Adam massaged his temple as he walked across the yard beside his friend.  “I haven’t had any geometry yet, and I just this minute realized it.  My head must be muddled to overlook that!”

“It’s probably too consumed with thoughts of starvation,” Jamie suggested lightheartedly.  “Let’s tuck something substantial into our tummies tonight and silence their screaming.”

Adam laughed, his mood suddenly lightened.  “Ah, that must be what was shouting so loud my brain couldn’t concentrate on Latin tenses.  By all means let’s silence that bellowing belly.  Maybe a piece of Sam’s divinity would soothe it until we reach the restaurant,” he hinted.

With a grin Jamie obligingly offered Adam a piece of candy.  “I’ve already had one, while I was waiting for you,” he confessed, “and I can attest to its soothing powers.”

Adam let the meringue melt in his mouth for a minute.  “As good as advertised,” he attested.  “Candy Sam definitely gets as much of my business as my pocketbook can afford.”

Jamie threw an arm around his friend’s shoulder.  “And now let’s have the best supper our pocketbooks—or, rather, Father’s—can afford.”

* * * * *

            Promptly at eight o’clock the next morning Adam and Jamie were again escorted to desks in Alumni Hall, and the testing process began again, with different questions and sometimes different subjects.  Adam was relieved that no more Latin texts were thrust under his nose, though during his waits between recitations he found time to worry whether that meant he’d only receive a blue certificate and have to retest in that area.  He was examined more fully on Greek, and even though he’d never read Xenophon’s Anabasis before, he felt comfortable with his translation.  Only one word had been completely unfamiliar.  Euclid’s geometry finally appeared, but Adam breezed through that and could only hope that Jamie would do as well with the dreaded algebra.  He’d spent some time the previous night helping his friend with that subject, and while he wasn’t sure the extra tutoring had calmed Jamie’s nerves, thinking about someone other than himself had definitely helped him forget his own.

A final recitation in English grammar rounded out Adam’s morning, and he was thrilled to be handed a white certificate at its close.  Admitted!  On probation, of course, but that was true for everyone.  He’d have to continue proving himself, but having passed the first hurdle, his confidence again became buoyant.  He finished first this time and had to wait outside for Jamie.  He had no doubt that his friend had fared as well as he, and his faith was confirmed when Jamie came flying down the steps, waving his white certificate.

“We made it!” the fair-haired boy cried.

“Of course, we did, worrywart,” Adam teased, welcoming the opportunity to toss back at Jamie the epithet his friend had thrown at him the previous evening.  “Let’s find Candy Sam and splurge on some celebration divinity.”

“Since we ate all we bought for that purpose yesterday!” Jamie snickered.

Over a meal of corned beef, potato croquettes and green peas the two boys discussed their agenda for the afternoon.  “I have to see a tailor,” Adam declared, “as well as find a hat that won’t have everyone on campus gawking at me.”

Jamie smiled at the flat-brimmed black felt Adam had placed in the empty chair at their table.  “It does make you stand out, Adam.  Are you sure that’s a bad thing?”

“I want to stand out for my school work, not my chapeau, thank you kindly,” Adam snorted.  “And my suit shouts my western origins.”

“You’re not ashamed of that, I trust?” Jamie asked with a cock of his head.  “My wardrobe probably speaks a bit loudly, too.”

“Not as much as mine,” Adam assured him.  “No, I’m not ashamed of where I come from, but the suit’s old, anyway.  Pa expected me to have another made once I arrived and provided the funds for it.”

“Let’s stop by our rooming house and ask Mrs. Wiggins if she can recommend a good, reasonably priced tailor,” Jamie suggested.  “Then while you’re being fitted for your suit, I’ll drop by the Treasurer’s office and order our coal.  Quarter ton, you think?  We’re allotted limited space in the basement to store it, but that’s the smallest amount they sell.”

“Definitely not more,” Adam concurred.  “We need oil for our lamps, too, don’t we?  I could pick that up while I’m in town, and we’ll settle up this evening.  You’ve already laid out some money for the room, and I want to be sure I’ve paid my share.”

Jamie nodded.  “Down the middle on everything.”  He picked up the certificate of admission that lay to the side of his plate.  “Here’s the bill I dread paying.”

Adam lifted his own certificate and sighed at the form attached to it.  “Two hundred dollars bond.  Steeper than I’d expected, but I can just manage it.”

“Of course, we get it back at the end of our senior year, provided we’ve paid all our bills,” Jamie said, “but it’s a lot to lay out at one time.”

“Do you have enough?” Adam asked with a frown of worry.  There was little he could do to help, since his own finances were tight, though not, he suspected, as tight as his friend’s.

“Father set that aside long ago,” Jamie assured him.  “Let’s just say I hope we don’t run into any sudden emergencies.”

Adam gave a short chuckle.  “Same hope here, pal.  Anything else we need?”

“Nothing that won’t wait.”  Jamie looked fondly at his certificate of admission.  “I can’t spare the funds yet for a proper memorabilia book, but we’ll each want one eventually, to save mementos like this.  All the students have one, I’m told.”

Adam’s fingers brushed his own certificate.  “It’s a keepsake, all right, but we won’t need a book until this one has others to keep it company.”

Jamie laughed.  “Oh, it will have plenty of company before you know it!”  He rested his chin dreamily on the back of his gracefully curled fingers.  “I must write Father tonight to let him know I passed, even though he said he had no doubt I would.  I wish I could wire him the good news, but that constitutes a luxury I can’t afford, I fear.”

“Telegrams are costly,” Adam agreed.  “I’m tempted to send one, though.  Mail takes so long to reach Nevada, and I’m not sure my father was as confident as yours that I’d make it.”

“I think you should, if you can spare the funds,” Jamie urged.  “He shouldn’t have to wait a month to learn he’s lost a son . . . for four years, that is.”  His blue eyes twinkled as he winked at Adam.

“Yeah, I think I will, and then I’ll write tonight—to Hoss, maybe.”  Adam smiled in fond remembrance of his younger brother.  “He’ll like getting the first letter.”

“And tonight you are going to tell me what he and Little Joe have been up to lately, aren’t you?” Jamie asked pointedly.

“That won’t take long,” Adam laughed.  “I haven’t seen them for almost a month, but I guarantee Little Joe’s been up to mischief and probably managed to drag Hoss into it with him!”