CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In the Midst of Life (and Love) . . .

Following doctor’s orders, Jamie kept to his bed for the remainder of the week.  Just as well, Adam thought more than once as he hunched his shoulders into the wind that drove snow into his face and down his collar.  As had so often proven true, however, the skies cleared on Saturday, and Adam was especially glad as he and Lucas hurried toward Hamilton Park after lunch, while Marcus obligingly kept Jamie company.  Skating in itself was pleasurable on a day like this, but more so when he was to share it with the lovely Miss Allen.  Their first arranged meeting . . . the first of many, Adam hoped.

“Looks like I’d better make myself scarce,” Lucas laughed when he caught sight of the girl.

“That’s right,” Adam said emphatically, though a trace of humor remained in his tone.  “She’s all mine . . . and best you remember that.”

Lucas clasped his breast and sighed dramatically, “Ah, young love.”

Adam’s fist calmly smashed the other boy’s bowler.

As they had discussed on the previous Sunday, Elizabeth was waiting for him at the small shop at the edge of the park that rented skates.  Lucas greeted her with exaggerated cordiality and then, with a mischievous wink at Adam, went off on his own.

Thankfully, Elizabeth owned a pair of skates, so Adam was spared that expense.  After he’d rented his, they made their way to a bench near the ice and sat down to lace up for the afternoon’s fun.  When they were both ready, Adam helped the girl to her feet, and they edged onto the ice.

“I’ll try not to knock you off your feet this time,” Adam said with a self-deprecating grin.

Elizabeth responded with a coquettish smile.  “Ah, but sometimes a girl likes to be swept off her feet.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Adam said softly as he slipped an arm about her waist.  Then, clasping hands, they began stroking forward, slowly gliding down the smooth surface as they alternately chatted and gazed deeply into one another’s eyes.

After about an hour Adam suggested that they stop for coffee.  It wouldn’t cost much, and he felt that offering her a warm drink after skating was the least he could do.

“I prefer cocoa,” she replied demurely.

“Then, I do, as well,” he said.  In the nearest restaurant he ordered two cups of cocoa.  “Umm, perfect,” he murmured when it had arrived and he’d taken his first sip.  “Just what we need after all those spins around the ice.”

“And you didn’t knock me over once,” she teased.  Adam had explained to her that he had never been on skates before that first afternoon they’d met so abruptly.

Adam chuckled.  “I had a good teacher today, far superior to my first instructor.”  Her enjoyment in playing teacher to a college man had been more than a little obvious, and learning from her had certainly been more pleasurable than learning from Lucas.

“Mr. Edwards?” she asked.

“Horrors, no!”  Adam erupted with laughter.  Then, remembering that they were in public, he softened his voice.  “No, I now have twice the experience of Mr. Edwards.  I was referring to Mr. Cameron.  Not only is my current instructor more gentle and good-natured, but more beautiful, as well.”

She blushed and veiled her eyes with her long lashes.  “Well, I would hope so.”  She looked up hastily.  “Not that he isn’t a perfectly fine looking young man, but . . .”

“But for a lady, his looks leave much to be desired?” Adam suggested with a naughty grin.

She laughed.  “I suppose that is what I was thinking.  You won’t tell him?”

“Never,” Adam promised, even though he knew that Lucas would actually relish a remark like that.  “How is your cocoa?”

“Oh, perfect,” she assured him.  Again her eyelashes dipped.  “The entire afternoon has been perfect.”

He reached for her hand and stroked her slender fingers, the very touch sending ripples up his spine.  “I hope we may spend many such afternoons together.”

Her eyes brightened as she looked up.  “I-I hope so, too, Mr. Cartwright.”

“Adam,” he suggested.

She nodded, smiling.  “And you may call me Elizabeth.”

Slowly, giving her opportunity to withdraw if she wished, he brought her hand to his lips and gently kissed her fingertips, the tingle in his spine spreading out to warm his entire body.

Blushing, she gradually drew her hand back, brushing the back of her fingers against her lips as if to transfer the kiss there.  “I must be going.  It’s getting late.”

“For me, too,” Adam agreed as he signaled the waiter for the check.  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“At the mission?  Certainly.”  When he’d helped her into her coat, she looked up into his eyes.  “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“No more than I,” Adam assured her, his dark eyes piercing the depths of the lagoon in hers.

* * * * *

            Though the air was cold, the walk home Sunday could not have been more pleasant.  Adam finally related his family’s history, and while Elizabeth was surprised to hear that his father had been married three times, she seemed to credit the wildness of the West for the untimely demise of the mothers.  Adam tried to point out that his birth mother had died here in the East, but she seemed to prefer her romantic fancy to mundane fact.

When he ended by telling the story of Little Joe’s quest for the wise men, she sympathetically squeezed his hand.  “How fortunate that the little one was found safe,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Adam said.  He pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “I can’t help feeling responsible,” he shared hesitantly, not certain it was proper to be so open on such short acquaintance.  “If only I hadn’t come here, he wouldn’t have been tempted to such foolish behavior.”

She pressed against him.  “But if you hadn’t come here, we would never have met,” she said with a coy veiling of her eyes.

“Tragedy, indeed,” Adam whispered.  He bent over her upturned face and gently touched his lips to hers.

* * * * *

            Thanks to Dr. Havershaw’s care, Jamie was able to return to classes the following Monday.  While he steadily improved, however, his roommate fell victim to a malady more difficult to treat, though the early symptoms were mild.

“It feels so good to be back in class!” Jamie enthused as he and Adam returned to their room after the noon meal on Monday.  He laughed.  “And back with the Vultures, too, of course.  I don’t think I could have taken another bowl of Mrs. Wiggins’ gruel.”

“Umm,” was Adam’s distracted response as they passed the Green.

Jamie shook his head.  Adam had been like this all day: stumbling over a simple translation in Latin and barely acknowledging anything said to him.  “Are you coming down with something?” Jamie asked.

“What?”  Adam turned, puzzled, toward his friend . . . and promptly collided with an older gentleman walking toward them.  Untangling himself, Adam recognized the man and squeaked, “Professor Larned!”

“Indeed,” said the rhetoric professor curtly, “and you, if I recall, are Mr. Cartwright.  This may be how students greet their instructors in Nevada, young man, but it’s not how we do so at Yale.”

“No, sir; I’m very sorry, sir; I didn’t see you,” Adam babbled.

Larned gave him a skeptical look.  “I’m large as life, I assure you, Mr. Cartwright, and quite visible to the naked eye.”

“Of course, sir.  It’s entirely my fault.  I was . . . thinking,” Adam said, his voice fading, for even to him the excuse sounded feeble.

“About your next recitation, no doubt,” the professor said testily.

Adam flushed.  “No, sir, but I’m sure I should be.”

“Unless you wish to return to Nevada soon, I’d advise it,” Larned said gruffly, tipping his hat and passing by them.  Unseen by them, a smile twitched at one corner of his mouth as he walked away.

“Now, you’ve done it,” Jamie scolded.

“They don’t give demerits for accidental bumps in the street,” Adam protested.  “Besides, he’s not even our teacher.”

“You’ll have him next term,” Jamie reminded him, “and he’s bound to remember you.  Not, I might add, for the eloquence of your rhetoric.”

Adam’s mouth twisted as if he’d eaten a sour lemon.  The catalog had listed lectures in rhetoric for the third term.  That was only about three months away, so there was little hope that, by then, Professor Larned might have forgotten the lout who’d almost knocked him down.

They continued on toward George Street, but instead of turning in at the post office to check for mail from home, as he did each afternoon, Adam walked right past the building.

“What is wrong with you today?” Jamie demanded after pointing out the mistake to his embarrassed friend.

“Nothing,” Adam said.  “Besides, there probably isn’t any mail this soon.”

Jamie shook his head at the sorry excuse.  “You’ve been completely distracted today—in class and out.”  He lowered his voice and asked quietly, “Could I help?”

Adam laughed.  “I don’t think so.  You have less experience with love than I do.”

“Love!” Jamie squeaked, for his voice still broke when he pushed it.  “Miss Allen?”

“Umm,” Adam affirmed dreamily.  “A veritable Venus.”

“Oh, boy,” Jamie moaned.  “You are smitten.”

“Hopelessly,” Adam sighed, “and I don’t even care.”

Jamie grasped him by the biceps and dragged him up the steps to the post office.  “Come on.  I’m just praying there is another letter from home.  Maybe that will take your mind off the lady’s considerable charms.”

Adam laughed.  “Only if it says that Little Joe is on his way to New Haven again.”

Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, as if imploring assistance.  Barring that not-to-be-thought-of eventuality, he felt that the responsibility of refocusing Adam’s attention on his studies rested solely on his inadequate shoulders.

* * * * *

            It was the incident that happened Wednesday morning that convinced Jamie to enlist help to bring Adam around.  When called upon to recite in Wilder Smith’s Latin class, Adam used the verb amare, to love, when ardere, to burn, was required.

“While romantic poets may speak of the flames of love,” the tutor suggested sarcastically, “that interpretation scarcely fits the context of this passage.”  The entire class snickered, for though they bore Adam no particular ill will, they relished seeing one of the giants of the class topple off his pedestal.

“This is getting serious,” Jamie whispered to Lucas and Marcus as they met at the Elm of Assembly, while Adam, at the tutor’s request, remained behind—for a good talking to, the others assumed.  “We have to take him in hand or he’ll soon face rustication.”

“With a corresponding isolation from the fair Miss Allen, which might well prove fatal,” Lucas added with a grin.

“It’s no laughing matter, Luke!” Jamie said sharply and then twisted his neck to see if Adam had joined them yet.  He hadn’t, so Jamie asked, “Will you help?”

Lucas sighed.  “I do hate to nip young love in the bud, but in this case, I suppose we must.  Yes, I’ll help.”  Marcus promised the same.

Oddly enough, it was Lucas who proved most useful in keeping Adam on the straight and narrow of academic excellence.  After Adam had incurred a totally atypical demerit for his performance in mathematics, Lucas took him aside.  “How am I expected to keep my demerit total in check, when you are setting such an abysmal example?  You’re supposed to be helping me, remember?”

Adam apologized and promised to do better, but a dig from a sharp elbow whenever he drifted off in dreamy contemplation of a certain fair face provided the strongest encouragement to pay more attention in class, out of sheer respect for his aching ribs.

Jamie and Marcus took over sentry duty as they walked around campus or through the streets of town, and if Adam appeared to be woolgathering, one of them would call out loudly, “Why, hello, Mr. Larned!”  Fear of again literally running into the rhetoric professor always made Adam jump, so all three of his friends adopted the strategy at will.  Adam generally bit their heads off for tricking him, but since they met Professor Larned on his walks about town frequently enough to make the threat real, it always worked.

Their combined efforts saw Adam through the week, but after they’d eaten the noon meal at the Vultures’ Nest on Saturday, he pointed his long arm at his trio of guardians and barked, “Be gone, the lot of you!  I intend to spend the afternoon at the skating pond with Elizabeth, and if I so much as catch one glimpse of any of you—”

Jamie’s laugh interrupted his tirade.  “With her there, I think we’re safe from any glimpses thrown our direction.”

“I mean it,” Adam growled.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Lucas assured him.  “We don’t want within ten feet of that; it might be contagious!”

“Contagious,” Marcus agreed.

Though Jamie had never met the girl who could take his attention off his books, he nonetheless chimed in, “Contagious.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched.  “Keep it up and I might show you what else can become contagious.”

“He’ll be besotted again by dinner,” Lucas moaned as Adam stalked off.

“It’s your fault,” Marcus accused.  “You’re the one who told him there were lovely ladies helping at the mission.”

Lucas, however, pointed a condemning finger at Jamie.  “That’s the one who demanded he go.”

“Well, I certainly don’t have to demand now, do I?” Jamie laughed.

“Oh, my word, St. James.  I didn’t think you capable of such unsanctified scheming,” Lucas said with wide-eyed stare.  “You’re a man after my own heart after all.”

“Heaven preserve us,” Marcus put in.

With a smile Jamie corrected, “Heaven preserve Adam.”

“Heaven and us,” Lucas grunted.

* * * * *

            The new school week began with Adam making a more diligent effort to confine his lovesick dreams to non-academic hours.  Though nowhere near Lucas’s total, his demerits could not continue to rise at their current rate, without his also having a letter sent home.  Contemplating Pa’s reaction was gruesome and a strong incentive to do better, as was the thought of Elizabeth’s disappointment in him if he turned out to be a less sterling specimen than she apparently believed.

“Dreadful weather,” Marcus complained with a shiver as they all headed toward the Vultures’ Nest for supper that evening.

Adam, however, only smiled at the snow swirling around them.  “All the better for skating this weekend.”

Jamie groaned.  “He’s lost again.”

“At the moment I don’t care,” Lucas declared.  “Let him lag behind and leave more victuals for us!”

Marcus laughed.  “I agree!”

“We can’t let him faint dead away in a snowstorm,” Jamie chided.

“No, I suppose we wouldn’t want that on our consciences,” Lucas affirmed with a grin.   He took one of Adam’s elbows, while Jamie hooked the other, and over his protests they hustled him away as Marcus took the lead toward Temple St.

Depositing him at the door to the Vultures’ dining hall, Lucas inquired with a forbearing tone, “Think you can make it from here, spoopsey?”

Arms akimbo, Adam blocked their way in.  “I’m warning you . . .”

Lucas just pushed him through the door.  “If you must attack something, let it be your dinner.”  Laughing and jostling one another, the four freshmen went inside.

* * * * *

            Thanks to the timely prodding of Lucas’s elbow, Adam made it through the final recitations of the week with his scholastic honor intact.  “However, my ribs may never be the same,” he informed his friend after exiting George Nolen’s mathematics class.

“If you’re worried about your ribs, you should certainly avoid the skating pond,” Jamie snickered.

“He’ll pine away, if he avoids the attractions of the skating pond,” Marcus chimed in as he came up to them at the Elm of Assembly.

“So long as the three of you avoid them,” Adam warned.

“Here now, my good fellow,” Lucas protested.  “It’s a public park, and you’ve no right to dictate who can or cannot skate there.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Jamie said quickly, and the others, even Adam, laughed at his eagerness to avoid skating.

“It would do you good,” Adam said, “and I admit that you all have as much right as I to be there.”  Though he still smiled, his face grew flintier.  “Just keep your distance.”

Lucas never knew when to let a matter lie.  “If it’s privacy you’re wanting,” he suggested, “then you should find a shady bower, instead.”  He snapped his fingers and added saucily, “Oh, that’s right: there isn’t one to be found this time of year.”

“Oh, come on,” Adam chided, having had enough teasing for one day.  “Let’s get to the Vultures’ Nest so you can stuff your mouth, instead of our unfortunate ears.”

Enjoying the jest, Lucas threw an arm around Adam’s shoulders, and the two of them led the way toward Temple Street.  As they walked, however, Adam found his thoughts drifting dreamily toward a place to enjoy Elizabeth’s sweet company by himself without a score of people skating past them.  He shook his head.  Lucas was right about one thing: there wasn’t a shady summer bower to be found in New Haven in February.  And he could scarcely invite her to sit down in a snow bank and hope to exchange tender words and—dare he hope?—another tender kiss.  If he’d had the funds, dinner in a quiet restaurant might have been an option, though still in the public eye.  He didn’t, though.  He was lucky that Elizabeth owned a pair of skates, so his only expenses for his time with her were the rental of his own skates and the price of two cups of cocoa.

He still had some of his Christmas money from Pa, so he could manage that, but he’d already had to purchase one new textbook and, looking at the catalog, knew that there’d be more of that sort of expense for the third term, especially if he were allowed to add the course in architectural drawing.  Special pencils and drawing paper, skate rental, an occasional bite of divinity or a cup of coffee or cocoa on a cold day.  Small expenses, but they all added up.  He certainly couldn’t ask Pa for more; he had to be careful.  Still, a man could dream, and he spent far too much of his study time gazing out the window, imagining ways to get Elizabeth alone.

* * * * *

            From his perch in the gallery with the choir, Adam gazed down with amusement as his classmates scurried into their seats to the music of the final chapel bell on Tuesday morning.  The room quieted quickly as the President rose to read the day’s Bible passage, John 3:15.  Knowing that Woolsey would read the Scripture again before his brief message, the students barely paid attention.  Adam concentrated during the singing of the anthem, always his favorite part of the daily chapel exercises.  That duty completed, however, his mind drifted back to pleasant memories of his time with Elizabeth that weekend, only coming out of his reverie when he noticed the hush that had fallen over the room.

Woolsey gripped the sides of the pulpit with taut fingers, his head down as he stood wordlessly before the student body.  Students, their attention drawn by the silence, began to look at one another uncomfortably.  Something was wrong, they sensed, and that sensation was confirmed when the President finally began to speak.  “Today is a sad day in the life of Yale College,” he said.  “One of our own yesterday afternoon went to his eternal reward.”

Shocked, Adam leaned over the parapet of the gallery, while below, low rumbles rippled down the rows of young men.  Who could President Woolsey mean?  A teacher?  A student?  He sent his eyes running down the rows of freshmen.  Everyone seemed to be in place, but he couldn’t be sure in the brief time before Woolsey again began to speak.

“Our beloved Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, Mr. William Augustus Larned, passed from this mortal coil as he was returning home from his customary walk yesterday,” the President continued.  An audible gasp rose from the front pews of the central aisle, where the seniors sat.  They had known Mr. Larned longer than the other students, and they were obviously shaken.

Many of the students’ faces reflected genuine grief, while others still seemed in shock.  Only the freshmen had never sat under Professor Larned’s teaching, but even they were affected by the raw emotions palpable around them.  Turning to practical concerns, Woolsey said, “Mr. Hutchison and Mr. Whitney will cover Mr. Larned’s classes today and tomorrow.  All classes will be dismissed on Thursday afternoon, in order that those of you who wish may attend the memorial service at the Center Church on the Green.”

Then, as was his custom, the President again read his text and made a few remarks about the blessing of eternal life, reminding the students that ‘We sorrow not as others who have no hope’ and that those who chose the path of salvation would see Mr. Larned again.  He closed by asking the students to stand and pray with him for the comfort of the Larned family.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Jamie said as the quartet of freshmen walked toward their first recitation.

Adam nodded.  As freshmen, none of them had known Professor Larned well, but as President Woolsey had said, he was part of the Yale family, and it would seem strange not to see him walking about town or to hear his friends call out the man’s name to jolt him back from his dreams of Elizabeth.

“Any of you plan to attend the services?” Marcus asked just before he split away to go to his class.

“I will,” Jamie said.  “I always enjoyed his messages, the Sundays he spoke.”

Adam couldn’t make the same claim, as he had thought Larned’s sermons rather dry, but he said that he’d go, as well, out of respect for both the teacher and his old friend.  Marcus, of course, agreed to accompany Jamie, as well, and rather than be left out, Lucas decided to join them.

* * * * *

            As it turned out, Adam had no choice but to attend Professor Larned’s memorial service, for the Beethoven Society had been requested to sing.  Wednesday evening’s rehearsal was spent in preparation.  One of the songs came from their established repertoire, but the second was a favorite of Professor Larned’s.  Most of the choir had sung the anthem before, but not since Adam had joined them, and he was completely unfamiliar with it.  “It has to be sung from memory, and I only have one night to conquer it,” he bemoaned to his friends when they met at dinner afterwards.

“And your memory is so poor,” Lucas scoffed.

“We have complete confidence in you,” Jamie assured him.

Adam, however, did not share that confidence, so he insisted on singing the song to them all the way from the Vultures’ Nest to Alumni Hall for the Brothers in Unity meeting.  Jamie was treated to the same vocal recital all the way home, too, and everywhere he went with Adam the following morning.

“I keep falling into the melody, when I’m supposed to be harmonizing,” Adam lamented as he and Jamie were changing clothes after dinner on Thursday, in preparation for the service.  His countenance brightened.  “You should know the tune by now.  You sing that, so I can concentrate on my part.”

“I don’t have your voice,” Jamie protested.

“Nonsense,” Adam insisted.  “You can carry a perfectly acceptable tune, and you have a sweet tone.  Besides, this is only for rehearsal purposes, and I really need the help.”

That, of course, was precisely the right tack to take with Jamie, who felt that he had often leaned on Adam’s help and was glad to return the favor.  He took the sheet of music that Adam had been permitted to borrow and sang as best he could, while Adam harmonized.  “That was perfect,” Jamie assured his friend.

“Not quite.” Adam shook his head in disgust at the time or two he’d hit just under the right pitch.  “And Herr Stoeckel does demand perfection.  Once more?” he pleaded.

“Once,” Jamie said firmly, “and then we have to leave.  I presume Herr Stoeckel frowns on walking into a funeral already in progress?”

Panicked, Adam checked his watch, breathed a sigh of relief and agreed that they only had time for one more try.  “But we can sing all the way to the church,” he suggested brightly to Jamie’s audible groan.

They sang the song through once, but citing Adam’s need to conserve his voice, Jamie flatly refused to do it en route.  He looked at the overcast sky as they walked toward the Green and said in a hushed tone, “Heaven is weeping.”

Adam frowned slightly at what he considered an overly romanticized view.  Heaven hadn’t wept for Marie, and she was surely as deserving as Professor Larned, good man though he undoubtedly was.  Inger had gotten even shorter shrift with her hurried trailside burial, and he had no idea what his mother’s funeral service had been like.  It was not a question he’d ever felt he could bring up with Pa, fearful, perhaps, that somehow his infant needs had deprived her of the honor she’d merited, just as his birth had deprived her of life.

“Adam, are you all right?” Jamie asked, having noticed his friend’s solemn countenance.

Adam forced a smile to his lips.  “Fine—just a bit worried about remembering the words,” he added as explanation for his introspection.

“You’ll be perfect, as always,” Jamie assured him.

“Always?  Tell Herr Stoeckel that, please,” Adam chuckled.  “I would like to get through one rehearsal without a correction of some word, note or tone I’ve abused.”

Jamie gave his friend’s shoulder a shove.  “I believe ‘caressed’ is the word you mean.”

“In the same way you just caressed my shoulder,” Adam scoffed, “but I’ll try to give the notes a little more tender touch today.”

Both boys sobered as they walked up the steps of Center Church.  Jamie spotted Lucas and Marcus and made his way toward them, while Adam joined the choir.  He breathed a sigh of relief when they finished their anthem.  He’d remembered all the words to the new song, and had been able to rely on those in his section more familiar with the harmony part whenever he felt uncertain of a note.  He thought they had done well, and the best confirmation of that was the simple nod of approval with which Stoeckel favored them as they sat down.

President Woolsey rose to present the sermon on the life and service of William Augustus Larned.  Adam found his attention wandering as the professor’s illustrious rise from Yale student to tutor to minister to full professor was recounted.  He grew more alert, however, when Woolsey talked about the day of Larned’s death.

“He died as he lived,” Woolsey declared, “in the service of others.”  Then he recounted how the professor had gone out on that snowy afternoon to visit a poor woman who had been hired to care for the home of an absent friend.  Ever the teacher, Larned had listened to the Sunday school lessons of her children and was returning home when an attack on his brain caused him to lose consciousness and fall on the track of the railroad.  “A teacher and a man of God can ask nothing better than to be active in his calling until the final moments of his life and to depart in the sure and certain knowledge of a warm welcome in heaven,” Woolsey concluded.  “Can there be a higher goal for any life?”

The choir sang once more, and then everyone present filed past the family to offer their condolences.  Adam couldn’t imagine what he could say that would be of any comfort to her, but he remembered after Marie’s loss that it wasn’t the words people said that brought comfort.  He’d long since forgotten their exact words, but the touch of caring hands and the love they conveyed lingered long past the moments of actual contact.

He needn’t have worried, for when he approached Mrs. Larned, she extended her hand and said, “Mr. Cartwright, how good of you to come today.”

Adam stared at her, dumbfounded at her use of his name, and instead of offering any appropriate response, simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “I had to.”  Then he flushed furiously and apologized, explaining hastily, “I mean, I would have come anyway, out of respect for Mr. Larned, even if the choir weren’t singing, but I didn’t know him well, and I’m sure he was barely aware of me.”

Mrs. Larned laughed lightly.  “Oh, I’m well aware of you, Mr. Cartwright, as was my husband.  Music is a particular interest of mine, and we often attended Sunday services at the chapel, specifically to hear the choir.  I know a good voice when I hear one and, therefore, noticed yours and inquired your name from Mr. Stoeckel, whom I’ve known since he first came to New Haven.”

Adam blushed again, not only at the praise, but at the realization that his voice must have stuck out in the choir’s songs.  Blend again, his nemesis—and she knew Herr Stoeckel personally!  Adam suppressed a groan at the thought of his music teacher’s reaction to her well-intended notice of his voice.  “I’m truly sorry for your loss,” he was finally able to say.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Larned replied simply and with a smile turned toward the next person in line.

He joined his three friends outside and grasped Jamie’s arm in an iron grip.  “Heaven help me,” he sighed.

“Heaven always does,” Jamie said.  “What’s wrong, Adam?”

He quickly told them about Mrs. Larned’s compliment to his singing and then moaned, “I’m doomed.  Not only did I make a buffoon of myself in front of a grieving widow, but she’s already told Herr Stoeckel that my voice sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“You are being ridiculous,” Jamie chided.  “In the first place, she said no such thing, and even if she had, that was undoubtedly weeks, even months ago, when she first noticed you.”

“You think?” Adam asked.

“Of course,” Marcus chimed in.

“Maybe,” Adam conceded, and a small bubble of hope rose within him.  “I have been doing better, I think—at least, no recent lectures . . . so”—he drew out the word, allowing that bubble of hope to expand—“yes, maybe you’re right.”

“Are we ever not?” Lucas teased, ducking when Adam swung a half-hearted fist in the general direction of his chin.

* * * * *

            The following Tuesday Adam was just finishing his hot breakfast when Robert Raines leaned across the corner of the table to hand him a folded copy of the New York Times.  “This should interest you western lads,” the senior said as he pointed to a short article.

Jamie pressed in close to read along with Adam.  “Oh, that is good news,” he said, but then he snickered.  “Not that you’ll need it anytime soon.”

“Too true,” Adam said with a wry smile.  Of course, he was glad that the bridges along the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad were now repaired and operational, but as Jamie had said, he wouldn’t be traveling that way again for almost four years.  “Do you suppose you’ll ever need that railroad again?” he asked Jamie as they walked toward the college a little later, with Lucas and Marcus tagging after.  “I mean, do you think  you and your father will go back to St. Joe once the war is over?”

Jamie pursed his lips studiously.  “I don’t know.  St. Joe still feels like home, but four years is a long time.”  He turned to Adam and smiled.  “I suppose I’ll go wherever God calls me, and right now I have no idea where that might be.”

“As I suggested once before, we could always make you the resident parson of the Ponderosa,” Adam teased.  “I can offer you a small, but certifiably heathen congregation.”

Jamie laughed.  “Somehow I doubt that!  I remember your father, and I doubt that any household he heads could be ‘certifiably heathen’!”

“Ah, but you haven’t met my little brothers,” Adam pointed out with twitching lips.

Jamie stroked his chin with his index finger.  “True, and that youngest one did manage to thoroughly garble the Christmas sermon, according to your father’s letter.”

Behind them, Lucas and Marcus, who had been told the story of Little Joe’s adventurous trek after the wise men, burst out laughing.

Adam groaned.  “Don’t remind me!  When I think what could have happened . . .”

“But it didn’t,” Jamie put in quickly.  “Be thankful for that and trust God for the future, Adam.”

“And pray earnestly that a certain small heathen’s guardian angels don’t fall asleep on their never-ending job!” Adam snorted as they arrived at the chapel steps.

* * * * *

            Sprawled on the bed, stocking feet aimed toward the ceiling, Jamie had his nose buried in a red-brown periodical with a full-length portrait of Governor Yale on its cover.  Having stopped by the College Bookstore at 34 South Middle, to pick up his and Adam’s subscription to the Yale Literary Magazine, he had thereby earned the right to first peek at its contents.  He had turned first to the end of the issue to read the account of Professor Larned’s death and funeral and continued on to the Editor’s Table, which always offered an amusing look at college life.  He was smiling at the witty barbs, when one in particular made him ominously mutter, “Uh-oh.”  He immediately bit his lip, but Adam had heard.

Busy putting the finishing touches on another architectural sketch for Mr. Bracebridge, Adam glanced up and caught the rueful pucker of his roommate’s mouth.  “What?” he demanded.  “What could there possibly be in the Lit. capable of producing such a dour aspect on a lowly freshman’s face?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jamie said.  He paused dramatically and said in a portentous whisper, “Unless he’s a member of the choir.”

Adam sprang from his chair and snatched the magazine from his friend’s hands.  “Where?”

Jamie pointed to the troublesome paragraph, and Adam scanned the lines with mounting misery.  He read the conclusion aloud: “The efforts of most of the choir to out-sing each other merits our candid approval.”  With a groan he flopped down on the bed.

“There’s—um—an interesting article on John Keats,” Jamie offered.  He winced as Adam fixed him with a baleful glare.  “Oh, Adam, don’t worry,” he urged.  “Mr. Stoeckel probably doesn’t even read the Lit.”

Adam scowled.  “Care to bet?”  Herr Stoeckel struck him as the type of man who noticed everything.

“I don’t bet,” Jamie reminded him, “but—well—didn’t you say you’d been doing better with your blend?”

“I thought so,” Adam sighed, raking his hand through his hair, “but having been told twice in a week that my voice is, to put it generously, noticeable—”

“The Lit. doesn’t mention you,” Jamie interrupted sharply with a rare display of impatience.  “Really, Adam, it’s the height of conceit to assume that you’re the choir member meant.”

Adam cracked a short, gasping laugh, and then his face eased into a genuine grin.  “Ouch,” he said.

“Oh, Adam, I didn’t mean . . .”

Adam silenced his apology with an upraised palm.  “No, no . . . guilty as charged.”  He shook his head.  “The trouble is, Herr Stoeckel will rant at the lot of us as if we were all responsible for that comment.  For the first time since I joined the Beethoven Society, I am definitely dreading tonight’s rehearsal.”

* * * * *

            “Well, was it as grisly as you feared?” Jamie whispered as Adam slid into the seat next to him at the Vultures’ supper table.

“Very nearly,” Adam returned in an undertone.  “I wasn’t wrong about the rant, but at least he didn’t single me out.”

“Anyone else?” Jamie asked.

Adam answered with a silent nod and turned his attention to his steaming bowl of clam chowder.  He considered himself lucky not to have been the focus of that rant.  It wasn’t quite as thunderous as one of Ben Cartwright’s best, but it had definitely inspired him to try even harder to improve his singing.

~ ~ ~ ~Notes~ ~ ~ ~

Irene Battell Larned, wife of the professor who died in this chapter, established the first endowment for music at Yale.