FullReads

All these years he had kept in touch with his college chums, and when the day of his success arrived, and he was his own master, with the inborn good-fellowship that marked his race, he had unbuttoned his pocket, shaken out his heart and let loose a hospitality that not only revived the memories of his childhood, but created a new kind of joy in the hearts of his guests. Hence the bungalow–hence Jackson–hence the lockers and the ice-chest, and hence the bed quilt of mint.

“This is your room, Muggles–and, Bender, old man, yours is next Podvine, you are across the hall,” was his welcome. “Breakfast is any time you want it; dinner at six. Now come here! See that line of lockers and that ice-chest? Don’t forget ’em, please! Step up, Jackson–take a look at him, boys. That darky can mix anything known to man. He never sleeps, and he’s never tired. If you don’t call on him for every blessed thing you want day or night, there’ll be trouble.”

They fished and canoed; they hunted bears–a fact known to the bear, who kept out of their way–never was in it, Bender insisted; they went overboard every morning, one after another, in the almost ice-cold water of the lake, out again red as lobsters, back on a run, whooping with the cold to the blazing fire of the bungalow which Jackson had replenished with bundles of dried balsam that cracked and snapped with a roar while it toasted the bare backs and scorched the bare legs of each one in turn (the balsam was gathered the year before for this very purpose). They roamed the woods, getting a crack once in a while at a partridge or a squirrel; they strolled about the mill, listening to the whir of the saws and watching the “cut” as it was rolled away and was made to feed the huge piles of lumber and timber flanking the runway and far enough away from the huge stack to be out of the way of treacherous sparks; and at night they sat around Jackson’s constantly replenished fire and told stories of their college days or revived the current gossip of the club and the Street.

Muggles ruminated over each and every experience–all new to him–and kept his eyes open for the psychological moment when he would burst asunder the bonds of conventionality and rise to the full measure of his abilities. The Clanworthys had swung battle-axes and ridden milk-white chargers into the thickest of the fray. His turn would come; he felt it in his knee: then these unbelievers would be silenced.

His host interested him enormously, especially his masterful way of handling his men. He himself had been elected foreman of Hose Carriage No. 1 in the village near his father’s country seat, and still held that important office. His cape and fire-boots fitted him to a nicety, and so did his helmet. No. 1 had been called out but once in its history, and then to the relief of a barn which, having lost heart before the rescuers reached it, had sunk to the ground in despair and there covered itself with ashes. He had been criticised, he remembered, much to his chagrin, for the way he had conducted the rescue party; but it would never happen again. After this he would pattern his conduct after Monteith, who seemed to accomplish by a nod and a wave of the hand what he had split his throat in trying to enforce. He did not put these thoughts into words; neither did he whisper them even in the ears of Podvine or Monteith–the two men who understood him best and who guyed him the least–especially Monteith, who never forgot that his college chum was his guest. He confided them instead to Monteith’s big, red-faced foreman–half Canadian, part French, and the rest of him Irish–who was another source of wonder. Muggles’s inherent good humor and willingness to oblige had made an impression on the lumber-boss and he was always willing to answer any fool question the young New Yorker asked–a privilege which he never extended to his comrades.