Thursday, July 29, 1943
THE ELKIN TRIBUNE, ELKIN, NORTH CAROLINA
SEASONED
TIMBER
W.N.U.
DOROTHY CANFIELD
CHAPTER X
The old man's face cleared. He
„ , took a long step around the ta-
P?' .ji ble and held out his right hand,
'fTimothy's hand clenched his, si-
I lently took the vow with him. Mr.
[Dewey drew a deep breath and
I said in a steady voice, “Yes, now
I is the time, T. C., for all good men
to stand up for their country. But
I let’s get us something to eat first.
I I’m hollow as a drum.”
“You’re welcome to whatever
Lottie has left for me at the
! house. Hash, probably.” Timo
thy’s voice sounded odd and far
[ away.
‘‘Hash sounds all right to me.”
i Burt Stephenson stood there by
■ the desk, embarrassed and trou-
I bled. Then Mr. Dewey moved
forward again, saying over his
shoulder, “Well Burt, come along
I with us to the I^rincipal’s house,
! will you?”
In front of the Principal’s house
■ Burt said, hesitatingly, “Say, Mr.
" Hulme—well—^you see I get twen-
ty-five cents for every news item
I send in to the Ashley Record.
1 wonder if it would be all right
to . . . ”
Timothy turned to Mr. Dewey.
“What shall we do?” he asked.
Mr, Dewey thought for a mo-
J:ment, and said, “My Great Uncle
j'Zadok always used to tell me,
‘What’s got to be done
I Better be begun.’ ”
“That’s so,’ ’said Timothy, and
I went on gravely. “Burt, this is
I about the most serious thing that
j-ever happened to our old town.
I You’re a Clifford boy. It’s up to
I you as much as anybody to help
(do the right thing. Had your
f lunch? No? Well, on in the house
'I and telephone your grandmother
! that you’ll have it with us. I’ll
' help you get your news item
j ready. You’ll probably get more
i than a quarter for it, too.”
Timothy found the dish of hash
; in the warming oven in the kitch
en, started the coffee making,
showed Burt where the knives and
I forks and dishes were kept, and
I stepped upstairs to speak to Aunt
; Lavinia. He found her about to
I lie down for a nap, asked her in
what he thought was a quiet cas
ual voice, “All right, Lavvy?” and
told her, “I just wanted to let
I you know we’re back. Mr. Dewey’s
going to eat something here be
fore he goes home.” But after one
look at his face, she slid off her
bed, crying, “What’s happened,
Tim? What has happened?” He
: shook his head, tri^ to smile.
' “Tell you later,” he said with
what he intended to be a reassur
ing intonation.
“You’re hiding something from
me, Timothy Hulme,” she cried,
over the stair railing. “Somebody
has died and you’re not letting me
know.”
“Mr. Wheaton has died, Aunt
‘ Lavinia.”
Halfway down the stairs she
halted, astonished, relieved, re
sentful. “Why, you crazy loon,
that’s good news,” she exclaimed,
with hed bald disregard to conven-
I tional decencies. She sat down
I where she was — looking through
the banisters at three men below.
Timothy, back at the table, told
I her curtly, without stopping his
L famished chewing and swallowing.
I “He’s left the Academy some mon-
ley on condition that no Jewish
Istudents ever be admitted.”
“Well, wouldn’t ye know the old
Irascal’d think up some dirty trick
|as his last act of life?” said Aunt
aviina conversationally. She was
struck by the trouble in the faces
below her. “You’re never think-
|ing of taking it!” she cried.
Aunt Lavinia stood by the table,
putting back the strings of her
vhite hair to peer into his face.
“Tim, dear lad . . . ” her voice was
gentle and serious as he had not
heard it in years.
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“Yes, Aunt Laviina?”
“Because you have an old wo
man hanging aroimd your neck
like a millstone you’re not going
to be less than you were brought
up to be? Tim I’d starve rather
than stand in your way now.”
He was pleased with her, kissed
her cheek lightly, told her with a
smile, “You’ll be allowed to starve,
Lavvy dear, when I do.”
“Then you’ll resign? Oh, Tim!
Good for you!”
“Resign? I’m not going to re
sign! What makes you think I’m
going to take this lying down?
We’re going to put our heads to
gether this very afternoon. Burt,
what classes have you?”
“Only a lab period from two to
four, but see here. Professor
Hulme, you don’t mean you’re . .?”
“You’re excused from lab this
afternoon for more important bus
iness,” said Timothy.
Someone was calling to him.
Above the babble of talk on the
stairs Aunt Lavinia’s voice rose,
shouting, “Tim-o-thy! Canby’s
here. I’ve told him. He wants to
know can he come up, too?”
“Oh yes,” said Timothy. “Sure,
if he wants to.”
Aunt Lavinia’s small capacity
to give attention to matters of lit
eral fact had been used up. But
Canby said, “You don’t think for
one holy second. Uncle Tim, that
you can find anybody in this town
who’d vote not to take that mon
ey?”
“Hasn’t it ever happened, Can
by, in the history of the world
that people have put their princi
ples before—”
“Oh, Uncle Tim, be yourself!”
“Professor Hulme, may I ask one
question?”
“I should say so, Burt! This is
your party lots more than it is
ours.”
“Why, we don’t hardly ever have
any Jews as students, see? Just
Jules, and those Hemmerling boys,
and Rosie Steinberg, this year.
Why couldn’t they go somewhere
else to school? Good gosh. Pro
fessor Hulme, it’d be ohaper to
pay their expenses up in Ashley at
the high school and get all that
money for the Academy!”
Mr. Dewey now said with wrath,
“Are we a-going to be told how
to run our business in our own
town by somebody that didn’t ev
en vote in Clifford—just because
he’s rich? I’d fight taking his
money if he laid down the law to
us this way about anything.”
“Listen, Burt.” Timothy waited
till the boy looked up at him. “If
we don’t take this money it’ll
mean that when we’re old folks we
can look back on our lives and
think we had a chance to prove
whether we meant anything when
we claimed to be free Americans,
or whether it was just talk.”
The trained instinct of the ex
perienced teacher told Timothy
that this was enough. He looked
at his watch, said, “Let s get at
your news item.”
The bugle sent its blare down
the hill to Clifford and its peo
ple. up the mountain to the pine
and the spruces, as for the last
hundred and eighteen years. But
it did not galvanize into startled
speed any laggards loitering on
their way to assembly. Every
student was there ahead of time,
and grown-ups too, both men and
women, sitting upstairs in the gal
lery, downstairs at the back on the
bare straight-backed benches
where they found some of their
youth still left, standing in the
doorways and along the hall. The
Ashley Record was distributed in
Clifford by half past seven in the
morning and it was now half past
eight, thirty-six hours after Mr.
Wheaton’s spirit had depai’ted
from the heavy old body so care
fully tended by his masseur.
Ever since the arrival of the
newspaper the closely woven net
work of telephone wires had been
humming stormily in a tempest of
exclamations, questions and sur
mises.
Now they sat and stood in the
assembly room, a greater crowd
than had ever come, even to a
commencement, looking up at the
words of America written large in
Professor Hulme’s square hand
writing on the blackboard at the
back of the stage, at Professor
Hulme standing by the piano, tWfe
harsh sonority of his voice car
rying his words to the farthest
ranks of those standing in the
hall, “Our old town and our old
school have suddenly been called
out from the quiet peace where
they have lived so long, to answer
a question of life and death im
portance to those who believe in
the American principle of equal
opportunity for all, and safety for
minorities. The future of our
town and of our school depends
on the answer we will m.ake at
the election of the new trustee two
months from now. But before we
begin to lay the matter before you,
I think we would do well to sing
our national hymn.”
He sat down at the piano, he
sang the first verse with others,
“My country, ’tis of thee. Sweet
land of liberty, Of thee I sing.”
Pi’om verse to verse, the music
swelled like a rising tide of rhy
thm on which everyone there —
would he or would he not — was
swept forward. When they came
to the last verse,
“Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light!
Protect us by thy might.
Great God, our king.
A-men,”
sang the men, the women, the
boys and girls of Clifford, slowly,
drawing in deep breaths between
the lines, and remained standing
for an instant to let the tide of
music subside.
Those who had seats sat down
rustlingly. Timothy rose, went to
the front of the platform and
stood, looking out thoughtfully
over the expectant faces.
“Perhaps the best place to be
gin,” said Timothy, “is at the be
ginning, eight years ago when we
elected Mr. Wheaton as trusee of
the Academy I’m afraid we all
just thought that if we elected a
rich man as one of the trusees,
we could get some money out of
him. And using our votes the
wrong way, has brought on us a
great temptation to do wrong
again, this time a wrong we could
never set right. Here are the
terms of the bequest.”
He read aloud slowly then, with
pauses between the sentences, the
letter from Mr. Wheaton’s lawyer.
“We are offered one million for
endowment and two nundred
thousand for buildings, on three
conditions: one” — he drew a long
breath — “that Academy bind it
self never to admit to its clisses
or to give any education to a
Jewish student, the word Jewish
being defined as applying to a per
son with any relatives with Jew
ish blood.” He stopped to breathe
again, and to straighten his pince-
nez. “Two, that the name be
changed to the George Wheaton
Preparatory School.” He laid em
phasis on the word preparatory.
“Three, that the tuition fee for
day students be raised to not less
than $250 a year, but, so the
clause in the will reads, ‘always
making generous provision for
scholarships for needy Clifford
youth,’ and the fee for boarding
students to not less than one
thousand dollars a year.” After
letting this sink in, he added more
rapidly, “A quarter of a million
more either for' buildings or en
dowment is offered if girls are
excluded from the student body
but this is not made a condition
for obtaining the bequest.
“I think now,” said Timothy,
putting the leter into his coat
pocket, and speaking in a level
voice, “that probably this will had
been drawn in December, when I
last saw Mr. Wheaton in New
York. But of course I had no
idea of it then, and I could not
understand some things Mr.
Wheaton said about the Academy
budget. He objected to the salar
ies of the teachers of Domestic
Science, and of Agriculture and
Manual Training because those
subjects are not part of prepara
tion for college. He told me he
thought that if the Academy
would concentrate on those who
have money enough to attend col
lege, we would have what he call
ed a much better class of stud-
erits, meaning by that, I under
stand, students from families
with more money. This, I sup
pose, explains his wish to have
the name changed, not only, you
will notice, to have his own name
part of it, but to have the Aca
demy called a preparatory school.
He spoke on that same day, as he
had several times before of his
wish to exclude girls, giving it as
his opinion that we could never
induce gentlemen’s sons to come
here as students as long as they
were obliged to associate with
girls in classes.” He brought this
out in the same laci-stating
neutral voice he was using for the
rest of his explanation.
(To Be Coatinaed)
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“Pop,” said Johnny, looking up
from his composition, “is water
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ed with a hydrant in the middle?”
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