CHAPTER V
SCHOOL BEGINS
It was all settled by the time they had finished breakfast. Perhaps the cheerfulness of the morning, or it may have been Mrs. Magoon’s coffee, worked its effect on Nead, for that youth was far more amiable, and, while he did hesitate and seem a bit dubious for a moment, he ended by accepting the proposition. Ira found himself hoping that he wouldn’t and took the other’s hesitation as a good augury, but put aside all regrets the moment Nead made his decision.
“That’s all right, then,” he declared. “Now we’ll have to make a dicker with Mrs. Magoon, I guess, for she’ll want more for the room if there’s two in it.”
“I don’t see why,” objected Nead. “Anyway, we oughtn’t to pay more than four a week.”
“I think four would be enough,” Ira agreed. “And what about breakfasts? She charges a quarter apiece, you know.”
“And they’re pretty punk, if this is a sample,” said Nead. “The coffee’s all right, but my chop had seen better days. Still, it’s easier than hunting a restaurant. I thought maybe I’d eat in school. They say you get mighty good feed at Alumni Hall.”
“Well, we’ll tell her we’ll take two breakfasts for awhile. That will cheer her up, maybe. Shall I make the dicker?”
“Yes, she doesn’t like me. And I don’t like her. So that’s even. What class are you going into, Rowland?”
“Third, unless I trip up. What’s yours?”
“Second. Wish we were in the same. It makes it easier if you’re with a fellow who’s taking the same stuff. There’s another thing, too; that bed’s fierce. See if she hasn’t got a better mattress.”
“I was going to buy one,” said Ira. “I guess hers are all about the same, don’t you?”
“Well, make a stab,” said Nead. “She may have one that hasn’t been slept on twenty years. What are the other fellows here like?”
“Don’t know. I’ve seen only one, the fat fellow across the hall. There must be quite a lot of them, because she says she has all the rooms rented, and there are four rooms on each floor.”
“Nine rooms altogether,” Nead corrected. “There’s one on the ground floor at the back that she rents. It’s behind the spring-water place. I suppose there are two in some rooms. Must be twelve or fourteen fellows in this dive, eh?”
“Maybe,” agreed Ira, pushing away from the walnut table on which the breakfast tray had been placed. “Do you know any fellows in school?”
“No, do you?”
“Only one, a fellow named Johnston. I ran across him yesterday and he told me about this place. They call it ‘Maggy’s.’ I’d been to about six before that and couldn’t find anything I liked. Well, I’ll go down and – Hold on, though! I must write a note first.”
He got a tablet and pulled a chair to the desk, and after wrinkling his forehead a moment, wrote: “Mr. Eugene Goodloe, Parkinson School, Warne, Mass. Dear Sir: I have a room at Mrs. Magoon’s, 200 Main Street, third floor back on the left. A note addressed to me here will find me and I shall be glad to meet any appointment you care to make. Respectfully, Ira Rowland.” Then he enclosed it, stamped the envelope and dropped it in his pocket.
“That’s what I must do, I suppose,” remarked Nead. “I told my folks I’d write last night, but I forgot it. Guess I’ll scribble a note while you’re talking to the old girl downstairs. Let me use your pen, will you? Mine’s in the trunk.”
“Sorry, Nead,” replied Ira, “but that’s something I won’t do. I’ll lend you about anything but my fountain pen.”
“Oh, all right,” said the other haughtily. “I’ve got a better one of my own. Just didn’t want to look for it.”
The interview with Mrs. Magoon was a long-drawn-out ceremony. In the first place, she was not eager to have Nead as a tenant. When she had finally agreed to it, she held out for four dollars and a half a week until Ira informed her that they would each want breakfasts. Four dollars a week was at last agreed on. In the matter of mattresses, however, she was adamant. More, she was even insulted. “That mattress has been on that bed for six years,” she said indignantly, “and nobody’s ever said anything against it before. Anyhow, I ain’t got any better one.”
“All right, ma’am. And how about another bed in there?”
“You can keep that cot, I guess. I ain’t got another bed.”
“But the cot’s as hard as a board!” exclaimed Ira. “It hasn’t any mattress; just a – a sort of pad!”
“Well, I don’t know what I can do,” replied the lady. “I can’t afford to go and buy a lot of new things. It’s all I can do to get along as it is, with rents as low as they are. That room ought to fetch me six dollars a week, it should so. And I’m only getting four for it. And the price of everything a body has to buy is going up all the time. I don’t know what we’re coming to!”
“Suppose I buy a cheap single bed and mattress,” suggested Ira. “Will you take it off my hands when I move out?”
“I might. It wouldn’t be worth full price, though, young man, after being used a year or more.”
“No, that’s so. Suppose you pay me half what it costs me? Would that do?”
“Why, yes, I guess ’twould. But don’t go and buy an expensive one. I wouldn’t want to put much money into it.”
“Well, I dare say I can get a bed for six dollars and a mattress for ten, can’t I?”
“Land sakes! I should hope you could! You can get an iron bed for four dollars and a half that’s plenty good enough and a mattress for six. You go to Levinstein’s on Adams Street. That’s the cheapest place. Ask for Mr. Levinstein and tell him I sent you. I buy a lot from him. Leastways, I used to. I ain’t bought much lately, what with times so hard and rents what they are and everything a body has to have getting to cost more every day. I mind the time when – ”
But Ira had flown, and Mrs. Magoon’s reminiscences were muttered to herself as she made her way down to the mysterious realms of the basement.
Nead flatly refused to spend any money for bed or mattress, but agreed to go halves on the furniture that Ira had already purchased and on anything it might be necessary to buy later. “You see,” he explained, “it will be your bed, and I won’t get anything out of it. Maybe I might swap mattresses with you if I like yours better, though,” he concluded with a laugh.
“You just try it!” said Ira grimly.
He purchased the bed and mattress before first recitation hour, paying, however, more than Mrs. Magoon had advised. After testing the six-dollar mattresses Ira concluded that there was such a thing as mistaken economy! After leaving Levinstein’s he remembered the letter in his pocket and dropped it into a pillar box and then hustled for school.
He was somewhat awed by the magnificence of Parkinson Hall as he made his way up the steps and entered the rotunda. It still lacked ten minutes of first hour, which was nine o’clock, and the entrance and the big, glass-domed hall were filled with groups of waiting fellows. He found a place out of the way and looked about him interestedly. The rotunda was a chamber of spaciousness and soft, white light. The stone walls held, here and there, Latin inscriptions – Ira tried his hand at one of them and floundered ingloriously – and there were several statues placed at intervals. A wide doorway admitted at each side to the wings, and into one of the corridors he presently ventured. There were three doors to his right and as many to his left, each opened and showing a cheerfully bright and totally empty classroom, and at the