* * * * *

It put a singing in my heart to find myself at last a student in a regular preparatory school, with my face set toward college.

I had passed my examinations with credit, especially the one in the Bible.  This won me immediate notice and approval among the professors.  Fortunate, indeed, I now regarded those three months in jail ... the most fruitful and corrective period of my life.  For not only had I studied the Bible assiduously there, but I had learned American history—­especially that of the Civil War period ... and I had studied arithmetic and algebra, so that in these subjects I managed to slide through.

* * * * *

I was put to cleaning stalls and currying horses for my two hours’ work each day.  Though I hated manual labour, I bent my back to the tasks with a will, glad to endure for the fulfillment of my dream.

That first summer I took Vergil and began Homer.  I had studied these poets by myself already, but found many slack ends that only the aid and guidance of a professor could clear up.  And, allowing for their narrow religious viewpoints, real or affected, in order to hold their positions, they were fine teachers—­my teachers of Latin and Greek—­with real fire in them....  Professor Lang made Homer and his days live for us.  The old Greek warriors rose up from the dust, and I could see the shining of their armour, hear the clash of their swords.

Professor Dunn made of Vergil a contemporary poet....

Lang was of the fair Norse type, so akin to the Greek in adventurous spirit.  Dunn was of the dark, stocky, imperial Roman type.  In a toga he would have resembled some Roman senator....

That summer there were long woodland walks for me, when I would take a volume of some great English poet from the library and roam far a-field.

* * * * *

After that first summer it was my father who kept me at school.  He was too poor to pay in a lump sum for my tuition, so he sent four dollars every week from his meagre pay, to keep me going.

* * * * *

There was a wide, wind-swept oval for an athletic field.  From it you gazed on a beautiful vista of valleys and enfolding hills.  Here every afternoon I practiced running ... to the frequent derision of the other athletes, who made fun of my skinny legs, body, and arms....

But as I ran, and ran, every afternoon, my mile, the boys stopped laughing, and I heard them say among themselves, “Old Gregory, he’ll get there!”

After the exercise there would be the rub-down with fragrant witch hazel ... then supper!

A dining-room, filled to the full, every table, with five hundred irrepressible boys ... it was a cheerful and good attendance at each of the three meals.  We joined together in saying a blessing.  We sang a lusty hymn together, accompanied on the little, wheezy, dining-room organ.  I liked the good, simple melodies sung, straight and hearty, without trills and twirls....