David returned at Christmas time with an added inch of height, with straighter shoulders and a sterner glance. David moved swiftly, answered questions directly, walked alone upon the mountain-side, or sat with his books in his mother's kitchen. He seemed to have had some improving, enlightening experience; college had already done a great deal for him. Him Katy did not see.
Nor did Alvin appear in the summer time, except for a few days at the end. He had asked Katy for another fifty dollars in the spring, and she had sent it to him without stopping to consider that now more than half of her money was gone. Alvin meant to work in a drug store this summer, at least so Alvin said, in order to pay part of his debt. But the dispensing of soda water did not appear to have been as profitable as he expected, for in August, when he came to Millerstown, he borrowed another fifty dollars. He promised certainly now that he would come for Christmas. He put his arms boldly round Katy and kissed her many times. It seemed that Alvin, too, had had illuminating experiences.
David spent the summer in his little room and on the mountain-side. David sometimes lay for hours together on the plateau before the Sheep Stable. Sometimes he carried thither the books which he continued to study diligently. Sometimes he walked about, climbing among rocks, tramping along the arched back of the little range of hills,--mountains, to Millerstown. David sighed contentedly and breathed deeply. He noted the dappled shadows, the wreathing clematis, the tall spikes of lobelia, the odor of slippery elm the first reddening branch of the gum trees. He looked down upon the fertile fields, upon the scattered villages, and he was almost happy. Then David returned to his books. It was strange that he should study so earnestly during the long summer. Surely David with his good mind had not fallen behind his fellows!
David's illuminating experiences had not been entirely those which study and knowledge bring. David's arrival in the college town had been at once observed and marked. He towered above his fellows; he had a look of greater maturity than his years would warrant; he had apparently large means at his command. Upper classmen are not so entirely devoted as is supposed to the abuse of the entering novice. Upon the novice depends the continued existence of the college society which is so important a part of the college's social structure. You cannot very well urge a man to join an organization of which you are a member after you have beaten him or held his head under an icy hydrant! David's college made a tacit but no less real distinction between the youth who was likely to prove valuable society material and the youth who would likely prove to be merely a student. David's clothes were of the best, he had many of them, he occupied an expensive room; it was evident that he need not have recourse to the many shifts by which the poor boy in college provides himself with spending money. David was overlooked in the disciplinary measures by which many of his classmates were trained to respect their betters. His discipline was, alas! much harder to endure!