The Vision Splendid | Page 3

Captain Chunn was delighted. "You doggoned little rebel!"
"I didn't know we used that word in the South' sir."
Chunn tugged at his goatee and laughed. "We're not in the South,
David."
The former Confederate asked questions to piece out his patchwork
information. He knew that Philip Farnum had come out of the war with
a constitution weakened by the hardships of the service. Rumors had
drifted to him that the taste for liquor acquired in camp as an antidote
for sickness had grown upon his comrade and finally overcome him.

From Jeff he learned that after his father's death the widow had sold her
mortgaged place and moved to the Pacific Coast. She had invested the
few hundreds left her in some river-bottom lots at Verden and had later
discovered that an unscrupulous real estate dealer had unloaded upon
her worthless property. The patched and threadbare clothes of the boy
told him that from a worldly point of view the affairs of the Farnums
were at ebb tide.
"Did . . . did you know father very well?" Jeff asked tremulously.
Chunn looked down at the thin dark face of the boy walking beside him
and was moved to lay a hand on his shoulder. He understood the ache
in that little heart to hear about the father who was a hero to him. Jeff
was of no importance in the alien world about him. The Captain
guessed from the little scene he had witnessed that the lad trod a
friendless, stormy path. He divined, too, that the hungry soul was fed
from within by dreams and memories.
So Lucius Chunn talked. He told about the slender, soldierly officer in
gray who had given himself so freely to serve his men, of the time he
had caught pneumonia by lending his blanket to a sick boy, of the day
he had led the charge at Battle Creek and received the wound which
pained him so greatly to the hour of his death. And Jeff drank his words
in like a charmed thing. He visualized it all, the bitter nights in camp,
the long wet marches, the trumpet call to battle. It was this last that his
imagination seized upon most eagerly. He saw the silent massing of
troops, the stealthy advance through the woods; and he heard the
blood-curdling rebel yell as the line swept forward from cover like a
tidal wave, with his father at its head.
Captain Chunn was puzzled at the coldness with which Mr. Webber
listened to his explanation of what had taken place. The school
principal fell back doggedly upon one fact. It would not have happened
if Jeff had not been playing truant. Therefore he was to blame for what
had occurred.
Nothing would be done, of course, without a thorough investigation.

The Captain was not satisfied, but he did not quite see what more he
could do.
"The boy is a son of an old comrade of mine. We were in the war
together. So of course I have to stand by Jeff," he pleaded with a smile.
"You were in the rebel army?" The words slipped out before the
schoolmaster could stop them.
"In the Confederate army," Chunn corrected quietly.
Webber flushed at the rebuke. "That is what I meant to say."
"I leave to-morrow for Alaska. It would be pleasant to know before I go
that Jeff is out of his trouble."
"I'm afraid Jeff always will be in trouble. He is a most insubordinate
boy," the principal answered coldly.
"Are you sure you quite understand him?"
"He is not difficult to understand." Webber, resenting the interference
of the Southerner as an intrusion, disposed of the matter in a sentence.
"I'll look into this matter carefully, Mr. Chunn."
Webber called immediately at the office of Edward B. Merrill,
president of the tramway company and of the First National Bank. It
happened that the vice-president of the bank was a school director; also
that the funds of the district were kept in the First National. The
schoolteacher did not admit that he had come to ingratiate himself with
the powers that ruled his future, but he was naturally pleased to come in
direct touch with such a man as Merrill.
The financier was urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his valuable
time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they shook hands.
The two understood each other thoroughly.
"You may depend upon me to do my duty, Mr. Merrill, painful though
such a course may be to me."

"I am very glad to have met you, Mr. Webber. It is a source of
satisfaction to me that our educational system is in the care of men of
your stamp. I leave this matter with confidence entirely in your hands.
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