* *

A January thaw. Carl was tramping miles out into the hilly country
north of Plato. He hadn't been able to persuade any of the Gang to
leave their smoky loafing-place in the Turk's room, but his own lungs
demanded the open. With his heavy boots swashing through icy pools,
calling to an imaginary dog and victoriously running Olympic races
before millions of spectators, he defied the chill of the day and
reached Hiawatha Mound, a hill eight miles north of Plato.

Toward the top a man was to be seen crouched in a pebbly, sunny
arroyo, peering across the bleak prairie, a lone watcher. Ascending,
Carl saw that it was Eugene Field Linderbeck, a Plato freshman. That
amused him. He grinningly planned a conversation. Every one said that
"Genie Linderbeck was queer." A precocious boy of fifteen, yet the
head of his class in scholarship; reported to be interested in Greek
books quite outside of the course, fond of drinking tea, and devoid of
merit in the three manly arts--athletics, flirting, and breaking rules
by smoking. Genie was small, anemic, and too well dressed. He
stuttered slightly and was always peering doubtfully at you with large
and childish eyes that were made more eerie by his pale, bulbous
forehead and the penthouse of tangled mouse-brown hair over it.... The
Gang often stopped him on the campus to ask mock-polite questions
about his ambition, which was to be a teacher of English at Harvard or
Yale. Not very consistently, but without ever wearying of the jest,
they shadowed him to find out if he did not write poetry; and while no
one had actually caught him, he was still suspect.

Genie said nothing when Carl called, "H'lo, son!" and sat on a
neighboring rock.

"What's trouble, Genie? You look worried."

"Why don't any of you fellows like me?"

Carl felt like a bug inspected by a German professor. "W-why, how
d'you mean, Genie?"

"None of you take me seriously. You simply let me hang around. And you
think I'm a grind. I'm not. I like to read, that's all. Perhaps you
think I shouldn't like to go out for athletics if I could! I wish I
could run the way you can, Ericson. Darn it! I was happy out here by
myself on the Mound, where every prospect pleases, and--'n' now here I
am again, envying you."

"Why, son, I--I guess--I guess we admire you a whole lot more than we
let on to. Cheer up, old man! When you're valedictorian and on the
debating team and wallop Hamlin you'll laugh at the Gang, and we'l