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Junichiro Makino
Principles
of High-Performance
Processor Design
For High Performance Computing, Deep
Neural Networks and Data Science
Principles of High-Performance Processor Design
Junichiro Makino
Principles of
High-Performance Processor
Design
For High Performance Computing, Deep
Neural Networks and Data Science
Junichiro Makino
Kobe University
Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
The future cannot be predicted, but futures
can be invented. — Dennis Gabor
Preface
In this book, I tried to theorize what I have learned from my experience of devel-
oping special- and general-purpose processors for scientific computing. I started
my research career as a graduate student in astrophysics, studying the dynamical
evolution of globular clusters. The research tool was the N-body simulation, and
it was (and still is) important to make simulations faster so that we can handle
larger number of stars. I used vector supercomputers such as Hitac S-810, Fujitsu
VP-400, NEC SX-2, Cray X-MP, Cyber 205, and ETA-10, and also tried parallel
computers such as TMC CM-2 and PAX. Around the end of my Ph.D. course,
my supervisor, Daiichiro Sugimoto, started the GRAPE project to develop special-
purpose computers for astrophysical N -body simulations, and I was deeply involved
in the development of numerical algorithms, hardware, and software. The GRAPE
project is a great success, with hardware achieving 10–100 times better price- and
watt-performance compared to general-purpose computers at the same time and
used by many researchers. However, as semiconductor technology advanced into
deep-submicron range, the initial cost of development of ASICs had become too
high for special-purpose processors. In fact, it has become too high for most general-
purpose processors, and that was clearly the reason why first the development of
parallel computers with custom processors and then the development of almost all
RISC processors were terminated. Only x86 processors from Intel and AMD had
survived. (Right now, we might be seeing the shift from x86 to Arm, though) The
x86 processors in the 2000s were not quite efficient in the use of transistors or
electricity. Nowadays, we have processors with very different architectures such as
GPGPUs and Google TPU, which are certainly more efficient compared to general-
purpose x86 or Arm processors, at least for a limited range of applications. I also
was involved in the development of a programmable SIMD processor, GRAPE-DR,
in 2000s, and more recently a processor for deep learning, MN-Core, which was
ranked #1 in the June 2020 and June 2021 Green500 lists.
In this book, I discuss how we can make efficient processors for high-
performance computing. I realized that we did not have a widely accepted definition
of the efficiency of a general-purpose computer architecture. Therefore, in the first
three chapters of this book, I tried to give one possible definition, the ratio between
vii
viii Preface
the minimum possible energy consumption and the actual energy consumption for a
given application using a given semiconductor technology. In Chapter 4, I overview
general-purpose processors in the past and present from this viewpoint. In Chapter
5, I discuss how we can actually design processors with near-optimal efficiencies,
and in Chapter 6 how we can program such processors. I hope this book will give a
new perspective to the field of high-performance processor design.
This book is the outcome of collaborations with many people in many projects
throughout my research career. The following is an incomplete list of collabo-
rators: Daiichiro Sugimoto, Toshikazu Ebisuzaki, Yoshiharu Chikada, Tomoyoshi
Ito, Sachiko Okumura, Shigeru Ida, Toshiyuki Fukushige, Yoko Funato, Hiroshi
Daisaka, and many others (GRAPE, GRAPE-DR, and related activities); Piet
Hut, Steve McMillan, Simon Portegies Zwart, and many others (stellar dynamics
and numerical methods); Kei Hiraki (GRAPE-DR and MN-Core); Ken Namura
(GRAPE-6, GRAPE-DR, and MN-Core); Masaki Iwasawa, Ataru Tanikawa, Keigo
Nitadori, Natsuki Hosono, Daisuke Namekata, and Kentaro Nomura (FDPS and
related activities); Yutaka Ishikawa, Mitsuhisa Sato, Hirofumi Tomita, and many
others (Fugaku development); Michiko Fujii, Takayuki Saito, Junko Kominami,
and many others (stellar dynamics, galaxy formation, and planetary formation
simulation on large-scale HPC platforms); Takayuki Muranushi and Youhei Ishihara
(Formura DSL); many people from PFN (MN-Core); many people from PEZY
Computing; and ExaScaler (PEZY-SC). I would like to thank all the people above. In
addition, I’d like to thank Miyuki Tsubouchi, Yuko Wakamatsu, Yoshie Yamaguchi,
Naoko Nakanishi, Yukiko Kimura, and Rika Ogawa for managing the projects I
was involved. I would also like to thank the folks at Springer for making this book
a reality. Finally, I thank my family, and in particular my partner, Yoko, for her
continuous support.
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Traditional Approaches and Their Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 CDC 6600 and 7600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 Cray-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3 The Evolution of Vector Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.4 Lessons from the History of Vector-Parallel Architecture . . . . 21
2.1.5 The Evolution of Single-Chip Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.6 The Impact of Hierarchical Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.7 Alternatives to Cache Memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2 The Need for Quantitative Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3 What Is Measured and What Is Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3 The Lower Limit of Energy Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 Range of Applications We Consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.1 Structured Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.2 Unstructured Mesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1.3 Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1.4 Random Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.5 Dense Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.6 Miscellanies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.7 Distribution of Application Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Definition of Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3 Structured Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.1 Choice of the Numerical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.2 The Design of An Ideal Processor Architecture for
Structured Mesh Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4 Unstructured Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
ix
x Contents
3.5 Particles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5.1 The Overview of Particle-Based Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5.2 Short-Range Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5.3 Long-Range Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.6 Random Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.7 Dense Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4 Analysis of Past and Present Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.1 CDC 6600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.2 Cray-1 and Its Successors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.3 x86 Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3.1 i860 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3.2 From Pentium to Skylake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.4 NEC SX-Aurora and Fujitsu A64fx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.5 SIMD Supercomputers—Illiac IV and TMC CM-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.5.1 Illiac IV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.5.2 CM-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.5.3 Problems with Large-Scale SIMD Processors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.6 GPGPUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.7 PEZY Processors and Sunway SW26010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.7.1 PEZY Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.7.2 Sunway SW26010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5 “Near-Optimal” Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.1 The Special-Purpose Designs: GRAPE Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.2 The Baseline Design: GRAPE-DR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.2.1 Design Concept and Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.2.2 The Efficiency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.2.3 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.3 Functions Necessary to Widen Application Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.3.1 Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3.2 Dense Matrices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3.3 Other Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.4 An Extreme for Deep Learning: MN-Core/GRAPE-PFN . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5 A “General-Purpose” Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.1 On-Chip Network for Sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.2 Off-Chip DRAM Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.5.3 Chip-to-Chip Communications Network for Deep
Learning and Unstructured-Mesh Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.5.4 Support for FP64, FP32 and FP16 or Other
Mixed-Precision Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Contents xi
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Acronyms
xiii
xiv Acronyms
The purpose of this book is to provide the scientific basis of the design of processors
for compute-intensive applications such as High-performance computing, deep
neural networks and data sciences.
There are many textbooks on the design of computers. So a natural question is if
there is any room for a new book. On the other hand, if we look at applications in
the areas of high-performance computing or deep learning, the processors described
in the standard textbooks are not main working horses. At the time of this writing,
deep learning applications are mainly run on GPGPUs, and GPGPUs are also used in
many compute-intensive applications. Also, the use of FPGAs for these applications
have been an active research area for many years (in other words, the use of FPGA is
still not mainstream in either fields). In addition, there are many startups developing
processors for deep learning.
Practically all existing textbooks on computer architecture start with the design of
ISA (instruction set architecture), and the range of processor architecture covered is
rather narrow. It is essentially a multicore processor, each with pipelined superscalar
processors with execution units with a small degree of SIMD parallelism. Multiple
cores are connected through multiple levels of coherent data caches.
Such multicore designs have design tradeoffs within their design space, and
they have been studied by many researchers and discussed in detail in textbooks.
However, there are many possible architectures of processors not in this space, and
the “optimal” designs for different architectures would be completely different.
In this book, we’ll take a different approach. Instead of setting ISA as the basis
of the computer architecture, we start from problems to be solved, and define
“efficiency” as the measure of an architecture.
In the field of high-performance computing, the term “efficiency” is usually used
to express the ratio between the achieved performance of an application program
and the theoretical peak performance of the computer used, both measured in terms
of the number of floating point operations per second.
This “efficiency” is useful in some cases. For example, when we compare two
programs which solve the same problem using the same numerical method, this
efficiency is clearly a useful measure. The parallel efficiencies, both the so-called
strong- and weak-scalings are also useful measures.
However, the efficiency in this form is not useful when we compare two programs
which solve different problems on a same computer, or a same problem on two
different computers. Is a program with 90% efficiency on an Intel Xeon processor
better than a program with 50% efficiency on an NVIDIA GPGPU? How about a
program with 60% efficiency on a Chinese or Japanese HPC processor?
Clearly, we need a more meaningful measure than the usual use of the word
“efficiency”. This lack of a meaningful or useful measure actually means something
very strange about the research in computer architecture: We do not know the goal
of our research.
Well, one would argue that we have been following the “quantitative” approach
(e.g. [1]) for the last three or four decades, and that is certainly true. It is therefore
important to summarize the structure of the “quantitative” approach.
How the “quantitative” approach works? It started with the analysis of how
existing programs are executed on existing architectures. The classic example is
the criticism on CISC ISA designed in 1970s. According to the famous review
by Patterson and Ditzel [2], compilers at that time utilized only a small subset of
instructions available on processors, and thus it would be much more efficient if we
implement only those instructions that compilers could use efficiently. The idea of
RISC was based on this consideration. As a result, RISC architecture in the early
days shared the following characteristics:
(a) The load-store architecture, in which memory access is done through load and
store instructions only and binary arithmetic operations takes two operands and
one results, all in the register file.
(b) Fixed-stage pipeline.
(c) On-chip data cache which allows constant-delay memory access (when hit).
One important observation was that the arithmetic instructions which take mem-
ory operand should not be used since they generally result in long execution time
and thus performance degradation. The latency of register-to-register operations
are shorter than those for instructions with memory access. Thus, by separating
the arithmetic operations and memory load and store, the compilers can utilize the
processor resources more efficiently.
To be precise, the load-store architecture was invented in 1960s. The CDC 6600
[3] is the first well-known machine with the load-store architecture and three-
address arithmetic instructions. It also has the superscalar architecture with register
scoreboarding. First-generation RISC processors such as MIPS R2000/3000 and the
first Sun SPARC processor did not have superscalar architecture. This is probably
because it was still difficult to fit a microprocessor with superscalar architecture into
a single die.
At least in late 1980s and early 1990s, these early RISC processors and their
successors seemed to offer the performance much higher that that was available on
1 Introduction 3
a wide variety of CISC processors, including Intel 80x86, Motorola 680x0, DEC
Vax and even IBM mainframes.
On the other hand, concerning the performance of numerical calculations, or
floating-point operations, which is the main topic of this book, the difference
between RISC and CISC processors were not so clear, since neither mainstream
RISC processors nor CISC processors had fully pipelined floating-point units
(FPUs). The floating-point performance of a microprocessor was determined pri-
marily by the throughput of FPUs.
Thus, the relation between the so-called “quantitative” approach and the actual
performance of microprocessors for HPC applications was not straightforward. The
evolution of microprocessors from 1980s to 2020s would tell the consequence of
the “quantitative” approach more clearly.
In 1989, Intel announced its i860 processor. It is the first microprocessor with a
(almost) fully-pipelined floating-point unit. It could execute one double-precision
floating-point addition in every cycle, and one double-precision floating-point
multiplication in every two cycles. Even though i860 was not a great commercial
success, many microprocessors followed it in integrating fully pipelined floating-
point arithmetic units. These processors include HP PA-7100 (1992), DEC Alpha
21064 (1992), and Intel Pentium (1993).
This integration of pipelined FPUs gave microprocessors a big boost in the
floating-point performance, with the help of the increased clock speed. The per-
formance of early RISC processors with external FPUs was typically a few Mflops
for real applications. While these processors with integrated FPUs had the peak
performance of 100Mflops or higher.
One simple reason why fully-pipelined FPUs were implemented in high-end
microprocessors of early 1990s is that it had become possible to integrate a fully-
pipelined FPU in a single chip by the end of 1980s. Before 1990, microprocessors
had separate FPU chips, such as Intel x87, Motorola 68881/68882, MIPS R3010,
Am29027 and Weitek 3167. Also, more specialized FPUs for signal-processing
use were developed by companies like Analog Devices (ADSP 3201/3202), LSI
Logic (64132/64133) and TI (8847). Up to this point, the evolution of single-chip
microprocessors had closely followed the evolution of high-end supercomputers,
with the time lag of about 20 years. The first supercomputer with fully pipelined
floating-point multiplier was CDC 7600 first delivered in 1969.
In the case of supercomputers, shared-memory vector-parallel machines with 16–
32 processors, such as Cray C90 and T90 and NEC SX-4, both first shipped in 1995,
were very much the last species of their kind. Cray could not develop the successor
of T90. NEC had already switched from shared-memory architecture to distributed-
memory architecture with SX-4.
In the case of microprocessors, as of early 2020s the increase of the number
of cores for high-end microprocessors might have reached an end. Intel Xeon
still keeps UMA (Uniform Memory Access) architecture, while AMD switched
to NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) architecture even for one processor
package with its EPYC processor range.
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if you will sound her on the matter, David, when next you write, I
shall be very much obliged.”
“When next I write! I’m going to write to her this minute, Mr.
Dean!”
Perhaps the master waited as eagerly as David for her reply. And
one morning the boy came to him with a letter.
“It’s just as I knew it would be, Mr. Dean,” he said; his eyes were
shining, his face was happy. “She’s so excited she couldn’t even
write straight; her hand was all shaky. She thinks more than ever
that you’re the finest person in the world.”
Mr. Dean laughed joyously. “She’ll have plenty of opportunity to
discover that I’m not. Well, David, old man, I guess you’ve got me
on your hands for life.”
Indeed, Mrs. Ives had written to her boy a letter that was
throbbing with joy and happiness. Yet toward the end she had
admitted misgivings. She felt that she should be overawed by Mr.
Dean. Her looks would not matter, of course, but she was afraid he
might not like her voice or the way she read aloud, and of course he
would want to have some one who could read pleasantly to him.
David laughed and did not pass on those doubtful questionings to
Mr. Dean. He knew that his mother’s voice was all right. He laughed,
too, over the end of the letter. “I’ve just told Maggie, and she said,
‘The dear sake! Of all the crazy notions! You mean to tell me you’re
going to pull up stakes, root and branch!’ I said I thought I really
should, and then Maggie said, ‘Very well. But you and a blind man—
you’ll need me to look after the both of you!’ Isn’t it nice of her? As
for Ralph, he’s simply wild with delight—” and so on.
Before the end of the school year the arrangements were partly
made. Mr. Dean was to spend the summer in Boston at the school
for the blind. About the first of September David was to bring his
family on from the West, and then they would all go house-hunting
together. David went round those last few days walking on air;
examinations did not bother him; everything was fine; every one
was happy.
And then there came upon him a sense of melancholy, even of
sadness. He did not want so soon to leave this place that had been
so dear to him. The days slipped by inexorably. And on the last
night, in the middle of the school hymns, he was very near to
weeping, and when he shook hands with the rector and said good-
bye he could not say more than just that word.
Outside he saw a figure in white standing behind the rectory gate.
He crossed the road and spoke to her.
“I hate to go, Ruth. You’ve been awfully nice to me here.”
“I’m sorry to think that you and Lester and all the rest are leaving,
David. That’s the trouble with being a girl in a boys’ school. Your
friends are always leaving you—over and over and over.”
“You make so many new ones that perhaps you don’t miss the
old.”
“Yes, I do, David. You’ll come up and see us sometimes, won’t
you?”
They bade each other good-bye, and he went away. Yes, he would
go back to St. Timothy’s and see them, he said to himself quite
distinctly—often and often.
CHAPTER XI
THE FAMILY MIGRATION
T he departure from the city that had been their home cost David
and Ralph few pangs. To them it meant faring forth gayly into a
world of novelty and excitement. They assumed light-heartedly that
the friends and places that they were leaving would always be
friends and places that they would love and revisit; and on the last
morning when they stood with their mother beside their father’s
grave they felt that in future years they would often return to this
shrine. Mrs. Ives laid a spray of roses against the headstone; her
hand rested for a moment gently on the mound of earth. When she
stood up the tears were flowing down her cheeks; she caught and
pressed the hands of her boys and cried, “Oh, I can’t go! I can’t go!”
Then they stood, renewing each of them poignantly the sweetness
and the bitterness of their common sorrow, loath to turn from that
little, hallowed spot of ground. In the row of cedars that partly
screened the graveled driveway below them birds were singing; the
fragrance of pine and hemlock, of clipped hedges and mown lawns,
of white phlox and candytuft and sweet alyssum were in the air. A
squirrel suddenly sprang from a tree and ran away over mounds and
headstones.
“Look, mother, look at the squirrel!” cried Ralph.
“Yes, dear, yes.” Mrs. Ives dried her tears. Children could not be
expected to be sad for very long. The scamper of that inconsequent
bit of furry life, with plumy tail streaming behind, and the eager
instant cry of the small boy closed the chapter of wistful meditation;
Mrs. Ives turned away from her husband’s grave.
In comparison with that no other parting could be sad. And when
at last they were on the train, and the train was pulling out of the
city, the mother’s spirits rose like Ralph’s; for at heart she was
almost as much a child as he.
“Look, Ralph!” she said. “There’s the academy and the library—
and the church. It’s so queer to think we shan’t be seeing them
again in a few days. But just think of all that we shall see—the
Longfellow house and Bunker Hill and Plymouth Rock! The last time
I took a long journey like this was on my honeymoon!”
“I was awfully excited the first time I made this trip East,”
observed David. “I’ve been over the road so often now that I know it
all pretty well. How do you like it, Maggie?” He could not help feeling
his dignity as the experienced traveler, but the degree of patronage
that he bestowed upon the members of his party was not offensive,
even to Ralph.
Maggie, replying to his question, reached what was for her the
acme of enthusiasm. “Oh, well enough so far,” she said. “I don’t
know how it’ll be when it comes night.”
Indeed, to all of them the journey was one that held the spirit of
romance. It was an adventure that was altering the course and
current of their lives, and because they were all embarked in it
together and it was beginning so pleasantly they felt happy and
hopeful concerning the outcome. Each river that they crossed, each
town that they left behind, marked a stage in their progress toward
romance—mysterious romance in the person of a poor blind man
who waited for them eagerly, who had been their friend and helper
and who now needed their friendship and help.
For two days they traveled; then in the middle of the afternoon—a
warm, golden afternoon—their train drew into Boston. Nervousness
overcame Mrs. Ives at this approach to the first crisis in her new life.
“Do you think Mr. Dean will be at the station with some one to
meet us?” she asked David.
“I think very likely. He knows we’re arriving by this train.”
“Do you think I look all right, David?”
“You surely do. But it couldn’t make any difference if you didn’t.”
“That’s true. I keep forgetting. But anyway I always feel that, if I
look all right, I shall be more likely to behave in a way that will make
a good impression. And I do want to do that. Even though Mr. Dean
can’t see me, he is sure to form some impression of me.”
“A nice shy little person that he’ll like the better the more he
knows her—that’s the impression he’ll have of you. Yes, your face is
clean, and your hat is straight, and your veil too.”
Nevertheless, it was an agitated little woman that, clinging to her
elder son’s arm, was swept along the platform in the midst of the
streaming crowd. She clutched him still more tightly when he cried,
“I see him, mother! I see him!”
The next moment he had Mr. Dean by the hand, and Mr. Dean’s
face had lightened; even the black glasses that he wore seemed no
longer to cloud it as he cried, “David, my boy! So you’re here! And
your mother? And Ralph?”
“Right here,” said David. “This is mother, Mr. Dean.” He placed her
hand in the blind man’s.
Mr. Dean, holding her hand, took off his hat and bowed; to Mrs.
Ives the careful courtesy of his greeting to one whom he could not
see was touching. “Oh, Mr. Dean,” she exclaimed, “how good of you
to meet us!”
Then the blind man, enclosing her hand in both of his, said,
“You’re David’s mother; I knew that I should like the sound of your
voice.”
Next there was Ralph to be greeted. “And this is Maggie, Mr.
Dean,” said David, and Mr. Dean said at once:
“You’ll find me a great care, Maggie, a great care, but no worse,
I’m sure, than you’re expecting.”
At that Maggie giggled, quite at a loss for an answer and greatly
delighted with a blind gentleman who had such power to read her
thoughts.
“Now, Edith,” said Mr. Dean, turning his head. “Where are you,
Edith?”
The attractive lady in gray whom David had noticed and who had
stood back a little during the greetings came forward with a smile.
Mr. Dean introduced her. “Mrs. Ives,” he said, “this is my friend
Mrs. Bradley, and she can tell you all the outs about me—though she
probably won’t.”
“I feel as if I already knew David and his mother,” said Mrs.
Bradley. “Now we’re going to take you to a hotel—we’ve engaged
rooms for you—and if you’re not too tired you must come and dine
with us this evening.”
She led the way with Mrs. Ives and Ralph; David and Mr. Dean
walked arm in arm behind.
“We’ll go sight-seeing—house-hunting, I mean—to-morrow, David;
we’ll do it leisurely. And”—Mr. Dean dropped his voice—“you mustn’t
let your mother worry about hotel bills or anything of that kind;
that’s all arranged for, you understand.”
“But, Mr. Dean—” began David.
“No, it’s all settled. I’ve prevailed on your family to come East for
my benefit, and I don’t intend to have them do it at their expense.
After all, David, you know I’m to be one of the family now.”
Mrs. Bradley marshaled them all into her big motor car; a few
minutes later she and Mr. Dean were leaving them at the entrance to
the hotel.
“We’ll see you then at seven this evening,” she said. “Good-bye.”
“I know I haven’t clothes fit to wear to such a house,” began Mrs.
Ives as soon as she was in her room. “And I can’t help feeling shy
and quiet with such people; they know so much more than I do.”
“People aren’t liked for their knowledge,” said David. “Just for
what they are.”
“I don’t know whether there’s anything encouraging for me in that
idea or not,” said his mother.
Nevertheless, in the excited spirit of gayety rather than with
reluctant diffidence, she prepared to go out for dinner. She even
tried to draw from Maggie, who was assisting her in her
preparations, some more pronounced expression of satisfaction than
had yet been forthcoming. She invited Maggie to subscribe to her
eulogy of Mr. Dean. But Maggie only answered, “I’m glad he seems
to realize he’ll be an awful care.”
As Mrs. Bradley had explained that her house was only a short
distance from the hotel, the Ives family set forth on foot. Their
directions took them across the Common; in the twilight it seemed
to them a romantic place, but it was in vain that Mrs. Ives, for the
benefit of her sons and for the heightening of her own excitement
and pleasure, strove to recall to her memory the events that gave it
historic significance. “I know there were great doings here of some
sort,” she said, “but I can’t remember just what they were. It’s so
discouraging to have my kind of a mind.”
Anyway, it was all mysterious, romantic, and adventurous to be
strolling in this manner among presumably historic scenes that were
brooded over by lofty, venerable elms—trees novel and enchanting
to Western eyes. The illumination of the city streets shining across
the open spaces was enlivening; the soft air was hospitable; the
melting colors in the west communicated a glow to timid hearts.
Entering the sphere of tranquil dignity that circumscribes Beacon
Hill, the visitors ascended to the top of Mount Vernon Street; there,
while searching for the designated portal, Mrs. Ives bethought
herself to convey in an undertone to Ralph a last injunction:
“Remember, Ralph, to sit quiet and wait for things to be passed to
you; don’t ask and reach as you do at home.” Ralph’s inarticulate
reply betokened a subdued spirit.
A white colonial door with a brass knocker presented the number
of which they were in search; they were conducted up the stairs and
into the spacious drawing-room, where four smiling Bradleys
welcomed them. Mr. Bradley, a tall, bald-headed gentleman with a
white mustache and wrinkled brow, looked twenty years older than
his animated and handsome wife; more reasonably than she he
seemed the friend and contemporary of Mr. Dean. To David he was
at once the least interesting and important member of the family.
Richard, a tall, slim youth of about David’s age, with a nose too
short for his height and a mouth the corners of which seemed
habitually pointed upward as if in search of amusement, engaged
David’s most favorable attention. Marion Bradley was tall and slim
also, but in no other respect resembled her coltish and informal
brother. There was no hint of disproportion in any of her features;
their very exquisiteness was severe, and David felt at once both
chilled and perturbed by the young creature’s beauty. The
steadfastness and depth of luminosity in her dark eyes were
disconcerting to an inexperienced youth. With a sense of his own
cowardice he turned to the brother as to a refuge and left Marion to
consider and to ruminate upon the defenseless Ralph. It was the
easier to do that because in the first few moments he learned that
he and Richard were to be classmates at Harvard, and each had
eager questions to ask.
Mr. Dean’s voice was heard calling from above. Marion answered
in a voice the cultivated quality of which chimed distractingly on
David’s ear; then with mature serenity she left the room to go
upstairs to the blind man’s aid. Presently she returned, arm in arm
with him.
“My family have arrived?” asked Mr. Dean, and upon Mrs. Bradley’s
replying that they had, he said, “Then I must begin to get
acquainted with them; Mrs. Ives, won’t you lead me over to the sofa
and sit down with me?”
“If Mrs. Ives will go down to dinner with you instead,” said Mrs.
Bradley. “It’s all ready.”
It was a cheerful gathering, and Mrs. Ives soon felt quite at her
ease with Mr. Dean and with all the Bradley family except Marion.
She found afterwards that she and David had formed similar
impressions of Marion.
“I suppose she hasn’t really a better mind than her father or her
mother, but she makes me more afraid of it,” said Mrs. Ives.
“She’s too self-possessed and doesn’t feel any responsibility for
entertaining her guests—just sits and sizes them up,” David
observed. “Not the kind I like—not a bit like Ruth Davenport up at
St. Timothy’s. Richard’s a brick, though, and so is the old man.”
Mrs. Ives concurred in that opinion. After dinner Mr. Bradley had
invited her to leave the others and accompany him into his library
where they might have a talk.
“Mr. Dean has asked me to inform you more or less as to his
affairs,” he said as he closed the door. “He feels it would be
embarrassing for him to discuss them at the very start, and yet they
must be discussed. As I’m his man of business, I can put them
before you. He is quite comfortably off. He wants you to rent a good
large house in an attractive neighborhood in Cambridge, a house in
which he will have a comfortable study, bedroom, and bath. He
would like to have you take charge of all expenses and
disbursements for the house. And he wishes me to pay to you
monthly one thousand dollars for house and family expenses—
including David’s expenses at college and Ralph’s at school.”
“But it’s too much!” cried Mrs. Ives, quite aghast at the idea of
having to dispose of an allowance of such magnitude. “Why, I
thought he meant just to be a boarder! And to pay twelve thousand
a year for board and lodging! I never heard of such a thing!”
“His mind is made up, and you must let him have his way. He has
the money to spend, and he is convinced that he can’t use it to any
better purpose.”
“But I can’t feel that it’s right! I don’t feel that I can accept such
an arrangement.”
Mr. Bradley set about overcoming the expected resistance. He
dwelt upon the disappointment and distress that would fall upon Mr.
Dean if the plan, which it had given him great pleasure to devise,
were rejected; he assured Mrs. Ives that Mr. Dean’s heart was
wrapped up in David, and that he was already anticipating the
development of a similar affection for Ralph; he pointed out that Mr.
Dean had no relatives to feel aggrieved at such a bestowal of his
affections. Furthermore, after the necessary expenses for the
education of the two boys were deducted, the allowance that was
contemplated would not be more than sufficient to surround Mr.
Dean with the comforts that he desired. Mr. Bradley urged Mrs. Ives
to think how little there was in life for the blind man and how cruel it
would be to deny him his happiness; he drew such an affecting
picture of Mr. Dean’s forlornness in the event of her rejecting his
proposal that the soft woman could not in the end be anything but
submissive.
“If you think it’s right that I should accept it, Mr. Bradley—if you
feel that it would really disappoint Mr. Dean—” She spoke with a
quiver of the voice.
“Of course I think it’s right; I shouldn’t be trying so hard to
persuade you if I didn’t,” said Mr. Bradley. “Now let’s go in and
relieve the poor man’s suspense. I’m afraid the length of our
interview is making him uneasy.”
Mr. Dean would not listen to Mrs. Ives when she tried to make a
little speech of appreciation. “All settled, is it?” he said. “That’s good
—no, no, my dear lady, you don’t know what you’re in for; I assure
you, you don’t; so there’s no use in your trying to say anything—
absolutely not anything. And to-morrow perhaps you’ll go with Mrs.
Bradley and try to find a house. Mrs. Bradley knows pretty well the
kind of house I have in mind, and if you and she can agree on one, I
shall be satisfied.”
Walking back across the Common to the hotel, Mrs. Ives breathed
aloud her blessings. Pious longing followed them. “If only your father
could know! Perhaps he does. What was to become of us—that
troubled him so in those last days! Oh, boys, you won’t forget him—
you won’t lose sight of what he was and what he hoped for you! In
this new place, where there will be nothing to remind you of him,
you must keep him in your thoughts. You will, David; you will too,
Ralph!”
“Yes, mother,” each boy answered; and Mrs. Ives looked up at the
quiet stars and told herself that here in this strange place even as at
home a loved and loving spirit watched over her and her two sons.
CHAPTER XII
THE NEW NEIGHBOR
D uring his college course David made a number of visits to his old
school. He was interested in observing Ralph’s progress and
hearing his experiences and in reviving his own memories, but he
enjoyed the visits most for the opportunity they gave him to be
again with Ruth Davenport. He learned from Ralph that several of
the unmarried masters were attentive to her, and the information
roused his jealousy and resentment. Her dealings with two or three
of those creatures in his presence as she gave them tea filled him
with gloom; he feared she had learned to flirt. But afterwards, when
she treated him with a special consideration and interest, he knew
that she really was not a flirt at all, but just what she had always
been, a kind, sweet-tempered, honest girl. It did not excite his
jealousy to have her ask him about Lester, not even when she said
that she thought Lester was the most attractive person who had
ever passed through the school. David knew that she had always
thought that, and, as it was true and Lester was his friend, it was
right that she should think it.
“Why doesn’t he come up to see us oftener, David?” she asked.
“He’s too busy with his new friends, I suppose.”
No, it wasn’t that, David was sure; but of course Lester was very
busy, with athletics and college organizations and—and—
“Studies, too,” said Ruth. “Poor Lester! But you must tell him,
David, that if he will only come up and see us I will promise not to
lecture him the way I used to do. How angry I once made him! Do
you still help him with his lessons?”
David assured her that he did not and that Lester was getting on
very well. When he returned to Cambridge from that visit, he told
Lester of Ruth’s interest and of the way some of the masters like
young Blatch and the middle-aged Manners seemed to be pursuing
her. Lester scowled and said that she was too good for any masters
at St. Timothy’s.
“She’s grown prettier,” said David.
“It’s too bad a girl like that should be stuck up there in the country
by herself—no society but that of kids and school-teachers. I guess
I’ll have to go and see her some Sunday.”
The popular youth performed this missionary act more than once.
He returned with impressions of the old school that were vaguely
displeasing to David. The rector and the masters were “narrow” and
“provincial,” and the boys were an uncouth lot of young ruffians. As
for Ruth, however, she met the requirements even of Lester’s
exacting taste. There wasn’t a better-looking or better-dressed girl in
Boston, and he supposed she didn’t spend a tenth of what most of
the Boston girls spent on clothes. Really it would be a shame if
young Blatch or that pompous fool, Manners, should be successful in
his grossly obvious maneuvers and imprison her for life in that dull
little community. A girl with her looks and social gifts was qualified to
take a prominent place anywhere. Some old St. Timothy’s boy ought
to rescue her from the dismal fate that threatened.
“Of course she’s not very old yet,” David suggested.
Lester could not see anything reassuring in that fact. Just because
she was so young and inexperienced, had seen so little of the world
outside, she was all the more in danger of becoming the prey of a
greenhorn like Blatch or a fossil like Manners.
Convincing as was Lester’s eloquence upon the subject, the
emotion that inspired it seemed transitory; his visits to St. Timothy’s
continued to be infrequent, and as time passed without Ruth’s
making the sacrifice that he dreaded, his agitation on that score
subsided. Moreover, he had, as he often said, other things to think
about than girls. The senior year found him with popularity
undiminished, yet disappointed because an honor on which for two
years he had counted had been denied him. Although he was
regarded as the most brilliant player on the varsity football team, he
had not been elected captain. He talked about it freely with David,
who felt that the prize should have been awarded to him.
“They think I’m not steady enough to be captain,” said Lester. “I’m
not saying Farrar isn’t a better man for the job, but I don’t see why
they think I’m unsteady. I’ve never yet in any big game lost my head
or my nerve.”
“It isn’t that they think you’re unsteady,” David explained, “but
that they have an idea you’re too temperamental; it’s a part of being
brilliant. They think that, if you had the responsibility of being
captain, your own playing would suffer. In my opinion they’re wrong,
but it isn’t anything against you that there is that feeling.”
“Oh, it’s all right; I don’t want you to think I’m kicking. And it may
very well be that I wouldn’t show at my best under responsibility,
though I hate to think so.”
David himself was captain of his class eleven; he was not regarded
as too temperamental. Nearly every day after he had put his team
through their drill he would watch the last few minutes of the varsity
eleven’s practice; he would follow Lester’s work with special interest.
Lester was a picturesque player; he scorned the protection of a head
guard, and his fair hair shone even in the feeble November light and
made him recognizable for spectators who could not identify
helmeted players. He was the fleetest of all the backs; there was no
one who was his peer for running in a broken field; again and again
during the practice games the bleachers resounded with applause
for the bareheaded figure, the personification of indomitable energy
and ingenious skill, who wove and forced his way for twenty or thirty
yards through furious attacking foes. To the uncritical observer his
achievements always seemed more single-handed than they were;
possibly in choosing to do without the conventional headgear, and
thus render himself more conspicuous, he was aware that he must
produce that effect. He often talked rather patronizingly about
people who had no sense of dramatic values.
David, in his brief daily glimpses of his friend’s showy
performances, felt occasional stings of envy through his thrills of
admiration. What a splendid thing to achieve, what an exploit
forever after to look back upon—making the varsity team! Since his
first day as a freshman he had hoped that some time he might
accomplish it, and now here he was a senior and not even a
substitute—not even a substitute on the second eleven!
It hurt him to find that Lester was reckoning his success in
athletics as a business asset on which to realize later.
“You’ve given up all idea of studying medicine?” David asked.
“Yes. I’m tired of study and examinations. I want to get to work
and make a pile of money. I feel I can do it, too, and I don’t feel I
could ever do it being a doctor. Besides, as I said, a varsity football
record that’s really good will give a man a great start in business,
and I might as well take advantage of it. A fellow with such a record
can begin in Boston or New York, and everybody on State Street or
Wall Street knows about him and is glad to see him. It would be
foolish not to make the most of an opportunity.”
David recognized the force of the argument and at the same time
felt that there was something distasteful in Lester’s readiness to lay
hold of it. He wondered why it was distasteful, and could not answer,
except that perhaps it represented a too egotistical and self-centered
point of view, one that was concerned with Lester’s future fortunes
rather than with the success of the team.
David’s own football performance was after all successful enough
to satisfy his modest soul. His team won the class championship,
defeating first the juniors and then the freshmen; David’s part in the
victories was conspicuous. He played at left end and was the
strongest player both in attack and in defense; when the deciding
game had been won his team mates bore him from the field in
triumph, and the senior class, assembling in front of the locker
building, made his name the climax of their cheers. That was
gratifying enough to David; perhaps it brought as much pleasure to
the blind man and the girl who lingered beyond the edge of the
crowd. David had caught a glimpse of them among the spectators
when he had chased a ball that was kicked out of bounds; he had
felt at the moment a fresh flow of affection for Mr. Dean, a sudden
warm sense of Katharine Vance’s charm. He carried the ball out and
threw himself with new enthusiasm into the next play. The interest
that had caused those two to come and see this game—it must be
well repaid!
After he had dressed he hurried home—not to his college room,
but to his mother’s house. He found Katharine and Mr. Dean
recounting his achievements to a proud woman whose hands
trembled so that she could hardly make tea.
“David,” she said, “I couldn’t come and see you play; I’m always
so frightened for fear you’ll get hurt. They tell me you did
splendidly.”
“The team did,” said David. “Weren’t you people nice to come
down!”
“Katharine is an excellent interpreter,” remarked Mr. Dean. “I never
had a better pair of eyes. As for my ears, they were quite gratified
by what they heard at the end. It was a pity, Mrs. Ives, that you
missed that feature of the occasion.”
“Yes,” said David, pleased and embarrassed. “Wasn’t it silly of the
crowd?”
“If it was, then Mr. Dean and I were silly, too,” said Katharine. “We
hoped you heard us, we came out so strong on ‘I-i-i-ives!’ at the
end. I think that Mrs. Ives ought to know just how it sounded, don’t
you, Mr. Dean?”
“Quit it!” cried David; but Mr. Dean chuckled and said:
“Quite right, Katharine; you lead the cheering, and I’ll come in.”
“One, two, three,” said Katharine; and she and Mr. Dean, standing
in the middle of the room, shouted:
“Rah, rah, rah; rah, rah, rah; rah, rah, rah; I-i-ives!”
While the echoes died, remote sounds betrayed Maggie’s efforts to
suppress her mirth.
“Dear me, I do wish I’d been there!” said Mrs. Ives. “It makes me
more proud of you than ever, David.”
“Katharine’s a tease,” replied David. “But I shouldn’t have thought
it of Mr. Dean.”
After Katharine had gone, Mr. Dean asked David to describe the
whole game to him. “Of course,” said the blind man, “Katharine
helped me to follow it, but she didn’t know the players, and so we
missed some things. That first touchdown, just how was it made?”
So David described the game in detail and afterwards asked Mr.
Dean whether it had been on his initiative or on Katharine’s that he
had gone.
“Oh, Katharine suggested it. I shouldn’t have imposed myself on
her. But she came over here for me and fairly dragged me out of the
house; said she knew I wanted to go to David’s game. She’s a nice
girl, David.”
“She’s about as good as they come.”
“Was she looking especially pretty to-day, David?”
“Why, I don’t know. Perhaps. What do you say, mother?”
“Yes, I think she was. She had on her new winter hat, and it was
very becoming.”
“What made you ask that question, Mr. Dean?”
“I wondered if it wasn’t the fact. Sometimes I seem to feel
people’s looks. Perhaps it’s the happiness in their voices—if it’s
greater than usual; perhaps it’s something too subtle to express. I
did have the feeling that Katharine was looking her prettiest to-day.
You’d call her a pretty girl, wouldn’t you?”
“In some ways; nice-looking; attractive,” qualified the scrupulous
David.
“She’s very pretty, she’s lovely,” declared Mrs. Ives, impatient with
her son for his reservations. “I don’t know where you’ll see a prettier
girl!”
“Well, there’s Ruth Davenport and Marion Bradley,” David
suggested. “Katharine may be just as attractive, but I don’t know
that you would call her as pretty. By the way, Lester has invited Ruth
to come down to the Yale game, and he’s asked me to look after her
for him. I thought it might be a good idea, mother, if you invited her
to stay here that night and had a little tea for her after the game.”
“Why, of course,” said Mrs. Ives; and Mr. Dean expressed his
pleasure.
Ruth wrote that she was “thrilled” to accept the invitation. And on
the morning of the game, when David met her at the station, he
thought that he had never seen any one so happy. Indeed, for a
long time afterwards in musing moments the memory of her as she
had appeared that day when he first caught sight of her would arise
before him—a slender figure in a black pony coat with a white fur
round her neck and a black velvet hat on her head; she waved her
white muff at him while a greeting fairly glowed from her pink
cheeks and bright eyes and laughing lips.
“Lester was sorry that he couldn’t meet you himself,” David said.
“But the morning of the game they have to keep quiet and avoid
excitement.”
“Gracious! Would I be excitement?”
David reddened under Ruth’s merry glance. If Lester knew,
wouldn’t he want to kick him!
“I’m very well satisfied with the arrangement,” Ruth said. “I can
see Lester play, and I can sit and talk with you. It will all be such
fun. I’ve never seen a Harvard-Yale game. How nice of your mother
to ask me down for it! And what luck to have such a heavenly day!
Oh, David, I know I’m going to have the best time of my whole life!”
“If we lick Yale,” said David.
“I suppose that will be necessary. But I feel we shall; I feel that
nothing will happen to spoil the good time that I’m going to have.”
On the way to Cambridge David tried to tell her about Lester—his
brilliancy, his popularity, his magnificent success. But she turned him
from that theme and began putting questions about his own
accomplishments. She drew from him the admission that he had
captained his class eleven and that it had won the championship,
that he had been taken into a certain club, that he stood a chance of
getting a degree magna cum laude; afterwards David’s cheeks
burned when he thought it all over; he must have appeared a
veritable monster of egotism. She conducted her researches so
skillfully that the quivering subject was hardly aware of them even
while reluctantly yielding up its riches. David wondered how, when
he had been making this egregious display of himself, he could
possibly have imagined that he was having a good time!
One thing he was sure of: if she enjoyed the day as much as she
appeared to do, her enjoyment was not wholly at his expense.
“It’s all such an adventure for me!” she confided to him. “I love to
get away from the school now and then and meet new people and
see old friends. Am I going to see Mr. Dean, David?”
“Of course you are. He’s looking forward to it. He told me to bring
you out to the house just as quick as I could. We’re to have an early
lunch and then start for the game. Afterwards mother has asked a
few people in for tea, and Lester’s coming.”
“Oh, what fun!” caroled Ruth. “And what a heavenly day! I hope
every one will have a good time to-day!”
“Every one except Yale,” said David, and she laughed.
“Can’t you sometimes enjoy a game even though you’re beaten,
David?”
“I can,” he replied. “But Yale can’t.”
“My, but you’re prejudiced!”
He admitted that perhaps he was. “Of course Yale’s a great place,
and we should hate to have to get on without her. I dare say the
Yale men feel the same way about Harvard. And if it weren’t for
Yale, we shouldn’t be having this day, one of the finest days in the
whole year.”
“Isn’t it!” cried Ruth. “Three cheers for Yale!”
In David’s eyes she radiated charm and happiness and good will,
and her least utterance sounded musical to his ears. He was sure
that she must inevitably win the heart of every man and woman that
she met. There was no question but that she won his mother’s. At
luncheon Mrs. Ives beamed over the good report that Ruth brought
about Ralph. He was such a nice boy; every one at St. Timothy’s
liked him. Mr. Dean questioned her eagerly about the masters and
the life at the school. She gave him lively answers filled with gay
anecdotes.
After luncheon, when she and David were starting for the game,
she said to Mr. Dean, “I wish you were coming too.”
“I go only to David’s games now,” Mr. Dean answered with a smile.
Then, as she put her hand into his, he said: “It’s good to hear your
voice again, my dear. I should like to see how the little girl has
grown.”
David saw Ruth’s eyes suddenly grow moist and bright. “I’m just
the same, Mr. Dean,” she replied, “though I hope my hair is generally
tidier than it used to be.”
She was silent for a while after leaving the house; David liked her
silence and the emotion that it signified. Wasn’t it her quick and soft
compassion that had always made big boys as well as little open-
hearted with Ruth?
Soon they were in the full tide of the stream that bubbled and
rustled and flashed and rippled on its flow to Soldiers’ Field. The sun
was shining; blue flags and crimson were waving; a brass band
somewhere ahead was braying; gray-headed graduates, fuzzy-
chinned freshmen, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and sweethearts,
all were bustling and trudging, gay and eager; and the ceaseless
cries of ticket speculators and venders of souvenirs, banners, and
toy balloons made the very air alive with excitement. In all the
throng no one’s face was brighter, happier, more expectant than
Ruth’s. And no one’s face was prettier, thought David.
She was too much excited to talk, except in exclamations, too
much excited after they took their seats in the Stadium and looked
down upon the empty field and across at the bank of spectators who
were cheering for Yale and waving blue flags. All the preliminary
cheering and singing, the figures of the bareheaded cheer leaders
leaping about in front of the sections, brandishing megaphones and
making every movement of arm and leg and body in a kind of
fanatical, frenzied unison, one with another—all before a single
athlete had put in an appearance—did not strike either Ruth or
David as ridiculous. David responded loyally to every behest of the
cheer leader immediately confronting him and in the intervals
pointed out the celebrities to Ruth. “That fellow who leads our
section is Henderson, captain of the crew; that’s Colby, captain of
the nine, next to him; there’s Burke, leader of the glee club—” and
so on. Ruth looked at each one with just a moment of interest in the
great man and then renewed her bright, wandering, excited gaze
over the whole lively, sparkling scene.
There was a more exuberant outbreak on the Yale side, and the
Yale eleven, attended by innumerable substitutes, came rushing on
the field in a grim and violent manner. Immediately there followed
an exuberant outbreak on the Harvard side, and the Harvard eleven,
attended by innumerable substitutes, came rushing on the field in a
grim and violent manner. They crouched and charged, then crouched
and charged again, while rampant individuals of apparently
uncontrollable strength and energy booted footballs to enormous
heights and for unbelievable distances.
“There’s Lester!” cried Ruth. “How nice that he’s not wearing a
head guard, for now I can always pick him out. But I do hope his
head won’t get hurt.”
“Lester never gets hurt,” David assured her.
Not only in the eyes of Ruth and David did Lester shine
preëminent that afternoon. He flashed out of scrimmages, carrying
the ball; he made long end runs, carrying the ball; he ran the ball
back on kicks, dodging and squirming through a broken field; he
made the first touchdown of the game, and a few minutes later the
second. David shouted himself hoarse over Lester’s exploits, and
Ruth, though she did not join in the cheering, had a proud and
happy look in her eyes. He was her hero; and perhaps even while he
performed these wonderful feats he thought of her.
Toward the end of the second half he was taken out of the game;
as he left the field all the spectators whose sympathies were with
Harvard stood up and cheered him.
“Why did he leave?” asked Ruth. “He’s not hurt, is he?”
“No, but the game’s won, and the coaches are sending Wilcox in
to get his ‘H.’ Wilcox has been a substitute for three years, and this
is his last chance.”
Ruth understood perfectly. She thought it probable that Lester had
intimated to the coaches that it would be a nice thing to do.
Certainly it was just the sort of thoughtful, generous act that she
should expect of Lester.
Now that Lester was no longer playing, Ruth felt that the game
had lost in interest. But it was soon over, and then Harvard
undergraduates and graduates swarmed out on the field and
proceeded to engage in the peculiar collegiate folk-dancing that
symbolizes and celebrates victory. Behind the blaring brass band,
which marched and countermarched, ranks of young men zigzagged
tumultuously, passing at last, one after another in swift succession,
under the crossbar of the goal while over it passed the equally swift
procession of their hats—to be recovered or not, as the case might