Chapter 26 — The River
O
n a Saturday morning in early October, Joe Rotch sat near the back of the bus from Boston to Portland as it rumbled along the Maine Turnpike taking him from college back to his old school. He felt disconnected, suspended between two worlds, a little apprehensive, not at all the way he had expected to feel after a month at college. His years at Kennebec Academy had been good years. He had been a successful student, occasionally even on the Honor List. He had liked his teachers. His roommate had been his best friend. He had been captain of his football team, had won letters in wrestling and rowing had played hard and won his share. He had held a position on the masthead of the school paper. When he had left last spring, diploma in hand, college bound, he had had no intention of dropping Kennebec out of his life. It was home to him, a place where he was confident, secure, successful. He had come up on the bus this morning, leaving Park Square before daylight to arrive in time to visit around the school before lunch and the football game. As he walked up the drive between the rows of pines, he felt warmly at home again. The same trees, the same thin fall sunshine, someone out on the football field pushing the lime cart, even the familiar squeak of the cart’s bent wheel. He waved to the guy pushing the cart and recognized Eddie Duff, who had been a lowly assistant manager the year before. “Hiya, Eddie. How’s it goin’?” he called heartily. Eddie looked up, squinting into the low sun. “Oh – uh, hi. Anything I can – oh it’s you, Joe. Didn’t recognize you at first. How ya been?” “Oh, good. How’s the team doing?” “Pretty good. We lost to the Hawks but won the others. I got to finish the lines or the coach’ll kill me … See you later. OK?” Well, he hadn’t known Eddie very well anyway, and Eddie always had been kind of dumb. The driveway led him to the school building; and he hesitated, wondering where to begin. Everyone would be in class now. Maybe stop in at the office and see old Moose Henshaw, Assistant Headmaster, He had always liked the Moose and surely the Moose would be glad to see him. The wooden steps were reassuringly the same with the nail heads sticking up where the wood was worn away around them. Over the door was the familiar Latin motto, and in the dimly-lit hall the Moose’s office door was open as usual. There was a small boy standing before the desk receiving the last of what was to Joe a familiar oration. The boy turned and passed him on the way out. He had never seen the boy before. New kid probably. “Well! Good morning, Joe. I’m glad to see you.” Exclaimed Mr. Henshaw, springing out of his chair and coming around the desk. Come up to see the game did you? How’ve you been?” “Fine, sir. I thought I’d like to come back and see – how things were.” Joe couldn’t say that college had overwhelmed him, that the math course was really too hard, that he hadn’t made the freshman football team, that his room mate was a strange guy from Texas who kept odd hours, rode a motorcycle and ended every sentence with “OK, Pal?” That everyone seemed to know everyone else but him, and that there were only maybe a dozen guys in the whole teeming place that he could talk to. The professors seemed miles away, formal and unapproachable, and his advisor called him George. He had come back to Kennebec not to see a game only, but to tag up with his old life, the life where there was respect and friendship – where everyone worked together to win a game or put out a paper or even to learn algebra. He wanted an infusion of the warmth and strength he had always felt at Kennebec. 120
