Chapter 5 — Indian Summer
T
he old gentleman drove slowly up the drive past the New School past the Headmaster’s house, past Chelsea House, McFarland House, Brackett House, Kenniston House, past the big assembly halllibrary-art studio, and started around the circle again, but stopped this time in front of the New School. He got out of his car just a little stiffly and climbed the wooden steps, stopped to look up at the school seal carved in wood over the door, a compass card with “SCIENTIA VIRES INDUCIT below it. He had never been a really tall man and now was a little stooped, but he moved quite briskly for a man of eighty. He was dressed appropriately for a visit to the Headmaster in the style of an age now a bit behind us, in white shirt, tweed jacket and necktie. He wore no hat this mild October morning over his abundant gray hair. He looked the image of a retired schoolmaster, and indeed that is what he was. He turned and looked out over the circle with the tall, white flagpole made from the mizzen mast of one of Captain Kenniston’s schooners, complete with cross trees, gaff and topmast. He watched a puff of October breeze stir the red swallowtail pennant with a yellow K at the topmast head, the house flag of Captain Kenniston’s fleet. At the peak of the gaff flew the United States ensign. His glance circled the drive again, roved to the pond, to the hill beyond, still bright with red and yellow maple. He turned and stepped into the hall through the door held open by a smooth, round beach rock. “Can I help you, sir?” inquired Pat Goodrich, the Headmaster’s secretary, through the open office door on his left. She sounded as if she really did want to help him. “Is the Headmaster by chance at liberty for a moment? My name is Hunt, Elwood Alison Hunt. I used to teach here before the war, the Big War, and would like his permission to look about a bit.” “Oh, when were you here?” “From 1932 to 1942. I left to join the Navy.” “That was when Ted Ashley was Headmaster, wasn’t it?” “A great man, madam. He gave me a running start in teaching, and I suppose you could say I am still running if not still teaching.” “Well, you don’t really need the Headmaster’s permission to walk around the school, but I am sure he will want to talk with you. He is busy right now, but if you can come back in an hour, I will see that he is free then.” Mr. Hunt thanked her and stepped out on to the porch again. Were these the same boards he had trod in 1942 when he left Ted Ashley’s office to join the Navy? He turned to the right, following the drive in front of the Headmaster’s house, a four square, two story building built about the time of the Civil War by Captain Kenniston. After a successful career as a shipmaster, he had come ashore, established a shipyard in what had become known as Coniston’s Cove, built wooden schooners and sent them to sea with cargoes of fish, potatoes, lumber, granite and ice. He had dammed the brook to power his sawmill, and when the ice business developed, had raised the dam, expanded the pond, and cut ice that cooled the drinks of the wealthy from Boston to Rio de Janeiro. Between the Headmaster’s house and the New School stood the little one-room school, the ancestor of Kennebec Academy, built by Captain Kenniston in 1886 as a convenience for the children of his shipyard workers who lived across the cove. He stopped at the top of the steep bank to look out over the cove and the broad Kennebec, brown near the shore, blue in the distance, rushing from the mountains to the sea with the ebb tide, the far bank hazy yellow in the gentle fall sunlight. Below him he saw the roof of the boathouse, once a spar shed where 24
