TEACHER' WILLIAMS

New Zealand Tablet, 25 January 1912, Page 7

TEACHER' WILLIAMS

He was a curious figure of a boy, was William Wade Williams. It was partly because of his abnormally solemn countenance, his rusty-black clothes, his awkward shape, and his grave manner that none of his class-mates ever came to call him by the familiar 'Bill.' At .first they called him formally Williams- After the event which this story describes, however, he became ' Teacher' Williams. It was a nickname given —and r received the best possible spirit,; and one that he assumed for life. At class reunions in later, years it was shortened to 'Teacher Bill,' and that was as slangy as it ever.became. _ ;" * -- ' _ William Wade Williams hailed from a small settle-. ment— so small that it did not boast of a post office— situated about eighty miles in the back country from i the State University. His father was a lumberman, | a-great, rough-cut statue of a man who towered head and shoulders above the dean of the university. - ■'■? , . 'I never took to books,' said the lumberman, but Willy here, he sticks to 'em like ; the bark of a tree? He'll make you a good scholar, Mr. Dean'-'" x Among the other awkward boys in the freshman class, Williams took his 'inconspicuous place. He was

always silent and reserved. . "He never spoke unless spoken to, as if lie were trying - to fulfil’ the old directions to ichildren. His slender figure, his impassive and studious look, and the shyness *which never seemed to leave him, all combined .to keep : him. apart from his fellows. As one of the students rather harshly-put it, He’s a kill-joy, that’s what he is.’ ' ’ - Nothing is easier for a ' boy . than to get startedwrong at college, and nothing seems harder to. overcome than the momentum thus gained in the wrong direction. So after the first month or two had passed, and it was realised that Williams not only did not ‘ mix,’ but even threw a damper on gatherings, he was gradually, although not at all maliciously, dropped. Of course his fellows spoke to him as before, but they could not get him to do things, and they did not, consequently, go out of their way to be with . him. Apparently he had nothing in common with them. ‘Hello, William Williams!’ said Frank Stone, one morning after chapel, in one of'his attempts to be friendly. ‘How’s everything going with you?’ ‘All right,’ replied the other. ' ‘ Thought you must have been sick or something,’ continued Stone. ‘ Didn’t see you watching practice yesterday.’ . ' ‘I was studying history,’ said Williams, and as that seemed to end the matter, the conversation ceased, and the two boys walked together to the class-room without saying another, word. ‘ It “isn’t that I object to his studying,’ said Stone magnanimously, a little later in the day to some fellows. ‘ It’s the way he goes about it. He won’t do anything else. He won’t even crack a smile. He’s a dead loss, that chap is.’ ’ Hence, so far as many of the class were concerned, poor William Wade Williams, through no fault of his own except his manner, and through no fault at all of his class-mates, except possibly their inexperience, passed out of the happy, normal, active life of the university. Hereafter his orbit was a lonely one. He studied. When he finished his regular lessons and did all the extra research that the professors recommended, he read. - ' ’ In the course of the first two years he collected about him one or two other forlorn specimens like himself, and together they read and studied and dwelt apart. They became ‘sharks’ at their lessons, and this did not increase their popularity singly, or as a group. The teachers found that Williams was : likely to be the one man in the class who knew the by-paths of a subject, and their evident confidence in him tended further to estrange him from his fellows. So the time passed and our junior year came. i But meanwhile a physical change not uncommon to boys who have not ‘ grown right ’ came over Williams. In the last six months he had grown‘swelled out and up,’ as the country phrase has it. From being f P a ! e slender stripling, he had turned into a nearly life-sized copy of his father— raw, large-boned figure, with a heavy forehead and a homely set of head on neck that reminded one of pictures of the youthful Lincoln. Almost without his mates realising it, he had surpassed the best of them in body, to say nothing of mind. His shyness wore off to some degree, but as he never had the opportunity nowadays to mingle with his fellows, his intercourse with "them was almost nothing.‘ V It was two weeks before the mid-year examinations of junior year. Soon the regular recitations were to stop and the tests begin. The last meeting of every course the professor devoted to a review, concluding invariably with a brief hint of what kind of an examination he expected to give. r Needless to say, 1 , everyone came prepared to take elaborate notes, and the ‘ cuts ’ were very few in number. '■ , _ . * History K ’ was the. large junior - course in American history. _ It was a famous course in the colr s Pjendidly -given and full of interest. Doctor Roth, the stout professor who gave it, was, worshipped alike by undergraduate and graduate. It was one of the sayings of the university that if you had not taken History K you had missed the best course in ; college? Be that as it may, on a certain Friday morning at

nine o'clock the big class of eighty fellows assembled in excellent season. Williams took his seat with the restbeside Welles, the captain of the baseball team, with whom his relations were closer alphabetically, than otherwise, and waited for the professor. The bell rang. Note-books were made.ready, fountain pens shaken, and pencils sharpened. All were prepared for Doctor Roth. .... He was rarely late, but it was felt that on this special occasion his extra work in preparing the review might have kept him back. The talk that had subsided promptly at the hour was resumed.

Five minutes passed, and there was a little scuffling as the door —merely to let in a late comer. He was jeered and sent out again to see if he could spy the teacher. This was a class that none wanted to miss. He came back and reported no sign. Soon it was fifteen minutes past the hour.

Over in a corner of the room there was a group of fellows who had laid their heads together in consultation. Presently they began to chant these words: 'We want Williams to lecture. We want Williams to lecture. We want Williams '

A burst of. cheers and laughter and shouts drowned the rest. Students turned in their seats to look at Williams, and Williams promptly turned red. The man on Williams' right—Towne to him, ' Give 'em a speech, Williams.' .»

Williams grinned—it was a thing that necessity had taught him to do—but shook his head. At the same time, however, a wild notion rushed into his brain. '

Do it, Williams,' said Welles, the baseball captain, on his left. He said it in the same low, steady ton© of voice which Williams had heard him use to his men on the field. Give 'em a review. You know as much as old Roth.'

, The lumberman's son -looked into the other's eyes a second. The baseball captain never flinched. He would have risen to the occasion if he and not Williams had been called on. To the astonishment of all, including Williams, Williams rose in his seat and said something. * It was quite lost in the din.

‘Platform, platform!’ shouted some one. Williams moved to the platform amid remarks and cheers which would have daunted a less determined man. His big red fists were clenched, his ears were almost purple from embarrassment, and when he faced the class-room from behind the desk, he had to sit down in the professor’s chair because his knees were so weak. As the row subsided, he caught sight of Welles. The baseball captain was watching him—watching him as he would a green player at a critical moment in the game. Williams licked his lips and began. He went straight to the point. Pie said that in the absence of the professor he was going to review History K. No one interrupted him, because every one wanted History K reviewed, and every one knew • that Williams could do it. There was, moreover, something besides mere selfish interest that made them listen to the big man behind the desk. * Williams reviewed the course, rapidly, concisely, and, in the main, thoroughly. Pencils and pens raced across paper. Once a boy raised his hand to have a word repeated, and when Williams repeated it, the boy said, ‘ Thank you, sir,’ and no one — even Williamsnoticed. The baseball captain worked like the rest of them. , . At ten minutes before the hour Williams stopped, rose in his place, and said, ‘ And now for the examination on next Wednesday. The paper will probably consist /-• ‘I will finish that, if you please, Williams,’ said the professor from the doorway. ‘I am much obliged to you. That sounded like an excellent review, although I heard only .the last of it. I owe the class an apology and to you my thanks.’ Whereupon he took the platform and Williams his seat once Afore. This explains why Williams came to be known as ‘Teacher Bill,’ and how it happened that a man who apparently had no connection with his fellows suddenly

found himself, not only an authority on American history, but also an admired and cherished friend; Welles, the captain, saw that there was no further misunderstanding about Williams.