In his senior year he did not make the team at all. He had grown so slight and frail that one day he was taken by some sophomores for a freshman, an incident which humiliated him terribly. He became known as something of a prodigy a senior who was surely no more than sixteen and he was often shocked at the worldliness of some of his classmates. His studies seemed harder to him he felt that they were too advanced. He had heard his classmates speak of St. Midass, the famous preparatory school, at which so many of them had prepared for college, and he determined after his graduation to enter himself at St. Midass, where the sheltered life among boys his own size would be more congenial to him.
Upon his graduation in 1914 he went home to Baltimore with his Harvard diploma in his pocket. Hildegarde was now residing in Italy, so Benjamin went to live with his son, Roscoe. But though he was welcomed in a general way there was obviously no heartiness in Roscoes feeling toward him there was even perceptible a tendency on his sons part to think that Benjamin, as he moped about the house in adolescent mooniness, was somewhat in the way. Roscoe was married now and prominent in Baltimore life, and he wanted no scandal to creep out in connection with his family.
Benjamin, no longer persona grata[75] with the debutantes and younger college set, found himself left much done, except for the companionship of three or four fifteen-year-old boys in the neighbourhood. His idea of going to St. Midass school recurred to him.
Say, he said to Roscoe one day, Ive told you over and over that I want to go to prep school.
Well, go, then, replied Roscoe shortly. The matter was distasteful to him, and he wished to avoid a discussion.
I cant go alone, said Benjamin helplessly. Youll have to enter me and take me up there.
I havent got time, declared Roscoe abruptly. His eyes narrowed and he looked uneasily at his father. As a matter of fact, he added, youd better not go on with this business much longer. You better pull up short. You better you better he paused and his face crimsoned as he sought for words you better turn right around and start back the other way. This has gone too far to be a joke. It isnt funny any longer. You you behave yourself!
Benjamin looked at him, on the verge of tears.
And another thing, continued Roscoe, when visitors are in the house I want you to call me Uncle not Roscoe, but Uncle, do you understand? It looks absurd for a boy of fifteen to call me by my first name. Perhaps youd better call me Uncle all the time, so youll get used to it.
With a harsh look at his father, Roscoe turned away.
10
At the termination of this interview, Benjamin wandered dismally upstairs and stared at himself in the mirror. He had not shaved for three months, but he could find nothing on his face but a faint white down with which it seemed unnecessary to meddle. When he had first come home from Harvard, Roscoe had approached him with the proposition that he should wear eye-glasses and imitation whiskers glued to his cheeks, and it had seemed for a moment that the farce of his early years was to be repeated. But whiskers had itched and made him ashamed. He wept and Roscoe had reluctantly relented.
Benjamin opened a book of boys stories, The Boy Scouts in BiminI Bay, and began to read. But he found himself thinking persistently about the war. America had joined the Allied cause during the preceding month, and Benjamin wanted to enlist, but, alas, sixteen was the minimum age, and he did not look that old. His true age, which was fifty-seven, would have disqualified him, anyway.
There was a knock at his door, and the butler appeared with a letter bearing a large official legend in the corner and addressed to Mr. Benjamin Button. Benjamin tore it open eagerly, and read the enclosure with delight. It informed him that many reserve officers who had served in the Spanish-American War were being called back into service with a higher rank, and it enclosed his commission as brigadier-general in the United States army with orders to report immediately.
Benjamin jumped to his feet fairly quivering with enthusiasm. This was what he had wanted. He seized his cap, and ten minutes later he had entered a large tailoring establishment on Charles Street, and asked in his uncertain treble to be measured for a uniform.
Want to play soldier, sonny? demanded a clerk casually.
Benjamin flushed. Say! Never mind what I want! he retorted angrily. My names Button and I live on Mt. Vernon Place, so you know Im good for it.
Well, admitted the clerk hesitantly, if youre not, I guess your daddy is, all right.
Benjamin was measured, and a week later his uniform was completed. He had difficulty in obtaining the proper generals insignia because the dealer kept insisting to Benjamin that a nice Y.W.C.A.[76] badge would look just as well and be much more fun to play with.
Saying nothing to Roscoe, he left the house one night and proceeded by train to Camp Mosby, in South Carolina, where he was to command an infantry brigade. On a sultry April day he approached the entrance to the camp, paid off the taxicab which had brought him from the station, and turned to the sentry on guard.