Under Orders: The Story of a Young Reporter

“THE situation certainly looks desperate, Anna,” said Mr. Manning, with a deep sigh, as he turned wearily on his couch and reached out a thin white hand that was immediately clasped between the plump ones of his cheery-faced wife. Her face did not look so very cheery just at this moment, however, for lines of anxiety were wrinkling her forehead and her eyes were full of tears. Then, too, she was thinking so hard that her mouth was all puckered up.

“Yes, it does look a little desperate,” she admitted; “but, bless you! it has looked desperate plenty of times before, and we have always come out all right somehow. God has been too good to us so far to desert us now, and I, for one, am willing to trust him to the end.”

“Well, dear,” answered her husband, “if you are, I ought to be, for the heaviest part of the burden must fall on you.”

The Mannings lived in a pleasant, old-fashioned New Jersey village a few miles out of New York, and had, until recently, been in the most comfortable circumstances. Mr. Manning was the manager of a large manufacturing business and received a handsome salary, from which he should have laid by a snug sum against a “rainy day.” He knew it was his duty to do this; but each year brought some new expense that seemed as if it ought to be met, and each year he said to himself:

“Well, I can’t do any thing about it this time, that’s certain; but next year I must surely begin to lay something aside.”

So year after year passed, until finally, when Myles Manning, the only son of the family, was ready to enter college, the annual expenses were found to be in excess of the handsome annual income, and nothing had been saved.

Alarmed at this state of affairs, and not prepared just then to retrench or practise an economy that would make them seem poor in the eyes of their neighbors, Mr. Manning mortgaged their beautiful home. His wife at first refused to sign the necessary papers, but was at last persuaded into doing so.

It was only to raise enough money to see Myles properly through college. Then he would go into business and soon be in a position to help them, said Mr. Manning. He also said there was nothing in the world like college for a young man. Besides the education that it gave him, he made friends in college that were friends for life and always ready to help one another. Every thing depended, though, upon the set he got into. It must be the very best in the college, to be worth any thing at all. To keep up with that set in X—— College would cost something, and unless they mortgaged the place he really did not see how he was to raise the necessary money. They surely could not do less for their only son than to send him handsomely through college, and, after all, it would in the end prove one of the very best investments they could make.

So Mrs. Manning was persuaded, the mortgage was signed, and Myles went to X—— College. There, on account of his good looks, his generous disposition, his unfailing good-nature, and his apparent command of ready money, he speedily became the most popular man of his class, and a leader in its “very best set,” by which was meant the wealthiest and most extravagant lot of young fellows in it.

At the time this story opens he had nearly finished his third year of college life, and was looking forward with joyful anticipations to being soon that proudest, and, in his own estimation, most important of mortals—a senior. He was captain of the university crew, which was in steady training for the great annual race with the Z—— College crew at New London. He was also the best all-around athlete of his college. This, according to Ben Watkins, who had been his rival for the captaincy of the crew, and was almost the only fellow in his class who disliked Myles, was not surprising. He said that Manning did nothing else besides row and practise in the gymnasium. This was not true; for, although Myles did not rank very high at examinations, he still studied enough to enable him to pass with a fair average of marks. He had, moreover, determined upon a career which it seemed to him would not require a very profound scholarship. It was that of a politician; and he felt quite sure that the influence of his own father, or that of some of his gay young college friends, would secure him some snug political position as soon as he was graduated.