A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School

11213The quadrangle surrounding the Far Common was never considered absolutely essential to theDevon School. The essence was elsewhere, in the older, uglier, more comfortable hallsenclosing the Center Common. There the School's history had unrolled, the fabled riot scenesand Presidential visits and Civil War musterings, if not in these buildings then in theirpredecessors on the same site. The upperclassmen and the faculty met there, the budget wascompiled there, and there students were expelled. When you said "Devon" to an alumnus tenyears after graduation he visualized the Center Common.The Far Common was different, a gift of the rich lady benefactress. It was Georgian like therest of the school, and it combined scholasticism with grace in the way which made Devonarchitecturally interesting. But the bricks had been laid a little too skillfully, and the woodworkwas not as brittle and chipped as it should have been. It was not the essence of Devon, and so itwas donated, without too serious a wrench, to the war.The Far Common could be seen from the window of my room, and early in June I stood atthe window and watched the war moving in to occupy it. The advance guard which came downthe street from the railroad station consisted of a number of Jeeps, being driven with a certainrestraint, their gyration-prone wheels inactive on these old ways which offered nothingbumpier than a few cobblestones. I thought the Jeeps looked noticeably uncomfortable from allthe power they were not being allowed to use. There is no stage you comprehend better thanthe one you have just left, and as I watched the Jeeps almost asserting a wish to bounce up theside of Mount Washington at eighty miles an hour instead of rolling along this dull street, theyreminded me, in a comical and a poignant way, of adolescents.Following them there were some heavy trucks painted olive drab, and behind them came thetroops. They were not very bellicose-looking; their columns were straggling, their suntanuniforms had gotten rumpled in the train, and they were singing Roll Out the Barrel."What's that?" Brinker said from behind me, pointing across my shoulder at some opentrucks bringing up the rear. "What's in those trucks?""They look like sewing machines.""They are sewing machines!""I guess a Parachute Riggers' school has to have sewing machines.""If only Leper had enlisted in the Army Air Force and been assigned to Parachute Riggers'school . . .""I don't think it would have made any difference," I said. "Let's not talk about Leper."