Class 
 Book.. 
 
 CopgM . 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSffi 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
I Appeared before the President Considerably Unnerved 
 
THROUGH THE 
 SCHOOL 
 
 TEE EXPERIENCES OF A MILL ROY 
 IN SECURING AN EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 AL PRIDDY ^j^J 
 
 Author of: Through the Mill: The Life of a Mill Boy 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
*f& 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912 
 BY LUTHER H. CARY 
 
 Published, September, 1912 
 
 THE. PLIMPTON* PRESS 
 
 [w • D • o] 
 NORWOOD >MASS>U<S'A 
 
 SFZ\ ni 
 
 c\ I -. t^i 
 
TO 
 
 W. H. S. 
 
 In the same terms and pictures I would employ were 
 
 I in the cheer of his parson' 's study giving 
 
 my experiences by word of mouth. 
 
Preface 
 
 T 
 
 HESE forty chapters of absolutely real 
 autobiography are intended to give the 
 reader faith in American education and to 
 reconstruct the human struggles and tests of 
 character which attend the progress of the poor 
 but ambitious lads through a formal education 
 for life. 
 
Contents 
 
 Chapter I Page 
 
 Fifteen Dollars and Sixty-five Cents Worth of International Travel. 
 An Inspiring Reception in Front of Chief Pungo Memorial 
 Hall 3 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 I Help a Real Poet to Sing his Hymn. My First Chance and How I 
 
 Succeeded with it 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Thropper's Puff Tie. Sounds That Passed in the Night. The 
 
 Possible Advantages of Speaking Tubes. The Scroll of Divine 
 
 History. The Meditations of a Saint. How Thropper Lost his 
 
 Pious Reputation 36 
 
 | 
 Chapter IV 
 
 Thundering Gymnastics. How to Keep on the Good Side of the 
 Young Women with Scriptural Quotations. The Establishment 
 of Friendship. Carrying Water for Beauty. How Music may 
 be Something More than Music. The Wonderful, Austere Man 
 that Thropper led me to 44 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 Pungo Hall's Occupants: Estes Who Planned to Take a Tent and 
 Plant it in the Midst of The World's Sin; of The Little Man 
 Who Fled from the Chiding s of a 'D.D.': of Calloused Hands 
 and Showing How "Pa" Borden was Beaten by the Grass 
 Widower with The Long Hair 58 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 A Financial Pessimism Taken in Hand by Thropper and Shown 
 in it's Real Light. A Turkish Rug that Smoked. A Poet in 
 Search of Kerosene. The Wonderful Antics of an Ironing- 
 Board. Economy at a Tub and Three Waiting for it After Brock's 
 Bath. The Chemical Reduction of a Cauldron of Tomatoes into 
 Something Sweet 67 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 An Academic Ride in Five Carriages at Once. A Business Appeal 
 Mixed in with the Order of Creation. How We Got Lost in a 
 Discussion. Whether it is Best for a Man to Marry his First 
 
 [ix] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Love. A Sleuth-Dean. A Queen's Birthday Supper with an 
 Athletic Conclusion. Jerry Birch Stands up for Albion. How 
 we Tamed him 80 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 The Doctrinal Temper of the University, and Thropper's Talk 
 about it. Introduces the Select Board of the Pharisees. A 
 Prayer-meeting Monopoly Combated by Independants. Jason 
 on my Track and How it Came out 89 
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 My Trip into the Magic World of the Past. How Appreciation is 
 sometimes Worth More than Money. Jason and his Coterie on 
 Scent of Terrible Heresies. How God Takes Care of His Orators. 
 How a Big Soul can go through Annoyances 102 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 The Magnitude of a Postage Stamp. Showing how Desperate the 
 Thirst for Money made me. Brock's Rosy Nose and its Possi- 
 bilities as a Fireplace. How Brock thought he was Fooling 
 me and the Other Way About. The Barrow that Became our 
 Enemy and how Brock Revenged himself on it 109 
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 How I Competed with Patrick Henry and was made Aware of a 
 Waste of the Eighth Letter of the Alphabet. How I Condensed 
 all my Studies into an Oration. How the Populace Greeted 
 my Rehearsal. Striking the Top Pitch 119 
 
 Chapter XII 
 
 The Personnel of " The Clamorous Eight" and other Social Matters. 
 The "Blepoes" and The " Boulomaies" Invite me into Fellow- 
 ship with a Protest from Jason. Epics and Lyrics of Love. 
 "Pa" Borden Speaks for the Benedicts on a Momentous Matter. 
 How the Magic Tree Lured Some Unfaithful Ones from their 
 Sworn Duty 126 
 
 Chapter XIII 
 
 How One Dollar and a Half Secured " The Devil in Society.'* The 
 Medicine Chest which Became a Tract Depository under the 
 Teachings of a New Creed. How I Stuck to Orthodoxy . . . 135 
 
 Chapter XIV 
 
 A Chapter Depicting how Strife Existed Between the Pro-Gymnasiums 
 and the Anti-Gymnasiums and Showing how baseball, Debates 
 and an Epidemic Determined Matters This Way and That . . 140 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter XV Page 
 
 A Ph.D. in a Clay Ditch and the Futility of it. A Can of Beans 
 at the Conclusion of a Morbid Meditation. How Thropper and 
 I Played David and Jonathan 145 
 
 Chapter XVI 
 
 Visions, Hysteria, Dogma, and Poor Lessons to the Front when 
 the Revivalists Arrived. How Natural it Sounded when 
 " Bird" Thurlow Asked a Flippant Question 151 
 
 Chapter XVII 
 
 My Presidential Pose and its Central Place in "The Record.** 
 A Wistful Glance and Some Practical Plans towards Eastern 
 Education. How the Little Sparrow Brought my Class Colors 
 as I Gave the Class "Oration.*' Ends in a Fight .... 157 
 
 Chapter XVIII 
 
 Thropper Unfolds Something Better than Canned Foods. A Lesson 
 with the Flat Iron. Thropper Proposes that I Chaperone 
 Horses * . . 162 
 
 Chapter XIX 
 
 A Chapter Which Has to do with a Series of Exciting Affairs that 
 Occurred between the West and the East, and Which are Better 
 to Read about than to Endure 171 
 
 Chapter XX 
 
 My Aunt Millie's Interpretation of Education. The Right Sort of 
 
 an Adviser Gets Hold of me 188 
 
 Chapter XXI 
 
 Over the Sea to a New Educational Chance. How I Revenged Myself 
 on the Hungry Days. The Cloistered Serenity of the New 
 Place 197 
 
 Chapter XXII 
 
 Stoves with Traditions, Domestic Habits, and Greek, "Boys Will 
 
 be Boys** 204 
 
 Chapter XXIII 
 
 A Plot Which had for its End the Raising up of a Discouraged, 
 
 Young Preacher 208 
 
 Chapter XXIV 
 
 Burner, a Searcher After Truth. How a May-Pole Subdued a Tribe 
 
 of Little Savages 219 
 
 m 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter XXV Page 
 
 At the Heart of Human Nature. A Confidential Walk with a 
 Dollar Bill at the End of it. A Philosophical Observation 
 from the Stage-Driver 226 
 
 Chapter XXVI 
 
 The Strange Adventure of Burner into Nothing, and How my Own 
 Mind Got into Trouble, and How my Faith was Strengthened 
 under the Chapel Window 235 
 
 Chapter XXVII 
 
 The Wonderful Summer on the Pleasure Island 243 
 
 Chapter XXVIII 
 
 How a Parsonage Suggests a Wife. The Convincing Revelations of 
 
 a Phrenologist Who Examined The Students' Bumps . . . 248 
 
 Chapter XXIX 
 
 It Devolves upon me to Entertain a Guest. The Sentimental Con- 
 sequences Which Ensued 256 
 
 Chapter XXX 
 
 A Heretic Hunter. The Orthodoxy of the Seminary Admirably 
 Defended. I Contract a Fashionable Disease, and also Receive 
 a Very Unsettling Letter . 263 
 
 Chapter XXXI 
 
 How Some of the Joys of Friendship Came to me in the Tower 
 Room. The Orator in the White Vest. How Soon I Lost my 
 Diploma 269 
 
 Chapter XXXII 
 
 How, Though I was Ready for Service, I was Forestalled by a New 
 
 Trouble, and the very Interesting Plan Which Came Out of it . 276 
 
 Chapter XXXIII 
 
 Of \ji Village where Locomotive Whistles Sounded like Lingering 
 Music: of the Esthetic Possibilities in a College Catalogue: of 
 a Journey over the Hills to the College where we find, besides a 
 Wonderful Array of Structures, a Large Room and the Junior 
 with his Barnful of Furniture 282 
 
 Chapter XXXIV 
 
 My Wife Packs me off to College. The Senior and I Stop at a 
 Rock for a Drink, Meet the Advance Guard of Students, Plunge 
 into a Bedlam, and Witness the Labors of the Freshmen. The 
 
 [xii] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Finger-study of Quarles and my Apology Given to the Retired 
 Medical Man who was Specializing in Hens 292 
 
 Chapter XXXV 
 
 Hot-Popovers and a Cold Watch in the Station. The Sleigh-load 
 
 of Talent * 315 
 
 Chapter XXXVI 
 
 A Chapter of Sentiment and Literary Atmosphere, Including the 
 Account of Sanderson, the Procrastinator. How Two Prize Checks 
 Were Spent. A Parish of Talent 323 
 
 Chapter XXXVII 
 
 Tieresias, the Blind Prophet, and Squeem, the Student in the Back- 
 waters of College Life. A Night of Grim Fate 348 
 
 Chapter XXXVIII 
 
 A Chapter in which a Hero Does a Thing to his Credit .... 359 
 
 Chapter XXXIX 
 
 The Lost Parrot. Academic Burlesque. The Nervousness of the 
 Final Minute. A Religious Outcropping in a Non-Pious 
 Heart 379 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 In Which the Account Comes to a Conclusion in the Life of a 
 
 Relative. Martin Quotes Spanish, and has the Last Word . 387 
 
 [xiii] 
 
Illustrations 
 
 I Appeared before the President Consider- 
 ably Unnerved Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Jason, the Poet, Looked in 76 V 
 
 Evangelical University was Treated to its 
 
 First Match Game 142 
 
 Say, How Much Yo' Want fo' dat Watch? . 184 u ' 
 
 So Arm in Arm the Blind Student and I 
 
 Walked 350 ^ 
 
 [xv] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
THROUGH THE 
 SCHOOL 
 
 ■ffiffJFi 
 
 Chapter I. Fifteen Dollars and 
 Sixty -five Cents W^orth of % Inter- 
 national "Travel An Inspiring 
 Reception in Front of Chief Pungo 
 Memorial Hall 
 
 IT was like taking off an old, worn, unadorn- 
 ing suit of clothes as the Boston Express 
 whirled me away from the City of Mills. 
 It hummed with me over the streets on 
 which I had walked to and from work as 
 a mill boy. It darted me past the rows of tene- 
 ments where sordid and sinful memories lin- 
 gered. "Thank God! Thank God!" Out and 
 away from it all. Away from the hum, the bee- 
 like, monotonous hum of the mill machines that 
 overpower the nerves and dull the spirit of the 
 
 [3] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 workers! Away from the bells and blaring fog 
 whistles that disturb the sleep of tired, weary, 
 discouraged toilers; the bells and whistles that 
 sometimes mean the jubilant clamor of the 
 mills over their moaning, rebellious workers. 
 Past the pale faces that waited at the crossings 
 for the train to pass; faces whose eyes gleamed 
 with an instant's wish that the train had them 
 in it, too! Yes, I was the chosen from among 
 over twenty thousand workers that day. I was 
 actually on my way to seek an education! 
 There, for proof that it was no dream, was my 
 long green ticket with its dozen coupons in my 
 hands! There was my brand new suit case! 
 How lucky I was ! Think of the fellows who had 
 better mental furnishing than I, who had even 
 money in the bank, parents who were urging them 
 to strive for an education, friends who would 
 loan them money, and yet, they were going to 
 the mill at that very moment, and would go 
 tomorrow, and the day after, because they were 
 afraid to make the break! Then I thought: 
 'Well, they would have made the break long 
 ago if they had lived with an aunt and uncle 
 who wasted their money on drink. That would 
 frighten them into it. There's some good in 
 evil after all. I shouldn't be on this train today 
 if my foster parents had been kinder, more 
 considerate! I guess it'd be a good thing if a 
 few of the other mill fellows, who are am- 
 bitious, had something like it to frighten them 
 
 [4] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 off. It's probably the only way they'll go out 
 and make their chance!" 
 
 Then the vision of the country-side, painted 
 in the glories of Autumn, the flashing views of 
 cranberry bogs, crowded with sun-bonneted 
 pickers, called my mind to the new joys of exist- 
 ence. Here I was, out in the world at last! 
 Not the romp of a holiday, with the mill room 
 for next morning, not a vacation of two days 
 with a return at the end of it; but the begin- 
 ning of an education, a start towards a pro- 
 fession, a great big chance at last to "make 
 something of myself!" 
 
 "Here," I said to the train boy, as he was 
 about to pass me, "give me a packet of that 
 there gum — the peppermint sort." That train 
 boy didn't know, as I paid him the five cents 
 by giving him a dollar bill to change, that the 
 purchase was the greatest luxury I should have 
 on that trip of fifteen hundred miles. 
 
 While working in the mill, I had never been 
 able to afford a trip to Boston, so when I arrived 
 in the station, and realized that I was even going 
 beyond it, on my first excursion, I said to my- 
 self, "Boston is only the first, small step in 
 your travel!" The next coupon on my long 
 ticket paid my fare from the South Station to 
 the North — in a Cab with a Uniformed 
 Driver!! It was the first time I had been in a 
 cab, except at a funeral. I was pleased when 
 the driver took me through the main streets; 
 
 [5] ' 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 glad when he had to move cautiously through 
 congested traffic, because people could see me, 
 as I sat nonchalantly in the cab. I took care 
 to see that the blinds were up as far as possible. 
 
 In the North Station, when the cab driver 
 had taken me to the train, the car that I was 
 to travel on, to Montreal, was marked off from 
 its fellows by its salmon color. Awed, im- 
 pressed, I went groping through the dim car 
 until I found a vacant seat into which I com- 
 fortably arranged myself. But as the train 
 pulled out, I studied my railroad map, and, on 
 discovering that the Green Mountains would 
 be on the opposite side of the railroad, I made 
 haste to change my seat, so that I might 
 insure myself a view of them; for I had never 
 seen a mountain in my life. 
 
 That ride of twelve hours, on an express, 
 did not tire me one bit. I was before the world 
 with a starved, hungry mind and starved, 
 hungry eyes. I kept my eyes glued on the out- 
 of-doors. Yes, I watched both sides of the car 
 at once. I listened for the comments around 
 me and if anything of interest was mentioned 
 I bobbed up my head to look. I watched the 
 time-table for the stations so that I might know 
 when the train passed from one State to an- 
 other. I was actually passing through whole 
 States — five of them in all ! Five States of 
 the United States of America! There were few 
 details that I did not observe. I watched the 
 
 [6] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 farms, the villages, the back yards of cities; 
 watched the flying trees, the colors of soil, the 
 crops that were being reaped, the winding roads, 
 and the vehicles that waited for us at the 
 country crossings. 
 
 At noon we were lumbering through the 
 streets of Manchester, N.H., past the long canal 
 which flows like a sluggish moat along the dis- 
 mal wall of the mill. Crowds of workers were 
 waiting for us at the crossings ; watching us with 
 looks of envy, I thought. I threw up my win- 
 dow, leaned back in my seat, and ostenta- 
 tiously chewed gum with a smug, proud look, 
 with which I hoped to show the mill*boys how 
 unconcerned I was about being a passenger on 
 a Montreal Express! 
 
 It was not until we had cleared the big cot- 
 ton factory towns and cities of New England 
 that I felt entirely like an adventurer, however. 
 Only by the time the cities had been left, the 
 big cities, and the small towns were succeeded 
 by country villages, and the country villages 
 by vast wildernesses of woods and uncultivated 
 fields, did I feel satisfied. Then I knew that 
 if a train wreck should end my journeying, I 
 could settle down on some farm. I should not 
 have to go back into the mill. 
 
 By watching my time-table carefully, I knew 
 when to look for the mountains; but long before 
 we reached the place appointed for the vision, 
 my heart was leaping with expectation. We 
 
 [7] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had reached the hilly country, and every high 
 knoll served me for a mountain. But on and 
 on and on, past [soaring foothills, went the 
 train until what seemed a slate-colored storm- 
 cloud, a thin veil of atmosphere, caught my 
 attention. Then, as the train turned a bend, 
 the foothills dropped away, and there, like a 
 majestic dream, higher than anything on earth 
 before imagined, were the mountains! 
 
 Following the delight of the mountains, I 
 had to think of our approach into another coun- 
 try. We were actually going to leave the 
 United States and enter Canada! Immedi- 
 ately the English blood stirred within me. I 
 was actually entering the domains of the Queen. 
 Just over the border, the train stopped at a 
 little village for water. I spoke to the brake- 
 man. "Please, mister," I said, "how long 
 will we stop?" "Eight minutes altogether," 
 he replied; "eight sure." "Are we really 
 in Canada now?" I ventured. "Yep," he said 
 with decision, "this is Canada, sure enough." 
 "Then I'm going to get off, for a couple of min- 
 utes," I said. I didn't explain to him the 
 motive I had in getting off. It was to put the 
 soles of my shoes on FOREIGN SOIL! Un- 
 fortunately there had been a generous rain 
 that had mixed with the dirt of the village road, 
 so that when I sought to step on Canadian 
 earth I was called upon to wallow in Cana- 
 dian mud, and that I would not do. "Never 
 
 [8] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 mind," I consoled myself with. "This board 
 walk is a Canadian board walk and will do." 
 So I ran a hundred yards into the village along 
 the board walk and came back to the train sat- 
 isfied. I had stepped on Queen Victoria's 
 territory, come what might. 
 
 When the darkness shut out the view, even 
 then I did not keep my eyes from the windows. 
 I did not know what sights I should get a view 
 of even in the darkness. But all I saw of towns 
 were lights, like stars, followed by masses of inky 
 night. Then we stopped at a Canadian city sta- 
 tion. I pushed up the window, and heard the 
 great French chatter that went on outside. Not 
 a word of English could I pick out, neither did 
 I want to hear such a word. It would have 
 spoiled all. At last I was in a new country, 
 among a people who spoke a different language 
 from my own! I was a real traveler at last! 
 
 At ten o'clock the lights of Montreal, strings 
 of stars, flashed by the windows. Three miles 
 away from the station the passengers became 
 restless. Some of them stood up and waited 
 during all that time. At last the brakeman 
 called out with finality, a downward deflection 
 of the last syllable, as if that ended his day, 
 "Mon-tree-AL!" 
 
 There my ticket told me I should have to 
 change. The next stage of my journey would 
 take me along the border of Canada as far as 
 Detroit; an all-night journey. 
 
 [9] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 During the hour that I had to wait in Mon- 
 treal, I went on a thrilling, timid sight-seeing. 
 I recollect to have seen a couple of dim-lit 
 business streets, silent, ghostly, a couple of 
 buildings which must have been structures of 
 importance in daylight, and a sign which could 
 be read because it was directly in the glare of an 
 arc light, "National Bank." Having seen so 
 much, and satisfied my provincial soul on so spare 
 a meal, I went back to get on my new train. 
 
 I found myself in a most comfortable car. 
 The seat was well padded, the back was high 
 enough to serve for a pillow, and there was no 
 one in the seat in front. So I turned over that 
 seat, took off my coat and hat, unlaced my 
 shoes and put them on one side, leaned back 
 with a sigh of content, ready for a night's rest 
 when — the conductor came down the aisle, 
 looked at my ticket, and said, "This is a first 
 class car and you have a second class ticket. 
 The next car ahead, sir!" 
 
 I slung my coat over my arm, picked up my 
 shoes and suit case and went into the car ahead. 
 It was a Tourist Sleeping car and was filled, 
 largely, with a medley of Europeans. Euro- 
 peans, too, with peasant manners, with peasant 
 dirt and peasant breath. There was odor of 
 garlic mixed with odor of stale rye bread, as 
 some ate lunches. There was odor of unwashed 
 clothes mixed with odor of sour milk. Double 
 seats, leather padded, had been pushed together 
 
 [10] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 into berths, while overhead shelves had been 
 let down for upper berths, with thin pads of 
 mattress for the colonists to find rest upon. 
 The aisles were littered with paper, fruit rem- 
 nants, broken cigarette stubs, empty bottles, 
 and expectoration. The air was vapid, like a 
 drunkard's breath. I waded through it all to 
 the lower end of the car where there seemed 
 to be an oasis of cleanliness and order. Here, 
 though, were men sprawled out in unpoetic 
 postures of sleep. At the lowest end, even the 
 train boy had left his basket of fruit and soda 
 on one side, while he lay for the night, crumpled 
 up, snorting like a pig. 
 
 I looked around and up for a place to sleep. 
 There on one of the high shelves, I saw a young 
 fellow sitting up, eating a sandwich. He saw 
 me looking in his direction. "Hello, fellow," 
 he greeted cheerily, "you're English, aren't 
 you, fellow?" I replied that I was and that 
 I was wanting a place to sleep for the night. 
 He said, "These places are for two. Get a 
 leg up and bunk with me." He reached down 
 his hand, braced me as I stood on the edge of a 
 lower berth, and then I found myself in the bed 
 with my benefactor. 
 
 He sat there in his shirt, ready for bed, with 
 a large basket of sandwiches in front of him. 
 There were more sandwiches together in that 
 one basket than I have ever seen piled up on 
 the counter of any lunch room. 
 
 [in 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "You aren't a train boy, are you?" I asked. 
 "Oh, no," said the young fellow, "that's my 
 lunch. I got a week's go on the trains yet, so 
 I brought enough to eat for that time. I'm 
 going to college away out West. Have one," 
 he broke in and pointed to the basket. I had 
 no scruples in assisting at the reduction of 
 such a mountain of sandwiches, for I imagined 
 that a company of soldiers could have subsisted 
 on them for three days. I ate my fill, and the 
 young fellow watched me with evident delight. 
 "I'm going out to college, too," I explained. 
 "We're birds of a feather, eh?" "What col- 
 lege?" he asked. "Evangelical University," I 
 replied. "It's easy to get through there be- 
 cause expenses are moderate. I don't think 
 I'll have a chance to get in right away," I 
 explained. "You see, I haven't written them 
 that I'm coming or asked for a chance even. I 
 can get out there and get some kind of work, 
 and when everything's arranged, get into the 
 University. A friend told me about it." 
 
 "Why didn't you go back with some one?" 
 asked my friend. "Well, you see," I answered, 
 "I couldn't afford to go the way the others go. 
 It costs twenty-four dollars and this route 
 only costs me fifteen dollars and sixty-five 
 cents." "Oh," said the young fellow. "When 
 you do enter the University what class will 
 you join?" "I'll have to join the beginners 
 with common school branches," I said. "Then 
 
 [W] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I'll work up into the Academic course to pre- 
 pare for college, then go through college, you 
 see." "Oh, yes," he said, "I see." He then 
 asked me to help myself to another sandwich. 
 "You've got nerve, anyway," he commented. 
 "It'll be a long pull, won't it, to do what you 
 plan? How old are you?" "Oh, around 
 twenty," I answered. "I wish, for your sake," 
 said the young man, " that you were through 
 with it; this education business takes a lot 
 out of a fellow. It's a fight right from the 
 start if you don't have any money. I'm a 
 sophomore in college. By the way, you haven't 
 told me your name, fellow. Mine's Harlan 
 M. N. I. Droughtwell. Plenty of initials be- 
 cause my folks wanted to please both branches 
 of the family. In full, I am Harlan Micknell 
 Norman Ingraham Droughtwell." "And I," 
 I replied, "am just Al Priddy. No middle 
 name. I suppose, though, that really I am 
 Albert, but it ain't used much." 
 
 Harlan put the basket aside, after having put 
 over the bread a damp towel and closed the 
 cover. Then he told me to turn in near him. 
 So we both gave ourselves into the keeping of 
 the engineer and slept profoundly above the 
 odors, the litter, the droning aliens : — two 
 youths college bound. 
 
 I was first up, in the morning. Harlan, on 
 opening his eyes, proposed that I "dive in" 
 and he pointed to the sandwiches. First of 
 
 [13] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 all I wanted to wash my face. I did so at the 
 drinking tank. I looked around. There was 
 a stirring among the aliens; just a stirring. 
 Some were turning over, yawning and giving 
 guttural explosions of sleepy comment. 
 Mothers were feeding hungry, lively babies; 
 but at my end everything was profoundly still. 
 The train boy's basket was still where I 
 had seen it the night before with the fruit 
 exposed to the air. The boy himself was a 
 tousled, sleepy, uninspiring bundle of blue and 
 white. I looked at my berth-mate, the sand- 
 wich man, and noted that he combed his hair 
 from the side. Immediately I was conscious 
 that I combed mine down the middle, and I 
 recollected that my aunt Millie had always said 
 that I looked like a masher with it in that way. 
 So I took out my pocket comb and changed 
 the style of my hair-dressing, while Harlan, 
 entirely unconscious of having wielded so power- 
 ful an influence over a fellow, sat in his berth 
 and struggled with his clothes. 
 
 All through the morning we traveled; over 
 high trestles, through deep cuts, skirting tobacco 
 fields, whirling through little settlements until 
 at last we were rolled to the deck of a massive 
 iron ferry and, still in the cars, were taken across 
 the lake and landed at Detroit. Meanwhile, 
 I had parted company with Harlan, who had 
 told me to "keep right at it," meaning thereby, 
 a college education. 
 
 [14] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Transfer after transfer was made for another 
 night and a day, each time the trains seemed 
 to get slower, to stop more at stations, while 
 the cities grew less frequent. Friday turned 
 into Saturday, Saturday into Sunday, and by 
 Sunday, too, we plunged into an overpowering 
 odor of gas. "Is the lamp leaking?" I asked 
 the trainman mournfully. "It's terrible. It 
 must be leaking. It makes me seasick." The 
 man laughed. "Oh, you're in the gas belt," he 
 said. "It's in the air. You will get used to it. 
 I can't smell it at all, though at first it smells 
 like being right in a gas house, doesn't it?" 
 
 The gas tinged everything; food aild drink. 
 I felt like going to sleep to lose the sense of it. 
 But deeper and deeper into it the train plunged, 
 without mercy. "If you've got a piece of sil- 
 ver about you," said the trainman, "a watch 
 chain or anything of gold or silver, this air will 
 turn it black soon enough. But you'll get 
 used to it," he added comfortingly enough. 
 "I shall have to," I complained, gloomily. 
 "It tastes as if all the gas works in the world 
 had exploded about here." 
 
 Finally I was nearing Groat's Crossing, the 
 seat of Evangelical University. The train de- 
 posited me at a station within twelve miles of it, 
 where I should have to take an accommodation 
 four hours later. There was nothing to see in 
 the place where I waited, but glaring brick 
 buildings and houses on stilts. So I waited 
 
 [15] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 around the hot, splintered platform, seated now 
 on a truck, watching a group of young men 
 reading sections of a Sunday paper, or walking 
 miserably up and down wishing for the train, for 
 the gas had gotten into my system, and I felt 
 lonesome, miserable. I might have gone to 
 sleep in the waiting room, but the seats were 
 spoiled for beds by having iron arm rests at 
 intervals of two feet. I tried to thread myself 
 through these, at full length, but could not. 
 There was nothing to do, but stand around 
 and taste gas, until the Groat's Crossing train 
 came. 
 
 With great joy I watched the accommoda- 
 tion come into the station. Only twelve more 
 miles between me and Evangelical University! 
 The end of three days' travel. Three days from 
 the cotton mills! In that thought I renewed 
 my spirit. Soon I should at least be near a 
 college ! 
 
 College! For me! It was the anticipation 
 of a first watch twenty times intensified. I, go 
 to college! Look back in the genealogies of 
 the Priddys, rooted back in Britain's centuries, 
 and lay your finger on a single member of it 
 who ever went beyond the secondary school! 
 And there was the brakeman calling, inconse- 
 quently, "Groat's Crossing!" 
 
 I half stumbled from that car, thanking God 
 that He had allowed me this sweet day. Here 
 I was on the platform at last. There was no 
 
 [16] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 one about. A Sabbath quiet lingered over 
 everything. The black splinters on the plat- 
 form went like knife blades between the soles 
 of my worn shoes. 
 
 Groat's was a very small station. Some sort 
 of a village lay behind it. I asked a man on 
 the street corner if this was where Evangelical 
 University could be found. He pointed away 
 from the village in the direction of a rutted, 
 clay road bordered by a line of houses on stilts 
 which ended in a pasture fence made from dry 
 stumps interlocked. "The place's up thar!" 
 mumbled the man as he moved the morsel of 
 tobacco from one cheek to the other. % " You'll 
 run smack inter it ef yo' keeps ergoin'." "How 
 far about?" I asked. "Uh, 'bout a mile or 
 mo ', I guess." 
 
 The fumes of gas half choked me. They 
 drowned out the perfumes from decaying leaves 
 which lay thick on the streets. It was a land 
 given over to gas, evidently, for instead of 
 cows grazing in the flat pastures, latticed der- 
 ricks towered over oil and gas wells. In place 
 of the twitter of Fall songsters reaching me from 
 the trees along the roadside, came the mourn- 
 ful creaking of oil pumps and the gasps and barks 
 from the sputtering engines. A well had just 
 been shot. A crowd of spectators stood at the 
 base of a derrick whose latticework glistened 
 with the black baptism of oil, and the dead 
 grass on which the spectators stood was soaked 
 
 [17] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 by a tarry iridescence; the thick, black, greasy 
 mess which had spouted up from the torn heart 
 of the underworld. 
 
 I walked along a board walk which gave me 
 a level path over little brooks, open culverts, 
 house drains, and masses of surface gas mains. 
 It took me up a slight grade in a lonesome 
 part of the road where were neither houses nor 
 trees. I stood on the crest of the hill looking 
 ahead for the University. It stood on the open 
 plain ahead of me, in full sight, Evangelical 
 University ! 
 
 I had never seen a college before. I had 
 feasted my imagination on photographs of the 
 world's leading universities : Cambridge, Oxford, 
 Edinburgh, and Harvard. I had revelled in 
 the Tom Brown type of literature which has for 
 its background armorial gateways, ivy-clothed 
 turrets in which sparrows twitter all the day; 
 which showed myriads of mullioned windows 
 peeping shyly through the branches of sedate, 
 century oaks; which showed grassy-carpeted 
 lawns, yew gardens, swans breasting placid, 
 rose-fringed lakes, lakes girded by pebbled paths 
 whereon walked pale, lanky scholars in board 
 caps and mourning gowns, walking with bulky 
 tomes of Latin on their palms in serene medi- 
 tation ! 
 
 And there the reality of a college, Evangel- 
 ical University, spread itself for my contem- 
 plation, a heart-choked contemplation, because 
 
 [18] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 that view shattered a lifetime's romance! It 
 brought to mind a group of tenements surround- 
 ing a big square, brick grammar school. The 
 buildings stood open to the glare of the sun, 
 for there were no tall trees for shade. The 
 smaller houses, little cheaply constructed cot- 
 tages, stood on cedar posts and were so fragile 
 that the first tempest might readily twist them 
 from their anchorages and carry them tumbling 
 down the fields like empty hat-boxes. 
 
 After the armorial-gatewayed universities of 
 my dreams had completely melted away, and 
 the reality in its Puritan, pioneer severity chal- 
 lenged me, I took a firm hold on my s*late-col- 
 ored baggage and strode rapidly on towards my 
 goal. 
 
 "What do you want for ninety dollars a 
 year?" I argued with myself. "It's your 
 chance, and that's enough." 
 
 I soon came to a newly plowed road which 
 led to the first of the university buildings. The 
 hot sun had not been thirsty enough to suck 
 all the rain which had fallen on the new road in 
 the last storm. The clayey earth had mixed 
 with it and formed a broth which waited for 
 the first unwary foot to slip from the springy 
 board walk, which led over it. 
 
 Directly ahead, I saw a salmon-colored, clap- 
 boarded building squat and frail like an evan- 
 gelist's tabernacle, over which I read on a sign 
 the following explanatory inscription: 
 
 [19] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Chief Pungo Hall, 1889. 
 Born in Africa. Died Here 1885." 
 
 With but a mere glance at this Memorial 
 Dormitory, I had need next to press my teeth 
 over my under lip, stiffen my gait, bulge out my 
 chest, and perform all the other affectations of 
 courage, for in front of Pungo Hall stood a 
 group of well-dressed young men, all looking at 
 me! The heart of the horseman who dashed 
 in the charge of the Six Hundred was a stouter 
 one in feeling than mine when I charged on those 
 lolling young men. My knee-caps vibrated 
 like a cello string. My ringer nerves leaped one 
 over the other. My heart pumped double quan- 
 tity of blood to my cheeks. The board walk 
 dropped from under my shoes and I walked on 
 a tipping cloud. 
 
 One of the students, in response to my wait- 
 ing and my embarrassment, which must have 
 been as clear to him as an electric advertise- 
 ment over a skyscraper, advanced and asked if 
 he could be of any service to me, saying that his 
 name was Thropper, James Thropper. 
 
 Now, during the long, three days' journey, I 
 had spent much thought in preparation of the 
 introduction of myself to the University upon 
 arrival. I had succeeded in framing an intro- 
 duction which had both the qualities of com- 
 pleteness and brevity. I had rehearsed it, 
 mentally, in many hypothetical contingencies, 
 
 [20] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 so that I might let them see that I knew, defi- 
 nitely, what I had come for. But among all the 
 contingencies I had invented not one of them 
 had resembled the one in which I found my- 
 self: making my business known to a student. 
 I had thought of meeting with a gowned don 
 or a "bursar" — whatever he was — because 
 I was saturated with Tom Brown. But I 
 managed to explode my introduction to the 
 student, with all its brevity, in all its boyish 
 completeness. 
 
 "My name is Al Priddy. I have come from 
 the mills. I have not been to school beyond 
 common fractions. I am nineteen years old. 
 I am willing to learn. I heard of this place 
 from a friend. He said there was a chance. 
 I have only three dollars. I am willing to 
 work. If you think I can't be taken in, right 
 off, I shall be happy to live near here, so that 
 when I have earned more money I can begin!" 
 
 James Thropper picked up my slate-colored 
 suit case and led me before the group of stu- 
 dents, without comment. Then, after he had 
 introduced me to them all, as "Brother Priddy," 
 he signalled to a tall, moustached German. 
 "Come here, Brock." The German came to 
 one side, and Thropper repeated, though not 
 so completely nor with equal brevity, the tale 
 I had unfolded. 
 
 "You've come to just the right place, Brother 
 Priddy," said Brock. "We have plenty of 
 
 [21] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 students here who arrive without much money 
 or much education. It's a splendid place for 
 getting a start, isn't it, Brother Thropper?" 
 
 Thropper said, "It's been a blessing to many 
 a struggler." 
 
 "But is there room?" I asked. "I could 
 wait. It will be nice to live so near a college 
 and join it — later," I tremblingly ventured. 
 "I didn't come with the expectation of begin- 
 ning studies right off, I thought I might go to 
 work in the glass factory a while and then 
 when I'd— " 
 
 "That would be a waste of time," said Brock. 
 "I think you'll be able to start right away." 
 
 "Excuse me — are — are you a professor — 
 sir?" I enquired. 
 
 "No," laughed Brock, "just a theologue, 
 that's all. I started late, you see." Then he 
 explained: "You'll not be able to do any busi- 
 ness here on Sunday. The President will see 
 you the first thing in the morning; but you 
 needn't fear. There's no turning of you off 
 when you've come so far. Just remember that, 
 Brother Priddy. Meanwhile, I think I might 
 be able to place you at a job that will pay your 
 board." 
 
 With a wild leap of the heart, I gasped, 
 thrilled, 
 
 "Oh, if you only could!" 
 
 "I'm head waiter in the dining room," he 
 explained, "we have a place not filled yet. 
 
 [22] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I'll see you later about it. Better take him 
 in with you," he announced, turning to Throp- 
 per. "Yours is a double room. That's where 
 the President would put him, anyhow." 
 
 "My, the gas does smell!" I announced, 
 merely to say something as Thropper led me 
 into the dimness of Pungo Hall. "Doesn't it 
 spoil the food, when it soaks in it?" 
 
 Thropper laughed. 
 
 "You won't mind it, after a while. You'll 
 get so that you won't notice it. Here's the 
 room, '9'. Come in, Priddy!" 
 
 I heard the scraping of a key against the 
 lock, a frosty light overhead showed me where 
 the transom was swung at an angle. Finally 
 there came a click as the key snapped back the 
 bolt, Thropper threw back the door and ushered 
 me in my college room, a double room within 
 a narrow compass of a few feet something. I 
 swept a pair of greedy eyes over this, the first 
 substantial step in my educational ambition. 
 
 [23] 
 
Chapter II. I Help a Real 
 Poet to Sing his Hymn. My 
 First Chance and How I Succeeded 
 with it 
 
 THE double bed had two depressions 
 plainly visible on the mattress 
 where two previous occupants had 
 maintained their respective sleeping 
 rights. The double quilt, patterned 
 after a gaudy Chinese puzzle, sank into the 
 depressions of its own, warm weight. 
 
 "The best thing about that quilt," explained 
 Thropper, "is that when my eyes get weary 
 with study or tired from writing, I look at the 
 combinations of colors, and my eyes are rested. 
 It's great for that. By the way, I'll call you 
 Al if you'll call me Jim," he suggested. 
 
 That bed occupied the major portion of the 
 floor. Its edge left just a narrow alley between 
 it and two kitchen tables that were covered 
 with black oilcloth. One of the tables — far- 
 thest from the window, in the dim light, — was 
 bare of books, and Jim said that it would be 
 
 [24] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 mine. The other had about a dozen text books 
 on it, some scraps of paper, and an open Bible, 
 marked with purple and red ink where Jim 
 told me he was busy emphasizing all the texts 
 that he might preach sermons from — some 
 day. 
 
 The chair allotted me was a plain kitchen 
 affair, as hard as a tombstone; but Jim's was 
 fearfully and wonderfully stuffed. There it 
 stood like a parody on a fluffy Morris, library 
 chair. It was a kitchen chair grotesquely 
 stuffed and upholstered within a faded, torn, 
 and highly colored bed comforter. VS£hen Jim 
 noted that I took an interest in it, he said, 
 
 "Padding made quite a difference in that 
 chair, Al. It's real comfortable, though there 
 isn't much seat left; it's so thickly padded. I 
 was out in the fields one day, and near the fence 
 I picked up a sheep's skin of thick wool. I 
 thought then that I could make good use of it, 
 so I brought it back, left it on the clothes-line 
 at the back of the building to let the air sweeten 
 it, for it was pretty strong; then I came to the 
 conclusion that I could use it to stuff the chair 
 — real wool, you know. The comforter was 
 left in the back room by a fellow and I used 
 that, too. It's a real comfortable chair; almost 
 makes you fall asleep when you sit in it." 
 
 "You didn't manage to sweeten all of the 
 wool, did you, Jim?" I asked dubiously as I 
 noted the dank odor that came from the chair; 
 
 [25] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 an odor that was reminiscent of a junk shop 
 after a rain. 
 
 "Why," replied Jim, in good humor, "I 
 don't notice it a bit. I think it must be your 
 imagination." 
 
 "Well," I concluded, ungraciously, "prob- 
 ably it's like the gas. You've got used to 
 
 it. 
 
 Between the gas stove and the wash stand 
 stood a galvanized water pail, three-quarters 
 filled and with a fuzzy growth on its oily sur- 
 face. 
 
 "That ain't drinking water, is it?" I asked in 
 alarm. 
 
 "No," laughed Jim. "That's in case of fire. 
 I ought to have changed that water two weeks 
 ago, but I guess I'm getting lazy." 
 
 By this time I had my coat off and had ac- 
 cepted Jim's invitation to wash the train dust 
 off my face. 
 
 For this purpose I scraped around in the 
 soap dish until I had secured two thin wafers 
 of soap, one a transparent reminder of per- 
 fumed toilet soap, the other a dull yellow, 
 and odorous with naphtha, which I recognized 
 as the remnant of a powerful disinfecting and 
 wash-day soap; used by my Aunt to drive 
 black oil from overalls. I had to rub these 
 two antagonistic wafers together to make suf- 
 ficient lather for washing. Then, too, I had to 
 hurry my toilet, for the flowered wash bowl 
 
 [26] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had a yellow crack on its under side, through 
 which the water dripped rapidly while I washed. 
 
 Jim said, 
 
 "Until you get some, Al, you must use my 
 towel." He took it down from the wire behind 
 the stove and let me have it, with the remark: 
 
 "There's a dry corner, there near the fringe." 
 
 The window was open, and while I was busy 
 brushing the dust from my clothes, a gust of 
 wind came in and I heard a rip on the wall 
 followed by an exclamation from Jim, 
 
 "There it goes again! The wall will be going 
 next!" 
 
 On examination I found that the wall paper, 
 with its highly conventionalized lotus leaves, 
 had lost its grip on the wall behind the gas 
 stove and had uncovered a great area of plas- 
 tered wall. Jim produced some tacks, and using 
 a flat iron for a hammer managed to return the 
 paper to its place and to keep it anchored there 
 through a liberal use of tacks. 
 
 He apologized, when he came down to the 
 floor, 
 
 "All this is miserable enough, Al, and I don't 
 blame you for thinking so." 
 
 "Uh," I retorted, "I ain't grumbling. Beg- 
 gars can't be choosers. Besides, I don't see 
 what more the college can do for ninety dollars 
 a year, board, room, and teaching." 
 
 "'Tuition' you ought to say," corrected 
 Jim. "I'm glad you've gat the right spirit 
 
 [27] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 about this place, Al. You're right, we can't 
 expect any more for ninety dollars! I don't 
 see how they can do for us what they can. It's 
 worth a mighty lot for you and me to get a 
 chance, and if education should cost more, 
 where would you and I be? ' 
 
 "That's just what I think!" I replied with 
 spirit. "It is just the chance we want. Here 
 I am, with only three dollars to begin on and a 
 poor foundation for study in the bargain. What 
 other place is there where I could be given a 
 start on such easy terms?" 
 
 "A lot of fellows come here," commented 
 Jim, "who don't look at the matter in that 
 way — and they soon leave and don't have 
 any chance at all. I know you'll appreciate 
 the hard scrabble to get the education. Be- 
 sides, poor buildings, poverty-stricken rooms, 
 cheap board, and limited privileges ought to 
 make us get the most out of our studies. That's 
 something." 
 
 "But suppose they don't let me begin?" I 
 gasped; for up to this time I had not let a doubt 
 of my acceptance at Evangelical University 
 mar the afternoon. 
 
 "I don't think they'll let a fellow like you 
 go begging, Al," responded Jim. 'You might 
 as well count yourself one of us, right off." 
 
 Just then, out in the upper end of the cor- 
 ridor, went up a high, lisping, effeminate voice, 
 calling, 
 
 [28] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Oh, Brother Thropper; Brother Thropper!" 
 Jim went to the door and replied, 
 "All right, Jason!" Then he turned to me 
 and whispered, 
 
 "Hard wick is one of the smartest fellows in 
 the University. He's a poet, too. He's got a 
 hymn set to music in this book," and he waved 
 a much worn, manila paper covered Gospel 
 hymn book. "It's very popular; sung in many 
 of the big revivals!" 
 
 With a throb of excitement I waited for the 
 advent of this real poet. I had seen men who 
 had called themselves poets in the mill; but 
 their productions were local in theme, personal 
 in lines, unpoetic in metre and never reached a 
 further fame than insertion in the "Original 
 Line" column of the papers. But I was now 
 to view a real poet; one whose words were sung 
 in churches. I was thoroughly subdued when 
 I heard the poet's fingers searching for the 
 knob, outside. 
 
 He was all that the comic papers and the 
 actors suggest for poets. There was not a bit 
 of the world about his aspect. In reaching 
 for the dwelling places of the muses he had 
 lengthened out until his head, covered with a 
 thick cluster of curls, roamed through the 
 higher levels of the atmosphere. He had to 
 incline his head in order to get through the 
 doorway. His face had a poetic paleness and 
 his lips were puffed out as if he were on the verge 
 
 [29] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of inspired speech. He wore a clerical vest 
 and all his clothes were of a very spiritual black. 
 He carried a mandolin. 
 
 I was formally introduced and on my part, in 
 acknowledging the introduction, I agreed that 
 I was "right glad to know" Mr. Hardwick. 
 
 The poet had come to rehearse some hymns 
 with Jim. The latter produced his guitar; 
 both musicians sat on the edge of the bed be- 
 fore a nickel-plated music stand, the Gospel 
 hymn book was put in place, and to the strum- 
 ming of the instruments, the vocalists sang some 
 revival hymns with such effect as to produce 
 from me the comment, "My, that sounds fine!" 
 
 Then, growing bold through intimacy, I said, 
 
 "I wonder, Mr. Hardwick, if you will sing 
 that song you wrote, please?" 
 
 The poet said that he would be pleased to 
 sing it as a trio, and asked me, when he had 
 found the place, if I could join in with the bass. 
 I thought I could. 
 
 So the three of us, I between the two musi- 
 cians, sat on the edge of the bed and sang the 
 lilting reiterations of the hymn, 
 
 "There's a welcome home, 
 There's a welcome home, 
 There's a welcome home, 
 For you and me." 
 
 We were interrupted by the ringing of a bell, 
 on the University tower, which, I learned, was 
 the call to the Sunday afternoon preaching 
 
 [30] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 service. As my roommate was trying to urge 
 me to attend, and while I was protesting that 
 my clothes were not good enough, the head 
 waiter came into the room and said, 
 
 "Priddy, I'm going to give you a try as a 
 waiter at supper. Don't go to the preaching 
 service. I will try to rig you up with an apron 
 and jacket." 
 
 Oh, what inspiration those words had in 
 them! It meant that the University was al- 
 ready willing to give me a chance to show what 
 I could do. I should not have to get work in 
 the glass factory. I should not have* to wait 
 before I could enroll myself in the University. 
 My chance had come. I cried for joy; tears 
 of which I was not ashamed, even though Brock, 
 the head waiter, saw them. 
 
 "I'm only poor, and a big blunderer, with- 
 out any manners," I protested, "but if you 
 give me a chance, I'll do my utmost." 
 
 At five o'clock Brock came into the room car- 
 rying on his arm a well-starched waiter's jacket 
 and a patched white apron. 
 
 "I had these on the side," he announced. 
 "They are worth forty cents. You may pay 
 for them when you are able. Don't be worry- 
 ing about the matter. Be over at the dining 
 room at quarter past five." 
 
 After that I moved as if in the midst of a 
 grand dream. Was I actually in a dormitory, 
 at a college? Was it true that in a quarter of 
 
 [31] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 an hour I should be trying to wait on a group 
 of real students? 
 
 The dining hall was a squat wooden bunga- 
 low with a great many windows in it. The 
 front hall floor bent under my weight as I 
 crossed it. I unlatched one of the double doors 
 and viewed the roomful of tables with the dull 
 reflector lamps hanging above them. White 
 jacketed students were busy with plates and 
 plated silver cutlery. Brock, himself in glori- 
 ous white, came down the room with a word of 
 greeting. I was introduced to the student- 
 waiters, was told that I was on trial only, and 
 that I should be carefully watched, as there 
 were many trained waiters among the students 
 who coveted the position. Brock indicated 
 two tables near the door, the farthest away from 
 the kitchen of all the tables. 
 
 "You will wait on them," he said. "There 
 will be ten to a table. When they come in, 
 before the blessing, they will stand behind their 
 chairs. You must go around, find out what 
 they want to drink; hot water, tea or cold water, 
 then you must go to the other end of the room, 
 get one of the trays and fill it with twenty cups. 
 Then you must get them served just as soon 
 as you can. You will find plenty of chores to 
 do when they are seated." 
 
 With a wild, thumping heart, and with a 
 maximum of terror, I heard the first of the 
 students enter the outer hall. Brock stood at 
 
 [32] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the opposite end of the room, near the slides 
 that connected with the kitchen, his finger on 
 a Sunday school bell. The students, well- 
 dressed young men and women, swept past me, 
 crowded me, stared at me, stood at my tables; 
 went to the different parts of the room chatter- 
 ing, bantering, laughing, and accosting one an- 
 other familiarly with such abandon and effect 
 that I felt like an intruder. No one spoke to 
 me. The young men and women at my two 
 tables commented about something in a low 
 murmur. They cast doubting looks toward me. 
 For a minute I was in a panic, then, % because 
 I was tall, I could see Brock's eyes telling me 
 to do something. I went through the crowded 
 aisles, around my tables, saying to each per- 
 son, in a trembling, very English way, 
 
 "Will you 'ave 'ot, cold water, or tea, please?" 
 I received eighteen orders for hot water and 
 tea and two orders for cold water. I came out 
 from the ordeal of having addressed so many 
 students and went perspiring to the upper end 
 of the room where the urns and trays were. 
 I put the weighty cups and the thick glasses 
 on a tray the size of an ordinary five o'clock tea 
 table, filled them by twisting the tray under 
 the spigots of the urns, and with the weighty 
 load raised as high as my long arms could exalt 
 it, pushed my way nervously down the aisle, 
 past the students whose backs were turned to 
 me, and conscious that all the inquisitive and 
 
 [33] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 critical eyes in the world were watching me to 
 see how I should manage. I was very fortunate 
 in being able to squirm my way to the lower end 
 of the room and to reach the vicinity of my own 
 tables without accident. It helped me, too, 
 to hear the students singing a hymn. It took 
 their minds off me, the green mill boy trying 
 to wait on college tables! Thus encouraged, 
 I tried a bold thing, which I saw the other wait- 
 ers doing. As there were no stand tables to 
 rest our trays upon, while steadying mine 
 against my body as it lay on the palm of my 
 hand, I took off a cup of hot water from the 
 lowered tray, and tried to reach the cup around 
 the waist of the young woman who had called 
 for hot water. The balance would have been 
 maintained had not the person next to me sud- 
 denly drawn back, jolted the tray from my 
 hand, and sent the hot liquids streaming down 
 the skirts and shoes of those in the vicinity. 
 There followed, too, the crash and thump as 
 the heavy cups clattered to the floor. The 
 two glasses splintered into bits, and while the 
 students were sitting down, I found myself 
 growing more and more conspicuous until the 
 seated throng looked up from every part of the 
 room, to see me furiously red, with tears gather- 
 ing, and with untold chagrin over the mishap. 
 
 I waited, among the ruin, for Brock to come 
 to me, get me by the scruff of the neck, hurl 
 me outside to say, 
 
 [34] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 " Get back to the mill. What right have you 
 to pretend to know how to act among cultured 
 people? You're too green!" 
 
 I imagined, too, that the students at my table 
 must be delegating one of their number to go 
 to the head waiter to say, 
 
 "We don't want that clumsy person bothering 
 with us. He's spoiled a couple of fine dresses 
 and made a regular bothersome mess. Throw 
 him out! Send him back to where he came 
 from!" 
 
 But I had mistaken the temper of Evangel- 
 ical University. Brock came down, a^id with 
 great kindness patted me on the back and said, 
 encouragingly, 
 
 "Don't let a thing like that bother you, 
 Priddy. I know how they crowd. Cheer up, 
 old fellow." 
 
 Then the student who had jolted the tray 
 bent back and said, 
 
 "It was all my fault, Brock. He wasn't to 
 blame a bit. It was downright careless of me. 
 I'm sorry." 
 
 Then, after he had assisted me in bringing 
 the hot water and other drinkables to the tables, 
 Brock took pains to introduce me to the twenty 
 young men and women, saying, 
 
 "Mr. Priddy, I hope, will see that you do 
 not go hungry as much as you might!" 
 
 I walked on air after that; for the head waiter 
 had called me, "Mr. Priddy!" 
 
 [35]' 
 
Chapter III. Thropper's Puff 
 "Tie. Sounds That Passed in the 
 Night. The Possible Advantages 
 of Speaking Tubes. "The Scroll of 
 Divine History. The Medita- 
 tions of a Saint. How Thropper 
 Lost his Pious Reputation 
 
 SHORTLY after my return from the 
 dining hall, Thropper thundered into 
 the room, in his impetuous way, jerked 
 his arms out of his coat, tore at his 
 collar and lifted up the lid of his tin cov- 
 ered trunk with every evidence of excitement. 
 
 "What's the matter — Jim?" I asked, from 
 my seat near the window. 
 
 "Got a date on, that's what," he answered,* 
 half smothered in his trunk. "Miss Ebberd's 
 going — church — with me. Lucky — duck, 
 that's what! Going down the board walk to 
 — New Light revival! Say," he interrupted, 
 holding up for my inspection a black, puff tie, 
 
 [36] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 with an opal stone nesting in the midst of its 
 folds, "How would this go with a choker col- 
 lar, Priddy?" 
 
 "Put it on first, Thropper," I suggested. 
 
 He fastened it around his high choker collar: 
 a collar whose pointed fronts might have been 
 successfully used by Spanish Inquisitors to make 
 heretics look up continually unless they wished 
 to have holes punctured under their chins. 
 
 "The reason I wear this tie," said Thropper, 
 confidentially, "is because it blocks up my shirt 
 bosom; hides it and saves washing, of course. 
 You've got to get on to all those sor^ of tricks 
 when you work your way through school, 
 you'll find, Priddy. Now, how do I look, eh?" 
 
 I thought him a very attractive Lothario 
 indeed, although I did not venture so far with 
 an expression of opinion. I merely said, 
 
 "You look slick!" 
 
 As he was leaving the room, Thropper sud- 
 denly turned and in a very apologetic tone 
 said, 
 
 "I had planned, Priddy, to stay with you 
 tonight, but you see how it is, don't you, old 
 fellow?" 
 
 "Why, certainly," I agreed. "I wouldn't 
 like to have you miss this chance for anything, 
 Thropper. Go ahead and good luck!" 
 
 "Thanks," he said. "You can lock the door 
 when you go to bed if I'm not back. You must 
 be tired!" 
 
 [37] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Yes, I am tired, Thropper. I'll sit by the 
 window — and think. Good luck to you!" 
 
 He was gone. As his feet echoed in the bare 
 hall, I heard him humming, like a happy lover, 
 
 "There'll be no dark valley!" 
 
 The evening shadows were gathering outside, 
 as I sat near the window, looking out. From 
 the village centre came the drawn out stroke 
 of a church bell. Then the campus was alive 
 with sounds. The whole University seemed astir. 
 Some one raised up a window in the second 
 story, over my head, and a quiet, vibrant voice 
 called, "Hey, Brother Merritt?" The man in 
 the next room stopped his strumming on a 
 guitar, lifted up his window and replied, 
 "What?" "Going to the service tonight, 
 Brother Merritt?" To which my neighbor 
 answered, "No, I'm afraid I can't. I'm tired." 
 A door in the next house burst open and a trio 
 of young women gathered on the porch. 
 "That's only the first bell," said one. "We 
 shan't have to hurry." "I'm glad of that," 
 replied another, "for the board walk is just 
 simply terrible in places: full of holes that we 
 might trip in if we had to run." Then their 
 pattering footfalls could be heard growing dim- 
 mer and dimmer in the distance on the board 
 walk. Little groups of young men hummed 
 hymns as they, too, passed Pungo Hall on their 
 way to the revival. Others laughed and argued. 
 
 [38] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I heard the fragment of one discussion in which 
 three earnest-toned young men were indul- 
 ging: "Saint Paul did make a failure in that 
 Mar's Hill speech!" said one, loudly. "It all 
 depends on what you mean by 'failure," re- 
 plied his antagonist; "true, the Greeks might not 
 have been strongly enthusiastic at the time, 
 but it seems to me that God would use that 
 speech for — No!" The argument was swal- 
 lowed up in the twilight and the distance. A 
 group of young women swept by the gloom 
 which hung like a mystic veil between me and 
 them. I heard only one sentence of % their con- 
 versation, " Fried potatoes — ugh ! " They were 
 succeeded by a procession of late starters who 
 slipped by shrouded in the gloom, a happy, 
 familiar, shadowy procession ignorant of the 
 lonesome lad who sat back of a window and 
 envied them their evening's excursion. The 
 last of the footsteps died down on the board 
 walk, as if the last of my generation had left 
 me to occupy the world alone. But the stars 
 came out for friendliness, ruling over the silences 
 of the campus and rendering it more silent. 
 The tolls of the church bell announced the begin- 
 ning of the service. When the double stroke 
 had been given for a last warning, the silence 
 was about me once more. Suddenly the 
 troubled cry of a sheep from the back pasture 
 broke out on the night, a plaintive bleat as if 
 a dog or some prowling beast of prey had been 
 
 [39] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 scented. Then, through an open window in 
 the next house, I heard the voice of a girl as it 
 read something, followed by a deeper voice 
 which said, "Oh, yum, I've been dozing, Grace!" 
 That was followed by a hand which drew apart 
 the curtains, and soon two girls' heads were 
 outlined against the golden glow in the room, 
 and one remarked, "Oh, what a stupid night!" 
 I hurriedly dodged my head into the room, 
 drew down the window shade and lighted the 
 flaring, hissing blaze of gas. 
 
 The whole room was cheapened when the 
 powerful gas light shone on it. The crowded 
 space, filled with the tawdry effects of my room- 
 mate and myself: the rack of dusty photographs 
 of people I had never seen, the stuffed chair, 
 the bed quilt, the water bucket; all those things 
 oppressed me. I turned off the light and threw 
 myself on the bed determined not to undress till 
 Thropper's return. I felt the need of Thropper. 
 It seemed to me that he would cheer me, hearten 
 me, be a companion. I began to speculate about 
 Thropper in a dreamy sort of way. Over- 
 head, some one began to walk back and forth, 
 back and forth, monotonously, humming a 
 tune unknown to me. I listened for the mel- 
 ody hoping to discover that it would be some- 
 thing with which I was familiar, so that I could 
 hum it too. But it was suddenly interrupted 
 by a terrific yawn. Then the man upstairs 
 said, "Oh, Oh-h-h!" and I heard the clatter as 
 
 [40] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 a pair of shoes fell on the floor. The man was 
 going to bed. I began to wonder who it was 
 that had been walking and singing and going 
 to bed over my head. I also speculated on the 
 social value of a speaking tube which should con- 
 nect our rooms. Then a long, long silence, 
 broken at last by a clatter in the hallway and 
 at last Thropper's cheery voice, 
 
 "Well, you couldn't wait to undress, eh, 
 Priddy?" 
 
 "Oh," I mumbled, "got back?" 
 
 "Yes," he laughed. "Isn't it time?" 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 "Nearly ten." 
 
 "I must have been asleep, Thropper. The 
 sounds sent me off." 
 
 "You were homesick, I'll bet," he laughed. 
 "That's a fine description of it." 
 
 "It wouldn't be surprising, would it?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Not a bit," he said, "but you just wait 
 till you get to know the folks about here, and 
 you'll get over that." 
 
 "Did you have a good service, Thropper?" 
 
 "Oh, fair," he replied. "Fair. Miss Eb- 
 berds didn't particularly like the sermon." 
 
 "But she enjoyed the walk to and from it," 
 I laughed. 
 
 "Well," he said earnestly, "I know I did." 
 
 While he was preparing himself for bed, he 
 said, 
 
 [41] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "When I went out I forgot to tell you about 
 the Scroll. You might have had a good time 
 with it. Have you ever seen one?" 
 
 "Scroll?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 Thropper plunged into the heart of his trunk 
 again, and this time extracted a black, leather 
 case. He opened the front, turned a knob 
 and unfolded a scriptural panorama of chromo 
 pictures, depicting the thrilling events which 
 took place in Eden, first of all, and then con- 
 tinuing through the murder of Abel to the 
 Flood. 
 
 "I was agent for this last summer," said 
 Thropper. "Look through it, Priddy, it's quite 
 interesting." 
 
 The Scroll had unfolded to Sinai accompan- 
 ied by a running comment by Thropper, which, 
 itself, was a panorama of the exciting adven- 
 tures of a Scroll agent, when he heaved a sigh 
 and said, 
 
 "Oh, urn!" 
 
 I looked up in time to see him throw himself 
 on his knees at the bed-side, to bend his head 
 in a cup made by his hands, for his evening 
 prayer. 
 
 The Scroll brought before me the Tabernacle, 
 the Temple, the victory of David over the 
 Giant in the midst of a profound silence. 
 Thropper was still engaged in his devotions as 
 
 [42] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 devoutly, as deeply, as any Augustinian monk. 
 The panorama of the Divine Plan unfolded the 
 adventures which befell the prophets and came 
 at last to the Birth of Christ, when I looked 
 around again to find Thropper still kneeling at 
 the bed-side. To me it was a display of the 
 prayer-spirit unusual and I was just investing 
 my roommate with all the pious dignity of a 
 Saint, when a loud, long-drawn snore came from 
 him. He had fallen asleep ! I shook him. He 
 drawled, as he crept into bed, 
 
 "I'm glad you wakened me, Priddy. I fall 
 asleep quite often. One night I nearly got 
 frozen to death. I didn't have a roommate. 
 Thanks. Turn off the light, won't you." 
 
 After the Crucifixion I closed the Scroll and 
 snuggled into bed with Thropper. My first 
 day in Evangelical University had ended. 
 
 [43] 
 
Chapter IV. Thundering Gym- 
 nastics. How to Keep on the 
 Good Side of the Young Women 
 with Scriptural Quotations. The 
 Establishment of Friendship. 
 Carrying Water for Beauty. 
 How Music may be Something 
 More than Music. "The Won- 
 derful, Austere Man that Thropper 
 Led me to 
 
 1 LINKED myself to the following day's life 
 by clutching the gaudy comforter in both 
 my hands while I sat up in bed, startled 
 by a thundering that shook Pungo Hall. 
 "What's — that?" I gasped, turning 
 towards Thropper, expecting to discover that 
 the vibrations had brought him up in alarm. 
 
 "It's only 'Budd' doing his gymnastics," 
 he muttered, drowsily, "what time?" 
 
 [44] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Six." 
 
 "Better get up and go over to the dining room 
 at half past," he explained. "Say," he added, 
 lifting up his head, " you wouldn't mind letting 
 me know at twenty minutes past, would you, 
 Priddy?" 
 
 * ' Not at all, Thropper. " He dropped half under 
 the clothes and in a surprising manner was soon 
 invested in all the dignity of thorough repose. 
 
 From that moment until the clamor of the 
 rising bell, at half past six, the heart of Pungo 
 Hall was turned into a huge alarm clock, for 
 first in this corner, then in that, on this floor 
 and then on that, intermittent clatterings of 
 clocks brought intermittent yawns and mutter- 
 ings as the different students were signalled 
 by their unsleeping timepieces. Every noise 
 seemed to pierce from room to room as if it 
 went through telegraphic sounding boards. 
 Splashings, jumpings, muttered prayers, read- 
 ings aloud, animated conversations: these 
 increased as half past six drew near. The 
 Monday morning, with its new week of study, 
 demanding a fresh enthusiasm after the Sab- 
 bath's interruption, was not being approached 
 in any business manner. Over the banister, 
 leading to the top floor, a voice exclaimed, so 
 that all could hear, "Say, Headstone, how fine 
 you looked last night with Her!" To which an 
 answer came from a suddenly opened door, 
 "Thank you!" Then over that banister, into 
 
 [45] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the laundry basket, in a dark corner of the hall, 
 the bed wash was hurled accompanied by dull 
 thuds. 
 
 "Got your quotation?" asked Thropper, as 
 he dressed. 
 
 "Quotation?" 
 
 "Yes, Bible verse for the tables. You'll 
 probably be asked to give one. You see, it's 
 a sort of custom for Bible verses to go the rounds 
 of the tables, in the morning. You don't have 
 to have one, but it fits in nicely, if you have 
 one. Especially if you're a waiter." 
 
 "Oh, of course I'll take one," I said. 
 
 "Only just remember and not do what one 
 waiter did, Priddy: take that verse and quote 
 it: 'Let your women keep silence in the 
 churches.' It would get you in wrong — with 
 the young ladies." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, so many of them are going to be evan- 
 gelists and ministers and missionaries: ever so 
 many of them. You see how they would be 
 liable to take it." 
 
 "We had better keep on the good side of — 
 the ladies," I laughed. 
 
 Thropper winked. 
 
 "Betcher life," he replied. 
 
 Just then the head waiter peeped in at the 
 door to say, 
 
 "Brother Priddy, are you coming across to 
 the dining room? I'm going over." 
 
 [46] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Eager to face my responsibilities of the day 
 in the leadership of somebody I accompanied 
 the tall German across the road and into the 
 dining room. 
 
 "Black for breakfast and supper. White 
 for dinner," announced Brock. "I mean the 
 kind of coats that are to be worn," he explained. 
 
 While I arranged my two tables for twenty 
 people with plates, knives and forks, milk in 
 granite-ware pitchers, sliced bread, corn bread 
 left over from the previous night's meal, tomato 
 butter, and dishes of crisp, browned, fried 
 potatoes, the other waiters came in and greeted 
 me with hearty, 
 
 " Morning's ! " " Howdy's ! " and " Hello, 
 Priddy's!" which had the effect of making me 
 feel in strong fellowship with them, although 
 our acquaintance was but a day and a night 
 old, at the utmost. Brock smiled at all these 
 evidences of friendship, and whispered, as he 
 showed me how to arrange the breakfast 
 things, 
 
 "Things are going well, eh?" 
 
 "Yes," I muttered, "if I can manage not to 
 drop another tray!" 
 
 Then the breakfast bell brought the hurried, 
 chattering, hungry crowd of young men and 
 women into the room again, though, at this 
 meal, they were less formidable in their every- 
 day clothes. Some brought books, others writ- 
 ing pads. Fountain pens and pencils projected 
 
 [47] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 from the outer pockets of the men, and were 
 stabbed in the hair of the women. 
 
 My tables were soon lined with students. 
 They, too, seemed to have met me, long ago, 
 in the remote past and to some of them I must 
 have been at least a third cousin or present at 
 a family party, so freely and lavishly did the 
 greetings come: greetings that put me at my 
 ease because I felt that they came from sincere 
 hearts. 
 
 The floor was ready to bend under the weight 
 of the crowd that stood waiting behind the 
 chairs for Brock's signal to sit. Like a stern, 
 powerful, determining Ruler, the head waiter 
 stood at the opposite end of the room, with his 
 eye on his watch, not willing to press his thumb 
 on the Sunday School bell until the instant seven 
 o'clock arrived. Eyes looked longingly on the 
 hot, fried potatoes. It was no use. Seven 
 o'clock was a minute off. Some rumbled the 
 legs of the chairs. To no purpose. The Ger- 
 man had patience. Finally the snap of the 
 bell sent every man and woman to the table 
 accompanied by the roar of scraping chairs, 
 thumping feet, and expressions of satisfaction. 
 
 Near the head of my first table sat a very 
 young, pink-cheeked Southern girl possessed 
 of charming, gracious ways. Her "Mr. Priddy, 
 please, a spoon," was as musical as ever a re- 
 quest could be. It made me feel sorry that 
 the spoon was not gold instead of German metal. 
 
 [48] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Consequently, when she asked me for a third 
 glass of water during the first five minutes of 
 breakfast, it was no small happiness for me to 
 secure it, as speedily as possible, for her. But 
 on my return with the third glass her neighbor 
 asked for one. On my return with that, the 
 Southern girl had her glass emptied. So it 
 went for ten minutes: each one of them drink- 
 ing amounts of water sufficient for ducks or 
 geese to swim in — it seemed to me. Finally, 
 on picking up a fork someone had let fall on 
 the floor, I saw several glasses, full to the brim 
 with water, under the Southern girl's chair. 
 She had been initiating me. With a broad wink 
 at the others, I very slyly sprinkled some 
 pepper on the glass of water before her when her 
 head was turned and then waited for results. 
 They soon came. She reached for her glass, 
 took a sip, and then commenced to choke. 
 
 "What is the matter, miss?" I asked, "will 
 you have some more water?" 
 
 She looked at me in resentful astonishment, 
 at first, and then seeing that the others at the 
 table were laughing, she joined in with them, 
 saying, 
 
 "Who peppered the water?" 
 
 "Was there pepper in the water?" asked one 
 across the table. 
 
 There the matter ended, although, when in a 
 spirit of boastfulness I recounted the experience 
 at the waiter's table, Brock chided me by saying, 
 
 [49] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "You will have to be careful. We must have 
 discipline, brother Priddy!" 
 
 Thropper was waiting for me, after break- 
 fast, when the call to chapel sounded: the first 
 exercise of the day. We joined the proces- 
 sion of students which moved swiftly towards 
 the central building. Into it the procession 
 hurried, racing against the tolling of the bell. 
 Then followed a tiresome climb up three pairs 
 of stairs to the topmost room of all, used for a 
 chapel. An attic room, square and dimly 
 lighted by dormer windows. The roof girders 
 overhead clung together like knitted arms bent 
 on holding together such a load of humanity 
 as trusted to them. Against the wall, oppo- 
 site the door, spread a broad platform with a 
 semicircle of male and female faculty arrayed 
 on it. Before it, and awed into respectful 
 silence by it, spread a fan of students, sitting in 
 chairs, by groups. I sat at the heart of Evan- 
 gelical University. This chapel, in its plain- 
 ness, its bareness, its poverty, formed the pivot 
 on which the life of the University swung; for 
 here the religious faith and doctrine which were 
 the most eagerly sought gifts of the place were 
 received. Here, in these simple chairs, was 
 where men and women found God: the highest 
 advertisement of the University. 
 
 The doors closed out late-comers. A hymn 
 was sung. This has been said, and echoed many 
 a time: that a hymn was sung. But this first 
 
 [50] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 hymn I heard, proceeding from over a hundred 
 hearts, should not be plainly, unemphatically 
 said to have been merely sung. If each word 
 be trebly underscored and trebly emphasized, 
 then, one may say, a hymn was sung that morn- 
 ing, for to me, the first bar of melody seemed to 
 be the onrush of an Angelic symphony through 
 a suddenly opened door of Heaven! Were they 
 common men and women who were singing with 
 such resonant exultation! The boarded ceil- 
 ing and the huge square attic room throbbed 
 with it. Rapture, adoration, victory, joy un- 
 speakable weighted down each note % as the 
 melody unfolded itself. The reliant basses, 
 anchored to the background of the melody — 
 a resonant, manly anchorage — made sudden 
 excursions into the higher realms of the theme, 
 but not to displace the tenors whose shrill 
 praises were the nearest to what a hammer 
 stroke on a bar of silver would produce. The 
 dulcet altos, as rich depths of throat as any 
 one might expect, entwined themselves in and 
 out of the sopranos' soaring, singing as if to 
 keep those higher voices from too suddenly 
 darting past the doors of Heaven and surpris- 
 ing God. That was no mere singing of a hymn. 
 It was a hymn for the love of the hymn; singing 
 for the pure love of singing. Or, better, a spir- 
 itual exercise that could certainly be no more 
 willingly or much better done in a morning 
 rehearsal of the Court melodists! 
 
 [51] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Wonderful!" I gasped to Thropper, whose 
 tenor had added much to the dignity of that 
 part. 
 
 "They do sing well, don't they?" he com- 
 mented. 
 
 A demure little woman in black, with a very 
 set, white face, came to the reading desk and 
 read a scripture lesson. Then the sober Dean, 
 whose eyes knew every thought in that room 
 and said so, gave some notices. There followed 
 a prayer whose outstanding character was 
 earnestness of expression, of theme, of length. 
 Then the whole service was embroidered by 
 three verses of another hymn, after which we 
 fell in orderly lines and marched through the 
 open doors, where an electric gong broke up 
 the line into unorganized groups, scattering for 
 the classrooms. 
 
 "Now for the President's office," announced 
 Thropper, abruptly. 
 
 But a sudden pang of fear whipped across 
 my thoughts. 
 
 "Oh, suppose I can't enter, Thropper!" I 
 exclaimed. "It has tasted so good, thus far!" 
 
 He patted me on the back, in his manly way, 
 did Thropper, and heartened me by saying, 
 
 "Well, Priddy, if you like the first taste, I 
 guess you'll stay for the whole meal — if you 
 are hungry!" 
 
 "Thanks, old fellow," I said. "Take me to 
 the President!" 
 
 [52] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 He led me downstairs into a very busy office 
 where some young women were typewriting, 
 inscribing books, and where one dudish young 
 man with up-combed, wavy hair, was flirting 
 with a pretty, tan-cheeked girl who was sup- 
 posed to be engrossed in the task of trimming 
 a window shelf of geraniums. 
 
 Thropper was told that the President was 
 engaged and that we should have to wait our 
 turn. So we sat in high-backed chairs, in line 
 with three others, where I waited with a pal- 
 pitating heart that began to spell panic if 
 my turn were delayed much longer^ To in- 
 crease this threatened panic of courage, Thropper 
 began to whisper terrible things about the Pres- 
 ident: how he was a wonderful reader of books 
 and had a mentality and memory so well dis- 
 ciplined that he was able to read an entire 
 page at a mere glance and be able to pass an 
 exacting examination on its contents a day 
 afterwards! Thropper also whispered in an 
 awe-struck voice, 
 
 "The President just feeds on learning! He 
 can speak in ten different languages, read in 
 fifteen, about, and think in twelve: so they say. 
 You mustn't fool with him or tell him any funny 
 stories ! He'd never get over it, Priddy. Now, 
 come on, it's your turn. I'll introduce you and 
 leave you with him!" 
 
 My sensitive imagination enkindled by all 
 that Thropper had fed me on, in the waiting 
 
 [53] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 room, I appeared before the President consider- 
 ably unnerved. He sat behind his desk, wait- 
 ing for me: the embodiment of every austere 
 report I had heard. His mouth twitched; 
 twitched all the time. His eyes shone as 
 brightly as those of an aroused lion from the 
 dark mask of a cave. It was a race between 
 his mouth and his eyes: the mouth slipped in 
 and out, lip over lip, lip under and over lip, 
 while those two small eyes snapped back and 
 forth with electric suddenness. His gaunt fea- 
 tures had the pallor of death. A world of woe, 
 of hunger, of intellectual dissipation could be 
 read in him. He tried to compose his features 
 into a smile of welcome when he saw me, but it 
 seemed so unusual a thing for those ascetic 
 signs to be disturbed by the intrusion of anything 
 pleasurable, that the first attempt ended in a 
 sad failure. He did not try again. His voice 
 was tired when he spoke. It had neither 
 vibration nor health in it. I stood before that 
 presence chilled, uninspired, while a strong 
 temptation to flight pulled on my courage. 
 
 "Sir," began Thropper, fingering his cap, 
 "I've brought Mr. Priddy in. He came yester- 
 day, and I've been letting him share my room 
 till he saw you." 
 
 "'Had seen,' you should say, sir," corrected 
 the President, "if you are after the proper 
 tense of the verb. You may go." 
 
 Thropper sighed deeply as he left, probably 
 
 [541 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 over the grammatical correction just imposed 
 on him. 
 
 A seat was indicated and I was asked to place 
 myself in it. Then the President said, 
 
 "Just tell your story in your own way till 
 I interrupt you, young man." 
 
 Thereupon I went into such minute details 
 about myself, that I soon brought from the 
 official a grunt of impatience. 
 
 "No," he said, "I'm not a bit eager to know 
 how many times your family has moved about 
 the country. I want to know the salient things 
 about you yourself." 
 
 "I've been working in the mill till last week," 
 I said. "I always have been eager to get an 
 education. I haven't been able to save any 
 money. I heard about this place. I came on. 
 If you can't take me, then please let me live 
 here; just live here, it will do me good even if 
 I don't take any studies. I can work out and 
 earn my board, I promise you. I have been 
 earning my own living for a long time now, 
 sir." 
 
 "How much money have you brought?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Three dollars," I said. "But you don't 
 need to take me in yet, sir," I explained, hur- 
 riedly, for I felt that he would surely turn me 
 off. 
 
 "A young woman came here, last year, with 
 just four cents in her pocket and only her own 
 
 [55] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 strength to rely upon, young man," replied 
 the President. "Her own strength and God to 
 rely upon, I should say, sir." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "There are several here who, at middle age, 
 have arrived with wives and families and hardly 
 more than enough to keep them a week, save 
 their own strength and God's." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "There is one student here who, at forty-five, 
 has given up his position in business to begin in 
 the lowest grade of study, with arithmetic, that 
 he may receive an education." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "So that you, with your youth, your three 
 dollars, your opportunity, ought really to get 
 along fairly well here." 
 
 "If you take me, sir?" 
 
 "Do you think we would turn you off, young 
 
 99 
 
 man: 
 
 "You mean that you'll give me a chance, 
 then?" I cried, in great exultation at his quiet 
 words. 
 
 At last a faint smile did untangle itself from 
 his austere line. 
 
 "You are already earning your board in the 
 dining hall, I understand." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "That leaves merely the small item of tui- 
 tion and room rent. I think that you will be 
 able to find enough work about the campus 
 
 [56] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 and in the village to arrange for the payment of 
 that. If not, you should be able to earn enough 
 next summer to do it." 
 
 "Just the thing, sir," I cried. "I'll do it! 
 Here is the first payment." I handed him the 
 three dollars. 
 
 He waved his hand. 
 
 " Keep them for necessities," he said. "There 
 is no hurry. God is back of us, young man, 
 and will raise up friends for us. I want you 
 to work hard and make of yourself a useful man 
 in the world. We have no luxuries here. It is 
 plain living and high thinking: the two essen- 
 tial equipments of manhood, I believe. If you 
 will share our hardships faithfully and work 
 hard, we welcome you to us. That is all. Now 
 we will see about your list of studies." 
 
 After fifteen minutes' appraisement of my 
 intellectual attainments and of my intellectual 
 aim, the President made me out a list of sub- 
 jects with such diverse studies on it as: Begin- 
 ning Grammar, Church history, elementary 
 arithmetic, Jevon's Logic, elementary Latin, 
 typewriting and zoology! I hurried from the 
 office, with the card, to attend my first class, 
 the first real step in my higher education, the 
 class in Church history! 
 
 [57] 
 
Chapter V. Pungo HalPs Occu- 
 pants: Estes Who Planned to Take 
 a "Tent and Plant it in the Midst 
 of the World* s Sin; of the Little 
 Man Who Fled from the C hidings 
 of a c D.jD.\* of Calloused Hands 
 and Showing How c Pa* Borden 
 was Beaten by the Grass Widower 
 with the Long Hair 
 
 EVERY scar that a sin may leave, every 
 phase of ambition made possible in 
 a democratic world, every type of 
 dramatic character: these I found in 
 Pungo Dormitory. As to a shelter 
 from the world's temptations had come firm- 
 lipped, tense-browed men in middle life. As 
 to the door which led into serviceable adventures, 
 had come stout-hearted, finely-fibred but poor 
 youths. Evangelical University meant more 
 than a place where one could get a formal edu- 
 
 [58] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cation. To some it meant a haven from a 
 rough sea: a sea so rough, indeed, that but for 
 the harbor must have wrecked them inevitably. 
 The sea, for instance, on which Estes, in Num- 
 ber 18, had found such tempestuous experiences. 
 To imagine Estes you have to think of two small, 
 very glistening black eyes shining through a 
 forest of beard like hut lights gleaming like 
 faint stars in the midst of a dense grove. That 
 was all you noticed, at first, about him, for his 
 body was insignificant, unimportant. The little 
 knobs of cheek that came between the eyes and 
 the black beard shone with a dull fed glow, 
 like flesh that the winds and the frosts had 
 hardened and tinted. When on the campus, 
 Estes crowned his blackish head with a cow-boy's 
 sombrero, worn at a rakish, foppish slant, as if 
 he were trying to be reminiscent of a Mexican 
 senor. A man to be called merely a poseur when 
 met on the campus or in the classroom, with 
 his arithmetic, his grammar, his English his- 
 tory, and his black teacher's Bible in the crook 
 of his arm; a thirty-seven-year-old man with 
 his foot on the first rung of the educational lad- 
 der. To most of the students he was known 
 only in the role of "elementary student.' 5 But 
 in the confidence of his chamber, among his 
 selected friends, when he opened his record, it 
 was akin to the opening of furnace doors to show 
 the furious white heat of a man's sinful passion 
 and the dark, twisting, sulphurous smoke of 
 
 [59] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 criminal deceit. He had betrayed men and 
 women in selfish conspiracies; had drowned his 
 wit in seas of alcohol ; had abandoned his mother 
 and family to the cruelties of poverty and ill- 
 ness; had stolen money and honor from his 
 fellows; had mixed in the cheap and petty evil 
 sports of sailors and tramps ; had roamed through 
 the land in the guise of an Indian doctor sell- 
 ing watery and greasy medicaments under a 
 hissing, gasolene torch to confiding purchasers; 
 had held responsible positions in shops; had — 
 there seemed to be no end to his adventures in 
 which the coloring always turned out to be the 
 fact that in all of them he had introduced ele- 
 ments of sin, of criminality, of cruelty. They 
 always ended against those grim stone walls! 
 After walking through the pages of several 
 high-strung romances of vagabondage and 
 clap-trap he had turned to Evangelical Uni- 
 versity as to the mould for a new character 
 which was to form him over, not only into a 
 socialized being, but into a serviceable, spiritual 
 servant; for after he should have had ingrained 
 on him the elementary knowledge of Grammar, 
 Bible, and History, he planned to take a tent 
 into the world, set it in the midst of the slums 
 for a season, and nightly exhort bad men to 
 become good with the same fervid impulsive- 
 ness with which he had formerly exhorted them, 
 under the yellow blaze of gasolene lamps, to 
 buy pills and medicine-cure-alls. 
 
 [60] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 In room "20" dwelt a student of an oppo- 
 site type who embodied in an eloquent degree 
 the strength and adventure to which ambi- 
 tion may attain. "Dr." Up well was a little 
 north-of-Ireland Scotchman, past his forty- 
 third summer: an ordained clergyman in an 
 energetic denomination. He was one of those 
 unfortunate men — of which there are a sad 
 number in the pastorate — who, in a moment of 
 illogical frailty had succumbed to the tempta- 
 tion which a letter offered, of securing for a 
 trivial sum of dollars the dignified, honorary 
 degree of "Doctor of Divinity." A\ first the 
 privilege of adding two capital "D's" to his 
 name, on his letter heads, his visiting cards, his 
 church advertisements in the Saturday evening 
 paper, and on the gold-lettered sign in front of 
 his church, had been highly appraised. Those 
 two "D's" had added almost a furlong to his 
 mental egoism. He felt himself admitted to 
 the highest peak where dwelt the chosen theolog- 
 ical giants. But finally, after much thinking 
 — for Upwell was at heart an honorable man — 
 conscience had asserted itself with a flaming 
 manifestation that shrivelled up this mental 
 egoism and left inside the poor man's mind a 
 mass of smoking, smouldering remorse which 
 no amount of "Poohing" could quench. Con- 
 science, in that sure way it has, and blunt, kept 
 saying: "You are not worthy of the 'D.D.' In 
 the first place, you are ill furnished with educa- 
 
 [611 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tion. You have never been under the disci- 
 pline of a school. What you have is merely 
 the results of desultory home reading. You 
 have never accomplished anything worthy of a 
 'D.D.' honor. You are minister to a handful 
 of farmers, in an isolated community, in a 
 church which pays a salary of five hundred and 
 fifty dollars a year — when it does. You have 
 never made more than four speeches in Confer- 
 ence, and they were in debate — remarks from 
 the floor, in which the Chairman found you ' out- 
 of-order' twice! You have played no heroic 
 part in social reform or made any spiritual 
 stir. The degree was purchased because you 
 were selfishly ambitious. It was sold to you 
 in cold blood by a college that funded itself, 
 partly, by such sales. Suppose that Peter, 
 when you came to the gates of Heaven, should 
 ask you, 'Upwell, give me name, dignities, and 
 titles!' what would you reply? 'Chad worth 
 Up well, Doctor of Divinity!' with a host of 
 angels to laugh at you? Not so. You would 
 feel cheap, miserable!" 
 
 Thus stung more and more into remorse, the 
 little Scotchman had finally been driven out to 
 seek a place where, at least, he could be worthy 
 of his ill-gotten honorary degree. He had 
 come to Evangelical University to fill the mind 
 with theology, ethics, history, and literature, 
 so that at the end of a year or two there might 
 be some degree of merit and fitness when he 
 
 [62] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 placed "D.D." after his name! Of course, 
 Upwell did not put it in that bald way, but from 
 the persistency with which he rolled the "D.D." 
 under his tongue, while criticizing the posses- 
 sion of it, it was not difficult to know that he 
 would never bury it. 
 
 In Pungo Hall I came face to face with young 
 men to whom the gates of educational privi- 
 lege had been closed until they, like myself, 
 were on the threshold of young manhood. 
 They had come from the hearts of coal mines 
 and breakers, bringing their life's dreams with 
 them, and an indomitable purpose. Every 
 penny they spent for books and board had 
 been earned by the sweat of their brow. They 
 had come, many of them, from far-away farms 
 and from the Southern mountain fastnesses 
 where life's expressions of hope and desire were 
 to be seen in crude form; where they found that 
 it took the "breath of an ideal to blow the 
 dust off the actual." Hands I shook, in fellow- 
 ship, that were scarred from hard toil, calloused 
 through contact with the tools of labor. 
 
 The comprehensiveness of the curriculum of 
 Evangelical University was shown in the case 
 of the Borden family. I became intimately 
 acquainted with the head of the family, Julius 
 Borden, while cutting sugar cane on the Uni- 
 versity farm. Julius was a pale edition of 
 Falstaff: fat, self-sufficient, self-important, with 
 a scraggly yellowish moustache half screening 
 
 [63] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 his pouting lips, and with a triple chin constantly 
 slipping like a worm back and forth over the 
 folds of the points of his collar. Mr. Borden, 
 even at forty-two, after the discipline of busi- 
 ness, married life, and children, took himself 
 too seriously. He spoke with hesitating pre- 
 cision, though not with grammatical fluency, 
 as if he had predetermined that no word should 
 ever come from the depths of his profundity 
 that did not aptly fit into the seriousness of 
 life. The merest word I flung at him became 
 a challenge that could be answered only when 
 the hoe had been put down, the moustache 
 pulled, the brows contracted in thought, and 
 the throat cleared. When I greeted him with 
 a trivial, "How do!" he could not trust himself 
 to reply with audible words; he wanted me to 
 take his acquiescence for granted — I could 
 see it by the surprised look in his eyes. As he 
 had been a success at the grave-stone business, 
 had been married the longest of any of the mar- 
 ried students, and possessed the most children, 
 he seemed to realize that these were tokens of 
 superior power when compared to our bachelor, 
 or the other married students' bridal, limita- 
 tions. He fairly withered our proffered sug- 
 gestions or theories or criticisms, with his 
 weighty authoritative, "I've seen so much, 
 you see!" It was, in his own estimation, equal 
 to a hurricane from the Talmud blowing on the 
 chaff of the Apocrypha. By reason of this con- 
 
 [64] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 stantly paraded wisdom, Julius soon became 
 current on the campus as "Pa" Borden. 
 
 He had given up his grave-stone business; 
 had brought his money, his wife, and two chil- 
 dren to the University for a "family fitting" as 
 he termed it; much as a farmer goes to the gen- 
 eral store with his family to be clothed, shoed, 
 and candied. The wife, at her marriage, had 
 just graduated from a high school, so that she 
 entered the collegiate department of the Uni- 
 versity, on her way towards an A.B. to be 
 earned outside of the chicken-raising in which 
 she indulged. Jack, a quick-witted^ lad of 
 twelve, found a place in the elementary classes, 
 by the side of Estes, two Porto Ricans, a Japan- 
 ese, a missionary's little girl, and several other 
 students who had to commence at the bottom 
 of the educational scale. Edith, a romantic- 
 eyed daughter, who wore Scotch-plaid dresses 
 and Sis Hopkins' braids, was plunging through 
 the College Preparatory division close on the 
 heels of her mother. The father, least of the 
 family in school discipline, had to humble him- 
 self so low as to take his place with a backward 
 grass widower in a "B" section of the grammar 
 class because of his tendency to forget, after 
 a day, the relations and distinctions between 
 verbs and nouns and the various other members 
 of the grammar family. But Julius saw to it 
 that besides the baneful necessity of his humble 
 place in the grammar class he came to a proper 
 
 [65] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 level in those studies in which he could express 
 his preference. He revelled in the Bible class, 
 the Historical and the Oratorical classes to his 
 heart's content, but though he shone creditably 
 in them, he never could quite clear himself 
 from the "B" section of the grammar class; 
 grammar being his thorn in the flesh, as he tes- 
 tified in one evening's prayer-meeting, when the 
 Apostle Paul and his historic affliction was the 
 lesson. Even the backward grass widower, who 
 had a thick mass of shining curls and intended 
 becoming a temperance "orator" finally gradu- 
 ated from the "B" section, thereby heightening 
 the shame of poor Julius, who seemed predes- 
 tined to do poorly with the science of speech, 
 and forever linger in the shadow of the "poor- 
 doers." 
 
 [66] 
 
Chapter VI. Financial Pessimism 
 Taken in Hand by Thropper and 
 Shown in its Real Light. A Turkish 
 Rug that Smoked. A Poet in 
 Search of Kerosene. Wonderful 
 Antics of an Ironing- Board. Econ- 
 omy at a Tub. Three more Wait- 
 ing for it After Brock' s Bath. The 
 Chemical Reduction of a Cauldron 
 of Tomatoes into Something Sweet 
 
 MY capital of three dollars was very 
 quickly expended. After I had 
 spent the last quarter of a dollar 
 for writing paper and pens, my 
 pockets were as empty as they 
 were the hour I bought my suit from the 
 Jewish merchant. I stood penniless in the 
 first week of my educational career: a realiza- 
 
 [67] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tion that brought out every atom of self- 
 distrust, philosophical pessimism and gloomy 
 foreboding. I had been completely dependent 
 upon nickels and half dollars previously. I 
 had not moved without they paved the way. 
 Nothing of enjoyment and privilege had 
 been secured without money. Theatres, games, 
 parties, trips; these had always made their 
 call on my spending money. Now I stood facing 
 an academic career absolutely without a penny 
 and with no possible hope that in the outside 
 world there would ever be any benefactor to 
 forward one. I was stranded. I thought of 
 the students who relied upon monthly checks 
 from home or from friends. I thought of the 
 students who had their own bank accounts 
 which would carry them through the school. 
 I thought, with a kindling of envy, of the stu- 
 dents who the previous summer had earned 
 the following year's expenses. I secured a 
 minimum of comfort from such reflections. 
 They plunged me deeper and deeper into the 
 gulping pit that sucks enthusiasm out of life. 
 
 Thropper found me, standing by the window, 
 indulging in such a dispiriting review of my 
 prospects. In his bustling way he shouted: 
 
 "Well, Priddy, what's the row now, eh?" 
 
 "I shouldn't be — here," I choked. 
 
 "Well," he exclaimed, "I thought you'd get 
 'em — soon." 
 
 "What do you mean, Thropper?" 
 
 [68] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Homesick blues, that's all. You've got 
 every symptom showing, Priddy. They're on 
 you, all right." 
 
 "I'm not homesick, Thropper," I blurted out. 
 "I have no reason to be homesick. It's not that 
 at all. I'm fretting about money: that's all." 
 
 "The root of all evil," he mocked. 
 
 "Wrong there, Thropper." I half smiled, 
 cheered beyond measure by his banter. "I 
 heard a preacher say that the Bible said, 'The 
 love of money is the root of evil.'" 
 
 "Well," bluffed Thropper, "what's the dif- 
 ference? Wherever you find money vou find 
 the love of it. They are synonymous. 
 
 "I'm in no danger from either, about this 
 time, Thropper. I haven't a cent to my name, 
 and as I search the future I don't see a pros- 
 pect of any except I give up the University." 
 
 "That needn't worry you, Priddy!" 
 
 I looked at my room-mate in amazement. 
 He was not smiling. In fact, he was looking 
 very seriously at me. 
 
 "Not worry me?" I gasped. "That's com- 
 forting, to be sure!" 
 
 "What have you got to worry about?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "What — worry about?" I stammered, not 
 falling in with his mood. 
 
 "Yes. Tell me!" 
 
 "In the first place," I explained, "you know 
 that I had but three dollars — three — t-h-r-e-e, 
 
 [69] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 three, d-o-l-l-a-r-s, dollars; three dollars — to 
 begin my education with." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I don't think I told you that I shall never 
 expect any help from the outside; that if I stay 
 here I shall have to rely entirely on what I can 
 earn with my own hands." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Isn't it clear, Thropper?" 
 
 "Isn't what clear?" 
 
 "The predicament I'm in." 
 
 " Predicament? " 
 
 " Of course ! " I retorted, impatiently. " What 
 else is it for a fellow to be stranded as I am? 
 You surely wouldn't call it a blessing, would 
 you?" 
 
 "I might!" 
 
 "What!" 
 
 Then Thropper, without another word, delib- 
 erately turned inside out each pocket that he 
 owned and deposited in my hands the following 
 items : A well-worn ink and pencil eraser, a foun- 
 tain pen, a stub of a Dixon's indelible pencil, 
 some blurred pencil notes, a half dozen tooth- 
 picks, a crumpled letter, a bunch of keys, a 
 bachelor button, two handkerchiefs, and fifteen 
 cents in two nickels and five coppers. 
 
 [70] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "There," he sighed. "That's all. There's 
 not a penny in my trunk. The money repre- 
 sents my worldly fortunes — until I go out and 
 earn more. I, too, have to rely upon my own 
 efforts. Shake, Priddy!" 
 
 The big-hearted fellow reached for my empty 
 hand and gave it a vigorous shaking. 
 
 "You're not bad off!" he declared. "Let 
 me tell you why. You see," he went on to ex- 
 plain, "after you've got in the swing of things 
 here, you become somewhat of a social or eco- 
 nomic philosopher. You're rich, Priddy!" He 
 smiled benevolently on me. 
 
 'What do you mean?" I demanded. 
 
 "You're English, aren't you?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "That accounts for it, probably." 
 
 "Accounts for what?" 
 
 "Your high and exalted estimate put on 
 money necessary to get you through college. 
 I understand that across the water it is only 
 the rich and the noble who are welcomed to the 
 colleges; that the mass of workers have come to 
 respect education accordingly. At least, that 
 is the idea one gets through the books and mag- 
 azine articles which have to do with English 
 college life. Whether it is true or not is another 
 matter. Anyway, Priddy, you've got to under- 
 stand that things are different in America. Our 
 colleges are democratic and extremely prac- 
 tical. Now take yourself, for instance; you 
 
 [71] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 have come out here regarding it impossible for 
 you to move hand or foot towards your educa- 
 tion without money in your pocket. Things 
 are so arranged that you don't need to give your- 
 self much trouble on that account. You say 
 you've got no money and that you ought to get 
 away from here, on that account. That's the 
 way thousands of plow boys and machine ten- 
 ders are arguing, only they say, 'We haven't 
 any money; therefore we've no chance to get 
 to college.'" 
 
 "I know that's so," I interrupted. 
 
 "You see this arm," and Thropper made a 
 sledge-hammer of his right arm, bringing his 
 clenched fist down on his table. "That repre- 
 sents my endowment of good health and 
 strength. How much is that worth, in terms of 
 dollars earned in a year during spare time, 
 Priddy?" 
 
 "Why — I—" 
 
 "Sixty-five dollars during school terms last 
 year, outside of vacations: sixty-five dollars 
 earned at odd jobs during Saturdays and odd 
 hours," he said. "All the spare cash I was 
 called upon to spend. Of course in the sum- 
 mer, by canvassing stereoscopic views, I cleared 
 sixty-seven more, above my expenses. That's 
 what the arm stands for. Its strength is con- 
 vertible into cash almost any day that I care 
 to go out and earn it — keeping on with my 
 studies, too, of course." 
 
 [72] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "But I'm earning my board by waiting on 
 table," I urged; "that does not touch my tui- 
 tion and room rent, Thropper." 
 
 'Which amounts to about thirty dollars out- 
 side of board," he laughed. "You aren't worth 
 much if you can't earn that in a year and keep 
 on with your studies, Priddy. I think you're 
 lucky, that's what I think, in earning your 
 board so easily. That's the big item!" 
 
 "But what can I find to do? I can't leave 
 the campus. I have to be around for the meal 
 hours." 
 
 Thropper went over to his desk and secured 
 a brown-backed account book, and read off the 
 following list: 
 
 "Stacking books in the library, twelve cents 
 an hour. Wheeling Professor Dix's invalid 
 aunt in wheel chair, twelve cents an hour and 
 dinner. Scrubbing floors in University Hall, 
 twelve cents an hour. Weeding garden, cutting 
 sugar-cane, thawing frozen gas pipes, grading 
 lawn, kneading bread, cleaning black-boards, 
 ringing bell, watchman, running washing- 
 machines, errands, pruning trees, dusting Pro- 
 fessor Harvey's insects; all twelve cents an hour, 
 Priddy. The list of my chores for last year. 
 Possibilities for you, my boy!" 
 
 "Oh, I see!" 
 
 "Feel better, now?" 
 
 I smiled and then said, feelingly, to my room- 
 mate: 
 
 [73] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Thropper, you'd be worth ten dollars an 
 an hour in a hospital bracing up discouraged 
 financiers; that you would!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he answered, pleased 
 with what I said. "I've been up against it 
 myself, Priddy. I understand, that's all." 
 
 "Have been up against it?" I gasped. 
 "Thropper, I guess you should put it in the 
 present tense: are up against it. Here is your 
 fifteen cents, your present fortune. What are 
 you going to do about money?" 
 
 "Oh, me?" He felt under his table and 
 brought out to view a tin lunch box made to 
 resemble a bundle of school books. "I'll have 
 that filled on Saturday morning at six o'clock, 
 put on these — " he rumbled behind his clothes- 
 screen and threw a pair of dirty overalls on the 
 floor and a soft, black shirt — "and go to my 
 regular Saturday job in the glass factory. A 
 dollar and fifty for the day; regular as the week 
 comes around. That's the way I take care of 
 myself, Priddy!" 
 
 "But when I work for the University I don't 
 get cash, do I, Thropper?" 
 
 " No," he said, " it goes on your bill. But you 
 won't find it hard to get along without money 
 here," he said, "there isn't much that you can 
 buy, outside of clothes and a lecture in the vil- 
 lage once in a while. You'll soon become accus- 
 tomed to getting along without cash, all right." 
 
 When Saturday morning arrived, it was a 
 
 [74] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 distinct surprise to hear Thropper moving in 
 the room first, for he usually had droned while 
 I prepared for the day's work. I opened my 
 eyes. The alarm clock on the table told me 
 that it was half past five. I watched my room- 
 mate as he donned his working clothes and put 
 on a slouch hat. 
 
 "An Englishman would call you a 'navvy,'" 
 I smiled. 
 
 "I should think an American would call me 
 a tramp!" he replied. "But you ought to see 
 some of the Bulgarians I have to work with!" 
 He spread out his hands expressively to indicate 
 that whatever the Bulgarians did look like, he 
 had not the rhetoric available at that moment 
 with which to describe them. 
 
 There came a knock on the door and in 
 response to Thropper 's cheery "Come in!" 
 there appeared another "tramp" with his lunch 
 box; a tall, high-cheek-boned Southerner, named 
 Tripp, who drawled, 
 
 "Best be gettin' deown, Thropper!" 
 
 So with a good-bye, Thropper left the room, 
 turning to tell me that if I found time, I might 
 clean up the room — in his absence. 
 
 "Be sure and shake the Turkish rugs," he 
 laughed, pointing to the patches of well-worn 
 carpet that were used for rugs. 'When you 
 shake them you'll find them very Turkish; 
 they smoke!" 
 
 By the time the early lunch for the workers 
 
 [75] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had ended, there were seven "tramps" who 
 went to the glass factory with Thropper. In- 
 cluded among them were two students, whom, 
 judged by their excellent dress and their social 
 graces on the campus, I had thought were none 
 other than the sons of wealthy parents. 
 
 When the Bible verses had been given at the 
 tables and after the last slice of fried potato 
 had been scraped out of the dish, the students 
 hurried from the room and disposed themselves 
 for work. 
 
 As I left the dining-hall, I saw young women 
 with duster caps on their heads, leaning out of 
 dormitory windows shaking rugs; others I found 
 hurrying down to other dormitories with bundles 
 of laundry. When I arrived in Pungo Hall, 
 I was greeted with the thumping of brushes, 
 the clatter of furniture, and the shouts of the 
 men as they called to one another above the 
 clouds of dust that were being hurled from 
 the rooms into the hallway. 
 
 A knock came on my door as I started to 
 sweep the room, and Jason, the poet, poking his 
 long neck around the corner of the door-post, 
 asked in the most concerned way imaginable, 
 
 "Brother Priddy, is the kerosene can here?" 
 
 "Why — no, I haven't seen it. What do 
 you do with kerosene? Don't you burn gas?" 
 
 Jason blushed, and then replied, 
 
 "Oh — we — er — use the kerosene for 
 beds!" 
 
 [76] 
 
Jason, the Poet, Looked in 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Beds?" 
 
 "To subdue those fiery creatures who dom- 
 icile in beds!" he affirmed. 
 
 "Oh, bugs!" I blurted with such roughness 
 that it must have made his sensitive and poetic 
 nerves clang. 
 
 At eight o'clock a group of students, with 
 clean collars and well-pressed clothes, came down 
 from the University building, each carrying an 
 ironing-board, to be sold in some nearby town. 
 This ironing-board was entirely unlike every 
 other ironing-board invented by man or woman. 
 It was the product of the fertile and practical 
 mind of our mathematical professor; its chief 
 virtues being, as described in the prospectus, 
 that "it stands up like a soldier, kneels down 
 like a camel, and folds up like a jack-knife!" 
 With all its novelty, it was extremely practical 
 and, the agents reported, sold well. A large 
 number of useful citizens are out in the ser- 
 viceable centres of life, who, if they ever choose 
 a coat of arms will have to adorn their shield 
 with an ironing-board — "rampant," for to it 
 they owe much of the financial lubrication which 
 smoothed their passage through the school. 
 
 Hurrying after the same train were three 
 young women, each armed with a book, on their 
 way to make fifty per cent from literary house- 
 holders. At different hours of the morning other 
 students went to the village where every sort 
 of task from house-cleaning to raking up dead 
 
 [77] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 gardens was undertaken. Evangelical Univer- 
 sity was at work. 
 
 The head-waiter, Brock, came into the room 
 as I was cleaning it and said: 
 
 "Priddy, has anyone been in after the tub?" 
 
 "The tub?" 
 
 "Yes, and the rubbing board!" 
 
 "I didn't know those things were here." 
 
 "Your roommate and I have a whole laundry 
 set on shares. Look in my room and you'll 
 see the irons; the flat-irons." 
 
 "No, the tub and the board are not here," I 
 reported, after a search. 
 
 The tall German went into the hall, raised 
 his voice in a great, resounding shout: 
 
 "The wash tub! Who has it?" 
 
 A door at the end of the hallway opened and 
 a voice replied: 
 
 "Just rinsing out my shirt, Brock. Have it 
 in a jiffy!" 
 
 A few minutes later Brock called to me from 
 his room. When I presented myself before 
 him, I discovered him with his sleeves rolled 
 up, busily engaged in pouring hot water from a 
 kettle over some shirts and handkerchiefs. 
 
 "Any white things of yours, handkerchiefs 
 or shirts, Priddy," he announced, "might just 
 as well go in with mine." 
 
 So we shared the wash that morning. After 
 they had been rinsed, I carried them to the rear 
 of the building and hung them on a double 
 
 [78] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 wire line where the gas-laden air from the sheep- 
 pastures hummed through them and the sun 
 burned them dry in an hour. 
 
 That same afternoon, after having expressed 
 to Brock my desire for extra work in the hours 
 when I was not on duty in the dining-hall, I 
 found myself standing over an immense caul- 
 dron under which blazed a hot camp-fire. In 
 the cauldron were bushels of tomatoes and 
 many pounds of sugar. With a long ladle I 
 stirred the concoction until nine o'clock that 
 night, save for the interruption of supper, and 
 by that time I had the satisfaction of ^seeing it 
 turn from a vivid pink to a dark red until it 
 turned into a tarty, pasty preserve, not unlike 
 strawberry damson in appearance. That night 
 there went on the University records, against 
 my name, "To seven hours' labor, at 12 cents, 
 .84." I had paid that much, that week, towards 
 my tuition. 
 
 L79] 
 
Chapter VII. An Academic Ride 
 in Five Carriages at Once. A 
 Business Appeal Mixed in with 
 the Order of Creation. Is it Best 
 for a Man to Marry his First 
 Love. A Sleuth-Dean. A Queen's 
 Birthday Supper with an Athletic 
 Conclusion, ferry Birch Stands 
 up for Albion. How we "Tamed 
 him 
 
 THE terror that at first had been 
 imposed upon me by the sense 
 of my own ignorance, a terror which 
 had led me to think that at twenty 
 years of age no ambitious youth 
 could at all fit into the educational scheme, 
 died down quite rapidly at Evangelical TJni- 
 
 [80] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 versity. The curriculum there was no arbi- 
 trary imposition, as it is so commonly in the 
 Four-Hundred-Dollar-a-Year University, into 
 which a student must fit himself willy-nilly, 
 and to which he must either conform or not 
 approach. The Evangelical University curric- 
 ulum was made to bend to the needs of an 
 illiterate man of forty and to the advanced 
 demands of the graduate who sought his doc- 
 torate in Philosophy. Its principle was that 
 of intellectual service to fit the needs of all 
 who come whether poorly fitted, old or poor. 
 Estes, "Pa" Borden, myself and many others, 
 who certainly would not have had the 
 chance for inspiration offered us in hundreds 
 of dignified schools, especially on such terms, 
 were given our life-time's chance in Evangelical 
 University. 
 
 But it must have looked chaotic, intellectu- 
 ally riotous, to a dignified dean of a classic 
 university, and, no doubt, he would have had 
 much in criticism of the university to offer, 
 from his proper angle, after looking on the 
 manner in which the students mixed their 
 courses. 
 
 In my first term I spread myself through the 
 common school, the business, the college pre- 
 paratory, the collegiate, and the theological 
 divisions of the University! It was akin to 
 taking an academic ride in five carriages at 
 once! When the professor dismissed me from 
 
 [81] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the college class in logic I went immediately 
 into the basement, where I joined the grammar 
 class, and from the grammar class I went to 
 the theological department and recited on 
 Church History. From that class I went into 
 the scientific department and was heard in 
 zoology, and from zoology I found my way in 
 the business department where I practised on 
 the typewriter. 
 
 Though I came before this intellectual priv- 
 ilege with a hungry mind, yet, threaded through- 
 out it all were the complaints of the professors 
 in regard to the limitations under which they 
 worked. The professor of science constantly 
 unfolded to us, who met him in zoology, a 
 pet dream of his which comprehended a future 
 benefactor who should increase the number of 
 specimens in the museum. The English pro- 
 fessor was embarrassed frequently by the inade- 
 quacy of the library. In our Bible classes, the 
 President would take us into his confidence, 
 the day after a faculty meeting, and descant upon 
 the hardship, the embarrassing, financial hard- 
 ship, of meeting the expenses of the school. 
 There was no lack of dignity to this proceeding, 
 for each one of us felt under obligations to the 
 University, knowing well enough that what- 
 ever financial sacrifices the faculty underwent, 
 were sacrifices made in order that we might 
 receive an education. So the President was 
 within the bounds of propriety and discipline 
 
 [82] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 when he concluded his report with his custom- 
 ary: "And so, young ladies and gentlemen, if 
 you are acquainted with any business men or 
 wealthy person who might be made generous 
 by our worthy appeal, kindly hand me their 
 names and addresses after class. Mr. Stanton, 
 you will please describe the order of creation 
 as given in the first book of Moses!" 
 
 But it was not long before I had to realize 
 that I had put myself under an exacting dis- 
 cipline by coming to Evangelical University. 
 We had a dean who in effectiveness and as a 
 sleuth would have been the dean of cleans had 
 an international society of them existed. The 
 presence of young men and women on the 
 campus rendered the Dean's duties doubly 
 hard. The rules were rules of a Mede. His 
 surveillance was that of a man who felt an aus- 
 tere obligation to over a hundred anxious 
 parents. No one, except by special permission, 
 could be out of his room after half-past seven 
 in the evening, save on society nights or on Sun- 
 days. For the enforcement of this rule, the 
 Dean depended upon the reports of student 
 monitors, but mainly upon his own vigilance. 
 Every dormitory was always in danger of a 
 visit from the Dean, and as the students in the 
 dormitories were prevailingly men and women 
 considerably beyond their 'teens, there was 
 no inconsiderable disobedience of this rule; it 
 made us feel too much like little children who 
 
 [83] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 are put to bed while the daylight lingers on the 
 earth. I soon had a taste of the common 
 experience. One evening three students met 
 with Thropper and me to indulge in a heated 
 and loud discussion on the question: "That it 
 is best for a man to marry his first love!" We 
 started it at half-past six and once on the line 
 of our pros and cons all sense of time and 
 existence went out of mind. We heard not 
 the inrush of students as the last bell rang, nor 
 heeded the brooding silence that had come over 
 the campus. We lived only in our arguments 
 on that "love" issue, and Thropper was in the 
 midst of a very final story of first love coming 
 out happily when tested by marriage, when 
 three knocks were heard on our wall, given by 
 the student in the next room: That was the sig- 
 nal that the Dean was stirring. Instantly the 
 window was opened, our three visitors leaped 
 out, and a few seconds later, when the Dean 
 knocked on the door, Thropper met him inno- 
 cently with the proposal, "Have a chair, sir?" 
 and the Dean, glancing about merely said, with 
 a pleasant smile, "I just thought I'd look in, 
 that's all." When he left, we knew that when 
 he went to the rooms of our three friends, up- 
 stairs, he would find them in their shirtsleeves 
 poring over their books. I often saw him in 
 the twilight or under the glow of lighted win- 
 dows, this Dean performing his duty which, to 
 a man of his fine, academic temper, must have 
 
 [84] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 been so incompatible: a tall, ungeared, gaunt- 
 faced, tight-lipped man, stooped and stealthy, 
 searching the campus with his glinting eyes, 
 squaring his jaws as he approached windows 
 where law-breakers were gathered, post-haste 
 after delinquents! 
 
 I chanced to be one among a half dozen stout 
 English hearts; at least they were English hearts 
 when somebody proposed that it might be a 
 patriotic act for us to celebrate, in a fitting, 
 English manner, the birthday of Queen Vic- 
 toria. On account of the un-American aspect 
 of the proposed celebration it was deejned inju- 
 dicious to ask the consent of the Dean, for we 
 felt sure he would prohibit it. We were deter- 
 mined, however, to conduct a celebration that 
 would be quiet, dignified, and memorable, 
 without having in it any semblance of disorder. 
 We also resolved to hold it on a Saturday even- 
 ing, when the rules were not so strictly upheld. 
 To this end, then, we persuaded the master of 
 the dining-hall, who was also chef and baker, 
 to fall into our scheme, though he was a loyal 
 American. We engaged him to fry the steaks, 
 and also gave him an English recipe for chipped 
 potatoes. 
 
 On the night of the celebration we met in a 
 student's room in the ell of Pungo Hall, in the 
 rear: a quiet, isolated room which also had the 
 double virtue of being a wash-room with a 
 stove in it! Over this the chef worked, quietly. 
 
 [85] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 We blanketed the windows so that no one could 
 peep on the scene. The table was spread and 
 the seats occupied. Before us, on a white plat- 
 ter and in white dishes, were the steaks and the 
 chips, surrounded by coffee, cake, and candy. 
 After the meal, the chairman proposed speeches 
 which had for their theme the greatness, the 
 majesty, and the high repute of the "glorious 
 Queen." At the conclusion of these speeches, 
 we tried to sing a reminiscent snatch of "Rule 
 Britannia," but had, finally, to compromise on 
 "God Save the Queen." The college bell had 
 struck eleven when one of the party proposed 
 that it might waken us up if we went out on 
 the campus and exercised ourselves by holding 
 a jumping contest. On account of the lavish- 
 ness of the feast and the heartiness with which 
 we had partaken, we were ready to fall in with 
 this proposal. 
 
 In front of a little cottage in which a few stu- 
 dents had double rooms, we leaped and jumped 
 very quietly for some minutes, speaking in whis- 
 pers, for it was nearly midnight, on the verge of 
 the Sabbath. But suddenly we were startled by 
 a loud voice calling from one of the windows, "I 
 have your names!" The heartless monitor had 
 spied on us. We were undone. Heartlessly, 
 guiltily, we went back to our rooms. The dam- 
 age had been done. We had been caught break- 
 ing the dread laws of the University. Nothing 
 could keep us from the wrath of the Dean. 
 
 [86] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 We indulged in our prayers and our Bible 
 study and our church attendance the following 
 day with little enthusiasm, for when we chanced 
 to meet one another we asked the same ques- 
 tion, over and over, "What will he say?" For 
 we had our heart in it. We were not flagrant 
 despisers of order. We cared for the respect of 
 our Dean. 
 
 On Monday morning we assembled in chapel 
 for the usual morning service. The Dean led 
 the service. We were expecting that during 
 the notices he would say, reading from his 
 book, "I wish to see Mr. Priddy anol Mr. this 
 and Mr. that," and so on through the list of 
 Englishmen, "at the conclusion of chapel." 
 But not so. In place of the customary sermon 
 of ten minutes, he delivered a very Patrick- 
 Henryish philippic against certain unnamed 
 students who had so far forgotten themselves as 
 not only to be unpatriotic towards their adopted 
 country, and had not only demeaned themselves 
 by an unlawful "revelry" but had even been 
 indulging in sports at midnight, on the verge of 
 the Sabbath, and thereby rendered themselves 
 unfit to give God the highest, most efficient 
 service on the holy day. The unexpectedness 
 of it, the fierceness of it, the lurid interpreta- 
 tions put on our innocent feast, its coloring into 
 a " night revel," and the charge of impiety, 
 unnerved me. I sat riveted to my chair, in 
 a cold sweat. I felt as must a murderer in 
 
 [87] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 his sober moments when he realizes to the full 
 the enormity of his deed. The Dean con- 
 cluded his philippic, during which he had not 
 mentioned a name, by this oracular notice: 
 
 "I want each one of those revelers to meet 
 me after chapel, in my office." 
 
 All eyes were sympathetic towards the Eng- 
 lishmen as we gathered at the Dean's door. In 
 his sanctuary he further explained to us the 
 extent of our crime, making it, to the mind of 
 Jerry Birch, a stubby, vigorous-minded Briton, 
 treason. Jerry flared forth in an attempt to 
 prove to the Dean that he (the Dean) was an 
 enemy to the Queen, and that an appeal might 
 properly be made to the British ambassador, 
 and — but here we cautioned Jerry to stop. 
 We finally tamed him into quietness, and the 
 Dean dismissed us with the warning to show 
 ourselves peace-respecting Americans from 
 then on. 
 
 [88] 
 
Chapter VIII. The Doctrinal 
 "Temper of the University and 
 Thropper* s Talk about it. Intro- 
 duces the Select Board of the Phar- 
 isees. Prayer- Meeting Monopoly 
 Combated by Independents. % fason 
 on my Track and How it Came out 
 
 EVANGELICAL UNIVERSITY was 
 founded by a minister of intense reli- 
 gious convictions and its policy was 
 directed by a Board composed of men 
 characterized by religious zeal. The 
 University stood committed, also, to the Chris- 
 tianization as well as to the education of its 
 students. In its advertisements, special empha- 
 sis was laid on "annual revivals," "personal, 
 religious work of students," and other evidences 
 of a flourishing religious atmosphere. 
 
 Now in this, Evangelical University stood in 
 line with hundreds of efficient institutions, but 
 it went a step farther, and not only made its 
 
 [89] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 boast in regard to its Christian background, 
 but it also gained repute as the exponent of a 
 particular, very sectarian, very dogmatic, and 
 intense doctrine; namely, that not until a par- 
 ticular emotional experience had been secured 
 was a Christian a substantial and serviceable 
 Christian. "The triple-birth doctrine," as 
 Thropper christened it, "being natural birth, 
 spiritual birth, and extra-spiritual birth." 
 
 There were several students in the Univer- 
 sity who were there merely for its intellectual 
 privileges and who did not believe in this intense 
 doctrine of "the triple-birth." 
 
 Thropper said to me, one night, when we 
 were discussing this matter: 
 
 "Priddy, I'll guarantee that out of all the stu- 
 dents here, you will not find more than five in 
 all that do not profess to have a religious experi- 
 ence. Now that ought to satisfy the Univer- 
 sity, but it won't. That isn't enough. Until 
 every one believes heart and soul in its doc- 
 trine of the 'triple-birth,' and gets emotional- 
 ized, the whole place will be turned upside 
 down. Now I have always thought myself a 
 religious fellow. I belong to the church. I am 
 trying to live a Christian life. I have a Chris- 
 tian home in which I have always been trained 
 piously and well. But they have given me no 
 rest since I came here. They pray for me every 
 year and struggle with me, and quibble about me, 
 all in order to get me to go through the ' triple- 
 
 [90] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 birth,' which may be all right for them, but does 
 not appeal to me. Yet, because I don't go over 
 to their way of thinking, they can't regard me 
 as a religious man. I'm not the only one, 
 either. There are others whom they bother 
 in the same way. If we were out and out 
 heathen, they couldn't be more alarmed over 
 us. If we were unsocial atheists and immoral 
 beings, their enthusiasm and concern would be 
 worth while, but when some of us are to be 
 preachers and respect everything that is true 
 and helpful and yet have to be prayed for in 
 public and hounded from pillar to post by them, 
 why—" 
 
 "Who do you mean by 'they' and 'them,' 
 Thropper?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, certain of the students who are enthu- 
 siasts on the 'triple-birth' doctrine," he replied. 
 "They mean well enough, and are good folks, 
 but I can't agree with their peculiar doctrines and 
 I tell them so, right out." 
 
 "But a few students can't carry off the whole 
 situation, Thropper." 
 
 "Can't, eh? Well, you see, as this is the 
 particular doctrine for which the University 
 officially stands, the few aggressive students 
 who preach the idea are really in the majority. 
 There's a little set of them, led by Jason, the 
 Poet, who roam through the life of this Univer- 
 sity like a little group of heretic hunters in some 
 medieval community, with all power and 
 
 [91] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 authority back of them." He sighed, deeply. 
 "They make life miserable for many," he 
 said. 
 
 I laughed at him. 
 
 "Why, Thropper, don't take it to heart so; 
 just go along your own way, tolerantly, know- 
 ing that if some of us can't actually agree, we 
 can respect one another's differences — if they're 
 not vicious." 
 
 He regarded me as if I had lost my wit. 
 
 "That sounds nice, that does, Priddy, and it 
 is good sense, too, but it's wasted here, old boy. 
 You and I and some others may find consola- 
 tion in it, but Jason and his Board of Phari- 
 sees would have their tongues cut out and their 
 right hands severed before they would rest easy 
 with us differing from them, standing outside 
 their particular doctrines. You don't know 
 Jason. Besides, wait till you have been here a 
 year and then you will see so many things 
 take place under the direction of the Univer- 
 sity that it will be impossible for you not to 
 know that you are 'persona grata here only when 
 you swing over to a full acceptance of the doc- 
 trine of the 'triple-birth': there'll be the annual 
 revival when a whole, intense week will be 
 devoted to hardly anything else but a propa- 
 ganda of that doctrine. There will come the 
 weekly prayer-meetings, the talks from visit- 
 ing exponents of the doctrine; oh, they won't 
 let you rest easy in your differences, Priddy. 
 
 [92] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Wait till Jason and his crowd get on your 
 track r 
 
 "You talk as if they were going to be the worst 
 sort of meddlers, Thropper." 
 
 "Didn't you hear me call them the Board of 
 the Pharisees? Did you think I didn't mean 
 that for a good description, Priddy? Well, 
 what were Pharisees always doing? Meddling. 
 Telling the people to be holy by washing the 
 dinner plates thus and so; telling the people 
 that God was found by wearing this and that. 
 Well, that's what Jason and his crowd are 
 busy doing about here, through the year. The 
 sight of a gold ring on my finger fairly dilated 
 the nostrils of one of them; he set about pray- 
 ing for me and urging me day after day to stop 
 wearing it because it was the symbol of ' carnal 
 pride,' and he quoted ever so much Scripture, 
 too." 
 
 After that I noted with especial interest the 
 monopoly exercised by Jason and a small num- 
 ber of the students — male and female — over 
 the multitude of religious meetings that em- 
 broidered the week of study. The two noon 
 prayer-meetings, the after-supper services, the 
 Thursday evening university service, the many 
 missionary meetings, the Bible study classes, 
 the Sunday morning "search" services: in all 
 these the tone was given by the fervid and dog- 
 matic Jason and his followers. Wherever a 
 religious interest of any sort chanced to be 
 
 [93] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 organized, one was certain to find on its list of 
 officers some representative of Jason, the Poet. 
 Thropper and I, and several others among the 
 students, formed "independent" circles for 
 prayer and Bible study, where we could, for 
 once a week, at least, have our own, special 
 beliefs prevail. 
 
 One November morning, as I was leaving the 
 dining-hall, Jason met me at the door. 
 
 "I should like to have a word with you, 
 Brother Priddy," he announced. 
 
 "Certainly," I replied. 
 
 "I have been considerably burdened for you, 
 lately, Brother Priddy." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "You have been the subject of my prayers." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 "Because I think, though you may not real- 
 ize it, that Satan is trying to lead you astray," 
 he answered, solemnly. 
 
 "That's interesting, I'm sure." 
 
 "It's terrible!" he half shuddered. 
 
 "But — er — what especial act of mine, 
 Jason, has brought out this — er — burden for 
 me?" 
 
 "Carnal pride!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Pride?" I gasped. "I didn't think I had 
 anything or had done anything to be proud over 
 — that I know of." 
 
 "I thought you did not see it," he announced; 
 "that is the deceitfulness of sin, it blinds us. 
 
 [94] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 That is why I came to you — to warn, you 
 understand." 
 
 "Then you will relieve the tension I am suffer- 
 ing from at this minute," I retorted, "by tell- 
 ing me just what it is to which I am blind, and 
 which is sinful. I am sure I stand ready to 
 renounce anything that is liable to stand 
 between me and God, Jason." 
 
 His severe, but intensely spiritualized fea- 
 tures relaxed at that declaration. He nodded 
 his head and rubbed his pale hands. 
 
 "I am glad that you are open to the truth, 
 Brother Priddy," he crooned, with satisfaction. 
 "I have especial reference to that watch-chain 
 of yours and to that scarf-pin." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "That and that," he reiterated, pointing first 
 to my watch-chain and then to my scarf-pin. 
 
 "Nonsense," I exclaimed. "What in the 
 world are you making this bother over?" 
 
 "That watch-chain and the pin are orna- 
 ments and personal adornments, not neces- 
 sary to the person. They are expressions of 
 pride which lies in the heart to corrupt it. 
 Therefore you will never find peace with God 
 until you have discarded them." 
 
 "Those things expressions of pride?" I 
 gasped, "why, that chain is gold-plated and 
 didn't cost more than a dollar and a half, and as 
 for the tie-pin!" I laughed. "Well, I paid 
 ten cents for it, opals and all, in a Five and Ten 
 
 [95] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Cent Store, Jason. Not much to grow proud 
 
 over." 
 
 "It is not the price, Brother Priddy, but the 
 principle." 
 
 "But I swear to you, Jason, that I don't 
 give those things a thought." 
 
 "No, granting that they don't hurt you," 
 went on Jason, persistently, "they are liable 
 to lead others into pride. It is the weak brother 
 you must think of." 
 
 "I don't think there's much danger of others 
 finding much to emulate in my jewelry or dress," 
 I answered. "I do recognize the force of what 
 you have to say about the weak brother, Jason, 
 and if, for a minute, I imagined I was doing any- 
 thing or wearing anything that would hurt the 
 life of another in any appreciable degree, why 
 I'd renounce it quickly enough, you can wager!" 
 
 "I never indulge in wagers," protested the 
 literalist, "it is ungodly. I still persist in ask- 
 ing you to give up that jewelry on the ground 
 that in all things we should walk soberly, as 
 the Bible enjoins." 
 
 "Well, I'll think it over, Jason," I said, walk- 
 ing hurriedly away. 
 
 When Thropper returned from his trigonom- 
 etry, I recounted my experience with Jason. 
 
 "Well, your days of quietness are gone now, 
 Priddy," he declared. "You've got a Phari- 
 see on your trail who will keep it until your 
 days are made miserable." 
 
 [96J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "But why doesn't he cut off his beautiful 
 curls and be consistent?" I protested. "Why 
 doesn't he throw off that peculiar vest and that 
 military coat? He'd be consistent if he did! 
 Talk about offending the weak brother! If a 
 dude wouldn't be jealous of those finely culti- 
 vated curls, I don't know a dude. I'll wager 
 Jason is always looking in the glass, at him- 
 self!" 
 
 "Oh," smiled my roommate, "you just tell 
 him about his coat and his curls and he'll have 
 his explanation ready. Those curls are sent 
 by the Lord. As for his coat and vest; they 
 are simple, without the fancy incidents common 
 to our coats ! Don't try to beat him in a quibble, 
 Priddy. He's got you before you start. Can 
 you quote over half the Bible word for word 
 without once looking at it?" 
 
 "No-o!" 
 
 "Jason can! Are you able to read it in 
 Hebrew and in Greek?" 
 
 "No-o-o!" 
 
 "Jason is! He's got you when it comes to 
 Biblical quotation and can fit a passage even 
 to so common an act as eating a dish of creamed 
 toast!" 
 
 "But I shan't give in to him — that is, 
 unless I really see the force of his arguments, 
 Thropper." 
 
 "Oh," smiled Thropper, "he'll give you force- 
 ful arguments enough, that's the hang of the 
 
 [97] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 fellow. He knows so much ! I tell you, Priddy, 
 when you employ logic, biblical lore, and a fan- 
 atical sincerity in trying to persuade an inno- 
 cent little greenhorn like you — to give up a 
 watch-chain and a tie-pin, why, the greenhorn 
 is bound to go under!" 
 
 "We'll see!" I declared, as the conclusion of 
 the subject. 
 
 The next day, Jason found me in a corner of 
 the library busy with my Latin. Without a 
 word he edged over to me, pulled a little black 
 book from his pocket, opened it at a marked 
 place, fixed it on the chair handle before me, 
 indicated the marked passage with one of his 
 long, white fingers and left me to myself. I 
 put aside my Latin and investigated. 
 
 The book was the writing of John Wesley, 
 and the place marked was a passage in a ser- 
 mon on "The Wearing of Ornaments" or some 
 such theme. In any case, that was the subject 
 treated in the marked passage. It was a reit- 
 eration of the arguments Jason had advanced, 
 but coming from so noted and often quoted an 
 authority as the founder of the Methodists, 
 it considerably sobered my impressionable 
 senses. I had no sooner closed the book, than 
 out of the unseen the Poet flitted to my side, 
 and with a whispered, "Forceful, isn't it?" Jason 
 took up the book and returned to his study. 
 
 A day or two later he brought into the dining- 
 hall a little green bound book, printed on cheap 
 
 [98] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 paper and entitled, "The Victory of Selina 
 Bostwick — Evangelist." As he handed it to 
 me, Jason said, 
 
 " Sister Bostwick is well known to me. I have 
 sung for her in tent meetings, near Chicago. 
 She is a saint of God. I want you to read the 
 place I have marked, if you cannot find time to 
 go through the whole book." 
 
 In the privacy of my room, when Thropper 
 chanced not to be around — for I did not want 
 him to see me reading Jason's book — I read 
 the extract. It recounted, in a very rambling 
 manner, the "third-birth" of Miss Best wick — 
 who, by the way, had been so inconsiderable a 
 person as a seamstress who exhorted in revival 
 services. The tale went on to show how, as a 
 young girl, Selina had been especially addicted 
 to wearing gaudy jewelry: stone-tipped hat-pins, 
 glass ornamented combs, two rings, one with a 
 cluster of imitation rubies, the other a plain 
 band, which had been her mother's wedding- 
 ring, and various brooches and fancy studs. 
 These, it seemed, had entirely prevented Selina 
 from entering into the deeper faith in God, and 
 for proof argued that so long as she fastened 
 her heart on those trinkets she had never once 
 been able to preach or exhort in meeting or 
 revival. Then the day came when she plucked 
 them from her and threw them in her trunk. 
 From that day on, she had gone into the world 
 preaching and exhorting successfully! 
 
 [99] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 When I returned the book to Jason, he en- 
 tered into a long discussion with me, and by the 
 subconscious seriousness he had created in my 
 heart over the question of ornaments and the 
 kingdom, and because I was getting weary of 
 the theme, and also because the tie-pin and the 
 watch-chain were becoming eyesores to me, I 
 finally said, 
 
 "Oh, I'll stop wearing them, I guess!" 
 
 Jason rubbed his white hands and patted me 
 on the shoulders. 
 
 "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that 
 repenteth," he quoted. 
 
 "I'm not a sin — Oh, don't let us get into 
 any more arguments over the matter," I cor- 
 rected, eager to be out of the reach of my per- 
 secutor. "Here they are; both of them to be 
 put in a drawer — or something." 
 
 I pulled out the tie-pin and unfastened the 
 watch-chain. Then I was perplexed. 
 
 "But, Jason," I remonstrated, "I have to 
 carry this watch, you know. The watch- 
 chain was handy. It kept me from losing the 
 watch. What am I to do, if I don't have this 
 chain? It seems to me that I had best keep 
 wearing it. What do you do for your watch?" 
 
 As he pulled out a gold Waltham I felt like 
 asking him if it would not be more consistent 
 for him to wear a nickel-plated one, but remem- 
 bering Thropper's comments, I expected Jason 
 would argue that it was more economical to 
 
 [100] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 buy a gold watch on account of its wearing 
 qualities and reliability, so I kept the protest 
 to myself. Jason's watch was attached to a 
 woven black chain, which, he said, he had made 
 from a long shoe-lace! 
 
 "I'll make one for you, too," he added gen- 
 erously, "if you'll get a long lace." 
 
 The next day I gave him the lace, and after 
 dinner, we sat in the reception room, where in 
 ten minutes, he wove for my watch a chain as 
 artistic as a shoe-string chain may be. After 
 he had fastened it in my button-hole and to my 
 watch, he said: 
 
 "Well, Brother Priddy, the weak brother will 
 not have cause to stumble now, will he?" 
 
 [101] 
 
Chapter IX. My Trip into the 
 Magic TVorld of the Past. How 
 Appreciation is sometimes W^orth 
 More than Money, yason and 
 his Coterie on Scent of Terrible 
 Heresies. How God Takes Care 
 of His Orators. How a Big Soul 
 can go through Annoyances 
 
 THE strangeness of my life had worn off 
 by winter. I knew every man and 
 woman by name and character, 
 and they knew me. The daily rou- 
 tine of class work and waiting on 
 table more and more took the novelty from my 
 existence. I was getting the maximum of 
 inspiration from my studies. Leaning back in 
 my chair, under the hissing, flaring gas flame, 
 with drowsy Thropper opposite me in his sheep- 
 skin upholstered chair, I went forth into the 
 new worlds where Caesar led his mailed Romans 
 
 [102] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 and his following of slave kings, where the gaudy 
 coronations and noisy wars of ancient England 
 were enacted; into the world whereon Christ 
 scattered the seed of faith out of which grew, 
 stone by stone, dipped in martyrs' blood, the 
 magnificent cathedral Universal Church. With 
 the guidance of the professors, I pierced into 
 the living, animal world where tooth and fang 
 and claw were in contest and where the divine 
 finger was busy sorting moral law out of it. I 
 was being daily disciplined in the use of lan- 
 guage and in the finer esthetic appreciations of 
 it, under the direction of the Englisji teachers 
 and the Oratorical Professor. 
 
 There were many, who with me, went in con- 
 fidence to our teachers and gave them our thanks 
 for their sacrificial services. Of all the service 
 that I have seen men and women render, that 
 done by the faculty of Evangelical University 
 measured up to the finest. They were men and 
 women of liberal culture; trained, many of them, 
 in our most prominent institutions. Every day 
 that they lingered at the University teaching 
 us was a sacrifice. They were sadly underpaid. 
 There was no endowment from which to guaran- 
 tee them their salaries. Some of them worked 
 with us, out of sheer enthusiasm, claiming that 
 their wages were the gold of our thanks and out- 
 spoken appreciations. They were willing to 
 economize and live in poorly furnished homes, 
 in order to awaken in those of us who had had 
 
 [103] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 little opportunity, the first spark of intellectual 
 response. 
 
 One of our teachers took me aside, in the pir- 
 vacy of his empty classroom, for the purpose of 
 assisting me with a back lesson. I had occa- 
 sion to remark, 
 
 "Professor, you aren't giving yourself a fair 
 chance, here, are you? Some of the students 
 have been saying that you have had more than 
 one opportunity to better yourself." 
 
 The kindly eyes of the man glistened with 
 tears, for he was very readily responsive to his 
 feelings, and he said, 
 
 "Albert, I cannot better myself. There is 
 no higher privilege in this world than to invest 
 what God has seen fit to give us in the way of 
 privilege or attainment in other lives that thirst 
 for what we have! There are men in colleges, 
 whom I know, surrounded by their books in 
 pleasant college communities, fitted to a delight- 
 ful social and intellectual life, teaching in class- 
 rooms filled with students who do not have to 
 fight for a living as do the students here, yet 
 they are not happy men; not one-tenth so happy 
 as I am teaching you boys and girls! No, sir! 
 All that those positions that have been offered 
 me could have done would have been to ease 
 me from financial worries, and relieve me from 
 a few hours of instruction; but there is nothing 
 in this wide world, Albert, can equal the work 
 I am privileged to do with such as you, to 
 
 [104] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 inspire you for useful service. It is missionary 
 work; but missionary work pays the highest 
 wages. I have the first chance at men in the 
 making!" 
 
 It was not alone the poverty of the university 
 equipment and the inadequate compensa- 
 tion they received which intensified the noble- 
 ness of our teachers' characters, but also their 
 endurance of some of the petty, trivial annoy- 
 ances they suffered from the dogmatic Jason 
 and his few followers. For even into the class- 
 rooms religious, doctrinal quibbles were carried 
 by those stern and unyielding students. The 
 little coterie went on strike in the English 
 department when the Professor refused to debar 
 Shakespere and Burns from the reading courses, 
 in response to the charges drawn up and pre- 
 sented by Jason's clique that those writers had 
 unreadable passages in their works. Some one 
 replied, that on this basis, Jason had better 
 stop reading the Bible for the same reasons. 
 To this Jason replied that "The Bible is the 
 Bible, but Shakespere is only Shakespere!" 
 But the more acute issues between Jason and his 
 followers and the curriculum were to be found 
 in the scientific and theological classrooms. 
 Here the conflict between "science and religion" 
 as the Church History termed it, became pointed, 
 tragical. I can still see them, the two followers 
 of Jason, standing before the scientific professor 
 after class had been dismissed. They are on 
 
 [105] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 scent of a terrible heresy! Aggressively they 
 quiz the able exponent of science, as follows: 
 
 "You said in this recitation, professor, that 
 the world was created in millions of years?" 
 
 "I did!" 
 
 "But the Bible says plainly, that God cre- 
 ated it in six days and that He rested from his 
 labors on the seventh day!" 
 
 "Oh, the Bible, in that part is not to be taken 
 literally — it — " 
 
 But he could get no further. Two shocked 
 faces were before him, and one of the students 
 interjected, 
 
 "Why, we have to believe the Bible!" 
 
 " We shall stick to the Bible ! " added the other 
 in support. 
 
 "But let me explain," began the professor, 
 patiently, "you see the early Hebrews possessed 
 no real science — " 
 
 "But, professor," interrupted one of the 
 students, "God revealed it to them and — " 
 
 "We will not discuss the matter further at 
 this time," interrupted the teacher. 
 
 "But what shall we do when the examina- 
 tion comes around," asked the first speaker, 
 "if you tell us to give the age of the earth, we 
 shall either have to say that it is millions of 
 years old or that it was made in six days?" 
 
 "Of course," added the second student, with 
 finality, "we shall have to stick to the Bible 
 statement, even if you mark us down!" 
 
 [106] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Rest easy in your minds, young men," 
 retorted the severely tried professor, "I don't 
 think I shall call on you to undergo such a 
 martyrdom!" 
 
 Even the professor of elocution was not 
 exempt from this little band of literalists. Some 
 of this band had so firm a confidence in God 
 that they "could leave with Him" what they 
 were to speak, how they were to speak it, and 
 the sort of gestures that should accompany 
 their exhortations, for they were preparing 
 themselves for the church. "Pa" Borden was 
 the leader in this sort of thought. He had 
 done some exhorting before becoming a member 
 of the University, and he summed up the case 
 quite well when he said, in his heavy, sober 
 way, 
 
 "What right has any man, I don't care who 
 he is, to improve on what God has done, I'd 
 like to know? It will be given us in that day, 
 says the Bible, what we shall say and how we 
 shall say it. What more do you want?" 
 
 So this little band of the sons of the prophets 
 stood apart from the kindly and helpful criti- 
 cisms of the professor of elocution, and contin- 
 ued their old practise of yanking their stiff arms, 
 standing on their awkward feet, speaking from 
 tight throats, in stubborn loyalty to their faith 
 in God's oratorical interest in them. 
 
 The patience, the Christian patience, of the 
 professors carried them past such trivial, but 
 
 [107] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 real annoyances with the same nobleness with 
 which a true-compassed ship goes straight to 
 its port despite the little chips that tap against 
 it. For every one of these quibblers over doc- 
 trine, there were several appreciative, awaken- 
 ing minds, leaping at the truth. The professors 
 centered their real efforts on the majority of 
 those who could face the truth no matter in how 
 startling a dress it first presented itself. In 
 such, these deep-hearted, sacrificing teachers 
 found their real reward: lasting gratitude. 
 
 [108] 
 
Chapter X. The Magnitude of 
 a Postage Stamp. Showing how 
 Desperate the "Thirst of Money 
 made me. Brock's Rosy Nose 
 and its Possibilities as a Fireplace. 
 How Brock thought he was Pool- 
 ing me and the Other JVay About. 
 The Barrow that Became our 
 Enemy and how Brock was Re- 
 venged on it 
 
 IT was a morning in early December. An 
 unsealed letter lay on my table, a Christ- 
 mas greeting to a mill friend. I had 
 written it the previous night. When the 
 morning dawned, I realized that I had not 
 enough money with which to purchase a stamp 
 for it. A feeling of utter miserableness took 
 hold of me. There I stood, working my way 
 through school successfully, from week to week 
 without any difficulty, and yet when it came to 
 
 [109] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 forwarding a message of greeting to the outside 
 world I was a pauper! That strong term mas- 
 tered me. I knew that for the mere asking 
 Thropper had a stamp waiting for me, but I 
 resented the thought of charity, the humilia- 
 tion of asking for the gift of a postage stamp. 
 After chapel I went into the President's office 
 and on being shown in, made the following 
 announcement. 
 
 "Please, Doctor, I think I had better leave 
 the University. It is no use!" 
 
 "What is the matter now, young man?" he 
 enquired, gently. 
 
 "I've got to earn some cash, sir. You know 
 that I shall never have any by working for 
 the University; it all goes on my account. I 
 need some clothes, and just at present I need a 
 stamp. I haven't handled any money since 
 my three dollars was spent; it is almost three 
 months since then." 
 
 "But you don't have to run away from your 
 education, do you?" asked the President, bend- 
 ing on me his searching eyes. "I thought 
 you would stick to it!" 
 
 "But what can I do, sir?" I demanded, "I 
 am busy waiting on the table, and cannot leave 
 the campus to earn money. I give all my spare 
 time to the University. If I could work a 
 week or two at outside tasks I might get some 
 money on hand." 
 
 "There need be no trouble about that," 
 
 [HO] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 agreed the President. "Get some one to take 
 your place in the dining-hall on Saturdays, and 
 I will see if there are any jobs you can do." 
 
 The following morning, in chapel, the Dean 
 read off my name as one of the students that 
 the President wished to see, in his office. 
 
 "There is a load of bricks on a siding of the 
 brick-mill — you know where that is, of course," 
 he said. "Brock has taken the contract for 
 loading a car at something or other a thousand 
 
 — which means about twenty cents an hour, I 
 believe. He is quite willing to take you with 
 him on Saturday, if you care for the % work." 
 
 Inwardly I thought of my frail muscles hurling 
 rows of brick through the air on a winter's day 
 
 — and felt doubtful about the adventure, but 
 the President was waiting for his answer, so 
 I said hastily, 
 
 "Anything at all, sir, that will bring me in 
 a real, substantial piece of money. It will 
 look big enough when I do see it, sir!" 
 
 Thropper was eager to take a day off from 
 the glass factory and so was able to take my 
 place at the tables. I had a conference with 
 Brock, relative to the proposed loading of the 
 car of bricks. 
 
 "Can you manage it?" he asked dubiously, 
 scanning his eyes doubtfully over my frail 
 physique. 
 
 I was in a desperate mood just then, and with 
 an accent in my voice that scorned even the sug- 
 
 mi] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 gestion of any mental, physical, or moral inca- 
 pacity, I declared, 
 
 "Can I?" 
 
 Then scanning Brock's ungeared physique, 
 I asked in turn, 
 
 "How about yourself? Seems to me you 
 are a near rival to a centre -pole yourself, 
 Brock!" 
 
 He grinned, guiltily. 
 
 "I used to exercise with dumb-bells — once 
 upon a time. It is long since. I am afraid 
 that the daily exercise of pressing the button 
 of the call bell hasn't done well by my muscles." 
 
 "I've watched the Portuguese load schooners 
 with bricks many a time," I affirmed. 
 
 "Your experience might help — some," he 
 declared, "the man who engaged me told me 
 how to place them in the car and all about the 
 number of rows and the count. I'll be able to 
 manage that part of it. I hope that you and 
 I, Priddy, will be able to succeed with the brick 
 end of it." 
 
 "The way the brick loaders do," I explained, 
 "is to pass them from hand to hand four or 
 five bricks at a time — just like passing ball, 
 you know!" 
 
 "Urn, urn!" nodded Brock. "But what 
 about the sharp ends of the bricks? They cut 
 gashes in soft hands, of course." 
 
 "Oh, we'll wear thick gloves," I explained, 
 "something to protect the hands." 
 
 [112] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "We should have to wear gloves under any 
 circumstances," said Brock, "the weather we're 
 getting is very far from a summer day!" 
 
 "Oh, we'll manage all right," I affirmed, for 
 the mere thought of a possible dollar and a 
 half in cash set my brain in a whirl of incaution 
 and illogical optimism. In that mood, if the 
 President had offered me his place for a week 
 — for a cash wage — it is doubtful if I should 
 have refused him. 
 
 By half-past seven the following Saturday 
 morning, Brock and I, bundled in the oldest 
 garments we had been able to borrow or beg, 
 with quadruple thicknesses of old socks cover- 
 ing our hands, for mittens, and with lunches 
 put up in pasteboard boxes, left the village cen- 
 ter, walked down a frozen turnpike, until we 
 came to the lonesome, neglected brickyard 
 with its Egyptian tombs of piled brick, yet 
 unsold. A covered freight car had been left 
 on the rusty siding; the car stood off from the 
 nearest brick-pile separated by a gap of two 
 yards. It was a dreary and very cold prospect, 
 for the north wind surged down over the frozen 
 pastures, and hummed and wailed through the 
 black latticework of an abandoned oil-well on 
 the opposite side of the track. 
 
 "Your face is blue to begin with," mumbled 
 my companion from behind the folds of his 
 cap. 
 
 "And your nose would make an excellent 
 
 [113] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 danger signal on the rear end of a train," I 
 retorted. "When my hands get cold, which 
 they are rapidly doing, I'll warm them over 
 your nose!" 
 
 "Better get to work," suggested Brock, 
 "before we freeze to death in this miserable 
 place. Worth twenty cents an hour for this 
 work, eh?" 
 
 "Worth a dollar an hour, I think," I replied. 
 
 We fixed some stout planks into a run-way 
 between the top of a brick-pile and the freight 
 car, after the door had been unbarred. We 
 found a shallow and creaky barrow under a 
 shed. After helping me fill it with the first 
 load, Brock tried to wheel into the car what we 
 had put in. He gained the edge of the plank, 
 and the ill-balanced load dumped over on the 
 ground. 
 
 "We put in too many, to begin with," sug- 
 gested Brock. "Next time we'll reduce the 
 load by half. I forgot they were so heavy. I 
 was too ambitious." 
 
 The next load went across the planks success- 
 fully, and after they had been dumped on the 
 floor of the car, Brock said, 
 
 "I'll pack these in the car the way the man 
 told me, and then when the load is properly 
 started, we can take turns with the barrow." 
 
 At first it was exciting and warm work, but 
 after the first warm glow had died down in the 
 blood, my body began to stiffen with the expo- 
 
 [114] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 sure. Then my muscles, ill-treated by excess- 
 ive and continuous lifting of the loads, began 
 to tighten and shoot with pain. But at first, I 
 did not care to let Brock know, Brock, who was 
 snugly shielded from the wind, with the easier 
 and less straining task. But he must have 
 noticed me gasp in with a load for he suddenly 
 leaped to his feet and said, 
 
 "Your turn here, now, Priddy. Give me the 
 barrow!" 
 
 I flung myself to the dusty floor of the car 
 when he relieved me of the barrow and never 
 lifted a hand until I heard him coming with his 
 first load. Then I picked up a brick and fitted 
 it in one of the rows, and tried to say cheerfully, 
 when he entered, 
 
 "Is that placed right, Brock?" 
 
 "All right, Priddy," he replied, and then 
 went out whistling with the barrow. 
 
 With the change in the task, I recuperated 
 somewhat, and worked on with the thought 
 warming me, that every hour added twenty 
 cents in cash to my credit. When the first 
 twenty cents had been earned, I took heart 
 and said to myself, 
 
 "Well, I shall be able to buy that stamp for 
 the letter!" 
 
 Brock ceased whistling after his fourth load. 
 I took a look at his face. It was pale and 
 strained. 
 
 "Hadn't you better take a breathing spell, 
 
 [115] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Brock?" I suggested. "It comes hard when 
 one isn't used to it. That barrow wheels hard, 
 too. We ought to have brought some wheel 
 grease." 
 
 "I guess I will sit down a few seconds," agreed 
 Brock. "It's quite a lift — at first, but I think 
 we'll manage the job, don't you?" 
 
 "We'll try!" I commented, grimly. 
 
 So we passed the barrow from hand to hand, 
 the loads growing smaller and smaller as the 
 noon hour approached, and the need of rest 
 and change becoming more and more impera- 
 tive. When half -past eleven arrived I proposed 
 that we eat our lunches; not so much for the 
 mere satisfaction of hunger, but for the oppor- 
 tunity of absolute rest for an hour. Brock 
 assented to the proposition the instant it had 
 left my lips. In fact, he dropped his barrow 
 in the middle of the plank; an act on which I 
 commented by that fragment of an old song: 
 
 " For I've worked four hours this day, this day, 
 For I've worked four hours this day. 
 Keep your whiskers on, till the morning, John, 
 For I shan't work another minute longer ! " 
 
 We closed the doors of the car, sat in a far 
 corner and munched our bread and cold meat 
 as if it had been a luxury from a king's ban- 
 quet table. Then after our meal, in spite of 
 the chilliness of the car, we stretched ourselves 
 on our backs and gave our strained, worn muscler 
 the opportunity of relaxation. 
 
 [116] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "How do you feel?" Brock demanded after 
 an interminable silence. 
 
 "Cold, tired, weary and sick!" I replied, 
 throwing the mask off. "Let us either wheel 
 that old barrow again or go back to the 
 University." 
 
 "Well," muttered Brock, dispiritedly, "our 
 backs can't really get much worse, Priddy. 
 We might as well finish a day's work. If we 
 leave now we'll be unfit for work for another 
 week anyway. We might as well get all we 
 can out of it while we are about it." 
 
 " Oh, that barrow ! If it were a thing of flesh 
 I'd stab it for my worst enemy!" I cried. 
 
 We worked too steadily," suggested Brock. 
 
 We were too ambitious. We'll loaf along this 
 afternoon and take more frequent rests. You 
 pack the bricks for awhile. I'll wheel!" 
 
 "Lucky you proposed to wheel first," I mut- 
 tered, "for I'd have gone on strike if I'd been 
 the first." 
 
 Brock looked knowingly at me, showed me 
 the blisters on his hands and said, 
 
 "I know just how you feel!" 
 
 Numb, dispirited, weary and backsore, we 
 worked until four o'clock in the afternoon. At 
 that time, Brock was just coming across the 
 bridge with a reduced load, staggering under 
 it. I called out to him, 
 
 "I'll not handle another brick!" 
 
 "Neither will I!" he replied, losing his grip 
 
 [1171 
 
 a 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 and the handles of the barrow so that it fell 
 to the frozen ground with a resounding thud. 
 "I'm done!" 
 
 When we reported at the office of the brick- 
 yard owner, and Brock had given the compu- 
 tations of the work we had done, my heart 
 throbbed warmly for the first time since early 
 morning when we were each handed a dollar 
 and ten cents in real cash! 
 
 "This is the first money I have handled for 
 three months!" I could not help exclaiming in 
 the office. 
 
 "Do you mean it?" asked the contractor, 
 interestedly. 
 
 "I do, sir!" 
 
 "Then any time between now and the end 
 of the month that you want to earn a dollar 
 or two come to this office and I'll have some more 
 bricks for you to load." 
 
 I looked with a smile towards Brock. Brock 
 returned my gaze with a hearty laugh. Then 
 he said, holding out his swollen hands, for the 
 man to view, 
 
 "No, thanks!" 
 
 And I, I said, 
 
 "Cash is good and I need it, but I think I'll 
 leave the handling of bricks to the Portuguese." 
 
 [118] 
 
Chapter XL How I Competed 
 with Patrick Henry and was made 
 Aware of an Uneconomical Waste 
 of the Eighth Letter of the Al- 
 phabet. How I Condensed all my 
 Studies into an Oration. How the 
 Populace Greeted my Rehearsal. 
 Striking the "Top Pitch 
 
 BY the middle of the year I had obtained 
 such a grip on study that I was bold 
 enough to incorporate two extra sub- 
 jects in the week's routine. Besides 
 that, I conceived the idea of reading 
 English history outside of class and then secur- 
 ing permission to pass an examination on it, a 
 scheme in which the teacher acquiesced. I 
 felt that I must make up for lost time and 
 hungrily, voraciously threw myself at the priv- 
 ilege which fortune had brought me. I began 
 to realize in my own mind what men called 
 
 [119] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "enthusiasm in his work." Every day seemed 
 to me a momentous day of opportunity: a day 
 in which I might atone for the educational privi- 
 lege I had missed up to my twentieth birth- 
 day. When I saw Aborn, stately, gifted, and on 
 his way towards his Master's degree at twenty, 
 I was made to realize how long a road I had be- 
 fore me and how energetic I should have to be 
 in order to get anywhere in education from my 
 elementary and preparatory studies. So I put 
 in my studies an investment of interest and 
 patient attention which I had put in no other 
 work that I had ever done. 
 
 The most outstanding interest that I had 
 was the class in oratory. This class met on 
 the top floor, under the rafters, in a room 
 directly off from the chapel. It resembled the 
 studio of a poor artist with its gray northern 
 skylight and little windows high above the 
 bare floor. The class included young men and 
 women. Nearly all were preparing for religious 
 work, as ministers, missionaries, and evangelists. 
 One student, a shock-haired young Westerner 
 with "temperament" and "personality," who 
 generally sat in the pose of an actor, was plan- 
 ning for the career of a public reader. 
 
 After the preliminary weeks of physical gym- 
 nastics and throat clearing, and after we were 
 able to say "Oh!" without making the flame 
 of a candle flicker, we began on the real excite- 
 ment of speaking Orations; I began with the 
 
 [ 120 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 traditional Patrick Henry, of course, and nat- 
 urally, after long and patient rehearsals in my 
 room credited myself with the fact that if the 
 author of that thriller should chance to come 
 into the oratorical studio on the morning when 
 I planned to recite it before my professor, he 
 would feel that his forceful utterance had passed 
 into no mean mouth! 
 
 The morning on which I was scheduled to 
 speak duly arrived and with it an increase in 
 my confidence that I should do well with it: 
 the confidence without which no orator yet — 
 in school — ever did much. I stood put before 
 the class, struck my pose — left foot at an angle 
 from the right and slightly in front with the 
 weight on the right foot to maintain balance — 
 and attempted to recreate the atmosphere, the 
 thrill, and the historic eloquence of the Vir- 
 ginia Convention where the oration had had its 
 birth, before the innumerable army of school 
 lads had passed it on from generation to genera- 
 tion. Applause greeted my effort and I sat 
 down in a flush of happiness. However, the 
 professor, after crediting me several points of 
 excellence, brought up a criticism that plunged 
 me into a sweat of guilty self -consciousness. 
 He said, 
 
 "Mr. Priddy, why is it that you aspirate 
 your words so? I know you were born in Eng- 
 land, but you have been in this country for some 
 time now. There were several places in the 
 
 [121] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 oration where you placed ' h's ' where they should 
 not have been placed, and where you left them 
 off when they should have been retained!" 
 
 It was the first time in my whole life that 
 anybody had called my attention to that fault. 
 I said, 
 
 "Will you please give me samples, sir?" 
 
 "Well," replied the professor, consulting his 
 tablet, "y° u said 'w'ile' instead of 'while/ 
 and ' Hi ' instead of the pronoun ' I.' And ' w'at ' 
 instead of 'what,' and 'Forbid it, ffalmighty 
 God,' and you declaimed that passage, 'Is life 
 so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased 
 at the price of chains and slavery?' became 
 'if is life so dear hor peace so sweet has to be 
 bought hat the price of chains and slavery?' 
 
 I felt angry at myself, chagrined. There 
 trooped into my guilt-smitten consciousness 
 the innumerable times I must have put 'h's' 
 where they had not belonged and left them off 
 where they should have been retained. 
 
 "Nobody ever told me — about it before, 
 sir!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "This is just the place to get rid of the habit," 
 replied the professor. "I am here to help you. 
 I think that when you get rid of that habit 
 you will make a fair showing in public speech. 
 Now that you are aware of it, you will be on 
 your guard." 
 
 I made known my discovery at the waiter's 
 table at noon, and instantly my friends poured 
 
 [122] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 out for my consideration a whole museum of 
 sentences I had originated in their hearing and 
 over which they had secretly smiled. It seems 
 I had said, "Ave you got your 'at, Brock?" 
 and "Will you 'ave another Hegg, please?" 
 and "Look hout for this 'ot water!" When the 
 waiters saw that I took the criticism in good 
 part and was eagerly anxious to rid my speech 
 of that defect, they were instant and some- 
 times severe in their criticisms; with the result 
 that in a very short while I gained the advan- 
 tage over my "h's" and somewhat tamed them. 
 With the mastery of my "h's" and the daily 
 discipline in the oratorical class came an over- 
 mastering desire to make a public speech. I 
 thought that if I could accomplish that I should 
 vindicate myself so far as I had gone in my 
 education. It should be the first milestone in 
 my school career. The opportunity was given 
 in a proposed oratorical contest to be held in 
 the village church. I took Thropper into my 
 confidence as I prepared my original oration. 
 Into this I tried to exemplify every admirable 
 rule of rhetoric and every stern rule of logic and 
 every manner of long, short, periodic, balanced, 
 and climactic sentence I was then learning in 
 Rhetoric. I marshalled historical allusions, read 
 widely in the library hour after hour. Then, 
 when I had put myself through this profitable 
 discipline and had typewritten my manuscript 
 — the final triumph of my educational career 
 
 [123] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 thus far — I was ready for rehearsals. After 
 I had practised alone and as the evening of the 
 contest drew near, I asked Thropper if each 
 evening after supper he would accompany me 
 into the woods and listen while I delivered 
 my oration. He consented, cheerfully enough. 
 That same evening he accompanied me to the 
 pastures in the rear of the University. I 
 poised myself seriously on a stump, while Throp- 
 per stood with his back to the wind in a waiting 
 attitude. I had not delivered more than two 
 paragraphs of my speech before there came a 
 yell from behind me and a half-dozen students 
 ran shouting, applauding and screaming be- 
 fore me. When the crowd of interrupters had 
 exhausted their animal spirits, I said to them, 
 addressing them from the stump, 
 
 "I've a good mind to invite you to stand out 
 there near Thropper and listen!" 
 
 "Why not?" they demanded. 
 
 "If you can't address a bunch of farmers 
 like these," smiled Thropper, "you won't be 
 able to stand up in church before three hundred 
 people and give it. Go ahead!" 
 
 I did, and the result was that the students 
 rallied about me at the end, carried me on their 
 shoulders, shouting, mockingly, 
 
 "Hail to the new Webster!" and to show their 
 approval of me, they sat me astride a rail and 
 would have given me a ride home on that con- 
 veyance had not Thropper prevented it. 
 
 [124] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 The evening of the contest arrived and with 
 it the seating of seasoned, experienced, graceful, 
 prize-winning orators, in comparison with whom 
 I knew I should not and could not under any 
 stretch of the imagination be placed. I wanted 
 to give a speech in public, that was the height 
 to which my expectancy went, but, of course, 
 I had to set before me the prizes that were offered 
 and be prepared for "accidents." When my 
 turn came and I faced that illimitable sea of 
 white faces, I felt my feet slip from under me 
 while I seemed to float above this conscious 
 world. Then I picked out an interested face 
 in the far, far corner of the church. At him I 
 threw my strident voice, determined to make 
 him hear what I had to say. The result was, 
 in Thropper's words, "Priddy, it seemed that 
 you placed your pitch on top of the highest 
 mountain in the world, and after that it was a 
 scream, that's all, old fellow. That was due 
 to inexperience." 
 
 But this failure was atoned for when the 
 judges especially commented on the "careful 
 thought," "the good English," and "the ex- 
 cellent form of the written oration" and when 
 they marked me in second place on the literary 
 side of the matter, I felt repaid with my first 
 adventure into public speech. I felt that I 
 had vindicated the struggles I had set before 
 me, through the long years, to go through the 
 school. 
 
 [125] 
 
Chapter XII. The Personnel of 
 " The Clamorous Eight" and other 
 Social Matters. The « Blepoes" 
 and the "Boulomaies" Invite me 
 into Fellowship with a Protest from 
 fa son. Epics and Lyrics of Love. 
 "Pa" Borden Speaks for the 
 Benedicts on a Momentous Matter. 
 How the Magic "Tree Lured Some 
 Unfaithful Ones from their Sworn 
 Duty 
 
 THE routine of that winter's work was 
 embroidered with many interesting 
 social experiences. For though 
 many of the students were stern in 
 religious doctrine and practise, 
 hearts were youthful and recreation was 
 sought. Thropper belonged to a "Bachelor's 
 Club," a facetious group of married and un- 
 
 [126] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 married male students who met every now and 
 then for the avowed purpose of upholding the 
 dignity of bachelor dom! Thropper also joined 
 a "Moustache Club," whose members met and 
 compared lip sprouts and looked forward to 
 the day when they would be sufficiently mature 
 to be called "moustaches." These two insti- 
 tutions were more satirical than practical; 
 outlets for the humor resident in the students. 
 But the "Clamorous Eight" was a real institu- 
 tion of the noisiest, most untamed spirits of 
 the school, seven of whom were young men 
 and the eighth member a young, gum-chewing, 
 blondish, hobbledehoy girl in the Business 
 department. What we knew of the charter 
 of the "Clamorous Eight" was in their shout- 
 ings, their numerous practical jokes, their songs, 
 and their rebellions against the University rules. 
 If anything of an unlawful nature occurred, 
 like the throwing of a live rooster into the sleep- 
 ing room of a sedate female monitor or the 
 placing near the chapel door of a stuffed dummy, 
 suspicion of its own, fluent accord fixed itself 
 first of all on the "Clamorous Eight," and hung 
 there with tenacity until every member had 
 been through a "Faculty sweat." 
 
 There were two rival literary societies in the 
 University and the students were supposed to 
 be portioned out between them. The "Ble- 
 poes" or "The Seers" and the "Boulomaies" 
 — "The Willers" sent their agents after me and 
 
 [127] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 made a bid for my membership. These were 
 not secret organizations, for such an institu- 
 tion was considered sinful by the University 
 authorities. Their gatherings were open to the 
 public and each student was supposed to attend 
 the different meetings before deciding which 
 society he would join. Jason, who considered 
 even these literary meetings harmful to the mor- 
 ale of the students, on hearing that I had been 
 asked to join one of them, sought me out and 
 for a long mournful hour tried to make me 
 promise to keep my name off their rolls, "For," 
 he whined, "they are of the Devil, brother 
 Priddy!" 
 
 "What makes you think so?" I demanded. 
 
 "They joke in their meetings and tell light 
 things and for every idle word God will hold 
 us accountable!" 
 
 "But jokes and light conversation have their 
 places in life, haven't they?" I persisted. 
 
 Jason looked at me with his round, poet's 
 eyes growing rounder in wonderment. 
 
 "Lincoln couldn't have borne the weight of 
 the Civil War if it had not been for jokes and 
 fun — at times," I concluded. 
 
 "But the Bible says that for every idle word 
 we shall have to give a full account," said Jason. 
 "Are not jokes idle words?" 
 
 "They don't — eh — " I stammered, limply. 
 
 "The Bible is true, isn't it?" went on the 
 logician. 
 
 [128] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I gave up in desperation. 
 
 "Look here, Jason," I cried, "you might get 
 me to give up wearing a watch-chain and a 
 tie-pin, but you aren't going to stop me from 
 joining one of these societies. I want social 
 life and I'm going to have it, jokes or no jokes. 
 I'm not so good as you on logic or Bible, but you 
 aren't going to stand between me and a few 
 pleasures. Don't some of the faculty belong 
 to the Blepoes and the Boulomaies? If they 
 can join without scruples — and they are Chris- 
 tian men and women — I can join. So it's no 
 use arguing the matter with me, Jason. I 
 think I'll send in my name to the Blepoes for 
 the next meeting." 
 
 And I did join myself to the Blepoes and par- 
 took of their suppers, their programs, and even 
 went so far one night as to appear on the plat- 
 form myself, before a blackboard on which I 
 drew sketches to illustrate a temperance address, 
 and at the conclusion of which I recited with 
 great fervor and many gestures, Kipling's 
 "Recessional." 
 
 That winter, too, though far outside of love, 
 and even the thoughts of love, in the seriousness 
 of my tasks, I looked on little epics and little 
 lyrics of love between man and woman. Throp- 
 per himself had Cupid's dart in his heart and 
 his rhapsodies concerning his "luck" and his 
 "happiness" and "her wonderful sweet spirit" 
 were only a few of many indications of the depth 
 
 [129] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 to which he had fallen in love. Those of us 
 who were not enamored of love had to be diplo- 
 matic in making engagements to walk or exer- 
 cise with the boys, for there were times and 
 seasons when Thropper and his fellow-lovers 
 devoted themselves exclusively to their fian- 
 cees. For instance, there was lecture night 
 in Pubbets Junction, six miles away, and on 
 that evening, under chaperonage, the couples 
 would seat themselves in carriages and not be 
 back till midnight, returning to tell the bache- 
 lors and maidens the next morning the express- 
 ive points of the lecture and any exciting 
 episodes of the trip, like the adventure of the 
 wheels up to the axles in mud and a plunging 
 horse pulled out by a nearby farmer, the adven- 
 ture which befell Thropper and his love when 
 they were on their way to hear Sam Small 
 lecture. Those among us, like myself, who were 
 not concerned with sentiment, held various 
 speculative conferences, on Sunday evenings, 
 as to how this and that student would mate. 
 We had precedent to argue from, for we had 
 seen Donald Bryce, a laughing-eyed Evangelist- 
 to-be, pick out Clara Trine, an athletic and 
 extremely conscientious Missionary-to-be. We 
 had seen one of the "Clamorous Eight," a light- 
 haired, flush-cheeked banker-to-be, sort out 
 and become deeply attached to the female 
 member of the "Eight," the blondish hobble- 
 dehoy, whom we judged, like grocery store 
 
 [130] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 sages, would at least fit herself to spend quickly 
 enough what money he should chance to make 
 as a banker. 
 
 These loving couples considerably colored 
 our social life and often made the University 
 picnics problems. When the first touch of 
 spring pervaded the gassy atmosphere and, 
 at least, suggested the scent of coming flowers 
 and grassy banks, notice was given out by 
 Brock one Saturday morning that the usual 
 spring trip to the river would be undertaken 
 and that each one who went should go to the 
 kitchen and prepare a lunch from materials 
 that would be furnished by the cooks. * 
 
 After the breakfast a meeting of the excursion- 
 ists was held in the reception room, presided 
 over by Brock, who announced, 
 
 "Now, friends, this year — mind you, this 
 year, we are going to keep together. In the 
 past, on our excursions, there has been altogether 
 too much coupling up and going off alone. That 
 has spoiled more than one excursion and it is 
 not the fair thing. Is it?" 
 
 A chorus of "Noes" gave emphasis to his 
 protest and appeal. 
 
 'This time, though," he went on to explain, 
 "we are to keep together. No matter if you 
 are in love with the sweetest girl on earth and 
 can't be alone much under the University rules, 
 you are not to wander off when we get out of 
 bounds and not come around to the main 
 
 [131] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 party again until lunch time and then go off 
 and not return till it is time to come home. 
 What have you to say about it, Brother Bor- 
 den?" 
 
 "Pa" Borden, thus appealed to, raised his 
 pompous head, cleared his throat after the 
 best mode of the orator, and said, 
 
 "I'm married myself and maybe shouldn't 
 have much to say on the matter. I agree with 
 everything's been said: agree with it hard!" 
 and to give oratorical force to his last word, 
 he brought his plump fist down on the centre 
 table, thereby spilling half the water out of the 
 glass which held in it a sprig of geranium. 
 
 A representative of the Benedicts having 
 been heard, Thropper, as representing the un- 
 married was asked for his opinion. He replied, 
 
 "Of course we ought to keep together. I'm 
 certain of it, Mr. Chairman. That's all I need 
 to say!" 
 
 At nine o'clock the excursionists started for 
 the river forty-five people strong. To prove 
 the sincerity of the social aspect of the excur- 
 sion, Thropper and the other lovers separated 
 themselves from their beloveds and walked, 
 sacrificially, either with other young women or 
 mingled freely with the male members of the 
 party! Thus two by two and three by three 
 we walked down the rutted, soggy lane past 
 the root-fenced sheep pastures where the woolly 
 young lambs squeaked and bleated like crying 
 
 [132] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 children, down past the grove where the wood- 
 choppers were measuring cord wood ; past dismal, 
 wind-swept forests of burnt stumps and rusty 
 underbrush, over which desolation huge vul- 
 tures soared, and pivoted themselves in wait 
 for prey; past clayey roads over which mud 
 boats were dragged by struggling horses and 
 oxen, past pig-pastures torn up by the sniffing 
 snouts of the ruminants. Then we entered a 
 fresh, dampish wood-path which led us along 
 the rocky bed of a river over which a thin 
 stream of water churned with great energy as 
 if to impress us with its importance % At last 
 we entered a cleared grass space over which the 
 sun held itself and lighted gloriously the deep 
 pool of water the river had become. Here we 
 deposited our lunch boxes and began to arrange 
 our games. So far the party had remained 
 one, much to the admiration of Brock. But 
 now, after the lunch boxes had been unloaded, 
 a rearrangement of the party began to take 
 place. Thropper, who had been walking and 
 talking with me, hurried over to the side of his 
 beloved, and said: 
 
 "There's a magic tree farther along the 
 path, growing right through a big boulder, 
 about which there's a legend of Indians. 
 I'll tell you about it!" 
 
 That was all. They two passed out of sight 
 while the angry Brock gazed speechlessly after 
 them. That was the signal for other couples 
 
 [133] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 who wanted to see the "magic tree," and to 
 such an extent did the defection of the lovers 
 take place, that before long only two couples 
 remained with the bachelors to share the games 
 we tried to play. 
 
 By the lunch hour, however, they came from 
 their expeditions from this side and that, unapol- 
 ogetic for leaving us, came to eat their lunches 
 and then go off again, paying no heed to Brock's 
 impassioned appeal to their esprit de corps. 
 When the hour for the return to the Univer- 
 sity arrived, the couples returned and then 
 either went ahead, arm in arm, or loafed behind, 
 immersed in their own thoughts; leaving us 
 bachelors to amuse ourselves by bantering 
 flings at them, which, however, were no more 
 than peas aimed at the mailed shell of an 
 armadillo. 
 
 "It'll be the same over again next time!" 
 growled Brock. "These lovers — oh!" 
 
 [134] 
 
Chapter XI I L How One Dol- 
 lar and a Half Secured " The 
 Devil in Society" The Medicine 
 Chest which Became a Tract De- 
 pository under the Teachings of a 
 New Creed. How I Stuck to 
 Orthodoxy 
 
 THE spring was full upon us, with the 
 return of the birds, the tang of the 
 new plowed soil in the sugar- 
 field where the "University Mare" 
 tugged listlessly at the plow whose 
 blade sliced through the clayey earth leaving 
 back of it shiny, damp slices on which the birds 
 stood and pecked up the exposed grubs and 
 worms. The dynamite wagon with its frail 
 springs and its dangerous load jogged by along 
 the turnpike on its way to newly-bored oil- 
 wells. Flocks of sheep with an accompanying 
 host of maximum-legged lamblets passed over 
 the turnpike on their way to the railroad-cars, 
 to be followed by grunting packs of hogs directed 
 
 [135] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 by sapling-armed drovers who in one minute 
 of speech profaned the whole English language. 
 Chugging traction-engines, hauling plows and 
 harrows and on their way to hundred-acred 
 wheat and corn fields, passed in the night-time 
 with their shrill whistle-screams for water and 
 their explosive puffing and puffing as if no breath 
 in their steel bodies could successfully spurt 
 them through the soft mire. 
 
 Thropper said to me, one afternoon, 
 
 "Priddy, how would you like to sell books?" 
 
 "Sell books, Thropper?" 
 
 Thropper nodded. 
 
 "What for?" I asked, interestedly. 
 
 "For money, of course, Priddy! What do 
 you think?" 
 
 "It takes talk to sell books, Thropper!" 
 
 "Then you ought to make a success at the 
 business, Priddy!" 
 
 "What's the book?" 
 
 "'The Devil in Society, or High Life in 
 Washington by an Ex-Congressman,'" quoted 
 Thropper. 
 
 " Sensational, then? " 
 
 "A moral book — with a lesson," laughed 
 Thropper, "pepper to make you know that it 
 stings, you see, Priddy. Fifty per cent on each 
 one. Buy them for seventy-five cents, sell for 
 dollar and a half. Easy money, everybody 
 wants the book on sight. I'll loan you three 
 dollars for four if you want. Sure to sell them ! " 
 
 [136] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Anything to get some cash," I cried. "Be- 
 sides this would take me on Saturday trips into 
 the surrounding towns. That would be quite 
 an adventure after staying here throughout 
 the winter. Will you show me the book?" 
 
 "'Pa' Borden will bring one around tonight. 
 He's the general agent," declared my roommate. 
 
 In the evening, before the half-past seven 
 bell had signalled silence and study, "Pa" 
 Borden had displayed the book to us. It was 
 a lurid green cloth-bound affair in which the 
 glue showed in the web of the cloth, printed 
 with blotched, worn type on the cheapest of 
 cheap paper and interspersed with Amateur- 
 ish wood-cuts of which I recall a drunken revel 
 in a ball-room and some ballet-dancer-garbed 
 women on a seashore with wooden waves indi- 
 cated by wavy lines. I was no connoisseur of 
 literature at the time and took as solemn truth 
 "Pa" Borden's words that "anything that 
 was of the Devil ought to be showed up, even 
 if it cost a dollar and a half!" I allowed Throp- 
 per to get me four of the books and placed my- 
 self under his instructions for a week during 
 which time I learned how to point out the chief 
 items of interest in the illustrations when they 
 were upside down, to give a kinetescopic view 
 of the table of contents, and to end by flashing 
 the record of previous sales before the aston- 
 ished housewife's eyes before she could make up 
 her mind whether she wanted the book or not. 
 
 [137] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 The following week, then, after engaging a 
 substitute waiter for the day I accompanied 
 Thropper to Pubbets Junction to place "The 
 Devil in Society." The first door on which I 
 knocked chanced to be that of a Christian Science 
 Reader, a very highly cultivated and sweet- 
 spirited woman who, the minute I announced 
 that I was agent for a book entitled "The Devil 
 in Society" immediately knocked my "patter" 
 hors de combat by announcing, firmly, that 
 there was no such thing as a Devil and that 
 it was all a delusion of mortal mind, adding 
 various other remonstrances of a philosophical, 
 semi-philosophical, and dogmatic nature which 
 I was in no mood or mind to combat. Besides 
 bewildering me in the intellectual meshes of 
 that new doctrine, the woman made me sit in 
 her office and listen to a fascinating recital of 
 her household's progress from a drug-store of 
 drugs to an empty medicine chest: to a radical 
 change in the family temper from semi-pessi- 
 mism into a real sunburst of glorious, mellow- 
 ing optimism: to an intricate and involved 
 interpretation of the Old Testament and then 
 in a very cloudy but, to me, excitingly suggestive 
 denial of all facts that men and books had told 
 me were positive and real. All this, of course, 
 was the precursor to an attempt to proselyte 
 me to the faith of Christian Science. After 
 she had shown me the empty medicine chest, 
 which she was then using as a store-house for 
 
 [138J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 all sorts of Christian Science literature, I told 
 her that I had learned a great deal that was 
 both new and novel, that I would think it over 
 seriously, but that I should never believe in 
 anything but orthodoxy. Then I called at the 
 next house and many other houses, so that by 
 noon, when I met Thropper at a candy store, 
 where we lunched on a glass of milk and some 
 Washington pie, I had sold two books and earned 
 one dollar and a half. In the flush of that suc- 
 cess, I returned to the University, ready to 
 repeat the excursion the following and several 
 other Saturday mornings. According^to Throp- 
 per's epigram, "The Devil in Society" meant 
 dollars in our pockets! 
 
 [139] 
 
Chapter XIV. A Chapter De- 
 picting how Strife Existed Between 
 the Pro-Gymnasiums and the Anti- 
 Gymnasiums and Showing how 
 Baseball \ Debates and an Epi- 
 demic Determined Matters "This 
 Way and "That 
 
 NEXT to its faith in religion an 
 extreme abhorrence of matched 
 athletic games pervaded the rul- 
 ing spirits of the University and 
 found its sanction in the charter 
 of the institution. In the Bleponian and Boul- 
 omanian literary societies the characteristic 
 discussion for heated and vigorous debate, 
 next to the eternal question: Does Love or 
 Money Rule the World? was: Are Athletic 
 Contests Moral? The charter and advertise- 
 ments of the University said very emphatically 
 that they were not and should not be tolerated 
 by Christian people. Jason and his Board of 
 
 [140] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Pharisees agreed with the University. On the 
 other hand, there were many young men and 
 women who had an opposite mind and took 
 issue on every occasion with Jason and the 
 authorities. Thus one could find them on 
 every occasion in the springtime when the 
 fields and the paved paths lured forth what- 
 ever sporting proclivities nature had deposited 
 in the blood, Jason and his followers firmly 
 insisting that under no consideration should a 
 contest of any sort — even a game of checkers 
 or "Pit" be countenanced, as it led to gambling, 
 and, if not to gambling, then to unchristian 
 feeling. This feeling became acute when the 
 students began to discuss the necessity for an 
 athletic field and a gymnasium: a very hypo- 
 thetical discussion remote and probably ever 
 to remain remote, for the University had need 
 of money for more impending goods than 
 gymnasiums. But Jason's party argued as if 
 the gymnasium were about to be built, and said 
 that it would only lead young men into racing 
 for prizes ! — and competing for wagers ! The 
 party was called the Anti-Gymnasiums. 
 
 Thropper and I aligned ourselves to the Pro- 
 Gymnasiums, for, as Thropper said to me: 
 
 "My kneecaps fairly creak for need of stretch- 
 ing. As for my arm joints and muscles, they 
 pain me on the least provocation. I need 
 proper, systematic exercise." 
 
 The Pro-Gymnasiums were thoroughly rep- 
 
 [141] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 resented by "The Clamorous Eight," whose 
 faces and veins throbbed with healthy, well- 
 exercised blood; in fact, they were eight who 
 cared for little else beyond exercise of muscles. 
 
 The program of the Blepoes one Friday even- 
 ing was devoted to the debate of the question: 
 "Resolved: That the Bible Prohibits Athletic 
 Contests." Larry Thomas, who debated for 
 the Pro's and who was almost as well versed in 
 biblical lore as was Jason, argued well, basing 
 his strongest rhetoric on Paul's words: "I so 
 run that I may receive a prize," and "I box, 
 not as beating the air," but, as Larry para- 
 phrased it, freely, "to give a knock-out, pure 
 and simple, a plain indication that Paul believed 
 in the prize-ring and the running-track!" The 
 Anti's, realizing the force of these quotations, 
 attempted to minimize their power by arguing, 
 "Oh, Paul was only using the common terms 
 of his day; the ordinary experiences of unchris- 
 tian men, to represent to them the Christian 
 life. That was all. He was not giving sanc- 
 tion to sports." This explanation, the judges 
 informed us, considerably helped the Anti's, 
 but the debate was declared a draw. 
 
 One Saturday morning when the air was 
 crammed with the warmth and lassitude of 
 early summer, and a considerable number of 
 Pro-Gymnasiums were playing scrub baseball, 
 one of the "Clamorous Eight," in a fit of healthy 
 rebellion against the University, proposed: 
 
 [142] 
 
Evangelical University was Treated to its First Match Game 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Say, fellows, this knocking out a ball is 
 too tame. Let's choose up sides. There's no 
 harm in it!" 
 
 Thropper, who was not working that day, 
 and myself, were among those enjoying the 
 sport, and in the excitement and thoughtless- 
 ness of the minute we consented. I was placed 
 in the field, Thropper went in the catcher's 
 box. We even engaged the services of an um- 
 pire, though few were found from whom we 
 could select a capable official. Many of the 
 Pro's dared not come into the game, but stood 
 off ready to look on an incident that should 
 become historic, like a Civil War or a French 
 Revolution: the first matched game ever played 
 on the University grounds! 
 
 Jason looked on the opening of the game with 
 horror. To him it seemed that the Evil One 
 had just made his bold appearance in the morale 
 of the institution. When he heard the umpire's 
 decisions and saw the sides changing positions, 
 and realized at last that the whole event had 
 actually developed into a matched game, he 
 hurried to the home of the Dean and gave no- 
 tice of the rebellion that he had scented. In- 
 stantly the authorities came, ordered the game 
 disbanded, took our names for Faculty disci- 
 pline, and we left the field to the Anti's, who 
 sincerely believed that Satan himself had been 
 flouted. 
 
 But even the anti-match spirit of Jason and 
 
 [143] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 his band could not eliminate from their joints 
 and muscles the need of exercise, and while 
 they argued against the advent of contested 
 sports, they could be found on the cinder walk 
 after supper, previous to the evening prayer- 
 service, leaping, bounding, twisting, and jump- 
 ing, Jason in competition manifesting the grace 
 of a rheumatic frog. 
 
 Shortly after this an epidemic of disease 
 broke out in the village. The University was 
 quarantined — even from attendance at the 
 village church services. The momentousness 
 of this is plainly evident when it is remembered 
 that it was these church services which gave 
 to the University lovers their chance to walk 
 together, sit together, sing and pray and talk 
 together; consequently the quarantine imposed 
 a severe restriction upon the poor unfortunates. 
 
 When Sunday dawned, glorious with the sum- 
 mer sun, some of the members of Jason's clique 
 together with their young ladies took their 
 black-bound Bibles and sat under the campus 
 saplings for Bible study: two in a class and 
 every sapling shade occupied. 
 
 But the Dean, who hated sham of every sort, 
 interrupted these classes and the next morn- 
 ing in chapel he had some very emphatic and 
 pointed remarks to make on the subject: "The 
 Sacrilege of Pretending to Study the Bible when 
 You are Doing Nothing but Make Love!" 
 
 It was the Pro-gymnasiums' turn to laugh then. 
 
 [144] 
 
Chapter XV. A Ph.D. in a 
 
 Clay Ditch and the Futility of it. 
 A Can of Beans at the Conclusion 
 of a Morbid Meditation. How 
 Thropper and I Played* David 
 and fonathan 
 
 THE first summer vacation brought 
 joy to a majority of the students, 
 but to me it merely meant a lonely 
 isolation for three months on the 
 campus where I was accustomed to 
 watch my friends move back and forth hour 
 after hour through the day. They went out with 
 tents: the Evangelists. They went out with 
 books: the canvassers. They went out with 
 brawn and health: the miners and farmers. 
 They left me alone to share the solitude of the 
 campus with the few professors who were not 
 going to conferences, and with the superintend- 
 ent of grounds, whose assistant I was to be. 
 The winter's struggle, though pleasant, had 
 
 [145] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 left me tired and listless. I needed a rest, 
 but saw no possibility of any. I had few good 
 clothes and no money. Any adventure into the 
 world would have been utter folly. So I began 
 to scrub floors in the University building, to 
 mow the grass and trim the flowers. I painted 
 and scraped and hung wall paper, all in the 
 silences of the dormitories once full of merry 
 sounds, the recollections of which doubled the 
 loneliness I suffered from. 
 
 Meanwhile I made my home in the little 
 room where we had held our feast in honor 
 of Queen Victoria's birthday. In it stood the 
 stove on which I cooked my own meals : canned 
 goods, tea, and sundry fries of bacon, eggs, 
 ham, and potatoes. Here, too, I washed my 
 clothes. 
 
 During a lull in the work, one of the married 
 students, who had been given his Ph.B. at 
 commencement asked me to go with him to the 
 outskirts of the village where some eight-inch 
 gas pipes were to be laid. He wanted me to 
 join him at the shovel! At the time I weighed 
 but one hundred and twenty pounds. The 
 foreman put us in a clay ditch under a scalding 
 July sun with a gang of knotted-muscled, tanned 
 Irishmen to whom the picking of dried lumps 
 of clay and the shovelling of heaps of it were 
 mere items of a day's work to be done mechan- 
 ically, but for my friend and myself tasks for 
 Titans. The Irishmen at my heels kept passing 
 
 [146] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 me, doubling on me, until, after a two days' 
 attempt, with the lure of twenty-five cents an 
 hour for the prize, my, friend with his Ph.B. 
 and I with my ambitions fell out of the race 
 and rode wearily back to the village and to the 
 University, where for days neither of us was 
 fit for even so simple a task as lifting a pound 
 weight; the excessive strain had undermined 
 our strength. 
 
 While recuperating, I was given food by the 
 superintendent and spent most of my time 
 wandering into the woods or through the sheep 
 pastures where my uppermost thought was: 
 " What is the use of all this? It is weariness and 
 a vanity of the flesh. Give up your education! 
 You must have money and strength, money and 
 strength, money and strength!" And then the 
 thought of my classmates would obtrude itself 
 and I saw them in visions at their tasks, at 
 their homes, in the full enjoyment of work, 
 companionship, and wages. I seemed to hear, 
 borne on the summer wind, above the bleating 
 of the sheep, the exhortations of the evangel- 
 ists in their tents which were crowded with 
 farmers, paying heed to the gospel, and I was 
 envious of them. I thought of the miners 
 deep under the earth, black with their toil 
 but happy in earning a substantial wage; 
 strong, oh, so strong! My fight for an educa- 
 tion, when contrasted with their natural endow- 
 ments of strength and friendships, seemed puny, 
 
 [147] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 futile. In such a way did the black demon 
 Despair lay its sharp claws on my spirit and 
 make it bleed. I would start back across the 
 field, not heeding the innocent, questioning 
 gaze of the sheep as they packed off and watched 
 me go, not watching the swift circlings of the 
 sombre vultures high above my head, but going 
 back to my lonely room feeling that I should 
 never have another flash of happiness flood my 
 life again. Then I would get out the can- 
 opener, uncover a can of beans, and warm them 
 on the stove for supper. 
 
 But everything has its end, even as my home- 
 sickness and discouragement had their ending 
 when the students came back once more, bring- 
 ing others with them. They came back flushed 
 with eagerness for another year's work; eager 
 once more to invest themselves in sacred ties 
 of friendship. Thropper came back with a 
 hundred dollars: his summer's earnings. I 
 reported that I had just managed to pay my 
 last year's tuition and my summer's board: 
 I could enter upon my second year of educa- 
 tion with a clean slate. 
 
 Once more the round of studies, prayer-meet- 
 ings, and chores commenced : this time with less 
 of novelty. The approach to winter brought 
 with it the same questions of how to earn cash. 
 To this end I went into the woods for a day and 
 tried to chop down trees, but my arms were not 
 attuned to axe swinging; after my first cord 
 
 [148] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had been cut I had to abandon the quest for 
 dollars in that healthful but too vigorous work. 
 I returned to the University and assisted the 
 baker with bread and pies and the janitor with 
 the university floors; the money to be credited 
 against my account on the books. 
 
 But I realized at last that I was in the midst 
 of inestimable privileges. The studies awakened 
 me to the possibilities of culture and mental 
 fitness. Some of my last year's friends had 
 entered upon the pleasant vocations of teach- 
 ing and business for which they received a mod- 
 erate, but, as it appeared to me, a pattering 
 compensation. Thropper — ever on the alert 
 with inspiration — comforted me one night 
 when my empty pockets had induced a pessi- 
 mistic frame of mind, by saying: 
 
 "Now look here, Priddy. Suppose you don't 
 have any money and have to scrimp on things. 
 Here you are privileged to take extra studies 
 every day; a millionaire's son couldn't do more. 
 You don't have to lose a term of study, either. 
 You are going along through the schedule about 
 as comfortably as any one. That's worth a 
 good deal. There's Harry Lane — got plenty of 
 money, but you know he was compelled to drop 
 out for a term on account of bad eyes. You're 
 lucky, old fellow!" and the good-natured fel- 
 low gave me a staggering, but well-meant, clap 
 on the shoulder that knocked every ounce of 
 pessimism out of my system. 
 
 [149J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "I am in luck, Thropper. I know it!" I 
 declared, and then went to my study with new 
 courage. "The only trouble about the whole 
 matter, Thropper," I declared, after some 
 moments of quietness, "is that I am making 
 the fight alone — no one to rely on if I get stuck, 
 you know. The other fellows can depend upon 
 more or less from friends — I can't; all those 
 bridges are cut behind me!" 
 
 Thropper closed his book with an energetic 
 snap. 
 
 "You chump!" he exclaimed, with a melt- 
 ing light in his clear eyes, "what do you think? 
 That you haven't won any friends since com- 
 ing to the University? That's where you're 
 wrong: sadly out of tune! All you have to do, 
 any day, is to say the word and you can get 
 any amount I have on hand!" 
 
 I jumped to my feet and said, very gently, 
 "Thropper, you're all right!" 
 
 Then, without another word, for the situa- 
 tion was getting close to the edge of tears, 
 Thropper threw himself in his stuffed chair and 
 I sat on the edge of the bed, under the hissing 
 flare of the gas, both of us as busy as could be 
 with the next day's lessons. 
 
 [150] 
 
Chapter XV L Visions, Hysteria, 
 Dogma, and Poor Lessons to the 
 Front when the Revivalists Ar- 
 rived. How Natural it Sounded 
 when "Bird" "Thurlow Asked a 
 Flippant Question * 
 
 THEN the annual winter revival was 
 announced. Upon this event the 
 University centered all its prayers, 
 its hopes, its attention, as the ban- 
 ner event of the year. In the 
 church papers where the advertisement of the 
 University appeared, the annual revival was 
 featured. Several of the students had been 
 sent to the institution by their parents prin- 
 cipally for the spiritual benefits that might come 
 to them in the atmosphere of the revival. 
 
 The whole air began to stir with the throb of 
 revival preparation. A spiritual census of the 
 students was taken, not officially or in any 
 stereotyped way, and all the enginery of Chris- 
 tian effort was brought to bear on creating 
 
 [151] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the right, psychological mood for the time 
 the evangelists should arrive. The prayer 
 bands wove in extra meetings and increased 
 their unction. Neglected, after-supper prayer- 
 services were suddenly filled. Bands of earnest, 
 zealous men and women roamed from room to 
 room holding spiritual inquisitions over "The 
 Clamorous Eight" and any others who were 
 thought to need special portions of grace. 
 
 "I'm heartily in favor of Christian effort," I 
 said to Jason, one day, when we were talking 
 over the coming revival, "but take last year 
 and think how many hours were lost to study 
 and given to the meetings! I should think 
 that those things might be left to camp-meetings 
 and churches — there were three long revivals 
 in the village last winter — and we ought to 
 center our precious time on study!" 
 
 Jason declared, emphatically and finally, 
 "Brother Priddy, what are heads compared to 
 souls?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't object to any sort of efforts being 
 indulged if people are to be made Christian, 
 Jason, but according to what you said in the 
 prayer-meeting last night, there are only three 
 in the whole University who do not make any 
 profession of religious faith: just three, and yet 
 two whole weeks are to be set apart to the 
 Evangelists who will come and preach the 'third- 
 birth doctrine' and other dogmatic matters. 
 That is what I protest against." 
 
 [152] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Again Jason answered with his inclusive, 
 " Brother Priddy, what are heads compared 
 to souls?" 
 
 By the time the revivalists appeared it had 
 been announced in the prayer-service that not 
 one of the students stood "outside the Chris- 
 tian fold." The revivalists had a clear chance, 
 then, to preach the special doctrine of "the 
 third birth," without any further parley. 
 
 The revivalists were a man and his wife, 
 both of them uneducated, whose chief claim 
 to merit in their field lay in the fact that they 
 were said to be "filled with the Spjrit." In 
 spite of the bad grammar, the mixed figures of 
 rhetoric, traces of demagogism, and an excess- 
 ive ex cathedra tone, the revivalists were given 
 full power in the meetings. All interests in 
 pure scholarship were crowded aside. The 
 valedictorian, the temperance orator who had 
 won the interstate oratorical prize, the profes- 
 sors, and the humble seeker after knowledge 
 were subordinated to the zealot, the exhorter, 
 the unctuous pleader. 
 
 In morning chapel the time was generously 
 lengthened to accommodate the doctrinal ex- 
 hortations of the revivalist and his wife, who 
 spake not so much of practical concerns, but 
 entered into a bewildering maze of Scripture 
 quibblings, text jugglings, super-rational con- 
 clusions, and a daze of fantastic analogies. 
 When the closing bell sounded, the speaker 
 
 [1531 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 would turn to the President and say, familiarly 
 — even commandingly, "Well, brother, studies 
 can wait on the Lord, can't they?" and the 
 President had nothing to say but, "Yes." The 
 morning exhortations infringed on our nine 
 o'clock classes so that often they had to be 
 discontinued; much to the reluctance of the 
 professors who had to bear the brunt of the 
 intellectual disqualifications of students at grad- 
 uation time. 
 
 As the meetings continued, in the evenings, 
 the enthusiasm increased. When emotions were 
 running at flood the meetings were carried well 
 into the night and Thropper and I often did not 
 reach our room until eleven o'clock — with all 
 opportunity for study taken away. But again 
 the professors had to lose, for if any of us were 
 backward with lessons the next morning, by say- 
 ing, "Professor, I was at the meeting last night. 
 I did not have any opportunity to study," a 
 proper adjustment was made in our favor. For, 
 as Jason had said, the theory at that time was, 
 "What are heads compared to souls?" 
 
 At the conclusion of the first Thursday 
 evening's meeting, the revivalist and his wife 
 let it be known that "At last God is blessing 
 us ! " High tide had been reached. That meet- 
 ing had been given into the hands of the stu- 
 dents after the leader had preached for an hour 
 on a doctrinal theme. A hymn was started by 
 a young woman. She stood while she led the 
 
 [154] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 singing and at the conclusion she still stood erect, 
 with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She had 
 thrown herself into a trance and spoke in a 
 jumble some words nobody could decipher but 
 which were understood to be a "revelation." 
 That was the signal for a wild demonstration. 
 Jason leaped to his feet and after shouting, 
 "God is with us! Emmanuel!" he sat shiver- 
 ing in his seat as if his body were in the grasp 
 of angry spirits. A group of young women 
 paraded down the aisles and before the pulpit 
 waving their handkerchiefs and shouting in 
 shrill ecstasy. Suddenly one of the young men 
 near me burst into lamentations and tears, 
 moaning as if his heart would break. Mean- 
 while the evangelists knelt at the front of the 
 platform in prayer; praying for people by name. 
 Then the young man who had been crying sud- 
 denly darted to his feet and broke into a tor- 
 rent of wild, hysterical laughter and ran to the 
 upper end of the room clapping his hands. 
 Hymns of different sorts and tunes had broken 
 out in different parts of the room, making a 
 musical Babel. The young woman who had 
 had the trance came into consciousness again, 
 and, on the urgence of the revivalists, ascended 
 the platform from whence she described a vision 
 fit to be framed in Miltonic verse. At eleven 
 o'clock hands were joined, a hymn was sung, 
 and after a benediction from "Pa" Borden, 
 we went back to our rooms. 
 
 [155] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Then the revivalists with their honors full 
 on them departed, and the emotional tension left 
 us. It was a distinct relief, like a bit of bird's 
 chatter after the epic storm, to hear "Bird" 
 Thurlow shout across the walk, one morning, 
 "Hey, Paddy, going to take Miss Adee to the 
 lecture next Wednesday?" 
 
 [156] 
 
Chapter XVII. My Presidential 
 Pose and its Central Place in « "The 
 Record" A Wistful Glance and 
 Some Practical Plans towards 
 Eastern Education. How the 
 Little Sparrow Brought my Class 
 Colors to me as I Gave the Class 
 "Oration" Ends in a Fight 
 
 IN the spring, when announcements of 
 Commencement and Graduation were in 
 the air, a gathering of four members of the 
 collegiate department, as many members 
 of the preparatory division, two business 
 students, and five who could not be classified by 
 reason of their slowness to master their studies, 
 met in response to a call, sent out by the Seniors, 
 for the members of the Freshmen Class to elect 
 officers, and after due deliberation made me 
 their president. 
 
 With this honor thrust on me, I was immedi- 
 
 [157] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ately in a dilemma, for the main purpose of the 
 class organization was to have each member's 
 photograph in the Senior's "Record," a souvenir 
 book of the University life. Had I been other 
 than the president, I should not have fretted 
 about my inability to afford a visit to the pic- 
 ture gallery, but there I was: due to have my 
 picture in the middle of the group. I was in 
 despair until finally I thought of little Jack 
 Borden, who owned a three-dollar camera. I 
 told him my predicament and he consented to 
 make a snap-shot of me for ten cents that should 
 be fit to be in the center of a group of "gallery 
 ones" as he termed those that the official pho- 
 tographer would take. 
 
 As Jack had no photographer's background, 
 he snapped me with my back to the flowered 
 wall paper, and when the finished picture was 
 handed me, there I sat, outlined against a mass 
 of conventional crocus leaves and a picture of 
 "Pa" Borden hung on the wall above my head! 
 I was told by one of "The Record" Committee 
 that the picture would never be fit to reproduce 
 with such a background: that it should be in 
 relief against a plain one. I returned to my 
 room in despair, but finally resolved to cut my 
 picture out from the wall paper and paste it on 
 a piece of plain, black pasteboard. After going 
 over the outline with the scissors I finally suc- 
 ceeded in accomplishing the feat and the picture 
 went in the middle of the group, an undignified, 
 
 [158] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 flat, ill-posed, and somewhat jagged outline of 
 myself, most conspicuous as "the president." 
 
 As the year drew to an end, and the students 
 began to talk so emotionally of home and friends, 
 I began to feel that I had been long enough in 
 exile from my eastern home and friendships. 
 I also began to wonder if now that I had learned 
 the art of working a way through school I should 
 not be more comfortable in Massachusetts. I 
 had heard the graduating students talk of 
 "Dartmouth" and "Boston University" and 
 "Yale" and "Harvard," with a sort of worship- 
 ful accent, not far short of reverence* One or 
 two graduates in the past, so the local legend 
 ran, had even attained to post-graduate work 
 in Yale and Harvard! Therefore, as I heard 
 this talk, listened to this semi-worship of New 
 England education, and realized that it was my 
 home, my own environment, I also asked my- 
 self the question: "Why not go and complete 
 your education in that atmosphere?" 
 
 I mentioned this fact to Thropper. He said 
 to me: 
 
 "I have often wondered, Priddy, why you 
 came away out here for your education when 
 you have such good schools in New England. 
 I should think you'd be able to work your way 
 along out there and get some mighty fine chances. 
 I just wish I had been an Easterner!" 
 
 "I've a good mind to go East when school 
 closes, Thropper, and try. I must confess I 
 
 [159] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 feel lonesome, homesick out here. I miss the 
 ocean and the hills. I can't help it. I suppose 
 I run the risk of not getting to school next year, 
 though, if I break off now!" 
 
 "Not if you're willing to work as you have," 
 said Thropper. "Though I'd hate to have you 
 go. I thought you might be my right hand 
 man when I marry, next fall!" 
 
 "Marry?" 
 
 "Yes, in September. Oh, you'll get an invi- 
 tation even if you won't be able to attend, 
 Priddy," he added, solemnly, "I wouldn't try 
 to keep you from going East even with my 
 wedding. Try it, old fellow, You owe it to 
 yourself, now that you've got such a good start 
 here. This place doesn't pretend to be in com- 
 petition with the big Eastern institutions. 
 Evangelical University is concerned mostly with 
 giving a fellow a start towards them. The fac- 
 ulty would be only too glad to have you leave 
 here, if they knew you were going to stick to 
 your education in the East." 
 
 "I'll do it, Thropper!" I replied. 
 
 The busy season of Commencement was 
 ushered in : a busy time even for those of us who 
 were far, very far from graduation. My "class " 
 voted that I represent them with an oration on 
 "Class Day." No classic, intellectual, or sen- 
 timental event was Class Day at Evangelical 
 University, but, rather, a Western outflow of 
 burlesque and banter. Every day for a week I 
 
 [160] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 practised my "oration" in the attic of the Uni- 
 versity building. In this speech I had put, as 
 all previous Class Day orators had made a prac- 
 tise of putting, puns, alliterations, pompous 
 passages, personalities, and much bathos. I 
 tried to perfect myself in its delivery, not know- 
 ing just what experiences I should encounter on 
 the day I should speak it. 
 
 A wild, untamed, yelling, crowding procession 
 filled the chapel hall, each class in a section by 
 itself and the "orators" seated on the platform. 
 
 It came my turn. I stepped to the front and 
 raised my hand for the first word when sud- 
 denly the class next above mine yelled, poked up 
 slang signs, and then from the square venti- 
 lator hole high above my head darted a sparrow 
 with a trailing streamer of our class ribbon 
 fluttering from its tail. At every sentence, 
 nearly every word, I had to pause on account 
 of the yellings, the banter, and the interruptions 
 caused by flying hats and scudding pieces of 
 pasteboard. After about a half hour of disci- 
 plined posing, I finally concluded the "oration" 
 amid the admiring plaudits of my class. Thus 
 orator followed orator, each one outdoing the 
 other with satire, pun, and rhetorical nonsense. 
 To the accompaniment of a thudding fight which 
 was taking place between the representatives of 
 two classes over our heads where the bird had 
 been sent down, Class Day came to an end, and 
 my active life at Evangelical University likewise. 
 
 [161] 
 
Chapter XVI I L Thropper Un- 
 folds Something Better than 
 Canned Foods. A Lesson with 
 the Flat Iron. Thropper Proposes 
 that I Chaperone Horses 
 
 OW are you going to get back to 
 Massachusetts, Priddy?" asked 
 Thropper when I was shuffling 
 some photographs which I had 
 taken down from a wire rack on 
 the wall. 
 
 "Oh, I'll have to try to get work in a fac- 
 tory or on a farm about here," I answered, 
 "until I earn my fare!" 
 
 "Have you any definite work planned for, 
 
 yet?" 
 
 "No, but I thought I'd go out this afternoon 
 and see what I might pick up. I could keep 
 this room and board myself, Thropper." 
 He made a wry face, and blurted out: 
 "Warmed over canned beans, ugh!" 
 "What do you mean, old fellow?" 
 
 [162] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Boarding yourself — canned soups, canned 
 meats, canned everything — ugh!" 
 
 "That's what your wife will feed you on — 
 at first, while she learns to cook, Thropper," 
 I laughed. "Perhaps you'll prefer canned 
 things!" 
 
 "Is that so?" he retorted, with some show of 
 heat. "Well, that's all you know about things. 
 She can cook already : you just wait till you taste 
 some of her cooking. Canned things — ugh!" 
 
 "Well," I sighed, "I've little choice!" 
 
 "How would you like to spend the summer 
 at a neat little hotel in Michigan?". 
 
 "Thropper!" 
 
 "And room in a little cottage in the midst 
 of a little grove of pines, near little sandhills, 
 among a little group of the finest fellows in the 
 world — college students?" continued Throp- 
 per, with a smile. 
 
 "A little bit too much imagination in your 
 little talk, my dear little fellow!" I retorted. 
 
 "And go down to the beach every day for a 
 bath among the big waves, and go boating and 
 fishing; seeing the great crowds of excursion- 
 ists and vacationists!" 
 
 "Go on," I gasped, "have it out, Thropper, if 
 you particularly enjoy the stunt!" 
 
 "Food," continued my room-mate, "well, let 
 me see: strawberry shortcake a la much, mut- 
 ton chops with bacon a la juicy, calves' brains 
 on toast a la delicious, hashed browned pota- 
 
 [163] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 toes a la second helping, and for desserts: cream 
 and jellies, sherberts and pies — " 
 
 " — A la imagination, eh, Thropper," I inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 My room-mate's rugged face was overspread 
 with a grin. He clapped me over the shoulder 
 and said, continuing his whim: 
 
 "To enjoy many beautiful, moon-lit hours, 
 watching the glint of the phosphorescent waves 
 as they twinkle like fairy lights over the broad 
 expanse of Lake Michigan; to — " 
 
 "Look out, Thropper," I exclaimed at this 
 poetic outburst, "or you'll be crowding the 
 spring poets out of a job!" 
 
 "To roam at will through the shady groves, 
 over the sand dunes, to hear the orchestral music, 
 the light plash of the waves against the pier 
 while you hold a fish-line in the water; to loll 
 on the fragrant pine needles and read, muse, 
 rest, and be inspired: what do you think of that 
 for a program for the next three months, 
 Priddy?" 
 
 "Ask a Mohammedan what he thinks of Par- 
 adise or an exiled Prince what he thinks of a 
 Kingdom, Thropper?" 
 
 "Then," continued Thropper, "the whole 
 experience not to cost you a cent: rather you 
 are to be paid at the rate of four dollars a week : 
 wages for a treat like that, Priddy : what do you 
 think of that?" 
 
 "It is impossible for me to think about such 
 
 [164] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 a prospect, Thropper, my imagination is in- 
 toxicated!" 
 
 "Then you will go!" 
 
 I looked at Thropper as if he had parted with 
 his senses. 
 
 "What an actor you are, Thropper. One 
 would imagine you serious in all this!" 
 
 "Of course I'm serious!" he announced. "I 
 am merely offering you the chance to go with 
 Brock and myself to Macatawa, Michigan, to 
 wait on table at one of the hotels there." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "But all the things I have enumerated, 
 Priddy, are facts and not dreams. The work 
 is very easy: six hours a day; two hours a meal, 
 with the interims filled with all sorts of good 
 times. What do you say? Our railway fares 
 and steamer passages will be sent and later 
 will be deducted from our wages. Will you 
 go?" 
 
 "Do they let the waiters eat calves' brains on 
 toast, Thropper?" I asked, seriously. 
 
 "Extra orders which are not taken," he 
 responded. 
 
 "Of course I'll go, old fellow. It will be a 
 wonderful chance, won't it?" 
 
 "It will give you a good chance to get a rest, 
 Priddy," he averred, solemnly. "Your poor, 
 pinched body needs it!" 
 
 "When do we leave?" 
 
 "In two days; soon as Brock gets word to 
 
 [165] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the hotel that we are coming. I can lend you 
 some collars and things till we get there." 
 
 "The first month's wages are to go for 
 clothes," I announced. "All aboard for Ma-cat- 
 a-wa: last call for dinner!" I cried, and then 
 Thropper and I, sharers of confidences and of 
 dreams, linked arms and waltzed crazily around 
 the room — for sheer joy. 
 
 One week after having waltzed with Thropper 
 over the creaky boards of the dormitory, I found 
 myself adjusted to a new phase of existence, 
 delicious and inspiring in its every aspect. 
 After a lifetime spent in the midst of places 
 where toil and only toil held the boards: after 
 twenty years' vision of strenuous tasks done by 
 those about me, in mills, shops, and on the 
 street, at last I found myself in the midst of a 
 place set apart to idleness: where the indolent 
 were given the palm branch, and where work, 
 for a wonder, found itself, even by honorable 
 people, spurned as a thing out of place. 
 
 The six hours' work a day put at my com- 
 mand all the recreational advantages of the 
 resort: the shapely sand dunes, the board- 
 walks through cool, shaded pine groves, the 
 smooth, sandy, slippery beach down which one 
 walked past artists' studios, soap box shanties, 
 and pretentious pillared cottages. And the 
 water! We bathed by day and by night. In 
 it we fished and raced. Over it we rowed in 
 boats that were tossed like light corks from 
 
 [166] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 engulfing wave to engulfing waves, while the 
 life-boat man from the pier kept a sharp eye on 
 our adventure. By its edge on a moon-light 
 night we built a chain of fires and in the flames 
 of them we roasted marshmallows, sang songs, 
 and passed all sorts of banter. 
 
 In the dining-hall I met my fellow waiters 
 and waitresses: college students, all of them, 
 from different parts of the country. The orches- 
 tra, at dinner, played complimentary college 
 tunes in our honor: our guests broke down all 
 perfunctory relations and intimately entered 
 into our ambitions. While waiting for the 
 arrival of guests at breakfast the waiters stood 
 under a wooden canopy in the hotel yard and 
 ironed napkins and towels. Of course neither 
 Thropper nor I were very expert in the laundry, 
 but that did not excuse us from it. One day the 
 Irishwoman, who was proprietor of the hotel, 
 came and investigated the laundry. She paid 
 particular attention to the manner in which I 
 conducted the flat-iron over the towels. After 
 watching me for some moments, during which, 
 for a woman, she maintained a severe and ter- 
 rible silence, during which perspiration poured 
 down my face, she suddenly exploded with 
 laughter and said: 
 
 "Ah, ah! You should see Mister Priddy use 
 his iron. It's a rale treat. He is that gentle 
 on the cloths! I want you all to come around 
 and take a lesson. You girls now," she indi- 
 
 [167] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cated some of the college girls, "have been doing 
 it wrong all the time!" She laughed loudly, 
 as they gathered about my board. 
 
 Taking the iron gingerly in her massive, red, 
 and scarred hand, the Irishwoman very gently 
 tipped the back edge of it on a towel and delib- 
 erately, though exactly, drew the iron backward 
 several times, lifting it from the board to carry 
 it forward. 
 
 "That's the way Mr. Priddy says you ought 
 to iron!" she shouted, her burly face reddening 
 with merriment, as she noticed my chagrin. 
 "It's backwards and not forwards that you 
 should iron, all of ye ! " and then she sat down on 
 a bench in the midst of a most industrious crowd 
 of laughing boys and girls. After the fun, she 
 took the iron in hand in an endeavor to show me 
 the true, laundry method of using a flat-iron. 
 
 All the tricks, the horse-plays, the trivial but 
 welcome expressions of fun that crowd them- 
 selves into a college life, were indulged at the 
 hotel by the waiters and waitresses. A group 
 of Michigan students lived in a long, loosely- 
 built shanty in the yard, on the doors of which 
 they had painted its name: "Lover's Roost," 
 and the better to carry out the fancy of its 
 being a roost, the boys were in the habit of 
 receiving expected visitors, who came to inspect 
 their quarters, perched on the upper beams, 
 above the partitions, napping their hands and 
 crowing like lusty, gigantic roosters! 
 
 [168] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 The season rushed past in its merry whirl. 
 Tired muscles relaxed, taut nerves slacked, 
 weary bodies gained repose, there on the sand 
 dunes, amid parties, fetes, musicales, and pic- 
 nics. The first chill winds from the lake wafted 
 hordes of people back to work, and soon left 
 the hotel nearly unpeopled. 
 
 As the day approached when I should have to 
 leave, I found that I had saved but a trifle 
 out of my earnings: the money had gone for a 
 much-needed, but not expensive, ward-robe. I 
 counted over my change and found that I did 
 not have enough money left with which to 
 purchase a ticket for so far away a place as 
 Massachusetts. I mentioned the matter to 
 Thropper. He, in turn, in that generous way 
 of his, began to plan for me. One day he 
 came and said: 
 
 "Priddy, you know Gloomer, the fellow from 
 Indiana State University; well, if you go down 
 to Indianapolis with him, he'll see that you get 
 a chance to go on a freight train as far as New 
 York; from there you'll have enough to get 
 home, won't you?" 
 
 ' Yes. A freight train, you say? As a tramp, 
 riding on the axles?" I gasped, with an inward 
 shudder at the thought of such a desperate ride. 
 
 "Of course not!" declared Thropper. 
 "You'd go in the caboose. We'd send you with 
 a load of horses, you know. You'd be the man 
 in charge; to feed them." 
 
 [169] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "But I don't know anything about horses, 
 Thropper." 
 
 "You don't have to know anything about 
 them," he said, with a smile. "It's just a tech- 
 nical way of expressing it. You see, when the 
 horse dealers send a carload of horses East, 
 they are entitled to a representative to go 
 along and take care of them. You'd be the 
 representative. Gloomer could give you a line 
 to an Indianapolis sales stable. They'd do the 
 rest — as far as New York. What do you 
 say!" 
 
 In a wild moment of incautious self-confi- 
 dence, I responded: 
 
 "Anything to get to New York, Thropper." 
 
 "It's settled, then," he responded. "Albert 
 Priddy, horse chaperone, I salute thee," and he 
 gravely saluted me. "When will his lordship 
 occupy his caboose?" he went on in good- 
 humored raillery. 
 
 "As soon as I can get it!" I replied. 
 
 [170] 
 
Chapter XIX. A Chapter 
 W^hich Has to do with a Series of 
 Exciting Affairs that Occurred 
 between the TVest and the East, 
 and JVhich are Better to Read 
 about than to Endure 
 
 THROPPER accompanied me to the 
 wharf in Chicago where, so far as 
 I was able to judge, we were to part 
 forever. The manner of our part- 
 ing was as follows: 
 Thropper insisted on carrying my suit-case, 
 though his own was loaded to excess. On cross- 
 ing a street to enter the railroad station, I half 
 stumbled, blunderingly, under the heavy hoofs 
 of a dray horse which a swearing driver had 
 pulled shortly into the air, when Thropper, by 
 a lunge at my back with his heavy suit-case, 
 startled me into such action, that I lurched 
 ahead and away from danger. 
 
 "Thanks, old fellow!" I called, above the 
 roar of the traffic. 
 
 [171] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 My train was announced, and as I gripped my 
 suit-case, Thropper blurted out: 
 
 "Well, Priddy, I wish you luck: plenty of 
 it!" 
 
 "Well," I stammered, in return, "you've 
 certainly been good to me, Thropper. I shall 
 never forget it!" 
 
 "I shall miss you, Priddy!" 
 
 "Maybe I shan't miss you, old fellow!" I 
 said hoarsely, for I was on the verge of tears. 
 
 "God bless you!" cried Thropper, with an 
 effort. "God be with you!" 
 
 "Make a man of yourself, old fellow!" I 
 replied. 
 
 One moment of profound, tearful silence, 
 with our hands tightly clasped, and then I broke 
 away and ran as fast as I could towards my 
 train, pretending by that action that I might 
 be in danger of losing my train, though my 
 only intention was to be by myself, where, un- 
 seen, I could baptize this parting from Thropper 
 with unrestrained, heartfelt tears. 
 
 The brick-paved and marvellously wide 
 streets of Indianapolis were oppressively hot 
 when I arrived in the city, with Gloomer's 
 letter of introduction to the sales-stable man- 
 ager in my possession. I had to spend two days 
 in the city before a regular auction day arrived 
 when it would be possible for me to make a 
 contract with the manager. I had been told 
 that the psychological time to approach the 
 
 [172] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 horse-dealer would be at a sale when a carload 
 or two of horses would be made up. 
 
 During my wait, I had to harvest my cash 
 diligently, for fear of getting stranded on the 
 way. The four dollars in my pocket seemed 
 indescribably trivial when measured against 
 the gigantic journey I had between Indian- 
 apolis and New York City. I went on a side 
 street and searched among the cheaper lodging- 
 houses until I found one whose red, illuminated 
 sign told me that beds there were fifteen cents 
 a night. I went in, talked with a wizened-faced 
 tramp of a man, and was shown uj\ a flight of 
 back stairs into a large, dirty-papered room, in 
 which stood a wooden bedstead with dampish, 
 musty coverings. As I slept that night, I was 
 awakened by loud quarrelsome voices in the 
 back kitchen, and from what I heard, I realized 
 that I was sleeping in a thieves' lodging-house. 
 After that, I found myself waking up in nervous 
 fright every few minutes, expecting to see the 
 door open while some villain entered with a knife 
 or gun to strip me of what little I owned! It 
 was a night of horror, of wakeful, excited, dread. 
 I was afraid to sleep, and yet I kept waking, 
 hour after hour, with the consciousness that I 
 had given in to sleep, and had made it possible 
 for some one to overpower me. Then early 
 morning dawned, without any accident befalling 
 me, and I seized upon an excuse to leave. I 
 went downstairs very stealthily and confronted 
 
 [173] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 three ragged, evil-faced men who were sitting on 
 chairs, smoking with the landlord. I emptied a 
 half dozen soiled collars on the table and said: 
 
 "I haven't time to have these laundered, 
 and don't need them. You may have them — 
 if they fit. I wear fifteens. I have to leave 
 early. Here is my lodging fee for the night. 
 Good morning!" and without another word I 
 rushed from the house, hoping that the men 
 would imagine that my excitement was due to 
 fear of losing a train rather than to any dread 
 of them! 
 
 The only sight-seeing I accomplished in 
 Indianapolis came in a long walk I took past 
 the freight yards, at the end of which I came to 
 a tomato ketchup factory, where, for two hours, 
 I watched a carload of ripe and otherwise 
 tomatoes unloaded in barrows and carted into 
 the store vats. Then I hurried back to the 
 stables, for a sale was due for late afternoon, 
 and my heart was centred entirely upon the 
 hope of securing the ride to New York City. 
 
 Guided by the snap of whips and the strident 
 calls of the auctioneer, I entered a dim vault 
 of a place, where the sale was in progress. After 
 the glare of the sun had worn itself out of my 
 eyes, I found myself on the outer edge of a large 
 group of horse-dealers, watching the animals 
 put through their paces and holding up fingers 
 to the auctioneer. 
 
 After the sales had been concluded, I ap- 
 
 [174] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 proached a cubby-hole, which was filled with 
 stale tobacco smoke through which I had a 
 view of lithographs of race horses. The man- 
 ager of the stables sat at his desk, apparently 
 not busy, but eloquent in cigar smoke over the 
 sales he had made that day. He had a blown, 
 raw face, as red as his sunset shirt bosom and 
 dotted with unshaved blotches of bristles. His 
 thin nose had been turned aside by a blow of 
 some sort, his mild blue eyes might not have 
 been out of place in a woman's head. However, 
 on seeing me hesitate, and probably knowing 
 from my abject, petitioning manner, that I 
 was after some favor, he flavored the air with 
 an oath and tacked on an impatient demand as 
 to my wants. I thereupon unfolded what was 
 in my heart, and in the nervousness of the 
 moment, instead of handing him Gloomer's 
 letter of introduction, gave him, instead, my 
 pocket comb. Then I thought he would horse- 
 whip me, but, instead, he laughed, and said: 
 
 "Well, you're a thoroughbred, ain't ye! 
 What's this?" 
 
 I thereupon exchanged the comb for the let- 
 ter, which he took with some show of interest. 
 After reading it he said: 
 
 'Why, I'd ship you to Jericho, if I was send- 
 ing hosses that fur, but only thing I can do's 
 to send ye to Buffalo. You'll mebbe get an- 
 other haul from there, though I can't say." 
 
 I thought of the small amount of money in 
 
 [175] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 my pocket, and of the distance at which I 
 found myself from home, and then said: 
 
 "I was told that you might be able to ship 
 me to New York, sir. I need the lift. I have 
 less than five dollars." 
 
 "Sorry, kid," he muttered. "Buffalo's best 
 thing in the ring for a week or more. Good day, 
 sonny ! " 
 
 "But I'll take the chance to Buffalo," I 
 gasped, fearful that he would turn me off en- 
 tirely. "I'll be very thankful for that much 
 of a ride, sir." 
 
 He opened a drawer and wrote several items 
 on a yellow way bill which he handed to me. 
 
 "Shove that in yer pocket and skedaddle, 
 sonny," he said. "I wish yer joy in yer edu- 
 cation, though I don't in hang know what ye'U 
 do with it when yer got it; plant corn, in all 
 likelihood. S'long! Train leaves at half -past 
 six: freight yard. Numbers of the cars on the 
 pass! 
 
 At six o'clock I appeared in the terminal 
 freight yards with a bag of three-cent egg sand- 
 wiches under one arm and with my slate-colored 
 suit case bumping against my shins. It was 
 not until I reached the yards and beheld the 
 illimitable maze of tracks and the innumerable 
 dragon-like trains of freight cars and the hive 
 of busy, shifting engines that were making up 
 trains, that I realized how wise I had been by 
 coming a half hour early. I asked a switch- 
 
 [ 1^6 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 man where I should find the freight which left 
 for Buffalo at half-past six. Then I realized 
 still more acutely that my difficulties were only 
 begun, for after he had whirled the lever over 
 and allowed the section of shunted cars to rattle 
 past, he turned to me and with a very decided 
 and pugilistic gesture, asked me if I would 
 not immediately consign myself and all my 
 ancestors to a very negative theological place. 
 I stumbled over the switches and as I went 
 felt the hot, resentful glare of the railroad crews, 
 as they refused me the information I sought 
 and spiced their refusals with peppery idioms. 
 They would have buffeted me had I not been 
 armed by the pass. Finally, knowing that I 
 was in danger of losing my train, I entered the 
 switch-house and after I had gulped a stomach- 
 ful of pipe-smoke, one of the men told me that 
 I should find the train if I would look for the 
 numbers of the cars which were written on the 
 pass. So I went out in the dim twilight and 
 tried to match numbers, which to my startled, 
 nervous imagination looked like 5467990099- 
 3259 and 563780533255555555573275, but which, 
 in reality, were an inch or two shorter! Finally 
 I found the two numbers, and then I eagerly 
 ran down the length of the train until I came to 
 the caboose. I climbed up the steps, opened 
 the dusty door and was immediately greeted 
 by the angry gaze of the conductor and brake- 
 men who were busy with some sort of schedules. 
 
 [177] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 As I humbly presented my pass to the con- 
 ductor, and when it was made known to the 
 crew that I was to be their guest in the com- 
 fortable caboose, they immediately gave me a 
 lurid and explicit welcome: one that made me 
 shiver. Genealogical connections of a hitherto 
 unknown nature were ascribed to me; to them I 
 appeared as one of the brood of imps from that 
 negative theological place, and various exciting 
 and blood-bringing adjectives were loaded on 
 me that made my flesh quiver. The conduc- 
 tor, after generously and minutely explaining 
 how undesirable was my presence in that ca- 
 boose, going into the minutest details of my 
 personal limitations, sent me, shuddering, over 
 to the opposite side of the car, as far away as 
 possible from his presence, where I found a 
 padded window seat which was to be my bed 
 overnight. 
 
 When the train started, and the crew were 
 sitting around with nothing to do, I tried to 
 enter into conversation with one of them. But 
 I was persona non grata; of a different caste, I 
 was told to "hang my lip on the clothes-hook," 
 a grewsome feat and quite a poetic conception. 
 The window, a little square one, was high above 
 my head. I stood on the seat in the attempt 
 to look through it into the night. Immedia- 
 ately I was told to "switch off." Then I made 
 myself comfortable for the night by spreading 
 myself at full length on the seat. After a time, 
 
 [178] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the fumes of the lamp drugged me into a doze, 
 and then the thunder of the freight and the dull, 
 dull rumble of the train crew's voices sent me 
 off into a fretful, but long sleep. In the 
 morning, when I opened my eyes, and looked 
 out of the back door window, we were passing 
 stations in Ohio. The morning was very 
 pleasant, and thinking that a whole night of 
 my presence might have made the train crew 
 tolerant, I ascended into the lookout, above 
 the roof of the caboose, where, from the 
 cushioned seat, I could make a splendid observa- 
 tion of country through which we were passing. 
 But my joy was short-lived. Immediately the 
 thunders of the conductor called me down and 
 I was sternly ordered to "sit down where you 
 belong," a command which was followed by 
 a descriptive phrase which linked me to a low 
 and disreputable order of creation. 
 
 By nine o'clock we brought up in the Cleve- 
 land yards, where a new caboose and a new 
 train were to be fastened to the freight. I 
 was told to "grab" my belongings and "git the- 
 twelfth-letter-of-the-alphabet out of this!" 
 which I did, and found, when I got to the ground, 
 that the freight train had gone off and left the 
 caboose standing in the yard. Then I went on 
 a frightful, heart-thumping search for the two 
 cars with the long numbers on them: not spend- 
 ing any time to be rebuffed by the yard men. 
 I leaped from track to track and searched car 
 
 [179] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 after car until, at last, I found the numbers I 
 wanted, and by following out the length of the 
 train, came to the new caboose. 
 
 In this second caboose I resolved not to irri- 
 tate the crew, and to this end I made myself 
 comfortable in my allotted place, took off my 
 boots, put on a pair of tennis shoes, and read a 
 book I had in my suit-case. When the train 
 finally entered the Buffalo freight yards I was 
 hurried out, as the conductor wanted to lock 
 the caboose without the loss of a minute. When 
 I got to the ground, in my hurry, and after the 
 conductor had locked the door and left me 
 standing dazed, I found that I had left my 
 shoes in the caboose. But no amount of search 
 for the conductor succeeded, and finally one of 
 the railroad men told me that I might as well 
 give up the search, especially as the caboose 
 had been whirled out of sight by a switching 
 engine. So I went into the city with my suit- 
 case and ,my lean purse, determined to visit 
 the sales stables and stock-yards, until I should 
 find a chance to ride on to New York City. I 
 realized that if I should ever arrive in New 
 York I should not have enough money to carry 
 me home, but I followed a blind instinct which 
 seemed to tell me that, New York attained, 
 "something would turn up." 
 
 In one of the back streets of Buffalo I found 
 a Temperance Hotel, where beds and rooms 
 were fifteen cents a day. The hotel had in its 
 
 [180] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 frowsy lobby a group of unkempt men who 
 seemed to be temperate in one thing more 
 strikingly than another, — work, for during 
 any part of the day I found them there tipped 
 back in the chairs holding their conferences on 
 momentous matters. I left my umbrella with 
 the clerk for collateral, and told him that fur- 
 ther security for my board would be my suit- 
 case which was certainly worth thirty-five 
 cents. I had a good thirty-cent dinner in the 
 dining-room, and then went out to visit the 
 stock yards of the city. 
 
 When I saw the multitude of cattle pens, 
 near the railroad, and saw them filled with 
 sheep and cattle, I estimated that in them alone 
 were two hundred and fifty possible trips to 
 the end of the world; but when I entered the 
 lobby of the Stockman's Hotel and tried to get 
 the influence of the cattle-buyers towards a 
 pass, they would have nothing to do with me. 
 Thus rebuffed, I went the rounds of the sales 
 stables, of which there were many facing the 
 stock pens. In these I was told there were 
 no sales on just then, but that if anything turned 
 up they would see what they could do. That 
 gave me hope, so I said that I would call on 
 them during the next day. 
 
 During this wait I found that my money was 
 nearly gone. I had fifty cents on hand for 
 board. I asked a disreputable fellow, near 
 the Temperance Hotel, where I could get some 
 
 [181] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cheap meals. He pointed to the next street 
 and told me that they had three-cent meals in 
 some of the eating houses there. That evening 
 I indulged in a three-cent supper. It con- 
 sisted of a dish of beans, a slice of bread, some 
 "butter" and a cup of coffee. I went to the 
 same place for breakfast the next morning and 
 for three cents secured a cup of coffee, a dough- 
 nut, and a dish of stew. That morning a heavy 
 rain began to fall, and, for the first time, I began 
 to miss the shoes I had left in the caboose. I had 
 on a suit of good clothes, so that the worn tennis 
 shoes on my feet were all the more startling; but 
 when the streets were filled with running brooks 
 of rain through which I was forced to walk, 
 it was not merely a matter of appearance with 
 me, but a matter of comfort. On my way to 
 the stock-yards to see what the sales stables 
 could do for me, my feet were uncomfortably 
 soaked to the skin. The canvas tops of the 
 shoes were like mops. Every step I took on 
 the sidewalk was the cause of a soggy, mop- 
 pish slop. I expected the first policeman to 
 arrest me as a suspicious character. 
 
 I went from stable to stable, and at each one 
 asked in a tremulous voice if they were about 
 to send any horses to New York or Boston in 
 the near future, but neither sales nor shipments 
 were being made. I tried to interest some of 
 the stock-drovers in the cattle yards in my 
 affairs, but evidently I bored them. I paid 
 
 [ 182 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 another, desperate visit to the Stockman's 
 Hotel, but the cattle buyers would not give me 
 a word of encouragement towards a pass to 
 New York City. 
 
 After this I returned to the heart of the city 
 and began to plan against absolute starvation. 
 Even with three-cent meals I could not have 
 a much longer time to eat unless I obtained some 
 more money. Then I felt the bulge of my 
 nickel-plated watch, in my vest pocket. I had 
 paid a dollar for it and had used it for two 
 years. It had been purchased second-hand 
 from a mill friend and had originally cost 
 not more than three dollars. I hurried to a 
 pawn-broker's shop and said, eagerly, as I 
 handed the shopman the weighty time-piece: 
 
 "You can have this at your own price — I 
 don't care how much you offer. I need the 
 money!" 
 
 He tossed the watch in the palm of his hand, 
 then laughed, and as he handed it back to me 
 he said, impatiently: 
 
 "G'wan! It ain't wuth a flea! I wouldn't 
 buy dat t'ing fer junk! Git!" 
 
 Disconsolately I passed out, with the shop- 
 man's scornful eyes on me, and the gaze of a 
 burly negro and his wife following me. I had 
 no sooner reached the sidewalk, however, than 
 the negro came out and said: 
 
 "Say, how much yo' want fo' dat watch?" 
 
 The negro's wife appeared, and from their 
 
 [183] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 excessive interest in the watch I knew that they 
 would purchase it if I should put out an entic- 
 ing price. I cogitated in my mind as to how 
 much I might have to pay for a pair of second- 
 hand shoes, and then said: 
 
 "Fifty cents! Keeps good time, too, see!" 
 The negro took the watch in his hand, and 
 evidently it was the enormous size of it rather 
 than its efficiency as a time-keeper that inter- 
 ested him, for he spent more time gazing on its 
 back than he did in contemplating its works. 
 He thrust his hand into his pockets and gave 
 me a fifty cent piece which, just then, looked 
 as round and golden as a harvest moon, but 
 more tangible. 
 
 I hurried from the negro as swiftly as I could 
 in fear that he might repent and ask for a 
 return of the precious coin. I hastened down a 
 side street, made a spiral through a maze of 
 streets, and then felt that the half dollar be- 
 longed to me. I next began a search for a 
 pair of shoes. There were rows of them in a 
 Jewish cobbler's window, so I went in. The 
 Jewish woman, who was in charge, in the ab- 
 sence of her husband, asked me what size I 
 wanted, and then pulled out for my inspection 
 a pair of iron-clads that would not have been 
 amiss on the feet of Ulysses when he started out 
 on his wearing travels, and they surely would 
 have lasted him through all his strenuous ad- 
 ventures. 
 
 [184] 
 
Say, How Much Yo' Want fo' dat Watch 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Fifty-four cents!" announced the woman. 
 
 I told her that I could not spend a cent more 
 than fifty for foot-wear else I should have to 
 go without supper, and that wet feet were more 
 comfortable than an empty stomach. 
 
 We then entered upon an oriental haggling 
 during which I found it imperative to credit 
 myself with every virtue of honesty and candid- 
 ness, and during which she called on every 
 prophet to witness that the shoes should not 
 go for a cent less than fifty-four. I held up my 
 soggy tennis shoes and tapped them on the 
 floor so that their miserable splash should strike 
 a compassionate chill in her hard heart. I 
 told her my lifetime's history; gave her a most 
 pathetic list of my adventures; descanted with 
 fervor on the unkindness of men towards one 
 who was trying to make his way, and then the 
 shoes were mine! 
 
 I had to learn to walk over again when the 
 dry shoes were on. I half stumbled at first 
 with the weight, but I felt that at last I could 
 go on the main street of the city and pass 
 among respectable people without having harsh 
 comments made. 
 
 After my three-cent supper, I hurried to a 
 church where a prayer-meeting was in progress. 
 After the meeting I made a confidant of the 
 minister, who took me before a group of men; 
 the total result of which was that they lent me 
 ten dollars on a note which I later paid, or 
 
 [185] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tried to pay, but they refused to accept the 
 money and sent me back my note. A scalper's 
 ticket to New York City took nearly all of the 
 ten dollars. I returned to the "hotel" where 
 I sold my umbrella and out of the proceeds paid 
 my room rent and bade good-bye to the men 
 who lounged there. The New York train which 
 I had to take did not leave Buffalo until two 
 o'clock in the morning. As I went through the 
 quiet streets, the scavengers were out, with 
 bags on their shoulders, fingering the refuse 
 barrels that lined the curbs in front of hotels 
 and eating-houses. It was a glimpse of pov- 
 erty that made me shudder, and which by com- 
 parison made me feel quite aristocratic. 
 
 The conductor accepted my scalper's ticket 
 without comment, though he might have put 
 me off the train on the least suspicion. I took 
 off my heavy shoes, leaned back in the seat and 
 fell asleep without a care to distract me while 
 the express hummed smoothly through the 
 night. 
 
 As soon as the train arrived in the New York 
 station I had to hurry across the city to the 
 steamboat wharves in time to board the Provi- 
 dence steamer for the dollar ride into the Fall 
 River zone. Though I had never been in the 
 metropolis before, and though I stood for a 
 thrilling moment in the very midst of its won- 
 ders, impelling poverty drove me across the city 
 like a slave-master's whip, and I boarded the 
 
 [186] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 steamer with merely an impressionistic glance of 
 some ferry -houses, some wholesale fruit houses, 
 a dilapidated horse-car, some street corner block- 
 ades, a whiff of Hester street, and the East 
 River bridges. After a night in the forward 
 part of the boat, sleeping in a berth which might 
 have been the confines of a barrel, while a 
 drunken man next to me kept up a periodic, 
 loose-mouthed protest to a man in the upper 
 berth that he wished he wouldn't snore so loud 
 and keep everybody awake, I was put ashore 
 in Providence. From there I was taken by 
 trolley into Massachusetts and home. When 
 I arrived in New Bedford I had thirty-five 
 cents remaining in my pocket. But I was 
 home ! And ready for the next step in my edu- 
 cation, whatever that should be. 
 
 [187] 
 
Chapter XX. Aunt Millie's In- 
 terpretation of Education. "The 
 Right Sort of an Adviser Gets 
 Hold of me 
 
 1 HURRIED — with a feeling of pride — in 
 the direction of the tenement where my 
 aunt and uncle were living. It was nearly 
 noon. I would surprise my aunt! I 
 knocked on the door. My Aunt Millie 
 stood before me. 
 
 "Hello!" I cried. "How are you?" 
 She gazed on me with evident surprise, and 
 with a mixture of suspicion, which she put in 
 her first words: 
 
 "I thought you were out getting made into 
 a gentleman — at one of those schools?" 
 
 "Why, aunt, I've had two years of educa- 
 tion — so far. I mean to have more." 
 "But where's that fortune you've made?" 
 I gasped. 
 
 "Fortune? I've only got thirty-five cents 
 and I'm in debt for that!" 
 
 "It's a failure, then?" she asked, maliciously. 
 
 [188] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Of course it isn't a failure!" I insisted, des- 
 perately. "Two years of it have helped me 
 very much. I mean to get more of it, aunt!" 
 
 "But you look poorly dressed, and you tell 
 me that you're poorer than the day you went. 
 I always thought education meant getting along 
 in life!" 
 
 "It does mean getting along in life," I argued, 
 "but not necessarily getting along in money — 
 or even good clothes. It has to do with the 
 mind — with the thinking powers — eh — " 
 
 She burst into mocking laughter and said: 
 
 "Oh, that's it? Then maybe you'll not be 
 needing bed and board now that you've had two 
 years of education, — is that the state of things? " 
 
 "Oh, you don't understand, aunt. Of course 
 you can't do much in the world with only two 
 years of it. It needs several years of it before 
 you can really get a position in which money or 
 prestige may be made. I'm only just on the 
 way: in the first stages." 
 
 "Then why aren't you in it? What have 
 you come back to us for? I suppose you are 
 short of money and want us to help you along 
 in your brainless undertaking, eh?" 
 
 "Have I asked a cent from you during the 
 last two years, aunt?" I asked with some show 
 of spirit. "Haven't I earned my own living 
 even when I have been at home? Is it likely 
 that I'll ask you to help me through now?" 
 
 "It wouldn't do any good if you were to ask 
 
 [189] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 us," she said, firmly. "We have debts enough 
 in the house now to drive us to distraction." 
 
 "Of course," I said, "it will be some weeks, 
 probably, before I can shape my plans. You 
 will let me stay here?" 
 
 "There," she sniffed, "he's coming the soft 
 soap act on, now! I thought you had some- 
 thing up your sleeve. So you want me to board 
 you free of charge for some weeks, eh, while 
 you lord it around without working?" 
 
 "I shall have to plan just what to do next!" 
 I announced, feeling that this last touch to my 
 already heavy load would break me. "That's 
 all. I shall be going off to some sort of a school 
 if it's possible." 
 
 "Two days free: that's as long as you can 
 stop without board," she announced. "I never 
 was for this hair-brained business. It's taken 
 your earnings away. After two days you must 
 pay board." 
 
 I knew it was fruitless to argue with her any 
 further and I longed for the noon to arrive when 
 I could have Uncle Stanwood's more comfort- 
 ing greetings. 
 
 My uncle came in and was extremely pleased 
 to greet me, and my return so unexpectedly 
 considerably upset him. 
 
 "Two years of learning, steady," he com- 
 mented. "That's good. You are the first 
 Priddy to get such a chance. Make the most of 
 it. Two years is a good beginning. I can no- 
 
 [190] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tice a difference in your speech and your man- 
 ner already. Keep on, Al!" 
 
 "His learning hasn't given him any silk shirts 
 or gold-headed canes, has it?" scoffed my 
 Aunt Millie. 
 
 "Don't heap it on the lad," chided my uncle, 
 "it's taken a lot of courage and perhaps suffer- 
 ing for him to get through as he has. We 
 haven't done anything towards it, Millie; so 
 we shouldn't have much to say!" 
 
 Then my uncle asked a perfectly natural and 
 innocent question. 
 
 "What are you aiming to be, Al, when you're 
 through with the schools?" 
 
 Tremblingly I whispered: 
 
 "A preacher, I think!" 
 
 If the world had cracked or the moon had 
 leaped into the middle of our kitchen, my aunt 
 could not have been more startled than she 
 appeared to be at that announcement. She 
 instantly rallied her powers of ridicule and 
 sarcasm and indulged in the following mono- 
 logue that had little savor of love in it: 
 
 "Oh, oh! That's the lay of the land, is it? 
 A parson! A Priddy a parson! A fawning, 
 hypocritical parson! A tea-drinking, smirking 
 thing in black. Why, at least, didn't he chose 
 to be a lawyer or a doctor or something worth 
 while? I thought he had brains!" 
 
 "Millie!" thundered uncle. "Shut up! Do 
 you want to crush the lad?" 
 
 [191] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 But she was not to be stopped. She grew 
 almost hysterical in her tirade. 
 
 "I suppose he'll be hurling his sermons at 
 us, so sanctimonious and pious!" 
 
 "Hush, aunt, please," I pleaded, "don't 
 shout so loud, people will hear and wonder what's 
 wrong!" 
 
 "There," she went on with a dry laugh, 
 "just hear that low voice: it's just the voice for 
 a parson!" Then she posed before me in dread- 
 ful mimicry, with her finger tips touching in 
 front of her and an affected, upward cast in 
 her eyes, while she cried, ingratiatingly: 
 
 "'Be good, be very, very good, my dears! 
 Do right like me and get to heaven ! ' ' and then 
 releasing herself from this display she suddenly 
 roared, "You old hypocrite, you! The idea, 
 you a parson!" 
 
 "God knows," muttered uncle, "it is to be 
 wondered how a lad brought up with us could 
 ever turn his eyes in that direction!" 
 
 At that my Aunt Millie cast on her husband 
 a frown and said, snappishly: 
 
 "Aye, you old sinner. Your conscience is 
 working now. No wonder you talk like that!" 
 
 During the dinner, while my aunt was in the 
 pantry, uncle bent towards me and whispered: 
 
 "Come out with me after dinner, Al. We'll 
 talk there!" 
 
 At half -past twelve we left the house together 
 and sat down on some logs on an empty lot 
 
 [192] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 near the mill where uncle said, after I had 
 recounted to him my two years' experiences: 
 
 "But what can you do now? It seems that 
 you have cut yourself off from everything by 
 leaving that school. You have nothing to go 
 to now!" 
 
 "Oh," I replied, "there are scores of places 
 that I might go to in the East here, if I only 
 knew where to look. Rather than be idle, I 
 might go to the local high school and work dur- 
 ing the spare time for my board and clothes. 
 Then there are free academies and preparatory 
 schools where I might get a change. I will 
 begin to look around. Mr. Woodward,- the 
 minister, might know of some things. I mean 
 to see him this afternoon. I shall try to keep 
 on with my studies somehow." 
 
 "Why don't you go into the mill for awhile 
 and then get some money by you, Al. It would 
 make it easier for you?" 
 
 "But I can't spare the time, uncle. I ought 
 to keep right in with an unbroken school career. 
 It can be done if only the right place be found. 
 I am all at sea, just now, but I shall inquire. 
 I know I shall find something." 
 
 We talked until the one o'clock whistle 
 sounded, and then I went in the direction of the 
 minister's house to consult with him concern- 
 ing my future. 
 
 Mr. Woodward was minister over a little 
 church of mill people, one of those underpaid 
 
 [193] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 men who not only preach faith but express it 
 in many kindly but unheralded services to soci- 
 ety. He obtained congenial work for over- 
 worked factory girls, sent tired mothers into the 
 country in the summer season, sent invalids to 
 hospitals, inspired mill lads in self -culture, and 
 kept his own busy mind furnished with the 
 latest and most scholarly information in social 
 science and theology. 
 
 When I rang his door-bell my heart nearly 
 failed me with the thought that as he had never 
 had the privilege of attending a college or a 
 theological seminary, he might be unable to 
 give me any advice on my immediate problem. 
 
 But after we had sat in his study for an hour, 
 and he had sounded me on my past experiences, 
 and when I had concluded with a very pessi- 
 mistic exclamation, 
 
 "But I guess I've thrown away my chance 
 by leaving Evangelical University, Mr. Wood- 
 ward. I don't know what took possession of 
 me, I'm sure. It was such a whim, especially 
 when I was doing so well out there!" 
 
 The big Scotchman stood up, laid his heavy 
 hand on my shoulder and exclaimed, 
 
 "Albert, I think I see you continuing the 
 fight from now on, if I can possibly do any- 
 thing. You must have courage and faith; 
 they are more to you than money." He swept 
 his hand across his eyes as if to sweep back the 
 years and said, reminiscently, 
 
 [194] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 " Oh, if I'd had your chance, lad ! You don't 
 know what it cost me to lose my chance! 
 Listen!" He then recounted to me his own 
 experience in search of an education and 
 unfolded dramatic incident after dramatic inci- 
 dent for my encouragement. He showed me 
 himself by a peat-bog fire, in the north of Ire- 
 land, amidst poverty, struggling with his few 
 books. He showed me himself, an immigrant 
 landing in New England, where he began to 
 work in the flare of a furnace. Next he showed 
 me how his chance for going to college had 
 been cut off by his marriage. That was fol- 
 lowed by the picture of him, sitting in a room 
 through the day learning Greek and theology, 
 while his wife went into the mill to earn the 
 money for rent and clothes and books. The 
 memory of those severe struggles which had 
 cost nerve and health brought tears swimming 
 into his kindly eyes. He said, in conclusion, 
 
 'Why, if I were in your place, lad, I'd black 
 boots to get to a college, I would. Don't lose 
 a day. I know a theological seminary in high 
 standing where you can get as good a training 
 for the ministry as may be secured anywhere 
 in the United States, where your mind will 
 awaken and where you may not feel ashamed 
 after graduating from it. From there you can 
 go to a college, entering the Junior year. That 
 will mean five years more, Albert, five years of 
 blessed privilege, which I shall envy you, lad!" 
 
 [195] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "But I have no money, and it must cost 
 money to enter the theological seminary," I 
 insisted. "I should have to get there, and there 
 would occur several expenses for books and 
 things when I get there." 
 
 "I can get fifty dollars for you on a note, 
 which I will secure. Trust me," replied Mr. 
 Woodward. "I mean that you shall go ahead. 
 The world can't afford to let one of its ambi- 
 tious lads slip up. It's not good economy. 
 Fifty dollars will start you off. The expenses 
 at the seminary are trivial. There will occur 
 opportunities for self-help. In the summer 
 you may get a church. Come to me tomorrow 
 afternoon. I'll get busy with the telephone and 
 telegraph right away. The Seminary opens 
 this week. Come tomorrow, lad, and I hope 
 to have good news for you. I feel that you've 
 got your chance!" 
 
 As I left him standing at the door, gazing 
 after me, I hurried home whistling; thinking, 
 too, what an overturn of emotion can occur in 
 a single day. 
 
 [196] 
 
Chapter XXL Over the Sea to 
 a New Educational Chance. How 
 I Revenged Myself on the Hungry 
 Days. The Cloistered Serenity 
 of the New Place % 
 
 THE following afternoon when I ar- 
 rived at Mr. Woodward's house, I 
 found a young man with him, whom 
 he introduced as Mr. Blake, a Con- 
 gregational minister from a nearby 
 town, whom he had invited in to talk to me 
 about the Seminary. 
 
 "Mr. Blake graduated there a few years ago 
 
 and can tell you all about it," added my friend. 
 
 "Had you better not show him the telegram 
 
 you have from the President of the Seminary?" 
 
 suggested the young man. 
 
 Mr. Woodward smiled, and showed me a 
 telegram which read, 
 
 "Send the young man at once!" and bore 
 the signature of the Seminary President. 
 
 Then Mr. Woodward put his hand into his 
 
 [197] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 pocket and brought out from thence a cluster 
 of crinkling bills. 
 
 "Hold your hand, Albert," he smiled. "It's 
 money!" 
 
 He counted into my hand fifty dollars and 
 said, 
 
 "If you are energetic, this is all the money 
 you will have to borrow for awhile. I am glad 
 for you, my lad. Now I have to attend a fu- 
 neral. You go out for a walk with Mr. Blake 
 and come back with him in time for supper. 
 We're to have an informal celebration together." 
 
 I led Mr. Blake to the Point Road, the pen- 
 insula which juts out like a forefinger from the 
 south end of New Bedford into Buzzard's Bay. 
 We walked along the grassy foot-path, near the 
 low wall, past the shimmering sea, the flying, 
 croaking gulls, and a parade of scallop boats. 
 My companion had a very ambitious mous- 
 tache which was trying hard to mature, and he 
 had a trick of unconsciously aiding the ends by 
 pulling them as he talked. While he interjected 
 theological shop talk, and had a long disserta- 
 tion on Textual Criticism versus Literal Inspi- 
 ration, when he found that I had been in 
 such a conservative theological atmosphere as 
 Evangelical University, and though he prattled 
 familiarly the names of Renan, Weissmann, 
 Schleiermacher, and Ritschl, I found inspira- 
 tion in the man himself, for I kept thinking to 
 myself on that walk, "He has attained to what 
 
 [198J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 you are after." We came to a grove of spruces 
 that had grown on the edge of some rocks by 
 the side of the road. Here, a quartet of blue- 
 bloused Chinamen were celebrating some sort 
 of a holiday by playing strident tunes on queer 
 pipes and tom-toms, joining in with their fal- 
 setto voices. Mr. Blake and I found a secure 
 place on some ledges, from which we could throw 
 pebbles at the white gulls that walked up and 
 down the beach in lady -like fashion. 
 
 When we returned, at the supper hour, we 
 sat down with Mr. Woodward at the table, 
 where both men set my head to whiriing by the 
 confidence with which they recounted my future 
 enjoyment of the Seminary. Had it not been 
 for the crumpled fifty dollars in my pocket, 
 the entire experience would have had the shape 
 of a dream, for only two days before I had stood 
 before my critical aunt with no plans and with 
 thirty-five cents for my fortune. My freight 
 ride and Buffalo experience seemed years back, 
 in a dim haze. 
 
 On arriving home, I pulled out the fifty dol- 
 lars and showed the amount to my aunt and 
 uncle. 
 
 "Where did you get all that?" gasped my 
 uncle. 
 
 "Borrowed it," I replied. "I go to a theo- 
 logical seminary in two days." 
 
 My aunt wanted to know what sort of a lu- 
 natic I was to borrow money on which to get an 
 
 [199] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 education. Her theory yet remained, that only 
 those with large fortunes were entitled to an 
 education. 
 
 But from the shining eyes of my uncle, I 
 gathered that he felt glad over my prospects, 
 as I unfolded them to him. 
 
 Two evenings later I sat on the hurricane 
 deck of a steamer that was to carry me to the 
 Seminary city. I watched the golden dome of 
 • the State House dwindle to the size of a 
 noonday sun. I watched the waves from 
 our paddles wash the edges of innumerable 
 islands. We passed the lighthouses: huge 
 warning fingers flashing their diamond lights. 
 Our bow foam swirled over the low-lying decks 
 of loaded coasters. Then we entered the silences 
 of the ocean : even the sun left us and we swirled 
 into night. The dismal echoes of bending bell- 
 buoys reached our ears out of the darkness. 
 The chilly, night wind threatened us with influ- 
 enza, so we hurried into the cabins where, 
 under bright lights, people were chatting, 
 and where, in a far corner, a musician was tick- 
 ling the popular tune from the piano: 
 
 " All the Stars in the Sky, Dear, Speak through the Night of You-u-u ! " 
 
 When the glistening negro, in spotless white, 
 rushed through the cabin, waving a pink- 
 bordered towel and muttering to the ceiling or 
 to the thick carpet, as if it were no concern of 
 his, that this was "the last call for dinner," I 
 
 [200] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 felt that I would adventure into the consider- 
 able menu a dollar would bring me, if for noth- 
 ing else but to atone for those hungry days 
 of three-cent meals in Indianapolis and Buffalo ! 
 
 The next morning the steamer was poking 
 its prow insistently through the sea and through 
 a drizzling rainstorm. We were near land again 
 and passed bleak islands hardly bigger than a 
 man's hand on which were exiled lonesome, 
 bleating sheep. Then we left the bays back of 
 us and entered the mouth of a river roadway 
 whose banks were lined with golden foliage. 
 We passed a grim, grey fort and then stopped 
 at a quiet town whose roofs were buried in tall 
 trees, which in turn were topped by the spires 
 of two old-fashioned churches which seemed to 
 be telling the townspeople in which direction 
 God was to be found. The river roadway 
 deepened and narrowed and twisted as we 
 ascended it. Then we left the autumn beauties 
 of tree and shrub and passed between ice-houses, 
 factories, and tenements until a bridge marked 
 the limits of navigation and we were put ashore 
 in the Seminary city. 
 
 The steamboat wharf was the front porch to 
 a large city which began at the summit of a 
 hill to the south, crowded the hillside, wandered 
 into the valley, and ascended another hill and 
 continued on it as far as the eye could reach. I 
 walked over the cobbled street in front of the 
 wharf shed, made my way past long rows of 
 
 [201] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cordage and commercial houses, and came out 
 into a triangular market-place, shut in by low- 
 set brick and wooden houses, cheap hotels, 
 fruit, fish, and sailors' clothing stores. The 
 market-place was thronged with wagons and 
 stalls. In one section the hay wagons were 
 massed and over them groups of stablemen and 
 citizens argued until load after load had been 
 sold. In another section, with their backs 
 forming an aisle through which I walked, were 
 the butcher-carts offering roasts, strings of sau- 
 sage, coral strings of frankfurts, and whole sides 
 of pork. Back of them were the vegetable carts 
 with loads of squashes fresh from the fields and 
 heaps of greens. After walking through this 
 noisy market, I came to the main business 
 street of the city, lined with stores and hum- 
 ming with cars. Then I walked up a hill past 
 residences and dying grass lawns, until, in a 
 triangular fence which followed the parting of 
 two streets, I had my first view of the theolog- 
 ical seminary. 
 
 The seminary was separated from the modern 
 houses about it not only by the fence, but also 
 by its age, its soberness, its shaded walks, and 
 its ample stretches of lawn. Behind the leaves 
 of the trees I saw one of those mill-like dormi- 
 tories which our stern, eighteenth-century fore- 
 fathers loved to build when they planned colleges 
 and seminaries. The whole aspect of the place, 
 as I entered the gate, was one of monkish 
 
 [202] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 repose, of academic sedateness. The drab paint 
 on the porches of the dormitory and covering the 
 professors' houses, the dignified layers of brick 
 in the chapel, all said, as plainly as you please, 
 "Don't laugh here!" All my early dreams con- 
 cerning how colleges and places of learning 
 should look, were realized. The very bricks in 
 the buildings seemed to be after a theological 
 education. 
 
 As I put my foot on the porch a young man 
 met me, asked me if I was "Mr. Priddy," and 
 on learning that I was, he escorted me immedi- 
 ately over to the president's house^ where the 
 final arrangements for my matriculation in 
 the Seminary were completed. An hour later, 
 under the guidance of Burner, who was an upper 
 classman, I was purchasing an oil lamp, a par- 
 lor stove, a ton of coal, a wash basin, two coal- 
 hods, and sundry decorations. Two hours after 
 that I had unpacked my belongings in a double 
 room on the fourth floor of the dormitory, 
 and when the chapel bell sounded for supper, 
 Burner conducted me into a very old-fashioned 
 Commons, on the walls of which were paintings 
 of ships and shipwrecks. Here I was intro- 
 duced to the students and then found myself 
 eating voraciously of the fare that was set before 
 me. 
 
 The next morning, I was awakened by the 
 piping of a little bird that sang on the window 
 ledge, under the open window. 
 
 [203] 
 
Chapter XXII. Stoves with 
 Traditions , Domestic Habits ', and 
 Greek, "Boys Will be Boys" 
 
 THE apocalyptic hope of the stu- 
 dents who were domiciled in 
 Therenton Hall, the Seminary 
 dormitory, included steam heat 
 and running water; for neither of 
 those modern conveniences had been installed up 
 to that time and students had to carry hods of 
 coal up four flights of stairs; and were compelled 
 to convey pitchers of water the same distance. 
 Each one had his own coal bin in the vaulted cellar 
 and also owned a kindling pile which he watched 
 with suspicious and amusing jealousy. Besides 
 that, ashes had to be raked from stoves, car- 
 ried downstairs, and sifted — by the thrifty — 
 in a far corner of the cellar, where lay the dor- 
 mitory ash heap. 
 
 The parlor stoves, coal-hods, water bowls, 
 and pitchers, the personal possessions of the 
 students, were handed down from class to class, 
 in many instances, until the most trivial price 
 
 [204] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 — say a dollar for a six-foot stove — gave a 
 profit of ten cents and three years' use to the 
 senior who sold out. The stove I purchased 
 for two dollars was a giant of a stove, high, 
 bulky, and lavishly decorated with ring-a-rosy 
 cherubs, covered with a thick coating of stove 
 polish until they had ceased being an angelic 
 silver and had become an Ethiopian black. 
 I mention this stove because its sheet-tin girth 
 was hallowed by hoary traditions, and if it 
 could have spoken it would have kept me 
 cheered for many hours by a recital of the 
 different escapades in which it had % figured at 
 the hands of the theologues. The rust on its 
 bands, for instance, was due to the fact that 
 some students had plastered it with a swad- 
 dling of sticky fly paper. The dent imme- 
 diately under the hood had been made by a 
 flying theological treatise which had been aimed 
 originally at the head of an intruder, who in- 
 sisted on keeping one of the stove's former 
 owners from a study of Hebrew nouns. The 
 broken foot, which rested on some thin wafers 
 of wood, was caused by the attempt on the part 
 of some students to reverse the stove during the 
 absence of another owner who was paying court 
 to one of the young women in the city. 
 
 We attended to the dusting and care of our 
 own rooms with more or less thoroughness. 
 Some of my friends chose to sleep and study 
 amidst dust and disorder rather than to endure 
 
 [205] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the strain and toil of a sweeper, a beater, and 
 a duster for a Saturday morning. When we 
 went to a city prayer-meeting or a lecture, we 
 would usually dangle our greasy kerosene cans 
 as far as the corner grocery and leave them to 
 be filled. In fact, so inextricably interwoven 
 with our intellectual concerns were our domestic 
 habits, that I had not been in the dormitory 
 very long before I caught myself entering my 
 Greek class holding fast to a coal-hod, which I 
 had taken the trouble to carry along the walk 
 and into the recitation building, while I had 
 unconsciously propped my Greek Testament 
 very snugly behind the lower banister, under 
 the impression that it had been the coal-hod. 
 
 One Saturday morning, Providence or Fate 
 — whatever it would be at a theological semi- 
 nary — arranged a mise en scene which called 
 attention, in an effective way, to the inconven- 
 ience of permitting the students the use of coal- 
 hods and wash bowls. The President was 
 entertaining a gentleman who had been the 
 first donor to our new and splendid gymnasium. 
 He had escorted the benefactor through the bath- 
 rooms, the bowling-alleys, over the running-track, 
 and had taken him among the equipment, with 
 evidences of great pleasure. I had occasion to be 
 leaving the gymnasium in their wake. I saw the 
 President throw open the door which led into the 
 lower hall of the dormitory and heard him say, 
 "This is our dormitory — " or something to 
 
 [206] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 that effect, and he stepped back to allow the sem- 
 inary benefactor to precede him into the dignified 
 precincts of our domicile. Then he followed, 
 and one may imagine how he must have felt, 
 as he gazed upon a chaos of coal, of wood, of 
 water, and of broken crockery, which lay like 
 the trail of a sloven over the hall and over the 
 first flight of steps; echoes from the preceding 
 night, when the top floor had engaged the lower 
 floors in a counter demonstration of noise, smash, 
 and confusion. 
 
 [207] 
 
Chapter XXIII. A Plot Which 
 had for its End the Raising up of 
 a Discouraged Young Preacher 
 
 ONE day I was sitting in the appar- 
 ently deserted library, looking over 
 the new books which were always 
 kept on a side shelf, at the entrance 
 to one of the alcoves, when I heard 
 a heavy, most disconsolate sigh, coming from a 
 hidden corner in the rear of the room. The 
 sigh was followed by the rustling of book leaves. 
 I continued my investigation of the new books, 
 but was once more interrupted by that same, pro- 
 longed sighing. It was just such a sigh as 
 Dante must have heard proceeding from the 
 lips of those unfortunate creatures who stood 
 in neither hope nor despair. I decided to inves- 
 tigate, and, for that purpose, went down the 
 alcove from which the sighing seemed to have 
 come, and there, with his back turned to me, 
 seated at one of the reference tables, with his 
 head resting woefully on his spread out arms, 
 sat Amos Tucker, an upper class man. 
 
 I hesitated to approach him, at first, and pre- 
 
 [208] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tended that I had come into the alcove for a 
 book. Then again the sigh proceeded from the 
 limp heap at the table, and, throwing all restraint 
 to the winds, I went to the table, touched Amos 
 on the shoulder, and said, 
 
 "Are you in trouble, Tucker?" 
 
 He raised his tearful, grey eyes to me, and 
 said, 
 
 "They say I'm not fit to be a preacher!" 
 
 I sat down beside him, for from his manner 
 I knew that he welcomed me to be his confidant. 
 
 "Who says so? Any of the students?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "No, it wouldn't matter if it came from them: 
 the church says so!" 
 
 "What church is that, Tucker?" 
 
 He sat up in his chair and replied, 
 
 "I have just started to preach, this year. I 
 have been out for two Sundays in a little place 
 where they give me seven dollars, out of which 
 I have to pay a dollar and a half for expenses. 
 It's not that I care a snap about the money, 
 though, but I want a place to call my parish. I 
 feel that I ought to preach. Well, I've got a 
 letter from the committee this morning, tell- 
 ing me that they will have to get along without 
 me; that they cannot have me any longer for 
 their minister." 
 
 "What reasons do they offer?" 
 
 "That's it!" he responded, with a catch in 
 his voice, "they have had the bravery to tell 
 
 [209] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 me the exact reason. It is this : they tell me — 
 oh, hadn't you better read for yourself," and he 
 handed me the last page of a letter, explaining, 
 
 "It's all on that one page: all that you want 
 to know." 
 
 I read: 
 
 "You can never make a preacher, we feel — 
 excuse us for telling you so frankly — you have 
 no voice, you do not read well, your grammar 
 is poor, your themes are not interesting. Your 
 last Sunday morning's talk on 'Conscience' 
 was beyond our understanding. Several good 
 supporters have threatened to forego their 
 subscriptions if we have you another Sunday. 
 Will you kindly suggest some one to come to 
 us next Sunday and oblige, yours in Christian 
 sincerity, etc." 
 
 "Blunt, isn't it?" he half smiled. 
 
 "The idea of asking you to send them some- 
 body, after that!" I gasped. 
 
 "Oh," he sniffed, "it's all in Christian sin- 
 cerity, you know!" 
 
 "Well," I added, "there are other places, 
 Tucker. Cheer up!" 
 
 Then a most discouraging change came into 
 his eyes, he nodded his head, and replied, with 
 vigor, 
 
 "The trouble of it is, Priddy, what they say 
 is all true, every word of it! I have a terrible 
 voice and can't seem to get my words out. I 
 don't know much about grammar; never had 
 
 [210] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 much of a chance on the farm. I'm not quick 
 to learn like so many here. I have to plod and 
 plod and plod. As for interesting sermons, 
 why, if they aren't interesting I do the best I 
 can!" 
 
 I wanted to ask him, then, why he persisted 
 in entering the ministry, but I couldn't find cour- 
 age to do so, but he had read my thoughts, for 
 he said, immediately, 
 
 "You wonder why, if I know all this, I enter 
 the ministry, and fight against hope? Well, 
 I'll tell you. I have felt, right along, that I 
 might break down my handicaps. At least I 
 thought I would give myself a thorough trial, 
 no matter how bitter the disappointment of 
 failure might be. I didn't mind losing two or 
 three places at first, if I could finally master 
 myself. It was a sort of inherent vanity of 
 mine that I could succeed. But this — this 
 seems to be a judgment on me, I guess. I 
 think I'll pack up and go out and become — 
 oh, anything that pays day wages. At least, 
 I can try to be a good layman!" 
 
 "Why don't you try it another year?" I sug- 
 gested. "Things might turn." 
 
 "How can I stay here if I can't earn some 
 money by preaching? " he asked. " If no church 
 will take me, why, I shall have to leave the 
 Seminary." 
 
 "I wouldn't leave before having a good talk 
 with some of the professors," I suggested. "I 
 
 [211] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 think you have the sort of a spirit which will 
 finally prevail, Tucker." 
 
 "Oh," he replied, "I haven't got much spirit 
 — now — after that letter. They might have 
 borne with me a month or two longer — per- 
 haps I should have surprised them." Then he 
 laughed, bitterly. "You can't guess why I 
 came into the library with my troubles, Priddy, 
 can you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You see this!" and he indicated a large, 
 open book, on which his tears had been falling. 
 It was a huge, ancient tome, with metal bands 
 and chipped leather binding. The leaves were 
 yellowed, and from them came a dampish odor 
 of musty age. It was a Latin edition of "The 
 Book of Martyrs" opened at the page where the 
 fanciful wood-cut showed heaps of flaming 
 fagots, blazing in Smithfield market, directly 
 under the bare feet of a woman, tied to a stake 
 and holding to her breast a crying infant. 
 
 "There is a story about here," went on 
 Tucker, with a smile, "to the effect that a for- 
 mer student in the Seminary, when discouraged, 
 would come into the library and pore over these 
 dismal, grewsome pictures, and persuade him- 
 self that his own sufferings were trivial when 
 compared with the sufferings of these martyrs! 
 I thought I'd come and try it, too, but it only 
 intensified my own misery!" He shut the great 
 book with such an explosion that the dust 
 
 [212] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 issued from it and gleamed in the rays of the 
 sun which streamed in through the window. 
 
 "But I'd stay on till the end, Tucker," I 
 persisted. "It's worth trying — if you feel 
 that you have a call to preach!" 
 
 "I have the call clearly enough," he insisted, 
 evidently cheered by my confidence in him. 
 "If I could only persuade others of it, though, 
 I should feel happier." 
 
 "Probably you'll have another chance to 
 preach before you expect it," I said, in conclu- 
 sion, and left him with the intention of speak- 
 ing in his behalf to some of the students, who 
 might be able to encourage him in a substantial 
 manner. 
 
 I went, quite naturally, to Burner, the upper- 
 class man who had manifested an interest in 
 my arrival. The big student heard my ver- 
 sion of Tucker's experience without comment, 
 and then, after a moment of thought, answered, 
 
 "Don't you bother yourself any further about 
 him. I'll do all I can. This is an upper-class- 
 man's work, and it needs, too, some fine work 
 by the professors. It wouldn't take much to 
 drive Tucker off. By the way, don't mention 
 to him about your conversation with me. I'm 
 sure he's got the stuff in him for a preacher. 
 He needs practical encouragement and he shall 
 have it. You just watch!" 
 
 Two days later, while I was in the gymna- 
 sium, practising alone with the basket ball, 
 
 [213] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Tucker appeared on the floor in his gymnasium 
 clothes, and, apparently, in a very happy frame 
 of mind. As he stood opposite to me and caught 
 the ball as I threw it to him, he said, 
 
 "Priddy, I'm going to preach on Sunday; 
 another chance to botch it." 
 
 "Good for you," I declared. "Where are 
 you to preach?" 
 
 "For Burner," Tucker explained; "he wants a 
 Sunday off. Do you know whether he preaches 
 from manuscript or not, Priddy?" 
 
 "I think that he does read — I know he 
 does. I recollect to have heard him declare 
 that it was only by reading that one could get 
 logical sequence: his pet hobby." 
 
 Tucker held the ball in the air for a second 
 and sighed, audibly. "That makes it some- 
 what easier for me, Priddy. You see, even if 
 I ramble on with notes, so long as I don't read 
 my sermon word for word, the congregation will 
 give me credit for it, and I may have a chance. 
 Anyway, I mean to keep on, even if I am re- 
 buffed again." 
 
 The following Sunday morning, while Burner 
 was shaving, he said to me, 
 
 "I hope that Tucker has a sermon with some 
 logic in it. Anyway, he will get back encour- 
 aged. Deacon Herring will see to that!" He 
 turned his face from the glass and smiled at 
 me through the lather. 
 
 "What do you mean?" I demanded. 
 
 [214] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "I have written a letter to my deacon — 
 about Tucker and the tight place he's in," 
 explained Burner. "Told him all the facts and 
 asked him to work with us to save a good man 
 for the Lord's cause. After his sermon, no 
 matter how good or ill it is, Deacon Herring 
 will go up to Tucker with a radiant face, tell 
 him how glad they are to have him along, and 
 invite him to preach the following Sunday. 
 Meanwhile the deacon will forward to me a 
 carefully written, frank criticism of Tucker, 
 from which we can diagnose his troubles, fairly, 
 and then get some of the professors \p work on 
 his case. Oh," and Burner's face was gleam- 
 ing, "I guess if there's any good points under 
 Tucker's skin, we'll uncover them!" 
 
 It was an unusual edition of Tucker who 
 returned the following day. I walked with 
 him, arm in arm over to the Commons. 
 
 "There, Priddy," he chattered, "at last I've 
 found somebody who thinks I'm called to preach. 
 They want me to supply Burner's pulpit again 
 next Sunday! He's to have another day off. 
 Tired, he told me. That's the best sort of 
 appreciation, isn't it?" he added. 
 
 Burner said nothing to me or any one else 
 about the personal sacrifice he made in giving 
 up two Sundays to the discouraged Tucker, 
 but I knew that the money he gave up was 
 much needed. Burner, meanwhile, received 
 the diagnosis from his deacon, and reported 
 
 [215] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 matters to one of the professors to whom Tucker 
 looked with great reverence and respect. The 
 result of this came out in a diplomatic invi- 
 tation, sent by the professor, for Tucker to come 
 and have a talk about his affairs — a perfectly 
 natural request for the professor to make. 
 
 It did not take the professor long — armed 
 as he was by Burner's report — to get from 
 Tucker a statement of his situation. Finally, 
 the professor set himself to work, not only 
 on the written sermons of Tucker, but also 
 on his enunciation, his gestures, and his habits 
 of thought. 
 
 "The professor's helping me wonderfully,"ex- 
 claimed Tucker to me one day, as we took a walk 
 into the outskirts of the city. "He's landed 
 ker-plunk on my worst faults, just as if he could 
 read me like a book. You'd laugh at the sort 
 of mournful stuff I've been giving from the pul- 
 pit! It's quite plain to me now. I've been too 
 depressing. That's been one thing. No wonder 
 the people didn't want some of the stuff I've 
 been guilty of giving. It's optimism they want, 
 Priddy, optimism ! The professor's proved that, 
 all right! Just you wait till next Sunday, when 
 I preach for Burner. I'm to have a sermon, 
 entitled, 'Rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice!' : 
 
 "What have you been preaching on, Tucker? " 
 I asked. 
 
 He smiled, as one who could afford now to 
 smile at past faults. 
 
 [216] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Judgment, and Conscience, and the Inher- 
 itance of Penalty, and such-like," he said. 
 "Heavy, eh?" 
 
 "I've no doubt you had some good ideas on 
 those subjects, Tucker, though, as you say, 
 they are a trifle doleful, one after the other." 
 
 "Got thinking in a groove, Priddy, that's 
 what the professor thought. But, of course, 
 I've other faults. I don't speak up — just 
 whisper: no life or action. But," he went on 
 with a confidential smile, "I'm working hard 
 on that, too. Mean to brighten up on those 
 things next Sunday; though reformation can't 
 come in a day or a week." 
 
 The next Monday a most encouraging report 
 came to Burner from his deacon. Among other 
 things, the old man said in his letter, 
 
 "There were not many out to hear him, for 
 they had not cared for his preaching of the pre- 
 vious Sunday : but to those of us who had heard 
 him the first time, his second appearance was 
 startling. First of all, he seemed to have con- 
 fidence. That was the striking thing. Then, 
 in his effort to make himself heard he kept on 
 a high-pitched note, which was somewhat mo- 
 notonous, but more effective than his former 
 timid whispering as if he were afraid of burst- 
 ing the ear-drum of a gnat which sat on his 
 desk. He fanned the air like a windmill in 
 an effort to remedy lack of action: but that 
 was a good sign. It argues well for the young 
 
 [217] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 man when he gets on the middle ground. But 
 his sermon! He really gave us a cheering 
 word; that made most of the others, who were 
 there, like him. Personally, he would be glad 
 to know in what a different way I have taken 
 the application of his sermon, to 'rejoice, and 
 again — rejoice.' I wish him the best of success. 
 There is hope for him. I am getting one or two 
 people, who told me they like what he had to say 
 about rejoicing, to write notes of appreciation 
 to him." 
 
 "Twenty dollars well spent!" concluded 
 Burner, with a smile. "At the rate, he is going 
 Tucker will have a church of his own, over which 
 he will cast his blessing. He has confidence — 
 now ! " 
 
 Late in the spring, Tucker found himself enjoy- 
 ing somewhat of a local reputation among us, 
 for he was a decided success, by that time, on 
 his preaching expeditions. He said to me, 
 
 "Priddy, the other people think I've got a 
 call — now. I had a narrow escape, didn't I?" 
 
 [218] 
 
Chapter XXIV. Burner, a 
 Searcher After "Truth. How a 
 May-Pole Subdued a Tribe of 
 Little Savages 
 
 BURNER, the upper-classmajt, though 
 not my roommate, and by his upper- 
 class privileges under no sentimental 
 obligations to me, became my con- 
 stant companion. He was a tall, 
 thick-set man with a very heavy black mous- 
 tache, much older than myself and dominated 
 by a very heavy but sincere temperament. He 
 had been a real estate agent and a country 
 auctioneer up to his thirtieth birthday. Then 
 he had studied for three years, privately, with a 
 high-school principal, and later he had come to 
 the Seminary to put himself under training for 
 the ministry. 
 
 Burner almost frightened me by his hunger 
 and thirst after knowledge, for in him I looked 
 upon the epic grandeur of a mind, long starved, 
 completely awake. All the outstanding, amaz- 
 ing, bewildering intellectual problems of the 
 
 [219] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Universe and God, had solutions which Burner, 
 with a sense of his limitations, sought to mas- 
 ter. I had seen students of books before, 
 prize scholars, in Evangelical University, but 
 I had never beheld the workings of an awak- 
 ened, mature mind. Books and the teachings 
 of the masters were merely the starting points, 
 the paths of departure, for Burner. He sought his 
 path to God and God's mind by his own charts. 
 He was his own authority in thought, an inde- 
 pendent ship under full sail exploring unmapped 
 territory. He would sit in his Morris chair, 
 in a secluded corner of his room, with his bony 
 fingers propping up his gaunt chin, and with blaz- 
 ing eyes try to think out, in his own words, from 
 a synthesis of his own observations, why God 
 permitted evil. One night he rushed into my 
 room with almost fanatical eagerness and com- 
 pelled me to listen while, from a newspaper 
 item which told of a father who had given some 
 of his blood to his sickly child, he gave an elo- 
 quent theory of the Divine Fatherhood, sug- 
 gested by that analogy. All his studies, in 
 language, science, and philosophy were focussed 
 upon his thought of God. They were not merely 
 a discipline, or parts of a necessary curriculum, 
 but the means to an end, the roads over which 
 he went to a completer knowledge of his faith. 
 The most unrelated and even trivial items of 
 truth aroused his mind to action and set him at 
 work on the most intricate and abstruse doc- 
 
 [220] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 trines. He was critical down to the fine points 
 of sharpening a pencil: he was intolerant of 
 those who got their conclusions from text- 
 books. 
 
 "I'm doing my own thinking," was his fa- 
 vorite sentence, "basing it on careful reading and 
 minute information and nearly always I find 
 that I get conclusions, after hard thought, that 
 I might have secured, second-hand, from books. 
 But oh, Priddy, what a treat it is to be in the 
 Seminary, filling in the mind after it has been 
 starved all these years ! " 
 
 "It must be a tremendous inspiration to you, 
 Burner," I said, "you seem to enjoy it so!" 
 
 "Enjoy it!" he gasped. "I revel in it! Just 
 think how blank my mind was when I came here ! 
 I thought they wouldn't take me. I had never 
 been to college, and had little preparation. 
 When they did take me and give me my chance, 
 I resolved to make up for lost time, Priddy. 
 Other seminaries would have refused me, and 
 I should never have gone into the ministry. 
 Of course it is the biggest inspiration that has 
 ever come to me. It is my first real chance!" 
 
 I soon learned that I had found in the East 
 what I had found in Evangelical University, a 
 professional school that was willing to bend to 
 the service of the ambitious but unprepared 
 student. But in the Seminary there was more 
 point and breadth to the teaching; the stud- 
 ies were more thorough, intellectually more 
 
 [221] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 satisfying; so, with Burner and with many others 
 who, like myself, had never been to college, I 
 began the exciting adventure into disciplined 
 truth. 
 
 It was rich fare to which I was invited, dur- 
 ing that first year: the tough meat, Hebrew, 
 which even moderately digested, meant exe- 
 getical strength in Old Testament lore, the ten- 
 derer portions of Greek which nourished one's 
 New Testament appetite; entrees of psychol- 
 ogy and philosophy; well-baked and spiced 
 Church history, and a various dessert of special 
 lectures comprising every viand from the art 
 of preaching to nerve-stirring appreciations of 
 social movements. 
 
 The social life of Evangelical University had 
 been so narrow that I was ready to appreciate 
 the broadness of that permitted us in the Sem- 
 inary. The professors had us in their homes 
 for teas and dinners. The intimate touch be- 
 tween us and our teachers formed part of the 
 discipline of those years. There was hardly 
 any sign of that academic aloofness which I had 
 always supposed to be characteristic of eastern 
 institutions. I ran into the room of a sick class- 
 mate one Saturday morning, only to find him 
 being nursed by the professor of theology. 
 The utmost freedom of thought was given us 
 in the speculations of the classrooms. It was 
 an atmosphere where bigotry and dogmatism 
 could not live overnight. Our lives, by being 
 
 [2221 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 linked to that of the Seminary, began to be 
 linked to the life of the city; for the churches 
 and the people showed us many thoughtful 
 courtesies, took us into their circles, and made 
 many winter evenings merry and profitable. 
 
 I still had to rely upon my own efforts for 
 money, but the days of loading brick, raking 
 lawns, making furnace fires, were gone now, and 
 I was enabled to earn money in a more pro- 
 fessional way. I was given the task of organ- 
 izing some children for one of the smaller 
 churches of the city. One hundred of them 
 met me on Sunday afternoons, in tke body of 
 the church, where for an hour we tried to get 
 along harmoniously together and incidentally 
 learn some concrete definitions of the Kingdom 
 of God. I tried to preach through pictures on 
 a blackboard and through objects like keys and 
 nails, knives and flowers. Many of the little 
 ones were not used to church etiquette, so I had 
 to wander away from the Kingdom of God 
 many times to instruct some of them concern- 
 ing the necessity of taking off caps in church, 
 of the inhumanity of pulling one another's 
 hair braids, of the in judiciousness of poking 
 pins in one another's necks. Often, too, when 
 the neighborhood, after a Sunday feast of 
 mutton and peas, was enjoying its mid-after- 
 noon slumbers, some of the boys would whirl 
 the church bell and make startled men and 
 women imagine it was the fourth alarm of a 
 
 [223] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 fire. I had to correct that practise. We held 
 several socials during the year, socials of a 
 unique character. My assistants would keep 
 the door locked in the little chapel until the 
 oil lamps had been lifted out of danger. The 
 popcorn and candy would be put on tables in 
 heaps and the signal of admission given. Into 
 the room the horde of yelling, scrambling chil- 
 dren would come and fill it with all manner 
 of wild romping. The refreshments would be 
 given, there would follow another wild frolic, 
 and at half-past eight the children would go 
 home persuaded that they had had "a dandy 
 time! Three helpings of popcorn and all the 
 lemonade you could drink!" 
 
 When the first of May arrived, I announced 
 a picnic for the children, and though the day 
 was cold, more than our actual membership 
 appeared — with individual lunches. When we 
 arrived at the grove I had to stand guard over 
 the lunches until the noon hour. Then, after 
 an afternoon of disordered fun and fight, I man- 
 aged to secure order on the way home by per- 
 mitting the children to hold the ribbons of the 
 May -pole and to trail behind in orderly proces- 
 sion, singing, as we entered the residential sec- 
 tion of the city, very piously and earnestly, 
 "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" 
 
 Meanwhile the arched elms on the seminary 
 campus leafed out and shaded the walks with 
 cool shadows. The students met after supper, 
 
 [224] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 threw off their coats, and played ball until 
 darkness. The robins began to perch on my 
 bedroom window ledge and waken me by their 
 dulcet flutings long before breakfast. The 
 fumes of burning leaves came through the open 
 windows from the campus. It was spring and 
 it was graduation time for the seniors. 
 
 It was the season of the year when at Evan- 
 gelical University the students, like Thropper, 
 would be planning to earn money during the 
 coming vacation by taking subscriptions for 
 "The Devil in Society" and similar objects; 
 but my summer was to be one full^of inspira- 
 tional and serviceable possibilities. It had been 
 arranged for me, by the seminary president, 
 that I should take two schoolhouses in a far- 
 away district and preach during the long vaca- 
 tion. At last I was to actually enter upon my 
 chosen profession. _ 
 
 [225] 
 
Chapter XXV. At the Heart 
 of Human Nature. A Confiden- 
 tial Walk with a Dollar Bill at 
 the End of it. A Philosophical Ob- 
 servation from the Stage-Driver 
 
 A FOUR hours' journey by train, each 
 minute going farther and farther 
 away from thickly settled country, 
 and then I found myself waiting on 
 a depot platform for the stage-driver 
 who was to conduct me to Upper and Lower 
 Village, twelve miles from the railroad. 
 
 I looked around and when my eyes lighted 
 on a wooden-legged man, seated on the front 
 seat of a democrat wagon, I knew that I had 
 found the conveyance. I went over to him and 
 said, 
 
 "Are you going to Upper and Lower Village? " 
 
 He aimed some colored expectoration over his 
 
 horse's ear, watched it alight upon a fluttering 
 
 piece of paper, and then, satisfied with his 
 
 marksmanship, he said, gruffly, 
 
 [226] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 " Ef you're th' Elder, why, I got a seat. Jump 
 
 m! 
 
 The day was excessively hot, and we sat 
 under the full glare of the sun. We left the 
 little railroad village and plunged on through 
 the churned-up swirls of choking dust straight 
 into the isolation of this world, into a part of 
 New England where whole townships have not 
 even yet attained unto the dignity of names, but 
 like prisoners with their suffrage taken from 
 them, must be known by mere numbers. 
 
 The forests had been leveled, and there were 
 innumerable acres of deforested land covered 
 with rusty branches which had been left after 
 the choppers had trimmed the logs. After 
 several miles, we came to wide stretches of plain, 
 covered with blueberry bushes. 
 
 A dip in the road, and we had plowed 
 through the last inch of dust: the wheels of the 
 democrat rattled merrily over the stone road 
 of Lower Village. Word had been telephoned 
 from the first farm we had passed that "the 
 new Elder was on the stage with Bill." The 
 women boldly stood at their doors watching; 
 from behind many windows I saw intent faces 
 engaged in taking a comprehensive glance at 
 me. I maintained a stolid attitude, and pre- 
 tended not to be aware of the intense and con- 
 tinuous surveillance to which I was subjected. 
 We thundered over a wooden bridge, went up 
 a steep hill, and drew rein at a long veranda, 
 
 [227] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 which "Bill" informed me was the "Office, 
 whar you git down." 
 
 A tall, timid octogenarian, in shirtsleeves, 
 whose thick trousers were drawn up tightly 
 above soil-daubed shoes, introduced himself 
 as "the deacon" and conducted me to a little 
 house down a lane which ended in a pasture. 
 The hot air of the day was fragrant with the 
 odor of sweet-smelling foliage. Crows were 
 screaming in the distance over the tops of 
 some burnt pines. A woman, tall and thin and 
 pale, welcomed me with all the hospitality with 
 which a mother would welcome a son. I knew 
 from that moment that I had a pleasant summer 
 before me. 
 
 The two villages were nothing more than 
 single rows of houses on either side of a main 
 road. That road went inland for miles and miles 
 through immeasurable solitudes, where no man 
 dwelt. We were at the end of the world, 
 apparently. 
 
 Then began my missionary experience. I 
 was passed from home to home, sometimes 
 staying but three days in one place: the object 
 being both economical and social. The cost 
 of my board, under this arrangement, was 
 very light on each household, and as each host- 
 ess was not satisfied unless she gave the "Elder" 
 the very best cooking she could produce, my 
 short stay did not permit any embarrassment 
 to the menu. But more especially this arrange- 
 
 [228] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ment made it possible for me to know nearly 
 every family in my parishes intimately, as the 
 association with the families at the table was 
 the means of establishing more than a perfunc- 
 tory friendship. They learned some of my 
 shortcomings, and I was made aware of their 
 needs. When, in the latter part of the sum- 
 mer, I was boarding in Upper Village, in the 
 shadow of the mountain, and went down to 
 Lower Village for a Wednesday evening meet- 
 ing, one of the households expected me to creep 
 into the house with the eldest son, go into the 
 pantry and "steal" huge slices of % blueberry 
 cake. This done, the husband and wife would 
 come into the kitchen, have a hearty laugh, 
 and before I started back for my boarding-place, 
 we would have our serious talk over matters 
 of faith and life. 
 
 There were few well-to-do farmers in the 
 community. The distance was too great from 
 the railroads for the injection of much social 
 life. The winters were filled with days when 
 life was grim. Had it not been for the tele- 
 phone and the mail, the life of that back road 
 would have been without any great attractions. 
 But the very isolation of the villages, and the 
 absence of many social opportunities through 
 the winter, like a church and preaching, made 
 these farmers the prey of traveling fanatics, 
 who imported here and there the most fanciful 
 conceptions of religion and sought, by all man- 
 
 [229] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ner of persuasion, to turn people into Mor- 
 mons and "New Lights," "Holy Ghosters" and 
 "Disciples." It did not take long to see that 
 some of these perversions had taken root in 
 some homes, and I found myself having to 
 attempt the feat of constructing a positive and 
 less fanatical doctrine : a feat which at the time 
 I did poorly enough, but which I took pleasure 
 in attempting. But it was not formal doctrine 
 or intellectual discriminations which those par- 
 ishes needed as much as it was a social man, to 
 impart into their midst, after the austere winter, 
 a joke, a song, a story, and a friendly hand- 
 clasp. If I had preached no sermon, but merely 
 gone from home to home, from field to field, 
 telling men and women and children that I 
 was their friend, I believe that I should have 
 accomplished the major part of the needed 
 ministry. 
 
 The meetings were held in the upper rooms 
 of two very solidly constructed schoolhouses 
 four miles apart. Our meetings had to be 
 announced in two kinds of time, for some set 
 their clocks by the sun, while others set them 
 by the Standard, sent over the telephone wires. 
 The dim, chalky atmosphere of the rooms was 
 always colored by rich green ferns and assort- 
 ments of wild flowers. Even though the 
 flowers were bunched in the necks of mustard 
 bottles, tumblers, and cream jugs, and not 
 always arranged according to Japanese art, 
 
 [230] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 yet the thought that the sense of beauty in 
 religion found expression even in wild flowers 
 apologized for all else. When the hob-nailed 
 boot and the plow, year in and out, are uproot- 
 ing and crushing field flowers, it marks the high 
 tide of esthetic appreciation when the wearers 
 of the hob -nailed boot and guiders of the plow 
 take pains to pick those flowers and add them 
 to their hymns, their prayers, and sermons in 
 praise to God. 
 
 No small, narrow opportunity was mine, 
 such as in my gloomier moments I had ascribed 
 to a country pastor. Preaching a sermon 
 formed but a fraction of my duty. There were 
 young men and women who sought advice 
 about the outside world, and their business 
 chances in it. There were business colleges, 
 academies, hospitals, and mills to propose to 
 the restless ones, who, like young birds, were 
 to try life on their own wings. 
 
 Entwined in the pastoral work, were many 
 social pleasures that made my body strong and 
 rested my nerves : adventures over the high hills 
 for soul-subduing vistas of mountains and lakes ; 
 trout fries by the side of meadow brooks; pic- 
 nics by the river; visits to bark-peeling camps, 
 over corduroy roads, and encampment on a 
 lake shore where at night the wild birds gave 
 voice and were interpreted to us by a guide. 
 
 The golden-rod lined the dusty road at last, 
 and the purple flowers took the place of the 
 
 [231] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 lighter summer ones, and it was time for me to 
 return to the Seminary. The services were 
 crowded that last Sunday; mothers brought 
 their babies and did not care if the little ones 
 did compete with me, in voice. I knew what 
 was in the faces, as they looked intently on 
 me, as I preached. They were thinking that 
 this would probably be the last preaching they 
 would hear until the following summer, unless 
 some stray, itinerant evangelist strolled that 
 way and [opened up the schoolhouse for an eve- 
 ning. There were many tearful farewells, and 
 then the people went out into the night. It 
 was a clear night of stars and chill. As I left 
 the schoolhouse, having bade good-bye to the 
 janitor, for I was due to leave on the next morn- 
 ing's stage, a young farmer stepped out from the 
 deep shadow of an oak near the flag-staff and 
 accosted me with, 
 
 "Say, Elder, do you care to go up the road a 
 piece: 
 
 I responded that I should enjoy a walk and 
 a chat with him. 
 
 While we walked between two walls of trees, 
 our way dimly outlined by the faint flicker of 
 the stars, my friend said, 
 
 "I'm one of the bashful sort, Elder. You 
 know that; but I didn't want you to leave with- 
 out having me tell you how much you have 
 helped my folks this summer. The time you 
 come in our house and played and sang at the 
 
 [232] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 organ for us, and cheered us up with a laugh, 
 why it made things different in our house. 
 Since mother died, we've been having a hard 
 row to hoe, and you don't know how much we've 
 appreciated the cheering up you give us. It 
 gets terrible lonesome out here through the 
 winter, and I want to thank you for all that 
 you've done!" 
 
 We took a long walk through the night, pay- 
 ing no attention to distance; but sharing con- 
 fidences in true brotherly fashion. Then we 
 turned about and when we came to the cross- 
 road, in front of the schoolhouse, w^ clasped 
 hands, and as he hurried, without another 
 word, into the darkness towards his mother- 
 less home, I felt something crisp in the palm of 
 my hand. When I returned to my room and 
 had a light I found that he had given me a 
 dollar bill for a thank offering. 
 
 The next morning I had my baggage on the 
 stage, this time for a return. Bill, with his 
 wooden leg, greeted me, for by this time we 
 were old friends. The word of parting was 
 given at the post-office, and the democrat 
 rattled down the grade and over the bridge. 
 This time a continuous flutter of handkerchiefs 
 and aprons, and a continuous hearty shout from 
 the men and boys, followed our passage through 
 the two villages and then we drove into the 
 dusk of the road through the blueberry barrens, 
 Bill aiming expectoration at every soap sign 
 
 [233] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 within reach, and confiding in me, on the 
 way, the fact that he had loved once and 
 "lost," which he seemed to take in a very 
 philosophical mood, for he concluded with this 
 phrase, "You can't get the hang of wimmen, 
 anyhow!" 
 
 [234] 
 
Chapter XXVL "The Strange 
 Adventure of Burner into Nothing, 
 and How my Own Mind Got into 
 Trouble ; and How my Faith was 
 Strengthened under the Chapel 
 Window % 
 
 ON my return to the Seminary I found 
 Burner in the throes of intellectual 
 despair. The big fellow was sitting 
 in his room, half buried in the depths 
 of the green Morris chair, his bony 
 fingers prodded into his working brows. 
 "What's wrong, Burner?" I demanded. 
 "I've been thinking back too far," announced 
 the serious fellow. 
 
 "Thinking back too far?" I gasped. 
 "Yes," he muttered. "I've nothing to stand 
 on, now." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I've thought away all substance — now!" 
 he moaned, in despair. "I can't even conceive 
 a God!" 
 "Burner!" 
 
 [235] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Horrible, isn't it, Priddy?" 
 
 "What do you mean — explain, so that I 
 can get this thing by its head," I suggested. 
 
 Burner seriously gathered himself together 
 in his chair, sipped from a glass of water, and 
 then began, 
 
 "Probably I do too much thinking; maybe 
 that's what's the matter, Priddy. When I 
 left here, last June, and went out for the sum- 
 mer, I began to try to think through substance; 
 I thought I might do it, sometime. I got to 
 thinking about it, when I took my walks over 
 the hills, and kept thinking about it, but, some- 
 how, I couldn't get my thought back of the 
 material. When I got back here, last week, I 
 was sitting in this chair, when all of a sudden 
 I did think back of God; and conceived all 
 reality as being so immaterial that nothing 
 exists: no, nothing!" he shouted, "not even — 
 God!" 
 
 "Can't you think back again — to him?" I 
 demanded, making an effort to be of some assist- 
 ance and comfort to the disconsolate man. 
 
 Burner stood on his feet, and paced the floor, 
 excitedly, and said as he gestured with his 
 hands, 
 
 "I've got to be honest — with truth, no mat- 
 ter how far it leads me!" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "Just think how horrible it is; I've thought 
 back till I've struck nothing — nothing!" 
 
 [236] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Come, it's not so bad as that, Burner, is 
 it?" 
 
 "I shan't be able to preach, to study, to 
 believe anything!" he declared. "How can I 
 when there is nothing to preach, to study, or 
 to believe?" 
 
 I could not conceive a more pathetic restraint 
 on a man who sought to get his living by preach- 
 ing and study. 
 
 "Perhaps some of the professors might help 
 you back — at least as far as a belief in God," 
 I suggested, timidly. 
 
 "Oh, if I only could get back there," he 
 pleaded, "I would pray about the matter, but 
 I can't pray to nothing, can I?" 
 
 I began then to realize how much a dilemma 
 a philosophical honesty could create. 
 
 "You are too serious, Burner," I proposed. 
 "You ought to take some things for granted; 
 not seek to explain everything, you know." 
 
 He looked at me through astonished eyes, 
 
 "I will take nothing for granted that cannot 
 bear the test of logic!" 
 
 "There," I cried exultantly, "your intellec- 
 tual adventures have brought you into German 
 Rationalism: that's just what's the matter with 
 you, Burner. You're not the first one that has 
 been caught. It is a passing experience. Keep 
 on thinking, old fellow, you'll come back after 
 a time. It looks serious now, but it's only a 
 phase. Read the biographies of some of the 
 
 [237] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 saints; it will help you back to a positive faith, 
 
 I » >> 
 
 m sure. 
 
 So I left him with that comfort, hoping that 
 he would not leave the Seminary in his intel- 
 lectual excitement, for I felt sure that his 
 Rationalism or Agnosticism or whatever form 
 of mind he was in, would pass and give way to 
 something with more color and inspiration in it. 
 
 Our studies for the second year were more 
 practical and philosophical than those we re- 
 ceived during the first year. I was ready to 
 appreciate the value of the studies more after 
 my summer's experience as a missionary. The 
 intellectual honesty and sincerity of Burner 
 was indicative of the spirit which one of the 
 professors, who later left us, engendered in us. 
 One incident will illustrate the temper of his 
 art of teaching. Our class, in its first year, 
 had approached this man's recitation with a 
 feeling of fear, for his astute mind and his 
 impassive manner in the classroom, and withal, 
 his absolute fearlessness in bringing up the 
 other side of an affirmative, had not reacted in 
 his favor. Even before we knew him, we had 
 him placarded, in our minds, as an unbeliever! 
 One day when we came into his class we found 
 that some one had written on the blackboard, 
 the professor's name with this legend after it: 
 
 "Professor Atheist!" 
 
 When he came into the classroom, and saw that, 
 I thought he would burst into tears; a look of 
 
 [238] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 patient wonder came into his eyes, and he 
 merely said to me, 
 
 "Mr. Priddy, will you kindly take the eraser 
 and give us a clean blackboard!" 
 
 Our first class under this teacher was one in 
 psychology. We met and his first question 
 was, 
 
 "What are we to study?" 
 
 Instantly one of my classmates replied, 
 
 "Psychology!" 
 
 "What is psychology?" 
 
 My classmate, who had read the definition 
 in the day's lesson replied, confidently, 
 
 "'The study of the mind and the processes 
 of the mind,' sir." 
 
 "Ah, and what do you mean by the mind? 
 What do you know about the mind? Have 
 you ever seen one?" 
 
 My classmate stammered, 
 
 "Why — eh, no, sir." 
 
 "Then perhaps some one else will inform me 
 what we are here for?" 
 
 No one was willing. 
 
 "Then you will return to your rooms, gentle- 
 men," said the professor, without a trace of a 
 smile, "and come tomorrow at the same hour 
 and tell us what we are to study during the 
 year. I really must know. We cannot get 
 along until I do." 
 
 The next day, some of us met, before the class 
 and conspired to teach that professor his les- 
 
 [239] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 son. We memorized the definitions and the 
 explanations so that it would be impossible for 
 us to slip. Then we entered the classroom. 
 
 "What are we here for, gentlemen?" began 
 the professor. 
 
 Instantly the answer came from the corner, 
 
 "To study psychology, sir." 
 
 "Will any one tell me what is meant by 
 psychology?" 
 
 "'A study of the mind and the processes of 
 the mind, as such,' " responded another student. 
 
 "'As such.' What is meant by that, sir?" 
 
 One of my classmates undertook to explain 
 that "as such" meant that the "states of the 
 mind" were to be studied as "states of the 
 mind," and not as — eh — " 
 
 "Mince pies?" asked the professor, with a 
 slight, serious elevation of his eyebrows. 
 
 For the next five minutes he went around 
 the class involving each one of us in our own 
 ignorance until it was impossible for him to 
 get a reply to any one of his questions. 
 
 "Too bad," he muttered, seriously. "I really 
 don't see how we are to get on. This won't do. 
 You had better go back to your rooms and come 
 tomorrow and see if we can let in any daylight 
 on this matter. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" 
 
 We resolved that we would not study a single 
 word for the morrow; but that we would go into 
 the class and have no information to offer. We 
 would see how the professor would like that! 
 
 [240] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 The following afternoon, pursuant to this 
 plan, when the professor had greeted us, his 
 first question was, 
 
 "What are we to study? Can any one tell 
 me?" It brought no response. 
 
 He looked around the room in great astonish- 
 ment and went from man to man, asking, 
 
 "Can you tell me?" and each time getting 
 a decided and belligerent negative. 
 
 Then a smile of satisfaction lighted up his 
 sober face and he said, 
 
 "There, gentlemen. Now that you have 
 made up your minds that you know nothing 
 about psychology, I am ready to begin to teach 
 you!" and from then to the end of the year 
 we sat under instruction that was masterly, 
 inspiring. 
 
 This spirit of thoroughness and critical 
 honesty was needed during the second year, 
 for we were constructing a personal faith: a 
 task more serious than the mere acquisition of 
 historic facts or encyclopaedic knowledge. But 
 the teachers were patient, kindly, and watched 
 us let conservative and traditional habits of 
 mind go, not in any spirit of intolerance. There 
 were many times, that year, when I found my- 
 self almost duplicating Burner's misery, by 
 sitting in my room and wondering, after I had 
 let go my traditional habits of thought about 
 God and the Bible, what I should do without 
 faith. But as one conception went, another, 
 
 [241] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 larger conception came, and I found a nobler 
 faith than I ever had before. The self -distrust 
 and miserable vacancy of doubt, were, as I had 
 blunderingly told Burner, mere phases towards 
 a positive faith. One winter morning, after 
 a night of mental struggle, during which I 
 suffered fully as much as I had ever suffered 
 from any physical hardship, I went out on 
 the campus to walk about in the crisp air. 
 The students had just gone into the chapel for 
 morning prayers. I stopped under the win- 
 dows and heard the drone of the parlor organ. 
 Then, on the quietness of the morning, the 
 manly melody came to my ears: a hymn reso- 
 nant with a man's faith, and bringing peace to 
 my doubts. "Oh, Love That Will Not Let Me 
 Go," they were singing, a monkish, monastic 
 tinge to it, coming from male throats, — only 
 the tenor was too boyish for a monk, too thrill- 
 ingly rampant in its ambitious soaring after 
 God over the high notes. But it soothed me 
 and I went in the strength of that hymn for 
 many days. 
 
 [242] 
 
Chapter XXVII. The Wonder- 
 ful Summer on the Pleasure Island 
 
 MY next opportunity of earning 
 money for my education came in 
 a call to preach on Sundays in a 
 little church sixty miles from the 
 Seminary at a fashionable summer 
 resort. The compensation to be ten dollars a 
 week : compensation for three days' absence from 
 the Seminary, one hundred and twenty miles 
 of travel and expenses, and the nervous exertion 
 of preaching twice and teaching a Sunday-school 
 class, not excluding pastoral work whenever 
 opportunity should offer! 
 
 These weekly journeys began when I arose 
 on Saturday morning at five o'clock, drank a 
 hastily prepared cup of cocoa, and hurried off 
 to the station for the six o'clock train. Then 
 the train would start on its way through the 
 snow-drifts, puffing and gasping down white 
 aisles through rows of stiff, stately pines whose 
 hands held puffy clouds of snow, and then fol- 
 lowed a slow passage through miles of birches 
 bending low under the weight of wet snow like 
 robed saints humbled by too great a weight of 
 
 [243] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 glory. The railway trip was followed by a 
 steamer journey of eight miles through a heavy, 
 sad sea which never seemed to have any light 
 in it, and in whose icy surface pretty grey and 
 mottled gulls were not afraid to dip their pal- 
 pitating breasts. The steamer put me ashore 
 on an island whose centre was loaded with a 
 serried row of little mountains. At the landing 
 I found a stage and drove for eight miles over 
 the island to my parish. The stage horse rushed 
 us down dipping roads that threaded between 
 precipitous mountain sides, whose summits 
 were desert rocks and at whose feet had crumbled 
 cliff after cliff of red rock, spread out like a 
 rusty iron yard. Then the road became a 
 climb until some highlands were attained and 
 we sped through a little fishing village which 
 nestled close to a mysterious, secluded cove, 
 guarded by stern, fretted cliffs, a place where 
 Stevenson would have had a cave of smugglers 
 or the anchorage of a rakish pirate craft. Then 
 came a turn in the road, where, behind a fringe 
 of thick, old gold birches and in the midst of 
 some dead oak stumps, nature had placed a 
 cathedral pile of gigantic slabs of stone, one on 
 another, as if to show to man what the angels 
 of strength could do once they started to build 
 with stone. Next followed a bewildering ride 
 over a spiral road up a steep hill on which stood 
 aristocratic summer homes. At a lookout 
 where the road took a sudden dip, one saw the 
 
 [244] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cold ocean far down below with its heavy, 
 listless breakers pounding wearily against the 
 iron cliffs, as if saying, "Why do the poets in- 
 sist on our ceaselessly trying to shatter this 
 cliff? I wish they would let us rest through the 
 winter, till the summer visitors come: then I 
 will pound like Vulcan's hammer to please 
 them!" In the distance, little dismal islands 
 stood in the sea like burnt dumplings in gravy. 
 Over them the gulls were screaming and wail- 
 ing, adding to the solitude and the winter's 
 dreariness. Then the stage slanted down the 
 hill and after a long, twisting rida drew up 
 before the village post-office, where I met my 
 host and was duly welcomed as the new minister. 
 
 Back and forth, week after week, returning 
 to the Seminary on Monday evenings, I accom- 
 plished my journeys faithfully. Each week 
 besides my studies I had to plan for the church. 
 There was little time for idleness, for the hours 
 of recreation were taken up in travel. On 
 these trips I took a book and tried to have it 
 read on my return. 
 
 But my reward was near at hand. The 
 summer arrived, and with it an inflow of wealth, 
 honor, and leisure to my parish. A wonderful 
 transformation came over the island — the 
 Pleasure Island. Boards were unscrewed from 
 cottage windows. The dead grass gave way to 
 green carpets. Lifeless sticks budded with 
 colored foliage. The dead sea and the listless 
 
 [245] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 waves became animated with restless energy. 
 The sun kissed the roads into smoothness and 
 lined the highways with flowers. Fresh painted 
 steamers, with flying banners, whistled into the 
 wharves and unloaded crowds of visitors. Steam 
 yachts lay at anchor in the cove. The white 
 wings of yawls and catboats were dipping in 
 the breeze. The mountain paths had been re- 
 charted and were filled with adventurers. The 
 pine groves and the quiet cliffs lured tired men 
 and women to their restful silences. Trout 
 fishers rubbed oil of camphor over their faces 
 to restrain the ambitious stings of flies and 
 mosquitoes, and sought the brook pools where 
 Walton's classic trout waited to be played with. 
 My little rustic church became filled with city 
 people, who not only sat in the pews, but sang 
 in the choir, decorated the pulpit with flowers and 
 grasses, and served on responsible committees. 
 
 Then, too, my rest and opportunity came, for 
 we had a list of distinguished clergymen and 
 professors who were to occupy my pulpit every 
 Sunday morning, for the resort was very rich 
 in clerical talent of a willing and gracious sort. 
 We had so much professional talent indeed, that 
 one morning near the post-office I beheld two 
 bishops, two university presidents, two professors, 
 and a world-famous author standing on less than 
 two square yards of ground! 
 
 We left the doors and the windows of the 
 church open while the noted men preached, and 
 
 [246] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 their voices had to vie with the song birds who 
 perched on the waving trees outside the windows. 
 The sea tang blew across the church, the sweetest 
 of summer incense. 
 
 I had little enough to do, for the people were 
 too busy with pleasure to be at home: they 
 wanted me to sit on the cliffs with books and 
 take a rest — on a salary. 
 
 But there came calls to preach on some of 
 the outlying islands to which I was carried 
 on different Sunday afternoons in a launch. 
 
 Then they all left us, tanned, virile, rested: 
 the whole community took itself to % the decks 
 of the island steamers and was carried to the 
 trains. The tennis courts were closed. The 
 shutters were fastened over the display win- 
 dows of the flower stand. Many pews were 
 empty in my little, rustic church. The flowers 
 and shrubs were bedded in straw. Soon the 
 snow and frost and bleakness of winter would 
 spread over the island. My second pastorate 
 ended, too, for I had received a call to supply 
 a larger church much nearer to the Seminary, 
 a church where I intended to preach after my 
 graduation from the Seminary. 
 
 [247] 
 
Chapter XXVIII. How a Par- 
 sonage Suggests a Wife. The 
 Convincing Revelations of a Phre- 
 nologist JVho Examined the Stu- 
 dents* Bumps 
 
 ON the return to the Seminary, to enter 
 upon my senior year, the first men 
 I missed were Burner and Tucker, 
 who had graduated the previous 
 summer. Burner wrote me a very 
 interesting letter from the precincts of a promi- 
 nent New England university to the effect that 
 he was a member of the junior class of that 
 institution, that on Sundays he preached in a 
 very delightful country town; that he was 
 having a rich feast in college fare; the courses 
 in animal psychology, metaphysics, especially 
 in relation to the fundamentals of faith, holding 
 the fullest fascination for him. Tucker, able 
 at last to do a preacher's work, not only to his 
 own personal taste, but also to the gratifica- 
 tion of his parish, was giving himself, sacrifi- 
 cially, to the work of dignifying the life of the 
 people who had called him. He wrote me that 
 
 [248] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 he felt his special work in life to have two phases 
 to it: that he should remain unmarried in order 
 that, like a monk, he could do God's work with 
 singleness of purpose, and that he should go only 
 to struggling, discouraged parishes where the 
 small salaries and the hardships formed a suffi- 
 cient missionary challenge: parishes in which 
 he should labor until they were transformed and 
 able finally to pay a salary on which a permanent, 
 married man could settle among them and give 
 them the fullest, freest service. 
 
 "I am setting myself," concluded Tucker, 
 "to be a mortgage-lifter, parsonage-getter, and 
 salary-raiser for other ministers who are to 
 follow me!" 
 
 The parish to which I ministered during my 
 last year in the Seminary, and in which I planned 
 to settle immediately upon graduation, was in 
 a seaport town of a quaint type: buried back 
 in the rugged coast lines of the Atlantic. The 
 Embargo Act had been like the chilling breath 
 of petrification on the East Indiamen, the Cey- 
 lon traders, the China brigs, and the many 
 other ships which had gone out from its port. 
 The wharves to which of old time these sea- 
 rovers had been tied when in port had rotted 
 until, in my day, the water-front was outlined 
 by their black, damp, soggy ruins. Here and 
 there, outside the precincts of the town, half 
 buried among young saplings and deep grasses, 
 could be seen the piles and planks of a once 
 
 [249] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 stout wharf. In the village itself, almost every- 
 thing pointed, with an index finger, to the past 
 as the scene of the town's glory. The hotel 
 in which I stayed, in stage-coach days had been 
 a tavern, and from the porch of it the landlord, 
 wearer of a blue military coat with brass but- 
 tons, had fed the wild birds and pigeons. The 
 house had an office-boy who was seventy odd 
 years old, a man whose clothes and speech were 
 tinctured with reminiscences of the sea and the 
 past glory of the village. As one tipped back in 
 one of the hundred-year-old chairs, which were 
 whittled, by loungers' pocket knives, to skele- 
 tons of rungs and seats, one saw slow-pacing 
 oxen, nodding their heads in two-four metro- 
 nomic time, pulling loads of sun-dried, salted 
 codfish from the outdoor driers to the packing 
 factory. In the parlors, on the hillside, were 
 many interesting relics of the past, left by the 
 race of sea captains and ship-owners almost 
 extinct. There were trinket boxes made from 
 scented, oriental woods, and little Ceylon gods 
 of brass and porcelain. There were Japanese 
 ivories and vases and draperies. There were 
 ebony ornaments from savage islands and carved 
 novelties, the product of barbarous intelligence. 
 The old families, remaining in the village, 
 were of that splendid Puritan sort who serve 
 God with mind, heart, and purse, and while 
 the older men and women remained at home, 
 the sons and daughters, blessed with their herit- 
 
 [250] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 age, had gone out into the world to do no small 
 share of the brilliant and serviceable tasks for 
 which honor and wealth are given. When the 
 bells on the two churches rang, on Sunday 
 mornings, one waited for the other, so that they 
 might ring in antiphonal brotherhood, seeming 
 to say, "Good morning," and to reply, "Good 
 morning," in praise of the doctrinal harmony in 
 the parishes where, in the by-gone years, oppos- 
 ing pulpits had been girt about with demoniac 
 lightnings and surmounted by the wild-eyed 
 heresies of dethroned angels. 
 
 In addition to the salary for my preaching, 
 a white, green-shuttered, iridescent- windowed 
 parsonage, perched on a summit of grass ter- 
 races, stood ready, as my home, whenever I 
 should want it; in other words, as members of 
 my parish phrased it, "when I should bring 
 Mrs. Priddy!" Now a twelve-roomed house, 
 rent free, perched on grass terraces, guarded 
 on one side by a syringa and on the other side 
 by some red currant bushes, says nothing to a 
 young bachelor theologue, about to graduate, 
 but, "How about a wife?" As there was no 
 ignoring such a house, there was no ignoring 
 its consequent, — a wife. The two, like a 
 "neither" and "nor," went together. Prob- 
 ably that is why parishes generally see to it 
 that there is a parsonage, especially where young 
 ministers are concerned: that such a concrete 
 suggestion will work on the mind and heart 
 
 [251] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of their minister, through the night hours with 
 all the terror of an inescapable dream, in the 
 day hours as a thing to be accounted for 
 whether or no. There is, perhaps, no sugges- 
 tion more haunting can befall a young, bachelor 
 minister, than an unoccupied, Colonial parson- 
 age, standing on a summit of terraces, unoccu- 
 pied! If he rents it to outside parties, it is one 
 way of saying to your parish, "I am too cowardly 
 to marry!" If he permits it to remain empty, 
 he has to spend many precious hours explaining 
 to the church committee and their wives his 
 good reasons for having it empty, and there 
 are so few good reasons that the task is no 
 desirable one. 
 
 However, Destiny, using a strange mouth- 
 piece, showed me a clear path in the matter. It 
 came about in this wise. 
 
 The lower floor, in the east wing of Therenton 
 Hall, at the Seminary, was devoted to social 
 purposes. It was the meeting-place of the 
 students immediately after supper, where all 
 sorts of recreations were indulged. A song, a 
 piano solo, a burlesque, or a bit of clever mimicry 
 was usually in order in that place. It was 
 ostensibly a reading-room, where, on the tables, 
 were to be found magazines of interest to theo- 
 logical students. 
 
 It was in this room where our freak visitors 
 came to describe to us their specialties: men 
 who came and tried to woo us from study to 
 
 [252] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 strange, emotional cults; men who came and 
 told us, to our faces, with prophetic fearless- 
 ness of consequences, that by our alignment to 
 the Seminary, and to any institution of learning, 
 we were making ourselves heretics and out- 
 casts. One evening, at the supper table, in 
 Commons, Bobbett announced that "Professor 
 Hoyle, a fellow that feels bumps, a phrenolo- 
 gist, would be in the reading-room, ready to 
 read our capabilities, our faults, and our des- 
 tinies for twenty -five cents a head, special 
 price to theological students from the usual 
 fifty-cent rate. No satisfaction, no* pay!" 
 
 Town lassies, in medieval Europe, never 
 flocked to palm-reader or card-turner, with 
 more curiosity or "pooh-poohing," than did we. 
 On the way through the yard, the same criti- 
 cal faculties which we had brought to bear on 
 "hallucinations" and "superstitions" in our 
 studies of psychology and savage religions were 
 brought to bear upon our impending interview 
 with "Professor Hoyle." Certainly the major- 
 ity of us, by the time we had entered the parlor, 
 were there on account of no other emotion than 
 the wish to bring to bear on this man's acts 
 our trained, critical, scientific acumen; though 
 it cost us twenty -five cents ! 
 
 The "professor" was waiting for us, a tall, 
 slightly stooped, well-dressed young man. He 
 made no claims, no speech. He merely said, 
 
 "Come up, one following another, and after I 
 
 [253] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 have examined you and made a note of my 
 findings, I will write out each one's report on 
 paper and if it does not suit, why none need pay." 
 One after another then we filed into the chair 
 and had those pliant, nervous, cold fingers steal, 
 subtly, over our cranial topographies. Silently, 
 quickly, skilfully, bumps that nature had placed 
 on our skulls, and bumps that basketball and 
 parallel bars had induced, were sorted out, 
 interpreted, and their meanings put on a pad of 
 paper, against our names. Then, after some 
 moments of scratching, the "professor" handed 
 each one of us his report. Laughingly they 
 were received, laughingly they were perused, 
 and then looks of startled wonder were the rule, 
 for in some unaccountable way, the "pro- 
 fessor" had managed to find strange true inter- 
 pretations of us. He informed one student 
 that if the latter had not planned to become a 
 minister, he would have done well at mechanical 
 engineering, a vocation in which the student 
 had had some proficiency. There were some 
 intimate revelations for each one of us, true ap- 
 praisals of temperament, inclination, and habit. 
 But it was the unknown things over which we 
 smiled, the mysterious future, which we were 
 ready to believe on account of the truthfulness 
 with which he had told our present. Instantly 
 the parsonage on the summit of grass terraces 
 came into mind, as the last words of my phren- 
 ological report read: 
 
 [254] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Love: brown-haired young woman." 
 I paid my quarter, willingly, and went to my 
 room, linking an unknown, unnamed, intan- 
 gible "brown-haired young woman" with the 
 waiting parsonage. 
 
 [255] 
 
Chapter XXIX. It Devolves 
 upon me to Entertain a Guest 
 and the Sentimental Consequences 
 Tf^hich Ensued 
 
 THEN, as if in conspiracy with the 
 traveling phrenologist, the Seminary 
 itself made "the brown-haired young 
 woman," concrete, before my eyes. 
 As the emotional revival had 
 been the feature, the advertised feature of 
 Evangelical University, so Lecture Week was 
 the unique, advertised feature of the Seminary. 
 As the Revival was doctrinal, controversial, 
 and excessively unintellectual, so Lecture Week 
 was undoctrinal, constructive, and preeminently 
 intellectual. Lecture Week was, par excellence, 
 one of the most inspiring intellectual treats of 
 a week's duration to be found within the bounds 
 of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For the 
 special lecturers of the year pooled interests 
 and appeared together. These lecturers were 
 preeminent men drawn from the ranks of high- 
 est achievement: specialists of high, world-wide 
 
 [256] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 repute on preaching, social service, and belles 
 lettres. They were men for whose speech and 
 thought any student would gladly put aside 
 treatises on oratory and explanations of social 
 movements and interpretations of literature, 
 and give himself entirely into their safe-keeping. 
 Three words were inscribed over those pre- 
 cious, inspiring weeks: "Golden Speech," 
 "Ripe Thoughts," and "Impressive Person- 
 alities!" Students were never the same in 
 ambitions after the lecturers had shuffled their 
 notes into their leather pouches and left: I had 
 one student preach for me the Sunday follow- 
 ing one such week, and there, before the eyes of 
 my parishioners, some of whom had been in 
 attendance on the lectures, appeared an excel- 
 lent facsimile of the noted divine who had given 
 the course on preaching; the student stroked 
 back his hair exactly as the noted man had 
 done, he leaned over the pulpit in perfect 
 accord with the latter's peculiar and distin- 
 guishing trait; even some of his climaxes and 
 intonations of voice followed those used by the 
 famous preacher in his most forceful oratorical 
 moments. I think this student was not alone 
 among those who played the sedulous ape to 
 the Lecture Week speakers. I know that 
 more than once I caught myself thinking that 
 probably a change in method to that of Dr. 
 Gladden's conversational ease might impress 
 my audience a la Dr. Gladden. 
 
 [257] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 During that week the Seminary became a 
 generous host to the country ministers, not 
 only sending the poorer ones an urgent invita- 
 tion to the feast, but following very closely that 
 gospel which urges one to go out into the high- 
 ways and compel them to come, for she aided 
 some by railway fares, helped others by having 
 the fares reduced, and when she had them into 
 the city, gave them free lodgings in the dormi- 
 tory and in the gymnasium, with students for 
 chambermaids and professors for general man- 
 agers of departments. 
 
 The result, in my senior year, for Lecture 
 Week, was inspiring. The heroic preachers 
 from the isolated parishes, who in true poverty 
 and in chastity of heart hold up God's light 
 amidst a darkened, back way, came to us in 
 their brushed-up frayed frock coats and white 
 percale ties to find themselves somewhat sur- 
 prised at the city ministers, who not only did 
 not wear white ties during the week-days, but 
 had even left their frock coats at home to appear 
 on the campus more like doctors on holidays 
 than sedate ministers of the gospel. However, 
 in heart, neither frock nor sack coats made a 
 difference, for it was astounding how boyish and 
 playful the faces of both city ministers and 
 country missionaries became in the interim of 
 lectures, or at night when in the midnight 
 hours some sedate man would get out of his cot, 
 skulk past the snoring brethren who were arrayed 
 
 [258] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 in a row on the cots in the gymnasium, and 
 either by rolling a thundering bowling ball at 
 the pins, or by some other act of deliberate 
 mischief, awaken Babel! 
 
 Morning, afternoon, and evening the city 
 people united with the seminary members in 
 crowding the lecture hall; school-teachers, 
 women's clubs, college professors and college 
 students, librarians, esthetic clerks, intellec- 
 tually inclined mill-workers, doctors, lawyers, 
 and church people, — these were in evidence 
 always, for the lecturers' names, and the three 
 poles of their thought — religion, soqal service, 
 and letters — made a universal appeal. In fact, 
 it must have somewhat embarrassed the speakers 
 to have been called in to lecture to theological 
 students and find before them all the Gentiles 
 of the city. In any case, the speakers who had 
 been so uninformed as to head each separate 
 lecture, whether on "The Pastor in his Study," 
 "The Turmoil in Society," or "The Supremacy 
 of Browning over the Saxon Heart," with the 
 usual, "My Dear Young Men," were compelled, 
 on appearing, to make it read, "The Citizens of 
 this City, Visiting School-teachers and Pro- 
 fessors, the Faculty and my Dear Young Friends 
 of the Seminary! Ahem!" and then go ahead 
 and wonder how the Barbarians would be inter- 
 ested in what was intended for the Greeks! 
 It was, in all, a reincarnation of a medieval 
 monastery acting as light-bringer, with this 
 
 [259] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 difference, that the Seminary's light was a Wels- 
 bach burner and no smoky fish-oil one that made 
 a fog! 
 
 The visiting clergymen who had overrun 
 the privacy of the Seminary left, and the 
 parishes in the back places were to ring with 
 the echoes of Lecture Week, and from many 
 and many a dried-up well in the mind and 
 heart of a minister who had never had money 
 enough for timely books or visits to inspiring 
 conferences, was to be flowing living, leaping 
 water for months after. One missionary pastor, 
 however, had been left within the precincts of 
 the Seminary, a missionary whose work lay 
 far back from the railroad, amidst the heavy, 
 drifted snow roads in winter and amidst the 
 serenity of the isolated hills and fields in sum- 
 mer; a missionary preacher who had been to 
 a college, but not a theological seminary, and 
 one who evidently strongly believed in equal 
 suffrage — for this minister was a "brown- 
 haired young woman." She attended our classes 
 in company with an elderly woman student 
 and was present when our homiletical profes- 
 sor, to make his instruction clear as to how 
 we should engineer a wedding, took a long 
 and short man, called one the bride and the 
 other the groom, and had them plight their 
 troth before us, ex more. 
 
 One evening I sat at a supper table in the 
 family hotel to where I had transferred my appe- 
 
 [260] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tite, when I was surprised to see the busy little 
 woman manager guide the "brown-haired young 
 woman" over to my table and say, without a 
 lift of the brow, as she came, 
 
 "She is a minister and you are to be a min- 
 ister, I think you ought to sit at the same 
 table!" 
 
 She left the young woman sitting opposite 
 me at the table, not being aware that we were 
 strangers to each other. But there we were, 
 and it seemed as if the phrenologist's ghost 
 must have been wandering near, though by 
 that time I had put his report oui^ of mind 
 entirely. 
 
 Suddenly it was rumored about the Semi- 
 nary that I had in charge the entertainment 
 of our guest, the missionary, and students 
 stumbled over us in the most unexpected 
 places, as we took our walks over the city. 
 Curious persons began to speak about the 
 usefulness of a wife who could herself take to 
 the pulpit! It was even reported about the 
 Seminary that some day she would be writing 
 my sermons! 
 
 When the missionary had returned to her 
 parish a sharp watch was kept over the mail 
 box at the foot of Therenton Hall stairway, for 
 it was expected that probably some corre- 
 spondence would take place between the mis- 
 sionary and myself. Some letters did pass 
 between us, though those from the missionary 
 
 [261] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 conveyed to me the fact, expressed in clear, 
 unequivocal language, that she was wedded to 
 her mission and felt that her whole life and 
 sympathy belonged to her people, despite any 
 personal wishes of her own. The matter had 
 reached that stage when examination and grad- 
 uation week drew near, a time which brought 
 suffering with it. 
 
 [2621 
 
Chapter XXX. A Heretic Hunter. 
 The Orthodoxy of the Seminary 
 Admirably Defended. I Contract 
 a Fashionable Disease f , and also 
 Receive a Very Unsettling Letter 
 
 THE fifty-year old elms are budding; 
 the shapely Norway maples are 
 bursting into May leafing; the sun, 
 after having melted away the ice 
 and packed snow in the north cor- 
 ners, is now pouring down over the sloping 
 field in front of the dormitory porch; the snow 
 shovels which the students have used through 
 the snowy winter months in clearing gridirons 
 of paths — a task which they have chosen by 
 lot — these tools of winter have been packed 
 away in remote corners of the vaulted cellar. 
 There is a slack fire kept in the stoves, a 
 sure sign of a seminary spring. One or two bi- 
 cycles are seen leaning against the steps of the 
 
 [263] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 chapel, waiting for their owners to come from 
 class and take a ride over the hills. Nature 
 has set the campus for loafers, but the pro- 
 fessors have chosen the dramatic month of May 
 for the hard grind of final examinations! Just 
 about this time the students begin to debate 
 very seriously on this matter, of acute inter- 
 est — to them: "Resolved: That Examinations 
 Do Not Gauge the Mental Fitness of a Stu- 
 dent," and substantiate their proposition by 
 the following proofs: 
 
 "That examinations induce nervousness, pro- 
 hibiting the student from actually expressing 
 what is actually in his mind. 
 
 "That all knowledge cannot be put on paper, 
 for it is possible for a man to profit by study 
 and yet not be able to give proof of it when 
 asked. 
 
 "That examinations depend upon memory: 
 that all students are not perfect in memory — " 
 and the many other usual arguments which 
 examinations, from the earliest times, must have 
 had against them. 
 
 But, in the Seminary, these examinations on 
 paper, while almost decisive, were supplemented 
 by oral examinations, made in public, with full 
 liberty given to any visitors, especially visiting 
 ministers, to ask questions. Immediately it 
 is seen what a heresy-hunting, heretic-discover- 
 ing opportunity these oral examinations gave: 
 for if ever a study has brought men's thumbs 
 
 [264] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 into the screw and men's necks into nooses, and 
 caused the suspicions of men to flame into 
 white heat, has it not been Theology? 
 
 For two years I had sat with my fellow 
 victims in the little chapel where our hymns of 
 praise and our prayers had been wont to ascend. 
 Class by class we sat, the lower classes unim- 
 portant in dramatic possibilities because they 
 were to be examined merely on Hebrew and 
 Church History, and surely it would have taken 
 a persecutor with a keener nose than Hilde- 
 brand or a Scotch vestryman to cull a heresy 
 on the Trinity or the Virgin Birth fr^om a hiphil 
 or a hophal or a padrigram with a kamets- 
 hhatauph in it! In fact, after a minister has 
 been away from the Seminary a few years, he 
 attends these oral examinations in Hebrew, 
 merely to nod his head at the recital of every 
 jot and the pronunciation of every drunken 
 row of consonants, as if it were a matter of 
 every-day understanding with him, and needed 
 no comment! At least, it seemed so to me as I 
 watched during my first experience as a par- 
 ticipant in an oral examination in Hebrew. 
 Neither is there much of a chance for heresy- 
 hunting in Church History, for is it not, in 
 itself, a record of heresy after heresy? But 
 "the senior class in Theology!" The mere 
 announcement of such an event is enough to 
 lure from his tombs every theological ragger 
 who ever drew breath. Think of the chance: 
 
 [265] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 to be given carte blanche with eight young stu- 
 dents who are ready to be quizzed on their 
 theology! 
 
 The senior class sit in their students' chairs 
 hardly comprehending what they face. Per- 
 haps because they are young and have a cer- 
 tain amount of bel esprit, in any case, they sit 
 ready; each one ready to take up arms in de- 
 fense of the orthodoxy of the seminary of that 
 present year against the orthodoxy of the sem- 
 inary forty, fifty, or fifty-eight years ago; a 
 clash which may have in it every element of 
 theological tragedy. That there may be need 
 of it is clear, for in the second settee of visitors 
 sits a white-haired, stern-faced minister, who 
 had stopped progress before Darwin wakened 
 the world, or ever First Isaiah was said to have 
 a double, or before such startling queries as 
 "What Sage Influenced the Psalter?" and 
 "Did the Code of Hammurabi Help Moses?" 
 began to be made. He antedates those novel- 
 ties : is strongly entrenched, unwilling to lend his 
 ear to them lest Zion's song be not heard. Tra- 
 ditions of this man have been handed down to 
 the seniors, who now sit ready for his ringing 
 challenge. They know he is waiting eagerly 
 for them, to follow every word, every answer 
 that has in it any deviation from the straight 
 doctrine of his senior year! 
 
 The examination begins. First the profes- 
 sor asks some questions that will indicate the 
 
 [266] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 range and character of his instruction. The old 
 man jots down something in a note-book, which 
 he holds in his hand, for he is experienced in 
 these matters. Then the cross-examination en- 
 sues. The old minister asks, first of all, in a 
 bewildered voice, 
 
 "Do you mean to say, young gentleman, 
 that the first sin was not done in the Garden 
 of Eden, as exactly recorded? Does the Semi- 
 nary teach that?" 
 
 The student replies, at length, showing, in 
 terms of modern research and science, exactly 
 what he means: that he has not denied the 
 terrible fact of sin nor of its penalties, etc. 
 
 But, in the audience sit some younger men, 
 recently graduated, who, by skilfully injected 
 questions, deflect examination into construc- 
 tive and spiritual channels, bringing out from 
 the students the rich faith that they have 
 to preach and the helpful doctrine that they 
 mean to proclaim to men, and the examination 
 closes with only one man imagining that faith 
 is on its last legs through too much wisdom. 
 
 These parlous times of test, of trial were ap- 
 proaching for me, and I had my class note-books 
 in order on my desk, for a review, when one morn- 
 ing I awoke suffering agony from the then fashion- 
 able ailment — appendicitis; just at a time when 
 the papers were reporting that some Philadel- 
 phia society women were compelling doctors to 
 operate on them as a new fad! The student 
 
 [267] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 across the hall opened his medicine-closet and 
 made me a very stout and vigorous mustard 
 plaster; but that did not avail. Then the doc- 
 tors were asked in and gave out the news that 
 I should have to be operated upon immedi- 
 ately. Visions of graduation melted in thin 
 air. While a carriage was secured, I dictated 
 two short letters, not knowing whether they 
 would be my last. Then I had my friend read 
 me a letter which the missionary had sent. It 
 was a letter to the effect that she felt that our 
 personal feelings should be put aside in order 
 that she might devote herself to God's work. 
 It pleaded that we should bring our corre- 
 spondence to an end, in order not to heighten 
 the tragedy to which the matter had reached. 
 The words were like knife blades driven deep, 
 and causing a pain more acute than that physical 
 pain which had brought me next door to death. 
 As the students carried me downstairs and 
 put me in the carriage, they saw my face con- 
 torted and purple with physical agony. 
 
 [268] 
 
Chapter XXXI. How Some of 
 the foys of Friendship Came to 
 me in the Tower Room. "The 
 Orator in the White Vest. How 
 Soon I Lost my Diploma x 
 
 FROM the ether cone which a house 
 surgeon had held over my nostrils I 
 breathed unconsciousness and peace. 
 I awoke in a tower room, with a 
 semi-circle of bright windows letting 
 in the morning sun on me, and with a quiet- 
 motioned, white-capped nurse watching me as 
 I struggled free from grim dreams and tried 
 to regain my right mind. The merest turn of 
 the eyes toward the low windows permitted me 
 to see the May day outside: a day in which 
 salmon fishers came in boats up the river and 
 patiently, skilfully lured giant fish from the 
 deep waters to their bags. 
 
 The little, bare room was soon colored with 
 gifts of flowers from friends in my parish, 
 from my classmates in the Seminary, and from 
 
 [269] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the missionary. Letters of consolation and good 
 cheer, visits from the president of the Seminary, 
 who told me not to fret about examina- 
 tions, because I should graduate, and cheering 
 minutes with my class friends took the edge 
 from my suffering. One morning a delegation 
 of little children came bashfully into the room, 
 and after standing in a row before me, each 
 waiting for the other to speak, — for they rep- 
 resented the children whom I had organized in 
 the mission church, two years before, — one of 
 them, a little girl, stepped forward and with a 
 quick thrust put on my white coverlet a paper 
 bag, saying: 
 
 "Mr. Priddy, we're sorry you're sick and hope 
 you'll soon be well. We chipped in for those 
 and hope you'll like 'em, please." 
 
 When they had left the room, the nurse opened 
 the bag and discovered one half dozen maxi- 
 mum-ripened bananas. 
 
 But graduation! Should I be in the hospital 
 while my classmates enjoyed the festivities, 
 the sobering joys, the inspiration of that event? 
 The doctor, who with his trail of a clinic exam- 
 ined me each morning, had been given a word by 
 the President, for though a stern man in appear- 
 ance and very blunt in speech, he would turn, half 
 fiercely, in mock ferocity to my nurse and say, 
 
 "This young man must be ready for the sixth 
 of June. Remember, he is not to be in this 
 place on that day!" 
 
 [270] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Though he never smiled as he said this; yet 
 because he said it I imagined him as the best 
 friend I had ever called friend, for the sixth of 
 June was the day of graduation! 
 
 From the fragments of news which came to 
 me, day by day, I knew that the Seminary was 
 shaping itself for the graduation exercises. The 
 oral examinations had been held; the visiting 
 alumni had met for their annual meeting; the 
 reception, in one of the professors' homes, had 
 been given; and on the morrow, in the evening, 
 my classmates would stand before the pulpit 
 in the brick church while the President handed 
 them their diplomas. 
 
 Graduation morning found me shaved, expec- 
 tant and nervous, sitting at one of the windows 
 watching a little girl cruelly strip a tiny sapling 
 of its first glorious flowers. Suddenly the nurse 
 came into the room, with a knowing smile, and 
 said that there was a stranger to see me! 
 
 There followed the scrape of a foot along the 
 rubber-carpeted corridor and into the room, 
 dressed in demure black, came the missionary! 
 She had followed the leading of her heart and 
 had come down to cheer me on for graduation, 
 for a strange dream had come to her the night 
 I had been smitten down, a dream that came 
 before any news of my illness had reached her, 
 in which some spirit of warning had whispered 
 that I was suffering, in danger of my life ! Then 
 the mail had brought her the truth, and there 
 
 [271] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 she stood before me to share the honors of the 
 day sympathetically with me. 
 
 By ten o'clock two classmates rattled into 
 the hospital yard in a carriage; came into my 
 room, their arms loaded with my best clothes. 
 
 "You've got to graduate with us!" they ex- 
 claimed. " We've been together through the 
 years, and we can't afford to have the line broken 
 now!" 
 
 One half hour later, supported by them, I 
 was placed in the carriage and carried trium- 
 phantly to my room in the dormitory, where I 
 was to remain quiet and patient until evening, 
 when I should go down to the brick church for 
 my diploma! 
 
 From the lofty height of my dormitory 
 window I could look down on the house-tops 
 of the city and see the hazy hills far, far against 
 the distant sky-lines. I could also look down 
 between the veil of elm leaves and see the pro- 
 cessions of visitors and the hurrying forms of 
 my classmates, as they passed over the tar 
 walk, under the shady arch of the trees towards 
 the gymnasium, where a banquet was to be 
 served in honor of my class. 
 
 There was a clatter outside my door, and the 
 classmate who had been chosen to deliver the 
 speech for us in the gymnasium appeared in 
 my doorway with a hearty, 
 
 "How do I look, Priddy?" 
 
 No groom ever did better with a frock coat, 
 
 [272] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 a white, flowered vest, a brilliant tie, and neatly 
 combed hair, and I told him so. He then left 
 me for the momentous occasion in which he was 
 to figure after dinner, when he would stand up 
 at the head of all the tables, strike his pose, and 
 in his best manner — with an incidental throw- 
 ing back of his frock coat to display his grand 
 white vest — give the felicitations, the thanks, 
 the hopes, and ideals of our class. 
 
 So I sat apart from the revelry of the day, 
 with a beating, thankful heart, waiting for the 
 arrival of evening. After supper a student came 
 into the room, fitted me into the best*collar that 
 I had, fastened the groomish, white silk tie 
 skilfully about it, put the golden links into my 
 new cuffs, and then helped me insert myself 
 into my new frock coat! 
 
 "There," he cried, stroking the front of my 
 coat and then standing back for the effect, "I 
 think you are ready to be escorted down to the 
 church by the missionary; she will meet you 
 in the reception-room. Good luck to you, 
 Priddy!" 
 
 I was so faint that I walked through the great 
 congregation of visitors and friends as through 
 a blur. I took my seat in the front of the 
 church with my classmates and saw only the 
 array of palms and flowers on the communion 
 table. I needed to marshal every ounce of nerve 
 and strength in order to get through the service 
 without accident. A terrible fear rushed into 
 
 [273] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 my heart, as my head kept whirling like a top 
 and leaving me exhausted, a fear that I should 
 tumble from my seat and spoil the exercises. 
 
 One after another of my classmates crowded 
 past me, ascended to the pulpit, and delivered 
 his speech. Next my name on the program, 
 and the subject of the speech on which I never 
 wrote, was a star, followed by the note: "Ex- 
 cused on account of illness." 
 
 After the addresses, the President came down 
 from the pulpit throne and we stood lined up 
 before him, with the vast audience at our backs. 
 I could not listen to the words of parting that 
 our mentor gave us, for I felt every minute that 
 I should tumble back like a stricken nine- 
 pin; bowled over by my insufficient strength. 
 Sweeps of pain, of cold and heat went through 
 me like differing winds. Slowly, ever so slowly, 
 the diplomas were handed us, seeming to take 
 a day or more, and every minute I felt like 
 stopping the solemn service and asking to be 
 allowed to go back to my seat. 
 
 Finally the last of the diplomas were given, 
 we turned our faces to the congregation, walked 
 nervously back to our seats, and waited for the 
 exercises to be concluded. 
 
 The organ thundered its exultant recessional, 
 the people crowded into the aisles and inter- 
 cepted us as we struggled through, seeking out 
 sweethearts, friends, parents, whose congratu- 
 lation we sought first. The missionary was 
 
 [274] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 waiting for me near an exit door, anxious for 
 me, as I saw by her face. I had just shown her 
 my diploma, with its blue silken bow, when 
 suddenly the Dean tapped me on the shoulder 
 and politely requested my diploma, saying, 
 
 "You may have it again, Mr. Priddy, 
 after you have completed your deferred 
 examinations!" 
 
 [275] 
 
Chapter XXXI L How, "Though 
 I was Ready for Service, I was 
 Forestalled by a New Trouble ', 
 and the Very Interesting Plan 
 Which Came Out of it 
 
 THEN the reward of the years came 
 to me: I had my whole time to 
 give to my parish, I had my home 
 in the parsonage and a wife — the 
 "brown-haired young woman" — 
 to preside over it. Though Evangelical Uni- 
 versity had nurtured narrow, dogmatic, and dis- 
 contented versions of faith in me, and though 
 the first months of instruction in the Seminary 
 had witnessed the destruction of these versions 
 of faith, finally had come the larger world 
 of faith, without narrow bounds, with deeper 
 reaches and a much brighter sky. Like Burner, 
 I had been called upon to pass through skep- 
 tical valleys, and to climb over high walls 
 which bruised the spirit, but it was only to 
 climb to the top of a lofty faith, at last, in 
 
 [276] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 which I seemed to behold the world of men, 
 spite of their common sins, tending towards the 
 central place — God's garden. I felt that I 
 could go into the pulpit and preach on themes, 
 which instead of arousing the hostility of men, 
 as the doctrine of Evangelical University seemed 
 destined to do, would by their breadth, opti- 
 mism, and freedom from Phariseeism win the 
 repentant consent of men. I had gone into the 
 Seminary tutored by Evangelical University to 
 be afraid to let the sun shine on religion's chief 
 doctrines, I had come from the Seminary believ- 
 ing that the flood of light intensified % the beauty 
 of religion. So, at last, I had the opportunity 
 of testing on community life this doctrine which 
 comforted me with an inexpressible comfort. I 
 bent to my work, with my wife at my elbow, as 
 proud of my chance as any king called suddenly 
 from obscurity to a kingdom. 
 
 I occupied a study whose front window over- 
 looked the trees and gave me an excellent view 
 of the sailing ships and steamers which dotted 
 the bay. I had my typewriter in one corner, 
 my desk in the centre of the room, and an 
 abundant supply of manuscript paper on which 
 I intended writing years and years of sermons 
 for that parish. 
 
 One day, in spring, my wife insisted that I con- 
 sult a specialist about a throat affliction which 
 had been interfering with my parish duties. I 
 sought one out and had him make a thorough ex- 
 
 [277] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 amination of me. Gravely he plied his tools and 
 searched my throat, and gravely he announced, 
 
 "You will have to bring your pastoral work 
 to an end, sir. Your throat will have to be 
 cared for. You must go, immediately, to a 
 dry climate, among the high hills, and use your 
 throat for a year or two with great economy. 
 That is all. There is no better remedy." 
 
 I gazed on him with startled eyes. 
 
 "But I've just got settled down," I insisted. 
 "I have no money saved. I have just married. 
 Is there no other remedy?" 
 
 "None," he replied, "I am sorry to say. 
 You will have to do as I prescribe or lose your 
 voice altogether. It is very serious." 
 
 Late that afternoon I appeared before my 
 wife. She had been planting some old-fashioned 
 flowers in the garden. She saw by my down- 
 cast countenance that I had bad news. 
 
 "What has he told you?" she enquired. 
 "Don't quibble with me, please!" 
 
 "We'll have to say good-bye to this place," 
 I began, miserably. "It's all at an end: this 
 fine dream!" 
 
 "Have to leave?' 5 she echoed, faintly. "Is 
 that it?" 
 
 Then I reported to her what the specialist 
 had told me. 
 
 "And we've planted the garden!" I concluded. 
 "We shan't be able to stay here long enough to 
 reap it!" 
 
 [278] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 There followed some moments of silence, 
 during which the full shock of the news had time 
 to hurt her, and then she proved herself to be 
 one in that sisterhood of wives who in proposing 
 a comfortable escape from a domestic difficulty 
 bravely commit themselves to hardships: for 
 she said, with a smile, 
 
 "There, now, this will give you a chance to 
 get to college!" 
 
 I looked at her with great astonishment. 
 
 "But we cannot afford to go to college," I 
 protested. 
 
 "Oh, can't we?" she smiled, "^ell, I sup- 
 pose it may be possible for you to get a little 
 church to supply near a college, and I will 
 stay at home through the week, keeping an eye 
 on the parish work while you study for your 
 degree." 
 
 "I had never thought of that!" 
 
 "You will have to be idle if you go to a parish, 
 you might as well use your time in getting a 
 college degree," she insisted. 
 
 In two weeks' time I had written to the Dean 
 of an old New England college, of great reputa- 
 tion, and, on the strength of my seminary study, 
 was informed that I should be eligible to enter 
 the junior class at the college the following 
 fall. With that matter settled, I soon learned 
 that I might supply a country church, some 
 miles from the college, and let my wife occupy 
 the parsonage. The financial end of college 
 
 [279] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 thus concluded, I resigned from the church: 
 the church in which all the sentimental ties of 
 student days, ordination, and marriage were 
 merged. 
 
 An old seaman came and boxed my household 
 goods, and as he worked, tried to blunt the sting 
 of the task by reciting to me in great detail, 
 how Moses, after becoming the wisest man 
 among the Egyptians, likewise became the 
 greatest war general of his time. 
 
 "How is that?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, you see," said the seaman, "the 
 'Gyptians was alius goin' over the sands of the 
 desert to battle, and the sands of the desert was 
 filled with biting snakes, and the men died by 
 whole companies from the glare of the sun, so 
 Moses, he invented some red umbrellas and 
 give one to every soldier and took 'em onto 
 the blazing, snake-ridden floor of the desert. 
 Result was, when the snakes seen the glaring 
 umbrellas they was scart off, and the men was 
 covered from the hot blaze of the sun, and went 
 into other lands and won big victories under 
 that same Moses!" 
 
 "Where did you learn that?" I asked, in 
 great curiosity. 
 
 He mumbled the name of some strange- 
 sounding history, and then returned to his work, 
 for which I was paying him twenty cents an 
 hour. That legend had cost me fifteen cents; 
 it had taken him a full three quarters of an 
 
 [280] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 hour to recount it with its frills and the many 
 interjections. 
 
 Then my wife and I, feeling like the first man 
 and woman leaving Eden, bade a tearful good- 
 bye to the house, to the parish, and went forth 
 to a new educational adventure, one that would 
 have its own peculiar hardships, pain, and 
 pleasures. 
 
 [2811 
 
Chapter XXXIII. Of a Vil- 
 lage where Locomotive TVhistles 
 Sounded like Lingering Music: of 
 the Rsthetic Possibilities in a Col- 
 lege Catalogue: of a fourney over 
 the Hills to the College where we 
 find, besides a Wonderful Array 
 of Structures y a Large Room and 
 the funior with his Barnful of 
 Furniture 
 
 TO a bird the north New England 
 hill country whither our adventure 
 took us might have resembled in 
 shape a crumpled pie crust. In 
 one of the depressions lay our new 
 parish: the horizons high and lifted up by 
 reason of the hills which girt it closely about. 
 All the exits from the village were over roads 
 
 [282] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 that sloped upward. Only the river had an 
 even course as its shallow body bruised itself 
 in rushing over the sharp, white rocks which 
 tried to hold it back. 
 
 The village was composed of groups of neatly 
 painted cottages branching from an elm-shaded 
 green around which stood the town buildings: 
 the drab-painted pillared church, the post- 
 office and general store, the glaring red brick 
 townhouse, the mill-like school building, the 
 parsonage, the doctor's residence, the post- 
 master's house, and the farm of the first select- 
 man. 
 
 The two fine contributions to the national 
 reputation that a majority of our parishioners 
 were sending into the markets, were golden 
 bars of butter and finely-fed beef. Very 
 quietly the people were giving themselves to 
 these tasks, having but little touch with the 
 great world outside. 
 
 It was difficult for me, in the midst of such 
 rustic peace and isolated civilization, to realize 
 that twelve miles back of the hills lay a famous 
 college whose traditions had gone out into 
 every part of the country during the century 
 and a half of its existence. Its name had been 
 reverently spoken in so far away a place as 
 Evangelical University. The history of the 
 United States can not be written without men- 
 tion and eulogy of some of its noted graduates. 
 During those July days, while we were estab- 
 
 [283] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 lishing our household goods in the parsonage, 
 I caught myself sniffing the east wind, as if 
 eager to slake my curiosity by catching the 
 flavor of the college. My enthusiasm was un- 
 bounded over the possibility of at last attaining 
 unto a college education: the trade-mark of 
 American culture. My wife and I had prom- 
 ised ourselves to drive over the hills as soon 
 as the house had been established, so that 
 together we might have our first view of the 
 institution and that I might confer with the 
 dean and arrange my schedule of studies for 
 the first term. I waited impatiently for that 
 day to come. 
 
 Meanwhile, during the lulls in house settling, 
 I took the college catalogue and selected a 
 course of studies. It was an enticing feast 
 before which I sat: I felt like a lad having to 
 choose from fifteen nectar flavors of ice cream, 
 only the courses of study from which I had 
 the privilege of choosing went into the hun- 
 dreds. Almost every theme of my desire was 
 spread before me; explorations into literature, 
 social life, fine arts, science, language, and 
 economics. Old yearnings could be abundantly 
 gratified at last: a formidable list of professors 
 and a more formidable list of studies awaited 
 my option. Evangelical University had given 
 me the foundations of an education, the Semi- 
 nary had given me the technical knowledge of 
 my profession, at last I had come to the studies 
 
 [284] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 that should broaden my outlook, extend my 
 habits of thought beyond the narrow groove 
 of my vocation, and link me to the great world- 
 thought. I put down Italian so that at last 
 I might, with my own ears, hear Dante speak 
 to me through his euphonious and inspired 
 Cantos, and I chose a course in which Goethe 
 should at last be met face to face. I also deter- 
 mined to test my theology in a science course 
 to find out for myself if God and the forces of 
 Nature were actually engaged in undying war- 
 fare. I chose, also, a course in composition, 
 which had in it all the lure towards ^authorship 
 and the fascination of literary creation. My 
 technical studies in the Seminary had prepared 
 me to secure from the college the highest in- 
 spiration I should ever receive from books. 
 
 Early in the month of August, my wife and I 
 started from the village in a buggy for a drive 
 over the hill roads to the college. My wife 
 reminded me, during the drive, of the strange- 
 ness of the situation: of the fact that five years 
 previously she had received her degree from 
 her alma mater and that she was now on the way 
 to witness the matriculation of her husband. 
 Midway on the route we drove through an 
 abandoned village, past a once commodious 
 church, a mill, and several houses, all storm 
 bent and in forsaken ruin. We rode along 
 sand-rutted highways which seemed to take 
 us farther and farther away from living crea- 
 
 [285] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tures. We passed acres and acres of stumps 
 showing where the axes and saws of woodsmen 
 had left a permanent scar in the forestry of the 
 back-roads. Then we emerged on the first 
 street of a quaint, slumberous town whose green 
 and drab-shuttered white houses hid demurely 
 behind screens of elm and of maple. On the 
 outskirts of this village we found ourselves on a 
 sandy plain which sloped down towards a wide 
 river. On the opposite bank, set like gleaming 
 red and white flowers in a bed of green, were 
 towers, windows, houses, chimneys: acres of 
 them, a mile distant, scattered over a narrow 
 elevated plain behind which rolled hills far 
 to the North, to the East and to the South, 
 their sky-lines lost in clouds. 
 
 "It's the college!" I exclaimed, dropping the 
 reins for further, excited contemplation. The 
 patches of red and the hundreds of gleaming, 
 sun-blazing windows, were dormitories and aca- 
 demic halls. The white blotches were innumer- 
 able houses surrounding the college buildings. 
 One had to pick them out from the lavish 
 clusters of shade trees whose leaves left cool, 
 dark shadows on the buildings. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later our horse had dragged 
 us toilsomely up a steep roadway on either side 
 of which were a few scattered houses, the out- 
 posts of the college town, and brought us right 
 into the midst of the college campus itself, a 
 very green oasis surrounded by a hollow square 
 
 [286] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of college structures. Yes, the Fence was there, 
 a double line of it with the grass worn off where 
 Seniors' sacred feet had rubbed! just as in my 
 boyish speculations I had always conceived a 
 college with its Fence. Very near the green, 
 too, lay a solid stone sarcophagus of a drinking 
 fountain: just the sort which, in my boyish 
 speculations and boyish reading, I had seen used 
 for the baths of recalcitrant Freshmen and too 
 obtrusive Sophomores. Over on the north 
 side a snow-white meeting-house fronted us with 
 a stiff, proud chest, and with its hexagonal 
 bell-tower rising above the roof like the smoke- 
 stack of a railway engine, made one expect to see 
 it start puffing forward over the campus, with 
 a very tiny, Greek-pillared vestry accompany- 
 ing it, like a colt engine, destined, sometime 
 later, perhaps, to grow into a meeting-house, 
 like its companion. Across the street from 
 where we had entered stood a brick tavern, 
 under whose canopy an old coach waited 
 equipped with glass doors, outside seats, and 
 with thick leather straps to keep the pliant 
 springs from sending the body of the coach 
 leaping off the wheels at the "thank-you- 
 ma'ams." To the left we discovered a huge 
 square brick structure with a fenced-in roof 
 faced by a spacious walled-in porch, with pillar- 
 supported roof which, we learned, was the 
 combined college club and commons. 
 
 Screened by the arching trees and massed in 
 
 [287] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 companies of twos and threes, fives and sixes, 
 were recitation halls, a Renaissance museum, 
 a stone chapel, a power house, numerous dor- 
 mitories, a snow-white observatory, a gymna- 
 sium, and last, a stone tower crowning a knoll 
 and dominating the campus. 
 
 The dean gave me my papers, approved my 
 courses of studies, and then sent my wife and 
 me on an inspection of available dormitory 
 rooms, for I should have to reside at the college 
 six days out of seven. 
 
 After the penury of Evangelical University 
 and the quaint compactness of the Seminary, 
 the broad acres, costly, comfortable buildings 
 and lavish size of the college gripped my 
 imagination. We threaded our way past a set 
 of dormitories, through a wooded road, and 
 entered a rustic park where Commencement 
 festivities were held every June. We passed 
 sedate rows of professorial residences fronted 
 by hedges and smooth-clipped lawns. Over to 
 the south we viewed a fenced-in athletic field; 
 a mass of green with ovals and straightaways 
 of black cinders, and with bleachers and a 
 grandstand at one end: the place where, fully 
 as much as in the college buildings, the culture 
 of youth went on: the culture of health, of 
 muscular skill, and of moral temper. 
 
 A janitor — a young man with a broad fore- 
 head and gentle ways — extracted a bunch of 
 keys and showed us into a very old dormitory 
 
 [288] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 where were single rooms, double rooms, quad- 
 ruple and sextuple rooms; according to taste, 
 but no room which met with my approval, 
 especially when the dormitory bore such a 
 sinister name as Demon Cottage, a corruption 
 of Damon Cottage. The janitor, who turned 
 out to be, himself, a graduate of the college, on 
 learning that I was an aspirant for the ministry, 
 promptly advised me to examine a room in the 
 Christian Association building. This we did, 
 and when he had guided my wife and me up 
 three flights of stairs and thrown open the door 
 of a massive, square room, with shop windows 
 for light, I said, 
 
 "Isn't this the college Socialistic Hall, or the 
 band practise chamber?" 
 
 "No, this is merely a double, dormitory 
 room," he admitted. "Sixty dollars a year 
 for each occupant with an extra bedroom over 
 there and an enormous storeroom through that 
 door." 
 
 "Well," I concluded, after some discussion, 
 "a flat-full of furniture would hardly furnish 
 the center of the room, but there's sure to be a 
 good circulation of air, and that is important. 
 I think I'd better take it." 
 
 When we returned to the campus we dis- 
 covered a group of canvas-clad students punt- 
 ing a football while a group of Freshmen, with 
 eyes bulging out of their heads, looked on in 
 worshipful wonder, for Ellis, Barton, and Chip- 
 
 [289] 
 
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 man, three of the Varsity team, were in the 
 advance guard of athletes engaged in early 
 practise. 
 
 The janitor had sent us to "Durritt's Barn" 
 where, he informed us, we should be able to 
 pick up a team load of dormitory furniture at 
 second hand for very little money. "Durritt's 
 Barn" was actually a barn attached to a pleasant 
 little house which had been transformed, by a 
 very energetic Junior, into a second-hand furni- 
 ture store. The Junior, whose name I learned 
 was Garden, presented himself from behind a 
 bewildering mass of dusty rugs, topsy-turvy 
 mission chairs, and sectional book shelves, and 
 picked his way to us through a narrow aisle 
 made by massed heaps of bedsteads, mat- 
 tresses, chiffoniers, tables, and desks. When 
 we expressed amazement at his business au- 
 dacity in having such a mass of second-hand 
 furnishings on his hands, he informed us that 
 we had not seen it all and then he led us up a 
 stairway to the loft where we discovered another 
 heaped up mass of material. 
 
 "I shall have it all sold by the time college 
 has opened," said the Junior. "In fact, I shall 
 not have enough for the demand." 
 
 "Where do you get the furniture?" demanded 
 my wife. 
 
 "From the Seniors," replied Garden. "They 
 sell it for next to nothing during Commence- 
 ment. It is a profitable business — while it 
 
 [290] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 lasts. It gives me an excellent chance for earn- 
 ing my way through the college. Now, how 
 would that iron bedstead suit you, for your 
 room, Mr. Priddy, and that felt mattress, 
 which goes with it: three dollars for the whole?" 
 
 After informing him that he did not have in 
 his stock a rug expansive enough to cover the 
 floor of my spacious apartment in Association 
 Hall, we compromised on a very limp, red 
 carpet rug which would resemble a bandanna 
 handkerchief when spread out on my room 
 floor, but which was actually the broadest floor 
 covering I could purchase. A half-hour later 
 I paid twelve dollars and a quarter for the bed, 
 the rug, a chair, a small book shelf, and a tied- 
 together chiffonier with most of its brass handles 
 missing. 
 
 After having left the moving of the furniture 
 in the hands of Garden, my wife and I were 
 once more driving over those lonesome, sandy, 
 rutted roads, in the midst of the profound 
 silences of remote civilization. Again we passed 
 through the deserted village. Two hours later 
 we were back in the parsonage ready, next, to 
 pack my trunk preparatory to the opening of 
 college. 
 
 [291] 
 
Chapter XXXI K My Wife 
 
 Packs me off to College. "The 
 Senior and I Stop at a Rock 
 for a Drink y Meet the Advance 
 Guard of Students, Plunge into a 
 Bedlam , and Witness the Labors 
 of the Freshmen. "The Finger-study 
 of Quarks and my Apology Given 
 to the Retired Medical Man who 
 was Specializing in Hens 
 
 ERE I am, in our honeymoon year, 
 packing you off to college," com- 
 mented my wife, as she folded 
 some towels and handed them to 
 me to put in my trunk. "It takes 
 me back to the day when my mother did it for 
 
 _ 99 
 
 me. 
 
 "And you're to have the hard end of the 
 
 [292] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 business," I replied, "staying in this house 
 alone and keeping an eye on the parish. Not 
 much of a honeymoon to that through the long, 
 winter days, while I am in the swirl of college 
 events, with all the fellowship one can desire." 
 
 "But there'll be holidays and Saturdays at 
 home, for you," she answered. "I shall see 
 you once a week at least, for you will have 
 to preach here every Sunday. We're working 
 together, now," she added, quietly. "If there's 
 any suffering, any hardship, any self-denial in- 
 volved, I am willing to undergo it, else I would 
 not have married you!" 
 
 In her voice ran an undertone of tragic feel- 
 ing and for the first time I began dimly to 
 realize, in the midst of my own opportunity 
 for a college education, that in this little home, 
 back over the hills, my wife would be waiting, 
 and waiting, through the long hours of the 
 day and night, for the two years' study to be 
 at an end: the study which would break up our 
 home and separate us during the first days of 
 our married life. I vowed then to give it all up : 
 to plunge into the pastoral work: to send word 
 to the college dean that he must not expect me. 
 
 "No, not that: not that!" protested my wife. 
 "It is your chance, take it!" 
 
 As I descended from my pulpit the following 
 Sunday morning, I was introduced to a quiet 
 youth who was recommended to me as a Senior 
 in the college. That afternoon my new 
 
 [293] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 acquaintance came down to the parsonage and 
 willingly permitted me, in my curiosity, to 
 question him concerning the traditions, the 
 customs, and the personnel of the college. I 
 asked him some very trivial and laughable 
 questions, I remember, because, at the time, 
 I had some very curious and perhaps too 
 exalted notions concerning colleges, especially 
 colleges of the high standard of the one in 
 which I had just matriculated and to which I 
 was to journey on the morrow. 
 
 After our conversation, the Senior promised 
 to call for me next day and escort me to the 
 college: a proffer which I was glad to accept. 
 
 That September Monday morning was a very 
 pleasant one in the Northern country. The 
 maple groves on the hill slopes made one think 
 that God had let fall his color pots, for the 
 leaves of the trees flamed with reds, with 
 yellows, and with blacks. The mail wagon 
 drove up to the parsonage door and collected 
 myself, the Senior, and my trunk. My wife 
 stood at the door telling me not to forget this 
 and that, with true motherly solicitude. Then, 
 with a dash through the dust, the wagon wheeled 
 us on our way across the river to the train 
 that should carry us to within four miles of 
 college. 
 
 The Senior said, as we changed at a junction, 
 
 "The train that will get us to college does 
 not go for some hours. Are you fit for a four 
 
 [294] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 mile walk? We can eat lunch on the way. I 
 have some in my suit case." 
 
 I agreed that I was ready for the walk, so we 
 left the town precincts by walking through a 
 lumber yard. ■ 
 
 Our travel took us over a cinder path between 
 the ties and switch rods of a railroad. At the 
 right, far below us, flowed a very wide and swift 
 river, whose surface twinkled through the shields 
 of pine and white birch which lined the bluff. 
 Here we met several young men walking slowly 
 and engaged in earnest conversation. 
 
 "Those are students!" the Senior^ whispered, 
 "out for a walk." 
 
 When some mill whistles at a remote distance 
 announced the noon hour, the Senior conducted 
 me to a grove of stiff, tall pines where on the 
 brown, fragrant needles he spread a lunch of 
 sandwiches, jelly, and pears. 
 
 Then we took up the walk again, passing on 
 into the wilderness of trees and rushing river. 
 At a turn in the track we came to a high cliff 
 whose outer surface was stained with moss and 
 glistened with dampness. The Senior stopped 
 before a niche out of whose cool interior spouted 
 a stream of ice-cold water, bringing to mind 
 the rock which Moses struck with his wand and 
 which slaked the thirst of the children of Israel. 
 
 "Nearly every student who passes this way," 
 the Senior announced, "gets a drink of this 
 water." 
 
 [295] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Ten minutes later we walked into the station 
 and I was amazed at the heaps of trunks that 
 covered the platform. Drays were doing their 
 best to reduce the pile by carting them away 
 in enormous loads. As we made our way 
 around the trunks there dashed into the station 
 one of the coaches I had seen near the tavern 
 on my previous visit; this time topped by a 
 group of healthy-faced, shouting students, wear- 
 ing tan shoes, flannel trousers, and flapping caps 
 such as clowns, in the circus rings, wear with 
 such comical effect. This coach was quickly fol- 
 lowed by another, similarly loaded with students 
 come down to greet the arrival of classmates 
 and friends. 
 
 At last I was able to realize the task that was 
 on my hands if I were to fit into the college lif e, 
 for scores of students passed us or trailed after 
 us as the Senior and I walked up the hill. How 
 should I ever succeed in remembering their 
 names, in entering into the acquaintance of a 
 small number of all those students? And the 
 trains were bringing more! 
 
 On top of the hill, just before entering the 
 campus, some fraternity houses, lavishly ap- 
 pointed, had their verandahs filled with students, 
 singing snatches of songs and bantering one 
 another. Then there flashed into view again, 
 the campus and the business street, only on 
 this occasion it was a far different campus and 
 a very different business street from what I 
 
 [2961 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had seen on my previous visit. The side- 
 walks were thronged with students, some lean- 
 ing against shop windows, others sitting on 
 steps, while others roamed along engaged in 
 conversation. On the campus, keeping to the 
 paths, were groups of Freshmen walking timidly 
 enough past Sophomores in sweaters and neg- 
 ligee attire and past Seniors in graver dress and 
 mien. On the front lawn of a dormitory four 
 neatly-dressed youths were beating rugs and 
 as their energetic actions continued they were 
 half smothered in the clouds of dust. 
 
 "I should imagine that they would don 
 rougher clothes while they dust rugs," I com- 
 mented to the Senior. 
 
 My companion smiled, knowingly, 
 
 "They have no chance to change clothes," 
 he replied. "They are Freshmen which some 
 of the upper-classmen have picked up from the 
 campus and compelled to do that work. It will 
 be the Freshmen's turn, next year, however, so 
 that it isn't much of an imposition. Now you'll 
 see some fun. Watch that football man with 
 the sweater!" 
 
 The football man in the sweater had come 
 out of the dormitory and had gone over to the 
 Freshman who was working more energetically 
 than his fellows, and said to him, 
 
 "Say, Freshie, what're you sleeping on the 
 job like that for, eh? Do you want the Sophs, 
 to give you a black mark so soon?" 
 
 [297] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 He glared with mock savagery at the be- 
 wildered Freshman, who replied, 
 
 "Please sir, I am working very hard, sir!" 
 
 "If you call that work, then," stormed the 
 football man, "I wonder what you do when you 
 loaf? Die probably, eh?" 
 
 "I thought, sir — " persisted the Freshman, 
 but he was cut short by the football man who 
 said, 
 
 "Just carry that up to my room, put it 
 straight, set the furniture in place, and then go 
 to work and copy those marked extracts from 
 the coach's note book which you'll find on the 
 desk. Hurry and have it done in two hours' 
 time!" 
 
 As the football man ended those savage 
 orders, he turned away with an amused smile 
 and as he came towards us he winked and said 
 to the Senior, 
 
 "That young cuss's got the making of a fine 
 kid in him, even if he is the son of a several 
 hundred thousand dollar Senator. Just watch 
 him make the dust fly! Ain't he a peacherino, 
 though!" 
 
 The Senior informed me, after the football 
 man had strolled away, that the fagging was in 
 full force just then and that the Freshmen took 
 it in good humor, and, in fact, would have con- 
 sidered themselves not actually at college had 
 that feature been omitted. 
 
 The different noises that filled the air made a 
 
 [298] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Babel. From dormitory windows came shouts, 
 cornet practise, and various moanings which, 
 at a quieter time, would have been differentiated 
 as vocal trios and duets. Down the business 
 street, from the upper floors where some of the 
 fraternities had rooms, the sounds of clanging 
 piano rag-time tried to merge with explosive 
 bellowings of happy, singing fraternity men. 
 On the College Club porch a jostling crowd of 
 students could be seen, shaking hands, telling 
 summer experiences, and knocking chairs about 
 in the anxiety to get at one another. The shop 
 windows were gay with college banners, souve- 
 nirs, books, picture cards, college photographs, 
 and sporting goods. 
 
 I found the furniture I had purchased from 
 Garden heaped before my door and a half -hour 
 later I had it scattered lonesomely over the floor 
 of my large room. From my open window I 
 could look down on the stir of life on the campus. 
 Night deepened, and with it came an increase, 
 rather than a quieting of the noises, as if Youth 
 were bound to have one last, gleesome frolic 
 before the sedate masters of Books curbed their 
 liberties. In the darkness of the night, sitting 
 at the window, exactly as I had done at Evan- 
 gelical University six years previously, I had an 
 alien feeling as I listened to the sounds which 
 soared up to my ears from the gloom below. 
 Demon yells, demon howls of acute misery, 
 throbbings of mandolin strings, the hoarse toot- 
 
 [299] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ing of a fish horn, a piercing falsetto voice under 
 my window trying to sing, 
 
 " 0,0,0! Dear, dear old days, love! " 
 
 the clanging of a hand bell and intermittent re- 
 volver shots. These were only a few of all the 
 riot of sounds spreading through the night air, 
 over the campus and bursting out of the dormi- 
 tory windows on every side of me. While I sat 
 wondering how a hundred or so of faculty could 
 ever bring seriousness out of such a chaos of 
 youthful energy, I heard a chug underneath my 
 window as a truckman hurled a trunk to the 
 sidewalk: my trunk. Immediately I went on 
 the campus, discovered two Freshmen, and 
 with all the abandon of a Junior that I could 
 muster for the occasion, I coolly invited them 
 to assist me in carrying the heavily loaded 
 trunk up the three flights of stairs. So con- 
 formed to the fagging custom were the Fresh- 
 men, that when one of them unfortunately 
 sliced his finger on a loose nail and I com- 
 miserated him on it, he said, keeping his grip 
 on the trunk, meanwhile, 
 
 "Nothing at all, sir. Nothing at alh" 
 Next morning the trio of bell chimes, in the 
 tower of the college chapel, hurled clanging, 
 throbbing scales-of -three over the quiet campus. 
 Immediately from the doorways of dormitories, 
 boarding clubs, and the Commons, appeared 
 chatting groups of students who took the paths 
 
 [300] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 across the campus towards the first chapel serv- 
 ice. From the North, the South, the East and 
 the West they hurried; hundreds and hundreds 
 of well-dressed youths, arm in arm or four and 
 five abreast as they walked. 
 
 The choir, transepts and gallery were soon 
 crowded, almost to suffocation. The morning 
 sun in trying to break through the windows 
 into the dimness merely glorified the pictured 
 saints, and prophets, shepherds and sheep. 
 The gowned organist played a part of the grand 
 finale of The Pilgrim's Chorus. The gowned 
 figure of the President arose and stqpd silent a 
 second while a wave of reverent stillness swept 
 through the chapel. Scripture followed hymn, 
 and a simple prayer was followed by a general 
 confession. Then the organ burst into a tri- 
 umphant recessional, and the students noisily 
 crowded down the aisles into the open air. The 
 day's work was begun, having had invoked on 
 it the blessing from the Author of all Truth, 
 and the Creator of that World which through- 
 out the days and years, has had such fascina- 
 tion for students and professors, of Science, of 
 Art and Faith. 
 
 In the confusion of the multitude of students, 
 most of them strangers to me, I felt the futility 
 of my social ambitions. In Evangelical Uni- 
 versity and in the theological seminary I had 
 been in the midst of small groups of students, 
 whose names, characteristics and acquaintance 
 
 [301] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 could be compassed in a few short weeks. 
 But the vast procession of young men which 
 blackened the greensward of the campus that 
 morning dismayed me. It seemed that mere 
 hand-shaking and saying to each individual 
 member of it, "I am glad to know you!" would 
 demand months and months of time. It was 
 a new experience, too, after the simple democ- 
 racy in my previous schools, to have those 
 who were my classmates and college associates, 
 pass me without a word of morning greeting, 
 without a lift of the eyes. 
 
 But that was only the first day! 
 
 The second morning, as I sat in the chapel, 
 I chanced to have my attention attracted by a 
 curious fingering of paper. It was the student 
 next to me who had some blank sheets of paper 
 in his hands which he shuffled intermittently and 
 over which he kept passing the ball of his fore- 
 finger. The organ had not ceased its prelude, 
 and the students had not ceased entering the 
 chapel, so I paid a stricter attention to the 
 strange recreation of my companion. Though 
 he shuffled his blank papers with great skill 
 and fingered their surfaces with scientific regu- 
 larity, his eyes — wide, staring ones, — were 
 kept fixed on the President's pulpit — never 
 once did they turn on my inquisitiveness or 
 towards the papers. 
 
 One of the students then slipped by me and 
 took a vacant seat next to this shuffler of 
 
 [302] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 papers. As soon as he was seated, however, he 
 bent forward and said, to me, 
 
 "Your name's Priddy, isn't it? I'm Sander- 
 son, the monitor who keeps the attendance of 
 this section. By the way, have you met 
 Quarles? Quarles," he said to the student 
 who was shuffling the papers, "meet Priddy, 
 your classmate!" Quarles, without taking his 
 eyes from their fixed stare on the President's 
 pulpit, extended me his hand, and said, in a 
 very quiet voice, 
 
 "I'm glad to meet you, Priddy! I'm blind, 
 as you probably know." 
 
 I expressed my amazement that he should 
 be in college. 
 
 "Oh," Sanderson exclaimed, "it doesn't seem 
 to bother him any. I notice that he's getting 
 on for Phi Beta Kappa. He makes us hump!" 
 
 "Then you are able to take the regular 
 studies!" I gasped. 
 
 "Yes," said Quarles, "the regular studies!" 
 
 "Of course," I went on, "you omit mathe- 
 matics, languages, and such things!" 
 
 "Why should I, Priddy?" asked Quarles 
 turning toward me his expressionless eyes. 
 
 "Well, I really don't see how you can manage 
 — those subjects," I explained. 
 
 "He manages all right," interrupted Sander- 
 son, "why, Priddy, he's taken nineties in cal- 
 culus, French and German and Greek, and is 
 right there when it comes to such graft courses, 
 
 [303] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 as philosophy and English! Oh, you don't 
 need to pity him: rather pity me, who with my 
 eyesight, am hardly able to pull through Fine 
 Arts One!" 
 
 Quarles then explained to me how, before 
 taking his courses, he had a student read to 
 him the complete text which he translated into 
 Braille with his blind-writing apparatus, on 
 sheets of paper. He also used the same instru- 
 ment, ^almost as quickly as we, with our sight, 
 would use our pencils in the professor's lectures. 
 The leaves he had been shuffling that morning, 
 formed a reading lesson in French. 
 
 Everybody was the friend of Quarles. He 
 would be groping his way alone over a path to a 
 class but a brief moment, for a student, playing 
 ball, nearby would signal to his comrade, who 
 would hold the ball, and then, throwing down his 
 glove would hurry over, have a cheery word of 
 greeting, ask Quarles whither he was bound, link 
 arms with the blind student and guide him 
 into a path where he could find his own way 
 without need of piloting. In this way, Quarles 
 must have felt the arm of nearly every upper- 
 classman, for not only were they willing to 
 straighten out his walks for him, and read to 
 him, but they also took him with them on 
 excursions, which he shared with excellent com- 
 radeship and proved to be as good a mountain 
 climber as the best. 
 
 In this way, too, through walks, at meals, and 
 
 [304] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 in classes, I soon had the students differentiated 
 and had a formidable list of friendships. 
 
 It was my custom, throughout the fall months 
 when the highways were hard and untouched 
 by snow, to ride weekly to and from college 
 on a bicycle which I had bought for that pur- 
 pose. On this twenty-mile excursion, along a 
 winding river and through quiet, little hamlets, 
 I had certain resting-places where I could breathe 
 and refresh myself with a sup of water. 
 
 Doctor Floyd's well, conveniently near the 
 highway at the summit of a steep grade, had 
 also a rustic bench near it, from which a most 
 gratifying vista could be obtained, which in- 
 cluded the view of a pyramidal mountain cone 
 framed in a circular opening of twinkling poplar 
 leaves, at whose foot a silvery dash of river 
 curved under high, bush-lined banks, with now 
 and then a cow or a colt completing the compo- 
 sition by standing in the river. 
 
 The Doctor, himself, whose permission to 
 drink of the water and to seat myself on the 
 bench for a rest I had taken pains to secure, 
 was a short, stout, bald-headed man of about 
 sixty, whose clean-shaven cheeks were always 
 flushed by an excess of blood. He had retired 
 from active practise and was engaged in the 
 delightful, old age recreation of seeing how many 
 eggs he could persuade a harem of Plymouth 
 Rocks to lay through a most careful, scientific 
 mixture of laying foods, use of germless drink- 
 
 [305] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ing troughs, and adaptation to an expensive 
 mode of existence. 
 
 One Saturday noon, as I sat on the bench 
 puffing for breath, for the day was both dusty 
 and hot, the Doctor, with the egg record for 
 the week in his hands, which he came down to 
 show me, sat down on the bench and said, 
 
 "Well, do those wild students know what they 
 are in college for?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled by 
 his sneer. 
 
 "Usually," he explained, "more'n half of the 
 students in the college over there don't know 
 why they're there ! " 
 
 "Oh," I said, "there are a great number of 
 my friends who are not certain what they are 
 going to do in the world, after graduation, if 
 that is what you mean, Doctor." 
 
 He rubbed his fat hands in revengeful 
 gratification. 
 
 "That's just it! Just it!" he laughed, cyni- 
 cally. "It's all a waste of good money and 
 precious time. There's no good can come of it. 
 they don't take their studies seriously enough. 
 Let me see, how many subjects does a student 
 have to select from under that new-fangled 
 election system they have — study made easy, 
 I call it — how many, now? " 
 
 "I think there must be in the neighborhood 
 of a hundred different courses, a majority of 
 which are elective, so far I know." 
 
 [306] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "And the young lazybones pick out the 
 easiest courses they can, independent of the 
 good it'll do 'em, eh?" 
 
 "Perhaps they do," I replied, antagonized by 
 his critical and belligerent tone. "But then, I 
 don't believe that a liberal education: a college 
 course, has to do merely with giving a student a 
 lot of technical information!" 
 
 The little man fussily remonstrated. 
 
 "What? I thought that colleges were in the 
 world to fit men for their work, and that if 
 they're to be doctors, why, they're to be taught 
 medicine and nothing else!" | 
 
 "That is the function of professional schools," 
 I agreed. " Take my case, for instance. lama 
 minister. I spent three years in a good theologi- 
 cal seminary. While there I wanted technical 
 information on my profession. I got it, and 
 assimilated more or less — perhaps less. But 
 when I came to college I did not come to add to 
 my technical theological knowledge; not at all!" 
 
 "What did you come for, then," he asked, 
 with another sneer, "to get the degree, I sup- 
 pose, like a lot of others?" 
 
 "I don't think you give me credit for being a 
 man of ordinary intelligence," I replied, hotly, 
 angered by his insinuation. 
 
 "Then what under heaven did you come to 
 college for, if not to increase your theological 
 information and whatever ability you might 
 have as a preacher." 
 
 [307] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "I came to college," I replied, "to get the 
 other man's point of view. I reasoned with 
 myself that a purely technical education tends 
 to narrow a man unless supplemented by an 
 education which might be entitled, 'The Other 
 Man's Point of View.' " 
 
 "That's a thrust at me," replied the Doctor, 
 "as if to say that I, because I took my medicine 
 with old Dr. Desbrow, and never went to one 
 of your colleges, was narrow. The idea!" 
 
 "I was not alluding to you, sir," I responded. 
 "I was merely making a generalization which 
 seems provable. For instance, I have a friend 
 who is an expert surgeon. He has been trained 
 in some of the best clinics and has diplomas 
 from the most reputable medical colleges. He 
 has learned his profession well, in all its finer, 
 technical points. But he never received any 
 liberal education. The result is, that he is 
 narrow in his tastes, caring for nothing which 
 is not flavored by anaesthetics or redolent of 
 carbolic acid. As there are among his friends 
 those whose stomachs turn at the mention of an 
 operation or at the whisper of anaesthetics, he 
 has no way of interesting them on subjects in 
 which they are interested. He imagines that 
 because all the world is not poking steel points 
 in ulcers and cancers, it had better be left 
 alone. The result is, that when you mention 
 the surgeon's name to the townsfolk, you will 
 hear words like these: 'A fine surgeon, but as 
 
 [308] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 cranky and bitter as a hobby-rider.' No one 
 can get along with him. He loses business by 
 it. He knows nothing but his profession!" 
 
 "Well," demanded the doctor, "that's a job 
 big enough for any man with brains, isn't it?" 
 
 "True," I responded, "but the truly educated 
 surgeon has not only to know his tools, his 
 diagnoses, his operating methods, but along 
 with that knowledge, his final success demands 
 that he be liberally trained in human nature, 
 that he have at least a faint idea of the subjects 
 in which other people are interested. A liberal 
 education, added to his professional %education 
 gives him that." 
 
 "I'd like to know how?" demanded the 
 Doctor. 
 
 "Well, take my case again, for instance. I 
 am going to take a lot of studies which are not 
 technically pertinent to sermons or doctrines: 
 study of Dutch paintings, Italian, Chemistry, 
 Anatomy of the Brain and Sense Organs, and 
 others which I can't mention at this time, be- 
 cause I have not decided just what they will be. 
 Here is what I mean. After an introductory 
 study of Italian, I shall learn just how the 
 Italians think. It is good to know that, surely? 
 Then after a brief course in chemistry, though I 
 shall not care enough about it when I am through 
 with the experiments, to carry off a test tube, tie 
 it with baby ribbon and keep it for a souvenir, as 
 some students do, I shall ever after realize that 
 
 [309] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 while I am swearing by theology, others, about 
 me, have reason for being engrossed in chemical 
 formulas and tests. Each study that I shall 
 take, and each classroom that I shall visit, 
 will form opportunities for me to get at the 
 points of view which determine why Tom 
 differs from Joe and why Joe differs from me. 
 If the college can do that, Doctor, and not add 
 a single jot to my theological knowledge, I 
 shall feel more than repaid for the time I spend 
 in it and the money I pay to it. So that is 
 why I don't think it either wasted time or an 
 entirely hopeless situation, Doctor, if a large 
 number of students in the college do not know 
 why they are there. One thing is certain, they 
 are getting trained in the other man's point of 
 view! 
 
 The Doctor, evidently not at all in agree- 
 ment with my explanation, after he had pooh- 
 poohed to himself for a minute, thought to 
 change the subject and for that purpose he said 
 to me, 
 
 "I rather pity you, young man. I always 
 did pity ministers. They don't seem to do 
 anything substantial; that's why I don't go 
 near a church. It's all up-in-the-air preaching, 
 and darned little doing. Now, keeping pullets 
 or mixing a sick draught — why, they are some- 
 thing worth while, now — but preaching and 
 preachers — um ! " 
 
 "The other man's point of view, Doctor," I 
 
 [310] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 laughed, as I mounted my wheel and started 
 off. 
 
 A week later, the Doctor came out of the 
 house, when I stopped at the well, and as he 
 drew near he shouted, 
 
 "I drove over to the college, last Wednesday. 
 What a lazy set of loafers you've got over there, 
 to be sure. I was there in the afternoon and 
 saw them reading papers, strolling around the 
 campus and playing all sorts of games. I don't 
 think they'll amount to much in the world if 
 they go on at that rate. They seem so aimless! 
 I heard one fellow, with turned up trpusers and 
 purple socks that would have given light at 
 night, say to another student, something about 
 throwing books and professors to the dogs — 
 or some such stuff!" 
 
 "Yes," I admitted, "I hear that every day. 
 I know a good many students who care little 
 about classes and text-books." 
 
 The doctor, evidently gratified with that 
 admission grunted, 
 
 "Then what's the good of the college — to 
 them. Why doesn't it send them into the world 
 to be useful?" 
 
 "That's what a good many people say, about 
 us students," I replied. "But books and pro- 
 fessors and courses of study are only a part of 
 what a student gets in our college, sir. It's a 
 very peculiar situation. I'm older than most 
 of the students, and have had the advantage 
 
 [311] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of a professional training, and so can look on 
 the college through somewhat serious eyes. 
 You would be astounded, for instance, at the 
 tremendous education that the men receive 
 from purely student affairs." 
 
 "Going into the country, when the football 
 team's won over Princeton, for instance," sniffed 
 the Doctor, "and tearing down farm fences! 
 Oh, yes, a wonderful education in student 
 affairs? Like one of your boys that came into 
 this village, and in broad daylight went up to 
 the grocery store, there, on the main street, 
 and deliberately took down and carried off a 
 four-foot, patent-medicine thermometer, the 
 folks all the while thinking him to be an agent 
 fellow, come to mend it, or change it. Oh, yes, 
 a wonderful education those fellows get among 
 themselves!" 
 
 After the old man had frightened one of his 
 pullets back into the rear of the house, I replied, 
 
 "No, I didn't refer to isolated acts of mischief, 
 Doctor, but to the student enterprises that 
 create ability. Our college is nothing more than 
 wheels within wheels. There are professors 
 and classroom studies for the big, outside wheels, 
 and for the inner wheels, whirling all the time, 
 are the college newspaper, the college magazine, 
 the athletic business, the writing and staging 
 of plays, the dramatic clubs, the musical clubs, 
 the social service enterprises, the political clubs 
 and the religious work. Why, Doctor, those 
 
 [312] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 students conduct all those things practically 
 without help from outsiders. You would be 
 astounded at the amount of executive and 
 administrative ability they demand. The stu- 
 dents who run the monthly magazine, for in- 
 stance, must be good editors, fair writers, and 
 managers of astuteness, for it has to pay for 
 itself, at least, and must express literary power. 
 It is the same with the newspaper. That is a 
 business in itself, yet it is managed, financed 
 and edited entirely by students, many of whom 
 find it difficult to get interested in the routine 
 of the college curriculum. When yqu multiply 
 these business and serious activities, you find 
 the students actually doing profitable and 
 character-forming tasks outside of the class- 
 rooms which few critics of the college take the 
 trouble to notice. Why, it was only a week 
 ago, that a student came into my room and had 
 a talk with me about a new college enterprise 
 that seemed formidable. He was a student who 
 did not care five tooth-picks for his studies. 
 He was in difficulties with his physics course, 
 at the time, having failed in it twice, and seem- 
 ing to be letting his third and last chance 
 for his degree slip past without giving it a 
 thought. The people on the campus, and the 
 professors in the classrooms appraised this 
 fellow as a 'loafer' and an 'idler.' Yet, that 
 morning he came to me and said that he pro- 
 posed to start a comic monthly, at ten cents a 
 
 [313] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 copy, himself to be editor-in-chief, and the jokes, 
 poems, pictures, designs, the securing of adver- 
 tisement and subscribers, to be under his 
 general charge and apportioned to willing stu- 
 dents. He went off for two days, at his own 
 expense, secured over a hundred dollars' worth 
 of advertising, and only last week had news- 
 boys selling on the campus a first-class, neatly 
 printed, well-filled, artistically illustrated comic 
 monthly, which, by this time has its regular 
 staff of student artists, poets, joke writers, 
 business managers, and board of editors; it's 
 a paper which promises to be one of the features 
 of student life. No, Doctor," I concluded as I 
 felt of my tires, preparatory to taking up my 
 journey towards home, "students may seem 
 shiftless, indifferent, and unenthusiastic on the 
 campus, but when you get behind the laziest 
 of them you are liable to find that they are giving 
 themselves to some sort of character-making 
 work, — contrary to the posters which lead out- 
 siders to think that college life consists of a 
 place where the student sits in the sun on a 
 fence, smoking a pipe with a leashed bull-pup 
 at his feet!" 
 
 "Say," called the Doctor, as I fitted the toe 
 clips to my shoes, "my pullets did a hundred 
 and sixty this week. Laying, — eh?" 
 
 [314] 
 
Chapter XXXV. Hot-Popovers 
 and a Cold Watch in the Station. 
 The Sleigh-load of "Talent 
 
 WHEN the winter storms piled the 
 river highway with snowdrifts, I 
 had to put aside my bicycle and 
 use the railway trains. This 
 made it necessary for me to 
 leave my home on the Sunday midnight 
 train that I might be ready for my classes at 
 college, on Monday morning. In that northern 
 part of New England what storms could grip 
 the land and put a stop to train traffic and 
 cartage! One of my parishioners showed me, 
 for my comfort possibly, an actual photograph 
 of a drift of snow so high that a liberal load of 
 hay on a wagon stood on a level with it, when a 
 gap was dug through. I had packed fir boughs 
 around the parsonage cellar wall, and that was 
 soon covered with the drifts; even the window 
 sills were reached by the snow at last. As for 
 the crumpled hills surrounding the village, their 
 lonely, hurricane-swept crests, — with the stick- 
 like birches bending away from the north like 
 
 [315] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 timid creatures afraid to stand up, day by day, 
 against those icy assaults, — presented a wild, 
 dismal picture of winter's fury. 
 
 My custom was, during those months, to 
 arrive home on the Saturday afternoon train 
 and immediately set to work splitting the maple 
 blocks of wood into convenient fire-wood and 
 stacking a week's supply in the kitchen wood- 
 box, while my wife held a meeting with the 
 children of the parish in the parlor. Then on 
 Sunday, I would preach two sermons. I had 
 to wear my overshoes in the evening on ac- 
 count of the chill in which the vestry was always 
 wrapped. After this service, my wife would 
 have the supper table spread with preserved 
 pears, hot pop-overs and cocoa. We would 
 linger over this meal, the last I should have 
 at home for a week, and keeping a sharp eye 
 on the clock. At the first announcement of 
 ten o'clock, the lantern would be Kghted and 
 the words of farewell be given at the door. 
 Then out into the dark misery of the night, with 
 my lantern flickering my shadow over the houses, 
 and my wife's lonesome sigh echoing in my heart, 
 I would creep through the storms of swirling 
 snow, which wet my hot cheeks, pass over the 
 quiet bridge to the opposite side of the river 
 and climb up a steep road until the silent, 
 isolated station was reached. Across the river 
 I could see the dark outlines of the village, and 
 in the midst of it, a golden point of light: the 
 
 [316] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 light of my home. The train was due at half- 
 past ten, but it was never on time and so I had 
 long waits. The station-master left the station 
 dark on Sunday evenings. He gave me a key 
 with which I unlocked the door and was able to 
 keep warm while waiting. After having lighted 
 the swinging lamp, I would produce a book and 
 let the slow minutes pass until the late train 
 screamed around the corner, as if angry with 
 itself for its slow progress between stations. On 
 the first sound of the whistle, it would be a 
 wild scramble to quench the light, lock the 
 door, and rush out to the train before it pulled 
 out from the station. 
 
 An hour later the train would draw into the 
 terminus and leave me stranded, four miles 
 away from my dormitory. Then I had to cross 
 over to the hotel, engage one of the rooms and 
 try to sleep till half -past five the next morning; 
 if sleep were possible with such a screaming of 
 freight-train whistles, and such a bumping of 
 shifting engines as prevailed through the small 
 hours of the night. 
 
 At eight o'clock the following morning, eye- 
 lids leaden with loss of sleep and my body 
 weakened through lack of rest, and an inade- 
 quate breakfast, I would commence the first of 
 my three Monday morning classes, and not be 
 free from the intellectual discipline again until 
 nearly noon, after which I would spend the 
 afternoon in sleep or recreation. 
 
 [317] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 One day the director of social service, a 
 department of the religious work done by- 
 students, came to me and said, 
 
 "Priddy, we've got all sorts of concert talent 
 about here. Would your church care if we 
 should give them an evening's entertainment?" 
 
 "They can't afford to do much in that line," 
 I replied. 
 
 "But all we shall expect will be our expenses 
 and a good, hot supper. We can hire a big 
 sleigh and make up quite a party to go over 
 the hills." 
 
 "What have you got — for talent?" I asked. 
 
 He thought a minute, and then said, 
 
 "Why, we've got banjo players to spare, club 
 jugglers, a sleight-of-hand performer, four or 
 five male quartettes, a stringed orchestra, two 
 readers, and a ventriloquist. Of course, the 
 night we could give to you would find some of 
 these students unable to go, but tell me what 
 sort of an entertainment you would like and 
 I'll see what we can do for you. We want to 
 make the evenings brighter in some of these 
 isolated, north country villages. It's a little 
 bit of social service that brings its own reward, 
 for the boys like to get out and have a good 
 country supper!" 
 
 He was able, finally, to make up a program 
 which included a reader, a young professor who 
 would swing flaming clubs, a sleight-of-hand 
 performer and a male quartette. 
 
 [318] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 On the afternoon appointed, these artists, 
 wrapped up in thick clothes, appeared in front 
 of a dormitory and were packed into a huge 
 barge on runners until, including some invited 
 professors and their wives, we numbered twenty 
 or more. 
 
 The four horses, with streamers of brass bells 
 hanging in front of them jingled over the packed 
 snow roads of the village and finally brought us 
 into the less used hill roads, which, in places 
 rambled over the hills until the climb seemed 
 interminable. The snow began to fall and we 
 plunged down the steep declivities, hajf blinded 
 by it, but opposing the storm with jokes, songs 
 and banter. 
 
 On a shelf of road, which had been cut from 
 a steep hill-side, and which the winds, un- 
 hindered by protecting wall or trees, had stripped 
 of snow and left glare ice for the sleigh to cross, 
 our runners skidded to such an angle that we 
 were threatened with an overturn that would 
 have hurled us down the steep bank, had not 
 some of the students leaped to the ground, and 
 by sheer strength, aided by the careful control 
 of the driver, kept the sleigh to the road until 
 we were in safety. 
 
 Then as the twilight set in, and there were no 
 sign-posts to guide us, we stopped at the first 
 house and asked how far we were from the 
 village. An old woman, dressed in a greasy 
 print wrapper, and drawing gulps of smoke from 
 
 [319] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 a briar pipe, said she guessed we were "nigh 
 four miles this side of it." We drove through 
 the storm for a quarter of an hour more, and 
 then, thinking that we should be coming in 
 sight of the village, we stopped a man who was 
 going to his barn with milking cans and repeated 
 our request as to how far we were from the 
 village, and, as if he had been in league with 
 the old woman with the pipe, a mile back he 
 said, 
 
 "'Bout four mile, I'd say!" 
 
 Hopefully, then, we rumbled and scraped 
 down a hill for another half hour, and then, 
 meeting another sleigh, coming in our direc- 
 tion, our driver hailed the man at the reins, 
 who was muffled to his ears in a swathing of 
 crazy-quilt, and shouted, 
 
 "How far are we from the village?" 
 
 And much to our dismay, a rumbling answer 
 came from the folds of the crazy-quilt, which 
 we had to interpret as, 
 
 "Jes' four mile!" 
 
 Ten minutes, later, however, we had the joy 
 of arriving hungry, cold, but not without spirit, 
 at the church door, where, under kerosene 
 lamps, and on white paper table-cloths, was 
 spread a meal of hot biscuits, hot yellow-eyed 
 beans, hot pea beans, potato salad, hot kidney 
 beans, dill pickles, pickled beets, four sorts of 
 frosted cake, luscious lemon pies and coffee. 
 
 After the supper, the students went into my 
 
 [320] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 church and found a hundred of the villagers 
 gathered, in spite of the storm. The quartette 
 sang entrancingly their college jingles. The 
 young professor swung his flaming clubs, until, 
 when he was in the midst of some complicated 
 spirals his alcohol-soaked rags burnt out, un- 
 expectedly, and he had to apologize since he 
 could not go on with his novel act because 
 his "spirits had given out." The reader gave, 
 with great effect, a memorable quarrel between 
 man and wife, and sparkling anecdotes which 
 would have taken the dullness off a yokel's 
 heart. Then the star of the concert, the 
 sleight-of-hand performer began his skilful 
 mysteries. He made a pencil cling to the 
 palm of his hand, brought flags and flowers 
 from an empty hat, multiplied a billiard ball 
 into six, wafted a half dollar into thin air, and, 
 finally, produced a pack of cards, at the sight 
 of which, I thought my deacons would institute 
 proceedings of worldliness against me for allow- 
 ing it, but which, when made to do the weirdest 
 acts, finally reconciled even the most austere 
 of them; so much so that one grim Puritan 
 even came forward and held the pack — after 
 much persuasion — while the man of mystery 
 seemed to change them without the holder's 
 knowledge. 
 
 At the close of the entertainment, the college 
 delegation, after going, every one, to the church 
 women and declaring that they had never 
 
 [321] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 eaten a better supper than had been provided, 
 got into the sleigh, the driver cracked his long 
 whip with a deft explosion for the ears of the 
 on-looking villagers, and with a hearty yell, they 
 started on their way down the river road 
 through the storm, and I stood with my wife at 
 our door until their songs died away among 
 the midnight shadows of the hills and storm. 
 
 [322] 
 
Chapter XXXVI A Chapter 
 of Sentiment and Literary Atmos- 
 phere, Including the Account of 
 Sanderson, the Procrastinator. 
 How Two Prize Checks Were 
 Spent. A Parish of Talent 
 
 WHEN came the announcement of 
 Spring, at college, after the lawns 
 and the paths had dried, and when 
 the evenings were filled with the 
 throaty gurglings of hopping 
 robins. A sign in front of the Commons an- 
 nounced, " Class Sing Tonight 7 : 30." This is a 
 "Sing;" 
 
 At seven o'clock the students gather by classes 
 at four different parts of the campus: the 
 seniors to sit on their double fence, the juniors 
 to sit on the steps of the recitation hall, the 
 sophomores to occupy the commodious steps of 
 the Assembly Hall, and the freshmen to stand 
 near the library. 
 Silence ! 
 
 [323] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Suddenly the low, vibrating voices of the 
 seniors fill the air with, "Harvest Moon." On 
 its completion, the three lower classes send 
 snapping hand claps over to the fence. 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 The juniors send across to the seniors the 
 melodious, sentimental song, "Summer Days 
 and Love, Love, Love!" over the triple trills of 
 which the high-pitched tenors linger as if they 
 would stop there and sound those musical half 
 tones until out of breath. Led by the seniors, 
 the underclassmen repeat the hand-clapping. 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 With a sudden, flank attack, the sophomores, 
 directed by a shirt-sleeved and very fat student 
 fly into the midst of "Dolly Grey," a stirring 
 war ballad, and from the pathos which wells 
 out of the sentimental passages, one can easily 
 imagine those wild, irresponsible sophomores 
 crying in harmony with it. Once more the 
 three classes snap their applause. 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 A longer silence this time, for the freshmen, 
 making their first appearance in the role of 
 class singers — a thick mass of them — cannot 
 agree with their director as to what the premiere 
 shall be. Soon the matter is settled. An arm 
 is raised and then — a low rumble that dies 
 down, followed by three giant laughs from three 
 different points of the campus. The freshman 
 leader has pitched the tune too low. 
 
 [324] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Out with it, Freshies!" comes a mocking, 
 cutting call across from the sophomores — 
 traditional enemies of the freshmen. 
 
 One more try, and with the effect of an aero- 
 plane getting its flight slowly, hesitatingly, the 
 freshman song at last rises to a mighty, boyish, 
 exultant rendering of "Old Black Joe!" for they 
 dare not trust themselves with a recent melody. 
 
 After the songs, the cheers! the class cheers! 
 
 The seniors give one for the juniors, and the 
 juniors applaud it. 
 
 The seniors give one for the sophomores, and 
 the sophomores applaud it. 
 
 Then the seniors give a heartier one for the 
 freshmen, and those boys almost split the 
 heavens with their yellings. 
 
 Next the juniors make the rounds of the 
 classes, with the same response of applause, 
 save that their cheer for the seniors gets but 
 scant and dignified applause, for the seniors 
 must not be too boyish! 
 
 Then the sophomores and the freshmen have 
 their turn and the cheering is over. 
 
 Silence. The night is deepening, and one 
 hardly stirs. Four huge masses of shadow 
 move in the direction of the campus centre. 
 Then one hears a martial, drill-sergeant's 
 "Left, left, left!" as the classes catch the step. 
 It is so arranged that, without a halt, the four 
 classes merge into one mass in the middle of 
 the green. 
 
 [325] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Silence again. Not a sound is heard, until 
 the college song-leader hums a pitch. Then the 
 Alma Mater hymn goes up with all the thrilling 
 reverence in it of a song of love sung to the 
 college mother. If one were near the singers, 
 it would be possible to see, how, when the song 
 deepens in theme, the sophomore unconsciously 
 throws his arm over the shoulder of the fresh- 
 man, and the senior throws his over the shoulder 
 of the junior: all brothers as the melody 
 unfolds itself. 
 
 The hymn ended, the cheer-leader moves to 
 the side of the song-leader, says a few words, 
 and then, as he takes the position of a prize- 
 fighter, on guard, with his fist extended, he 
 pulls out from the disciplined throats, a snappy, 
 thundering crash of a college cheer. It is over. 
 The crowd thins out over the star-lighted 
 campus. Spring has come! 
 
 I was amazed, that year, at the amount of 
 personal supervision the professors gave to the 
 students, out of hours, amidst such large classes 
 as they were called upon to instruct. It had 
 been drilled into my mind at Evangelical Uni- 
 versity that only in the small college is it 
 possible for the professors to "get next" to the 
 student in a wise, helpful manner. So that 
 when I came into the centre of the college life, 
 in all its complexity, diversity and confusion, I 
 actually expected to see the professors deliver 
 their lectures, and then coldly leave us to our- 
 
 [326] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 selves, withdrawing themselves from the student 
 life with academic aloofness. 
 
 But on Tuesday evenings the faculty were 
 "at home" and welcomed such student visitors 
 as cared to accept the courteous hospitality of 
 their cheerful homes. After classes, and in 
 their offices at certain hours, we could go to 
 our teachers and be sure of receiving their most 
 thorough attention on the matter in mind. 
 Then, too, the professors were always eagerly 
 seeking to align themselves to our life: to enter 
 with us into the profitable ventures of a social, 
 inspiring nature. Thus it came about that they 
 served on athletic committees, religious boards, 
 literary and social programs. It was because 
 they possessed this spirit of fellowship with 
 their students, that I was enabled to venture 
 into a new world of opportunity. It was in this 
 wise. 
 
 I had been spending the largest proportion 
 of my time in literary composition, for my wife, 
 my sermon critic, had found that in my pulpit 
 address I needed rhetorical clearness, so I deter- 
 mined to discipline myself to that end. When 
 the English professor gave out exercises, like 
 editorials, descriptions, book reviews, or short 
 stories, I resolved to put the burden of my time 
 in such writings with no other thought than to 
 remedy my pulpit faults. When some of these 
 exercises were returned, after examination by 
 the professor, I found red pencil notes, suggest- 
 
 [3271 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ing that this or that be submitted for publica- 
 tion in the college periodicals. These red 
 pencil suggestions were common in the class, 
 and gave great inspiration to the other students, 
 as they gave inspiration to me. One day, when 
 I arrived late at class, I found the professor 
 reading aloud a description I had written. 
 This was followed by a request for a con- 
 ference in the teacher's office. 
 
 "I have been watching your work," said the 
 professor, kindly, "and think that you might 
 try for the junior essay prize and also for the 
 prize offered for the best piece of college fiction. 
 I have been advising several others in the class 
 to compete, and hope that you will find time for 
 the work. These prize competitions are real 
 tests as to the value of classroom work. I 
 hope you and the others will try!" 
 
 On account of the professor's kindly sugges- 
 tion, I began to work on the essay and the 
 story, and kept my typewriter clattering hour 
 after hour when not in class. For all the 
 lure of authorship was before me. The lure 
 of substantial prizes. The lure of contest. 
 The lure of doing something, in composition, 
 that seemed real. 
 
 When I entered upon this special literary 
 adventure I found that I was part of a consider- 
 able fellowship, whose interest in the work was 
 kept alive by the wise, far-seeing, personal 
 interest of our different literary instructors. I 
 
 [328] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 found one student who confidentially informed 
 me that he was making a special research in the 
 library concerning some wild, unknown pirates 
 who once infested the New England coast. He 
 meant to write at length upon that subject for 
 the gratification of his own literary curiosity. 
 Another student was busy, like the youthful 
 Stevenson, in imitating, deliberately, the styles 
 of the world famous authors, and just then, on 
 our first acquaintance, was in the wild morals, 
 but cameo-cut phrases of Maupassant! 
 
 By the end of spring, in fact, I found myself 
 in as inspiring a literary atmosphere % as, prob- 
 ably, ever an undergraduate experienced. For 
 I had been made a member of the editorial 
 board of the college magazine, and even wrote 
 comic doggerel and attempts at descriptive wit 
 for the now thoroughly established comic 
 monthly. I have been in a magazine board 
 meeting, held in a student's room, when the 
 conversation would rise into debatable heights, 
 and would excite the whole company, over such 
 questions as: 
 
 " Are there more than seven types of plot possible in fiction? " 
 
 " Is the supernatural in Shakespere scientific? " 
 
 " Was Poe a plagiarist? " 
 
 " Will any of the present-day six best sellers become classic? " 
 
 Not only did we have these conversations 
 among ourselves, but one of the professors 
 invited a group of us into his home, once a 
 week, where seated in his snug library amid 
 
 [329] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 his choice editions, we would take up the tech- 
 nical study of literature, enter into interesting- 
 debates about it, and then sit back in our 
 chairs as our generous host rang for the refresh- 
 ments: a home touch which we appreciated 
 thoroughly. 
 
 Another pleasurable surprise was the small 
 number of text books that I found must be 
 purchased. During my first term I bought 
 only two books for seven classes. The pro- 
 fessors regarded the college library as a sort of 
 encyclopaedic text book for over a thousand 
 students: forming the standard work on his- 
 tory, economics, social science, literature and 
 the various other departments of the curric- 
 ulum. At last, I found, professors and stu- 
 dents had broken loose from artificial authorities 
 and took their history and economics not only 
 from many treatises on the matter, but from 
 current periodicals, the daily newspaper, cata- 
 logues, year books and similar vital, first- 
 hand sources. 
 
 This method of study, in use throughout the 
 college, made the library something more vivid 
 than a stack of collected books, magazines and 
 pamphlets: it vitalized it and made it the 
 resort of hundreds of students every day. It 
 linked our classroom work, the professors' 
 lectures and our own studies to hundreds and 
 hundreds of books, periodicals and papers, 
 where otherwise we should have been limited 
 
 [330] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 to a half-dozen omnipotent authorities. In 
 place of reading selected Orations from a book 
 of compilations, I was compelled to find the 
 original oration in some yellowed book in which 
 it was first printed. In studying the leading 
 principles of Forensics I had to go to the records 
 of the courts to read the original evidence and 
 pleas in the case. A procedure like that 
 appealed to the mind and made one alert in 
 judgment. It also made the library the centre 
 where the real, serious work of the student was 
 accomplished, and where one could come in 
 daily contact with the fellows who were after 
 serious results during their four years residence 
 in the college. 
 
 It was in the library that I first made one of 
 my deepest and most valuable college friend- 
 ships. 
 
 It chanced that one of my studies, the life 
 and works of Goethe, took me to a particular 
 section of the reference room where the shelves 
 of Sociology and Economics filled considerable 
 space. As I made my excursions into the sec- 
 tion, I became accustomed to the presence of 
 a serious-faced Senior who was constantly 
 occupied with books and periodicals from those 
 two departments. It became natural for us, 
 as the term advanced, to ask one another the 
 time or to borrow pencils or paper. Finally 
 these approaches to intimacy developed into a 
 friendship; into a ripe friendship which in- 
 
 [331] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 eluded visits to one another's rooms, long walks, 
 communings in the club-room and ante-class 
 conversations: on all these occasions a true 
 exchange of serious and most profitable con- 
 fidences taking place. 
 
 Thurber, for that was my companion's name, 
 though the son of a very wealthy father and 
 accustomed to the finer touches of society life, 
 had undergone, in his contact with the college, 
 one of those conscience awakening, ambition 
 refining and ideal lifting experiences which our 
 president informed us, time and time again, 
 should be the final results of a true, college 
 education. 
 
 Thurber's father was one of that type of 
 American men who boast that their success has 
 been attained through self -improvement and 
 self-education and who crystallize their own 
 peculiar and fortunate experience into formal 
 axioms, on which every one else must seek 
 success. Thurber's father had to his credit at 
 the time a very large textile mill in a textile 
 city in the South and it had been his supreme 
 desire that his son, immediately on quitting 
 High School, should go into the industry, work 
 his way through it, and take charge of it in the 
 end. 
 
 But Thurber had no inclination towards lint 
 and the stifling heat of a cotton mill, and he 
 had so informed his father. He also told him 
 that nothing less than four years at a college, 
 
 [332] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 where he could meet fellows worth meeting, 
 would please him. 
 
 "You can imagine the look my father gave 
 me when I made that proposition, for it knocked 
 to splinters his special pet theories concerning 
 education," said Thurber. "He stormed about 
 'self-made men,' and quoted Lincoln and some 
 others from the classic list of non-college men: 
 pointed to himself and the huge industry he had 
 created without the aid of a college education, 
 and, in all, gave me to distinctly understand 
 that a college education would spoil a good em- 
 ployer: that it was a waste of time, and that if 
 I was set on going to college, why I could go on 
 my own funds — which I did not have — and be 
 hanged! Of course I was lazy, undecided and 
 youthful: just at the age when all life is a per- 
 petual sunny day. I wanted to come to college 
 to sport around and imagined my doom sealed 
 when father emphatically refused to fund me, 
 but mother — say Priddy, what would the 
 spoiled children of the rich do without generous- 
 hearted mothers? — my mother privately funded 
 me and sent me here and still maintains me, 
 even against father's orders, for he will not 
 relent and imagines me to be the fool of fools 
 in taking the course I did." 
 
 "The so-called 'self-made men' are usually 
 very set men," I replied. 
 
 "Set?" muttered Thurber, "even a vice, 
 tight locked, is loose by comparison with the 
 
 [333] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 prejudices my father has against a liberal edu- 
 cation. Well, I came this way and started in to 
 sport it and expected to be tutored through 
 my courses by the narrowest passing marks. 
 I spent most of my time either in the fraternity 
 house chugging at a piano or sitting in my room 
 with my feet perched on the table gazing into 
 space. Then I got the — the glimpse, Priddy, 
 and that changed it all." 
 
 "The glimpse, what was that?" 
 
 "Well, I can't exactly define it or locate 
 where it first began, but I do recall that one 
 day, in the classroom — it was in Sociology — 
 the professor set me thinking on a line I had 
 never considered before. I can't tell what it was 
 that he said explicitly, but he implicitly sug- 
 gested to my mind that there are such things 
 as dividends-not-of-money. Of course having 
 been used to the other sort of dividends all my 
 life, I was attracted to the idea that there were 
 other dividends. I kept thinking about it and 
 one thing led to another. The president spoke 
 one day, in chapel, of the educated man's duty 
 to his generation. I linked that to 'dividends- 
 not-of-money' and worked it out to my satis- 
 faction that there was for me, the son of a 
 wealthy manufacturer, a place of usefulness 
 and service in the world." 
 
 "You had a call to the ministry, then, 
 Thurber?" I demanded. 
 
 "Gracious, no: not that!" he exclaimed, in a 
 
 [334] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 tone that implied I had proposed something 
 too extravagant for fancy. "la clergyman! 
 I respect the cloth, Priddy, and I am glad that 
 you are making it your profession, but really, 
 that's not my line. Perhaps I'm not cut out 
 for it. I know I'm not." 
 
 "You planned to go into settlement or 
 Y.M.C.A. work, probably," I hinted, "so many 
 college fellows give themselves to that form of 
 service in these days, Thurber." 
 
 "I know they do, Priddy, but I didn't work 
 it out in those directions, either, but in a more 
 vital way: one that has aroused evei^ bit of 
 latent enthusiasm for service and helpfulness 
 that might have been hidden away in so pam- 
 pered a body as mine. It's what I call the 
 glimpse, Priddy. Want me to explain it?" 
 
 "Certainly I do." 
 
 "Well, I really was put in a fix by so much 
 talk in the classrooms from the faculty and in 
 the chapel by the President about 'moral 
 leadership' and all that, and really thought at 
 first that they were asking me to go into definite 
 self-sacrificing avocations like settlement work 
 and the other forms of social service, and I had 
 no hankering for that, either. I hated to leave 
 father alone in his old age and wanted, even- 
 tually, to succeed him in the ownership and direc- 
 tion of his mills. I imagined myself a callow 
 materialist, opposed to spiritual forms of influ- 
 ence, but I did not want to give up the business. 
 
 [ 335 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 You can probably imagine how heathenish 
 I felt when I contrasted father's industrial 
 policy with the call to be a social servant. I 
 began to think back to what father's self-edu- 
 cation had done for him and had done for his 
 employees. I faced the truth for the first time: 
 how his narrow-minded policy had brought 
 him great wealth at the expense of his self- 
 respect and the happiness of so many of the 
 people who worked for him. For years and 
 years and years, he had been just paying wages 
 for work done: that was all. He had paid no 
 attention to the moral or social welfare of his 
 people: the hundreds of families under his 
 control. He did not go to their church, attend 
 their lodges, go into their homes, or ever make 
 it his policy to inquire about their welfare. 
 He was just simply using them as tools towards 
 the securing of a fortune — for me, that was all. 
 I saw it all, how he had been creating in his 
 little corner of our American industry, labor 
 hostility, unsanitary conditions, poor types of 
 ignorant, drunken, loafing citizens until the 
 tenements belonging to his firm formed a per- 
 fect slum. But he had not the eyes to see, nor 
 has he yet; but he goes on in the darkness and 
 in the groove of his own selfishness, intensifying 
 the disloyalty of his employees and incidentally 
 hurting his own reputation. Yet I could not 
 bring myself to give up desiring to take on that 
 industry. It was right then that the glimpse 
 
 [336] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 came." Thurber paused for a moment and 
 then continued: 
 
 "Like the breaking of day, it flashed into my 
 soul one morning in Ethics class, that if I could 
 only go to work in that industry and reform it, 
 that I should be doing a public service: that I 
 should be following the advice of the college 
 and giving moral service. But I realized that 
 I should have to train myself in the science of 
 ethics and morals; the history of economics and 
 the deeper things of social science in order to re- 
 form the business intelligently, constructively 
 and profitably to myself and the employees." 
 
 "Oh," I commented, "you want to make 
 your type of social service earn money? — is 
 not that an unusual sort of social service?" 
 
 Thurber smiled and said: 
 
 "It does sound worldly, especially to a minis- 
 ter, Priddy, but the strange thing about it is, 
 as I have figured it out, that if I do take an 
 educated, intelligent, thoroughly scientific in- 
 terest in my employees, and manage to clean 
 up their tenements, their morals and their 
 minds through welfare work, I shall, in the same 
 stroke, be increasing their loyalty to the busi- 
 ness, be redoubling their efficiency, be pre- 
 paring a higher grade of workman: all of which 
 will increase the earnings of my plant." 
 
 "In other words, Thurber, you are going 
 to work on the principle that humanity and 
 welfare work are good business policy?" 
 
 [337] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Yes," nodded Thurber. "If you, as a 
 minister, were phrasing it you would say, ' God- 
 liness is profitable in all things' — even in good 
 industrial management — to mix in Shakspeare, 
 it is 'twice blessed, it blesseth him that giveth' 
 — the employer — 'and him that receiveth' — 
 the worker. That's what I call 'the glimpse' 
 and you may imagine how eagerly I am tugging 
 at the strings in order to be working it out 
 practically." 
 
 "But it may turn out to be fine theory: 
 mere dreaming, Thurber?" 
 
 "Oh no," he protested. "Read the countless 
 numbers of sociological works that I have and 
 follow the countless numbers of experiments 
 that have been made in this direction and you 
 will agree that it is the most sane procedure." 
 
 "College has meant something very definite 
 to you, then, Thurber?" 
 
 "I should say it had. I tell you I believe I 
 understand, now, the tremendous suggestion 
 that lies behind the college emphasis that its 
 students stand in their businesses and interests 
 against mere commercialism and flood them 
 with intelligent, moral service. Besides, think 
 what significance lies in my studies now: the 
 whole course seems bent to broaden me towards 
 the intelligent, economical use of human beings: 
 psychology will give me trained insight, a course 
 or two in physiology helps me to understand 
 the limits of workingmen's endurance and wide 
 
 [338] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 reading in literature will aid me to intelli- 
 gently work out a policy of self-culture in the 
 workingmen's libraries I shall form. Oh, I 
 have come to realize that a business education 
 is a thousand times more than learning book- 
 keeping, the names of the tools, and a little 
 mathematics from which to compute wages. It 
 demands, in my estimation, the broadest college 
 culture and I mean to secure it." 
 
 "Just the antithesis of your father's theory," 
 I suggested. 
 
 "Yes, and think, too, how much he has lost 
 by it. You would understand haw enthu- 
 siastic I am about it, Priddy, if you could have 
 one glimpse of the people and tenements around 
 father's mill. I feel that right there is my 
 call." 
 
 "I know something about the waste, the riot 
 and the ruin that have followed in the wake 
 of narrow-minded, selfish, uncultured and un- 
 sympathetic manufacturers, Thurber. If the 
 college only manages to send out a hundred 
 thousand graduates filled like you with this 
 spirit of humane statesmanship, what a revolu- 
 tion would take place in labor conditions!" 
 
 "It would be the front door of God's kingdom, 
 Priddy," affirmed Thurber, "sure enough!" 
 
 Throughout that year, from the seriousness 
 with which Thurber asked questions in his 
 classes, from the eagerness with which he was 
 ready to talk about welfare work, from the dili- 
 
 [339] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 gence with which he fastened himself to the 
 library alcoves marked: Economics and Soci- 
 ology, and from the pervading seriousness of 
 his manner, one might easily have guessed that 
 in him one looked on a youth aflame with a 
 consuming, zealous ambition to make his 
 stewardship of men and his college culture 
 yield the highest per cent of moral earnings. 
 I felt proud to call him my friend. 
 
 Another of my companions during the senior 
 year was "Quiet" Sanderson, the student who 
 had introduced me to Quarles. "Quiet" was one 
 of those illogical and fanciful appellations in 
 which the students delighted, and was paradoxi- 
 cally twisted from Sanderson's fluent tendencies. 
 
 Sanderson occupied a corner room in one of 
 the newer dormitories. In it was a piano on 
 which he played Beethoven and rag time with 
 equal ease. The mission bookcase was topped 
 by a very large, felt college streamer and a 
 "perpetual care" sign, which in his Fresh- 
 man wildness he had taken from a cemetery. 
 As he was a literary man with a pronounced 
 taste for Poe and the French short story writers, 
 there were various evidences of "atmosphere" 
 in the orderings of the room. For instance, 
 some old swords, which might have been dis- 
 covered in the ruins of Troy, but which, in fact, 
 were clever imitations bought for a song in 
 Boston, hung over the door. A Turkish fez, 
 which Sanderson would wear when company 
 
 [340] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 was present, usually hung from the clothes post 
 in a corner of the room, over a quaint, full- 
 length lounging robe made from scarlet cloth 
 and embroidered with Mohammed's crescent. 
 An oriental scent lingered on those habits of 
 dress; a scent which I have seen Sanderson 
 compound from barks and minerals bought at 
 the druggist's and of which he would never give 
 me the names. When he held a spread or a 
 meeting of any sort, Sanderson's room would be 
 thick with the fumes of joss which he kept 
 burning from a blue Chinese bowl. If any one 
 complained, Sanderson would have no scruples 
 in telling the complainant that perhaps the smoke 
 would be even denser and more sulphurous in 
 a later destination! 
 
 It was fortunate that I did not catch, like 
 some insidious fever, Sanderson's habit of pro- 
 crastination, for while his dreams were in the 
 present tense, real, and vivid, his deeds lingered 
 in the nebulous future. Thus, one night while he 
 lounged on his couch wearing his fez, he informed 
 me that he had the plot of an exciting tale that a 
 publisher might make a fortune by. There was 
 a secret staircase in the first chapter, and be- 
 tween that and the twenty-eighth — a distance 
 of eight thousand words, for he had measured 
 them — enough blood was shed in the numerous 
 duels, alley encounters and small riots with the 
 watch, to stain a miniature Waterloo. 
 
 "What are you wasting your time with those 
 
 [341] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 blood and thunder yarns for?" I exclaimed, 
 for the utmost frankness was the rule between 
 us. 
 
 " Blood and thunder ! " he echoed. " Why, it's 
 thoroughly exciting, whatever you may say 
 about it, Priddy. In my best style, too. 
 Racy, full of tender sentiment at the love 
 passages, and written with an iron pen, whose tip 
 was flaming hot!" 
 
 "Let me see this epic of thunder then." I 
 demanded. "I should like to look it over." 
 
 "Oh," yawned Sanderson, "I haven't had 
 time to put it on paper — yet. I have my 
 studies you know!" 
 
 Thus it was not only with his literary dreams, 
 but also with his studies. He never seemed to 
 be in his books, but I knew that at some secret 
 hour he must work hard, for his recitations were 
 generally brilliant. 
 
 He was a sly fellow, at times, especially when 
 he chanced to be back with work. It was his 
 habit then to get me in his room, when he would 
 yawn and say: 
 
 "Priddy, what did the professor conclude 
 about that Lochner fellow?" 
 
 Stephen Lochner was one of the Dutch 
 painters we were studying. 
 
 I would tell him as well as I could. Then he 
 would drawl: 
 
 "Uh, I didn't follow the professor at all when 
 he said that the early Dutch school, Van Eyck 
 
 [342] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 and the others — let's see, how many were 
 there?" 
 
 I would tell him, exactly, with names and 
 dates, and then he would drawl: 
 
 "Sure you got them all, Priddy?" 
 
 "Yes, I have." 
 
 "I'll bet you're grafting the course, Priddy, 
 and haven't been near the references in the 
 library, eh?" 
 
 "Sanderson, I've got every note of importance, 
 and have worked up every single picture!" 
 
 Then the yawning fellow would turn over to 
 me, lift up his fez in the politest manner and 
 say, with his endearing smile: 
 
 "Oh, is that so! Then Priddy, I shan't need 
 to bother much myself, shall I? You can give 
 me some fine dope on the course!" 
 
 Seeing that I was caught, there was no way 
 out of it but to become the unofficial tutor to 
 his lazy highness; a duty, however, which was 
 pleasant enough, for we had so many things in 
 common. There was a sense of embarrassment, 
 however, in the fact that Sanderson would go 
 into the examinations of the course, after I had 
 prompted him, and by some freak of the angel 
 of Providence, his guardian spirit, he would 
 out-top me with marks ! 
 
 One Monday morning I dropped into his 
 room, on my way across the campus, when he 
 came from his bedroom arrayed in his bath-robe, 
 for he had been oversleeping, and he said to me, 
 
 [343] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Congratulations, Priddy!" 
 
 "What's this for?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "For the honorable winner of two literary 
 prizes!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Two?" I gasped. 
 
 "Yes, and firsts, my friend! I want to get in 
 on the ground floor and get a college ice on the 
 prize money," he smiled. 
 
 "And how do you know this?" I asked. 
 
 "The announcements were posted Saturday, 
 after you had left, Priddy." 
 
 "Then you shall have the treat, Sanderson." 
 
 The two prize checks — beautifully decorated 
 with the college seal and ornamental borders — 
 were used to pay for the winter's supply of wood, 
 at home, and to clear off a store bill. I felt 
 that my first adventure into literature had amply 
 repaid me in fellowships, discipline, and cash: 
 a well-rounded reward. 
 
 When I arrived home, for the long summer 
 vacation, I began to ride over the hills to outly- 
 ing farm-houses in a canvass of fellowship among 
 my parishioners, whom I had never seen in 
 church. My bicycle rides exhausted me in this 
 work, as the summer was excessively hot. Be- 
 tween the village services, on Sundays, I trundled 
 my bicycle up a long hill until I came to a cross- 
 road schoolhouse to which I had invited the iso- 
 lated people, for services. The people who came 
 to this service would not sing, so that part of the 
 time they were treated to vocal solos by me, to 
 
 [344J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 which I had to play my own accompaniment on 
 the little parlor organ I had secured. As my 
 skill on the organ keys was limited to hymns up 
 to the limits of two sharps or as many flats, my 
 repertory, like that of a hand organ, was easily 
 exhausted. But the people seemed thankful 
 for this interruption of the monotony of their 
 back-road life, and though I never took up an 
 offering or asked them to do anything more than 
 attend the services, which they did with increas- 
 ing enthusiasm, I knew from their thanks and 
 their faces that it had been a profitable venture, 
 an appreciated service. 
 
 But the strain of such a responsibility in 
 addition to my college work was bound to ruin 
 my health, so I resolved that the parish should 
 be free to engage a permanent, resident pastor, 
 and to that end I resigned and sought out a place 
 nearer the college, where I could go through 
 the next year as a pulpit supply and have my 
 wife with me, in my own home, near the college 
 campus. 
 
 My new parish, which I visited only on Sun- 
 days, was a most delightful village, where an un- 
 usual number of interesting people made their 
 homes. Though, at first sight, the village ap- 
 peared an isolated, sleepy place, yet a plunge into 
 its activities and a catching of its spirit meant 
 the discovery of a number of enterprising, intel- 
 lectual, and social efforts, of which any large 
 community would have been proud. 
 
 [345] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 There was a village nature club. This club 
 was composed entirely of the townspeople, yet 
 one of the members had been the co-author with 
 a scientist in the study of fresh-water algae, 
 another member had made an exhaustive study 
 of grasses and minerals in such a scientific 
 manner that his work had received the com- 
 mendation of the state botanist. The club had 
 expert bird students and a butterfly collector. 
 Another of its members had discovered a rare 
 fern, hitherto never found east of the Mississippi. 
 The members of this club, surrounded as they 
 were by the riches of summer and winter beauty, 
 lived in a glorious world of adventure. When 
 one family drove home, up the long road to its 
 pine-groves and isolated farm-house, it counted 
 the varieties of flowers growing by the wayside 
 and made a report of great interest to the other 
 members of the society. Another member 
 watched the stars and gave reports on the newer 
 astronomical happenings. 
 
 Then, too, such intellectual interests reacted 
 upon the social life of the little community, and 
 a tennis court for the boys, clubs and sports for 
 the girls, village improvement undertakings, 
 and very interesting and rare lectures through 
 the long winter, were the rule, backed by trained, 
 interested people. This type of community, 
 also, made the church a very desirable and 
 interesting one, and made it easier for me to be 
 away from Sunday to Sunday, for the social 
 
 [346] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 concerns were certain to go on under efficient 
 and responsible management. 
 
 Meanwhile, my wife and I had brought our 
 little boy to the college town, and had estab- 
 lished ourselves in three rooms under the roof 
 of a very tiny cottage. Though we had our 
 dining-table near the kitchen stove and were 
 otherwise crowded almost to discomfort, yet 
 the last year of my educational career meant 
 less anxiety and more inspiration because I 
 could have my home in the midst of it. 
 
 [347] 
 
Chapter XXXVI L Teiresias^ 
 the Blind Prophet , and Squeem, 
 the Student in the Back-waters of 
 College Life. A Night of Grim 
 Fate 
 
 ONE winter afternoon as I approached 
 Quarles' room, to take him for a 
 walk, I heard a loud voice raised in 
 angry altercation, as I thought. I 
 paused on the dormitory stairs, and 
 there came to my ears the blind student's voice, 
 raised high, as if he were spitting fire. I hurried 
 to his door and entered the room to see what 
 the quarrel between my friend and his enemy 
 could be. 
 
 "Priddy, sit down!" quoth Quarles, pausing 
 in his strange heat of jargon. "Listen," and 
 then, standing in the center of the room, he 
 declaimed this strange sounding sentence: 
 
 "Eipo ti deta kail, in orgitze pleon!" and 
 attended it with a fierce and angry thrust of 
 his fist, as if he were thrusting red-hot bolts 
 down the unwilling throat of a helpless foe. 
 
 [348 J 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Well, of all the strange jumbles, Quarles!" 
 I exclaimed, "what is the baby talk, please?" 
 
 " Soo de athlios ge taut oneiditzon, a soi oudeis 
 os ouxi tond oneidiei taxi!" he continued, scowl- 
 ing frightfully and staring with his expression- 
 less eyes as if he would have his stored up 
 wrath break through to flash like fierce 
 lightning on the pride of his unseen opponent. 
 
 "Taxi?" I mused, "that means automobile 
 riding at ten dollars a minute — what is the 
 rest?" 
 
 "It's Greek," he explained, sitting down. "I 
 am the blind Prophet Teiresias, in the Greek 
 drama 'King (Edipus,' to be given by the col- 
 lege. Let me translate!" 
 
 He sprang to the middle of the floor, and, in 
 English, attended by the same angry gestures, 
 he declaimed to the scoffing King whom he was 
 warning : 
 
 "'Shall I speak something more, to feed thy 
 wrath?' ' and then he paused to explain, "and 
 when you called it baby talk, I recited the line 
 which I am to use when the King slanders me 
 for being blind, 6 O miserable reproach, which 
 all who now behold thee, soon shall thunder 
 forth on thee!' and," went on Quarles, "you are 
 to know, if you do not know it now, how that 
 later the King does blind himself with hot irons 
 and fulfils the prophecy I hurl at his coward lips ! " 
 
 " Horrible, it must be ! " I shuddered. " What 
 a dark tragedy to lighten a college stage!" 
 
 [349] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "But," mused Quarles, "think of the achieve- 
 ment, in these days, when the college critics 
 are charging the college with immersing itself 
 in practical concerns so as to forego the classics. 
 My work is cut out for me, Priddy," he went 
 on. "If they are to have a real blind man for 
 Teiresias, they must also have fair acting of the 
 lines, for it is all to be given in Greek, not a 
 word of English; for barbarians like you, who will 
 probably be mystified, there will be an English 
 line-for-line translation." 
 
 "Oh," I retorted, "I have studied some Greek. 
 I have read the New Testament!" 
 
 Quarles laughed, 
 
 "That is only the introduction to Greek. 
 Listen!" 
 
 He stood before me and recited the fluid, 
 rounded, Greek lines of the blind Prophet, as 
 he leaves the King, 
 
 " ' Ere I depart, I will declare the word 
 
 For which I came, not daunted by thy frown. 
 Thou hast no power to ruin me.' " 
 
 "You will have to have a clear brain for the 
 storing of so much pure, classic speech, Quarles," 
 I said. "Come out for a walk over the four- 
 mile road with me and you may talk King 
 (Edipus to me till I faint!" 
 
 So, arm in arm, over the ruts of the four-mile 
 road, which first took us up a steep hill and then 
 around to the west through some dark, cool 
 woods, the blind student and I walked, and 
 
 [350] 
 

 So Arm in Arm the Blind Student and I Walked 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 talked of the Greek tragedy in which he was to 
 play so realistic a part. 
 
 On our way back, as we neared the campus, 
 Quarles said: 
 
 "Priddy, have you ever met 'Squeem' 
 Hirshey? I've got to see him before supper, 
 if you'll take me to him. He's one of the old 
 men of the chorus, in the play, and wants me to 
 help him with pronunciation." 
 
 "No, I haven't met him," I said. 
 
 "A poor Georgian," explained Quarles, "lives 
 in a stuffy bit of a room with an Irish family, 
 down at The Alley; you know where that is, 
 of course." 
 
 So while we walked in the direction of 
 "Squeem's" lodging, Quarles gave me full 
 information about this student, one who lived 
 in the back-waters of college life. 
 
 "In some unaccountable way," said Quarles, 
 "Squeem managed to get a decent preparatory 
 education in the South, in a place where most of 
 the people lived in huts. Missionary education, 
 I think. However, he came here, passed entrance 
 exams all right, and was awarded a couple of 
 scholarships that bring him in about a hundred 
 and fifty dollars a year. He tells me that he 
 manages to get enough work to support him: 
 that he earns his room rent with the Gibboneys 
 by doing chores, though what chores such a poor 
 family can have for him to perform, I cannot 
 understand. He cooks his own meals on an 
 
 [351] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 oil stove, and, for that purpose tries never to go 
 over seventy-five cents a week for his food. 
 As for clothes, well — he patronizes 'Eddie', 
 the old clothes-man, and manages to get cast- 
 off shoes and clothes at ridiculously low prices. 
 A suit for four dollars and a decent pair of shoes, 
 not much worn, for fifty cents!" 
 
 "I must have seen him," I explained, "but 
 of course, I cannot place the name. A queer 
 one, too; reminds one of Dickens' Squeers, the 
 ugly schoolmaster." 
 
 Quarles smiled. 
 
 "That name was tacked on a year ago, 
 when he was a Freshman. It seems that he 
 kept himself to his room and never mixed in 
 things, sort of a timid, bashful chap, but full 
 of energy when it comes to study. A down-at- 
 the-heels fellow, I have heard him called. Well, 
 he was squeamish about everything, and it was 
 natural for the Freshies to tack him with 
 'Squeem' and by that name he will always be 
 known to the future generations of college 
 men." 
 
 "Here's the alley!" I announced, after a few 
 minutes more of talk. We had passed down an 
 outlying road where, on the very outskirts of 
 the village, stood a row of cheap tenements. 
 Between these, at an angle, lay an alley filled 
 with ashes, tin cans and broken bottles. This 
 alley led up to two ill-looking shanties, so small 
 that by comparison with the houses farther in 
 
 [352] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the town they seemed no more than half -ruined 
 doll houses. 
 
 "It's the blackest house," whispered my 
 companion. "Go around to the rear. His 
 room is up the back stairs." 
 
 As we rounded the black shanty the sound of 
 gurgling and churning reached our ears, and then, 
 back of a line of flapping, wet clothes, we came 
 on a middle-sized, but excessively gaunt youth, 
 wearing an oil-cloth apron, such as we wore in 
 the chemistry classes when we performed experi- 
 ments, with a bib that fitted close to his neck. 
 He wore under it a ragged, red sweatee and was 
 churning a washing machine full of clothes, 
 while, at his back, a stout, red-faced Irish- 
 woman was engaged in taking clothes from a 
 basket and hanging them on lines. Hanging 
 from a row of nails on the outside of the house 
 were all shades and colors of students' laundry 
 bags. Underneath them, wriggling in a broken 
 and dirty clothes basket, lay a six-months -old 
 baby, sucking a soiled thumb and apparently 
 finding it nourishing. 
 
 "Hello, Quarles!" greeted the washerman, in 
 great embarrassment at our discovery of him, 
 "I didn't expect you!" A Southern drawl was 
 evident in his speech. He was about to take 
 off his apron, when the Irishwoman, throwing 
 a frown of dissatisfaction in my direction, 
 growled : 
 
 "Mister Hirshey, an' don't you be lavin', 
 
 [353] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 mind you. Them things've got to be done. 
 You can talk while you work; but work you 
 must, and the young gentlemen can go hang till 
 you've time, if they care!" 
 
 Squeem's waxen cheeks, which seemed before 
 to have no signs of blood about them, flushed, 
 and he said, apologetically, as he resumed his 
 churning, 
 
 "Only ten minutes more, Quarles. We can 
 talk, and then we can go to the room." 
 
 I was introduced to the student and recog- 
 nized in him the one whom I had passed on the 
 campus, time and time again in the winter, 
 with his shivering body fitted to ill-measured 
 clothes, and his goose-fleshed wrists and un- 
 gloved hands hanging like dead weights from 
 below his coat sleeves. 
 
 Ten minutes later, after I had watched the 
 Southerner dip out the dripping mass of laundry 
 and put it through the wringer, we were con- 
 ducted into the dark kitchen with its odor of 
 cabbage, and ascended by a wabbly stairway 
 to the loft, one half of which was given to 
 Squeems for his abode. A greasy, sour odor 
 of cooking permeated the room. It was lighted 
 by two narrow panes of glass fitted to a make- 
 shift frame, and covered by a curtain of imita- 
 tion tapestry, with the design of a red Swiss 
 house half buried amid gray bushes and a row 
 of stiff, brown poplars. A cot bed stood in a 
 corner with a bundle of warm quilts in con- 
 
 [354] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 fusion on it, for evidently our host had little 
 skill in his housekeeping. A packing case, on 
 end, with the open side towards us, had been 
 skilfully transformed into book shelf, storage 
 place and desk. A short row of text books was 
 ranged on the packing case. Besides a kitchen 
 chair there was no other seat, save a tin-covered 
 trunk from which Squeem had to take a few 
 dishes, an oil stove and a bread tin, — his 
 dining apparatus, — before it could be utilized 
 for a seat. 
 
 The following half hour was spent by Quarles 
 and the Southerner in the pronunciation, the 
 translation, and oratorical interpretation, not 
 only of the chorus part of the play, which would 
 be sung, but of the Blind Prophet's thrilling 
 lines, which Quarles recited before Squeem with 
 even more spirit than he had to me, for, he 
 explained, as we left the house: 
 
 "That poor fellow may be in the back-waters 
 of college, but he's got a really excellent mind. 
 It wouldn't surprise me to see him come near 
 to leading his class in scholarship. I like him — 
 that Squeem," and then my blind companion 
 quoted, with great impressiveness, "'Grand, 
 gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon his throne, a 
 sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his 
 . . . originality.' " 
 
 Then the night of the Greek play arrived in 
 which Quarles and his strange friend were to 
 appear. 
 
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THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 My wife and I sat in the gallery, in Assembly 
 Hall, amongst the vast throng of spectators. 
 
 A dark, green curtain covered the stage. The 
 white interior of the hall, with soaring ceiling 
 panels, dotted with flaming rows of electric lights, 
 the paintings on the gallery walls of presidents 
 and benefactors of the college, the ushers in 
 evening dress, fine, manly samples of youth, 
 the well-dressed women in their opera costumes : 
 all this was a glorious show to look upon, in itself. 
 But when a group of gowned students took their 
 places, in chairs, near the stage, and were fol- 
 lowed by the orchestra, and the musical direc- 
 tor, — then the programs fluttered, expectantly, 
 even in the hands of the professors and invited 
 guests from other colleges, who had come to 
 enjoy the literary treat of the much-heralded 
 play. 
 
 The leader, with a gentle tap on his rack, 
 brought the musicians into position. A stroke 
 of the wand in the air, and the instruments began 
 with the introductory theme, a droning chant, 
 with wild whisperings in the background, as the 
 violins tried to paint for our senses the chatter 
 of the fierce Fates that were to hound King 
 (Edipus to his horrid death, in payment to their 
 stern laws for his unconscious sin. 
 
 Then, as the haunting prelude paused on a 
 wailing minor, as if to tell us that forever and 
 forever man's despair should continue — under 
 the rule of the Fates, the lights in the hall were 
 
 [356] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 darkened, amidst a silence. There was a pause, 
 and then, as the heavy curtains were drawn aside 
 while the drums crashed forth a suggestion of 
 impending strife, we looked upon a marvelous 
 palace front in ancient Boeotian Thebes. Aus- 
 tere gloom, the fluted, pillared doorway with 
 the brazen door bespoke, though the sky was 
 tinted as if for a sunrise, or sunset. Then before 
 our eyes, in that ancient world was unfolded the 
 grim lesson that even unconscious sin must pay 
 at last the uttermost farthing. 
 
 Quarles, transformed into a bearded, led 
 prophet, spake his lines with heart-ringing 
 pathos. But as for "Squeem" among the 
 bearded men, who chanted their parrotish 
 gossip, I could not distinguish him. 
 
 Heaps on heaps of color were massed on the 
 stage, with a studied effort to inflame the imag- 
 inations of the audience. When it seemed that 
 the finest effects of grouping and harmonies 
 of color had been obtained, other actors would 
 suddenly appear and make the splendor of the 
 setting pass belief. 
 
 Word by word, gesture by gesture, chant by 
 chant, we followed the dismal but dramatic 
 tale from its air of glory and freedom into the 
 darker shadows of dread which Teiresias fore- 
 told. Moods of king and queen, of the old 
 men who stood by the temple, of the priest and 
 the shepherd changed slowly and steadily from 
 scoffing to belief, from belief to alarm, from 
 
 [357] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 alarm to fear, from fear to resistance, from re- 
 sistance to submission, from submission to final 
 reparation. Woven into the shudderings of the 
 old men, witnesses of death and grewsome 
 penalties, were the musical whisperings, to keep 
 our minds upon the unseen spirits of the venge- 
 ful gods who were directing the grim tragedy 
 until all the sobs that men and women could 
 give were ended, until the last dreg of a tear 
 remained, and until only the merest whisper of 
 a cry could sound in the chambers of a suffering 
 heart ! 
 
 We went into the night, from it, feeling that 
 our hearts had been smitten heavy blows, that 
 our life had fastened itself to leaden anchors. 
 The terrible reality, the magnificence of Fate, 
 the classic splendor of sufferings in epic girth 
 had been staged before us. 
 
 Teiresias' words hung in the air, everywhere, 
 even under the dark sky outside: 
 
 " O miserable reproach ! which shall soon 
 Thunder forth on thee!" 
 
 [358] 
 
Chapter XXXVIII. How 
 
 Ellis, the Captain, Taught me the 
 Spirit of Contest. I Turn Pam- 
 phleteer on Behalf of Scholarship. 
 But Find from Garvin that 
 Scholarship and Education may be 
 Separate Matters. Account of a 
 "Truly Classic Event, which Makes 
 the Students Study Color Schemes 
 and Gives us a Chance to Appear 
 in Gowns 
 
 ONE afternoon I was sitting on the 
 senior fence, watching two fraternity 
 teams wage a contest in baseball, 
 when I saw Ellis, the football cap- 
 tain approaching, with his ringer 
 upraised to draw my attention. 
 
 Ellis was an impressive fellow with his tower- 
 
 [359] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 ing shoulders, oak-like limbs, and ruddy cheeks. 
 In his flannels, tan oxfords, and varsity cap he 
 spelled in large capitals, "Exercise." For Ellis 
 was known preeminently, in the athletic world, 
 as one of the year's gods who sit on the pin- 
 nacle of Olympus, the revered of freshmen, the 
 applauded of sophomores, and the envied of 
 fellow seniors. By the newspapers he was 
 heralded as the best player of football in his 
 position in all America. His name, through the 
 years of his playing, when he appeared with nose 
 guard and canvas suit, had been on the lips 
 of admiring multitudes. His photographs, 
 showing him catching a football, or in pose for 
 a scramble, had been spread on many city 
 papers that year. 
 
 In the college, more than in the outside world, 
 Ellis' fame had won the highest respect. He 
 was the marked man: marked for friendships, 
 for class honors, and for the respect of the 
 faculty. A freshman, given the merest smile or 
 word by Ellis, immediately ran to his room and 
 wrote a burning letter about it to his mother 
 or his sister. The fraternities and senior so- 
 cieties had vied with one another to secure him 
 for a comrade. He was the college "boss" in 
 a good sense, for if a group of excited students 
 broke the public peace, by an unruly demonstra- 
 tion before the town jail, where one of the 
 students had been immolated for throwing a 
 snowball at the village justice, it was Ellis who 
 
 [ 360 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 jumped on a flour barrel, which he had ordered 
 brought from the back door of a nearby grocery, 
 and at a word, commanded the incipient riot 
 to break up; which it did without a murmur. 
 
 "Take a walk, Priddy?" asked Ellis, as he 
 drew near. 
 
 "Certainly," I said, jumping from my perch 
 and measuring my stride to his. 
 
 "Priddy," he said, "you know about the 
 Bristow Oratorical Prize for seniors?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "The trials come off soon. Why don't you 
 go into it?" 
 
 "I hadn't thought of it," I admitted. "Be- 
 sides, I don't think it would be wise. I am no 
 orator; I mean that I do not use finished ges- 
 tures, and my throat trouble has taken the 
 spirit from my voice. In addition to that, 
 Ellis, when one is used to the pulpit, it is really 
 a different proposition to speak in an exhibition." 
 
 "But you will have a chance with the literary 
 side. That counts one half," persisted Ellis. 
 
 "Now look here," I smiled, turning on him, 
 suddenly, "why don't you go into it?" 
 
 "I will, Priddy. I certainly will!" 
 
 "You've made your record in football, and 
 you ought to go into this oratorical contest, 
 Ellis." 
 
 "I'm going into it," he replied, "not so much 
 for the mere idea of trying for the prize, but 
 for a purpose." 
 
 [361 1 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Well, Priddy," he continued, seriously, 
 "I've been up against it ever since I indulged 
 in sports. It has eaten up much of my time, 
 and there have been days and days when the 
 grind of training and practise and of having to 
 go to bed early, and all that, have been wearing 
 and uninspiring. If it hadn't been that I felt 
 that I was maintaining the honor of the college 
 by my playing, I should have quit the game long 
 ago. Well, there are a lot of folks that think of 
 college athletics as a waste of the student's 
 time and as a feature of college life not good in 
 itself, but which must be endured, if men are 
 to be won to college. Of course you know that's 
 not the truth; at least in this place." 
 
 "Of course it's not so," I insisted, just as 
 earnestly. "College sports are the cleanest, 
 most honorable of sports. They teach the 
 students in this college to be manly in losing, 
 to hold their tongues when the visiting team 
 makes a fumble, and to cheer one for the other. 
 It's so different from the national game, out- 
 side of the college, where the crowds in the 
 bleachers throw pop bottles at the umpire, 
 insult the players, and nag one another bitterly. 
 Our college sports teach the students moral 
 control and self-restraint." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you say that, Priddy," 
 agreed Ellis, warmly. "If the game had been 
 otherwise, I would not have wasted my time 
 
 [362] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 with it. Well, there are a lot of folks, even in 
 college," he continued, "who really think that 
 because a man makes good on a football team 
 that he's not capable with his studies, or with 
 the literary features of the college." 
 
 "There again," I agreed, "they don't know 
 all the facts. Think of the fellows on your 
 team, this year. Several of your best players 
 are making excellent records in class work." 
 I enumerated three of the brightest players who 
 had maintained a rank of over eighty-five, in 
 spite of the great amount of time given to 
 sports. 
 
 "Yes, Priddy," replied Ellis, "that's so, but 
 the public at large don't think of it in that way. 
 Well, that is why I want to go into the oratorical 
 contest; just to show folks that a fellow inter- 
 ested in athletics is also able to manifest an 
 interest in literary matters!" 
 
 "Good!" I exclaimed, won by his sincere 
 earnestness. "But why do you want me to go 
 in, too, as a competitor? I should think you 
 wouldn't care to increase the competition, 
 merely as a matter of self-interest." 
 
 "Oh," he laughed, "the more, the merrier. 
 I thought you ought to go in, too, for I think 
 you would stand a good chance, Priddy." 
 
 Finally I agreed to go in with him. On the 
 walk we advised about subjects and the next 
 day Ellis came to my room for some material 
 I had promised him on his proposed theme. 
 
 [363] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Then began the strangest preparation for a 
 contest in which I had ever indulged. We con- 
 ferred with one another about the points we 
 were to make, and prodded one another on, when 
 either became slothful. Finally, when our 
 speeches were memorized, we took afternoon 
 walks into a field where we shaped our orations 
 into some definite spoken form before each 
 other. Ellis would hear me through, suggest 
 how this gesture and that thought might be 
 improved. Then I would criticize him in the 
 same way. We hid nothing from one another, 
 though we were to be rivals on the platform. 
 He knew every turn of my speech and I knew 
 every turn of his. He added force to mine 
 by thinking out for me a new analogy that I 
 could insert at a weak part. I altered a mis- 
 quotation in his which would have lost him a 
 point. It was an inspiring experience for me. 
 I was witnessing, in Ellis, a sportsmanship of 
 which there could be no more refined example. 
 I did not wonder, then, at the praise the college 
 had given him. 
 
 But this was not all, for on the afternoon 
 when the trials took place, — in the big, dim 
 room of empty seats, with a few judges scattered 
 lonesomely about, — as I took my turn and was 
 walking to the platform, I felt a hearty clap on 
 the shoulder and heard Ellis whisper, "Good 
 luck to you, Priddy!" exactly the way in which 
 he had encouraged his men in the big football 
 
 [364] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 contests. I walked to the platform thrilled 
 through by the magnificence of Ellis' sporting 
 spirit. I felt that if any other man won, it 
 should be Ellis. 
 
 I did not do well with my oration. I was 
 marked down. Ellis' turn came. I watched 
 him, admiringly, as he strode to the platform 
 in his masterful way. His gestures, over which 
 we had worked with patience, were still undis- 
 ciplined, and at times his voice thundered too 
 much. But he came down with the conscious- 
 ness of having done his best. He was declared 
 eligible for the final contest. 
 
 Later, when the final contest took place, 
 Ellis, who had gone into it with the loftiest ideal 
 of all the contestants, had the thrill of knowing 
 that he was the winner of the prize. He had 
 won both sides of the medal, the athletic and 
 literary. 
 
 "At least," he said to me, in bashful comment 
 on his victory, "I think that some folks will be 
 persuaded that a football man may have some 
 interest in scholarship." 
 
 Garvin, a fellow Senior, illustrates another 
 phase of college life and thought. He was a 
 clever individual and one of the editors of the 
 college newspaper. His "den," as he loved 
 to term his narrow room in Wise Hall, had been 
 made to resemble as much as possible an edi- 
 torial sanctum. Galley proofs, daubed black 
 with corrections, revisions and proof marks, 
 
 [365] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 had been hung over his desk, as if to forever 
 remind him that the true function of an editor 
 is revision, as it is the true function of life. 
 Original artists' drawings, in charcoal, pen and 
 ink and pencil, were mixed in with Gibson Girl 
 sketches on the walls. Three samples of "the 
 worst contributions ever sent into the paper" 
 were framed in passe partout and hung over the 
 brick of the fireplace where the curious might 
 read them; one was a Freshman poem whose 
 theme had never been understood and for the 
 interpretation of which Garvin had a standing 
 offer of a box of cigars. The "poem" said 
 something about "the ancient cow, sitting 
 munchingly on the steep broadside of green, 
 fertile country," and then went on to irrel- 
 evantly bring in various other cattle, scenes, 
 and people in such an unexplained matter-of- 
 fact way that the mind was in a whirl at the 
 end. The other two contributions were at- 
 tempts at stories, and judged from the first 
 pages of manuscript exhibited, ended in being 
 nothing more than attempts. 
 
 I had visited Garvin to speak on a matter to 
 which I was giving considerable thought at the 
 time: the curious disparagement of scholarship 
 by so many of the students. I had even gone to 
 the pains of having published in Garvin's paper 
 my undergraduate protest against the univer- 
 sal tendency to despise the "plugger" and to 
 esteem the "grafter"; two terms which marked 
 
 [366] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the antipodes of scholarship. My article, en- 
 titled, "On the Spirit of Work in College," had 
 been printed and followed by a parody, written 
 by an unknown student and entitled: "Priddy 
 Has A Grouch," in which the writer had openly 
 given all the honors of the college to the student 
 who refrained from seeking a salutatory, vying 
 with his classmates for the valedictory or has- 
 tening after academic honors of whatever sort. 
 
 "Blatant heresy!" I announced, pointing out 
 the anonymous article. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," replied Garvin. "I 
 rather like it!" 
 
 I regarded him in astonishment for a moment 
 and then protested, 
 
 "But think of it, man! Denouncing scholar- 
 ship! A student in a college denouncing the 
 very charter of the college. It's incredible: 
 audacious and heretical: undermining the very 
 foundations of the college! And to think that 
 you, an editor, interested in culture and educa- 
 tion, support such a paradox,. You ought to 
 be tortured in a Smithfield fire or have your 
 thumbs twisted with Inquisition screws!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" smiled Garvin. "I'm 
 not the only one that scoffs somewhat at the 
 scholars: there are hundreds of us on the 
 campus: hundreds of us." 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "sour grapes, probably." 
 
 "Now look here, Priddy. I'm no loafer. 
 You know me. I believe in education or I 
 
 [367] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 would not be spending my four years here. 
 If I were to put all my time in study: the time 
 which I invest in my editor's duty, for instance, 
 and in the mandolin club, I think there is in me 
 a potential honor man at least, even as there 
 is in Sanderson a potential valedictorian, and 
 in Ellis a potential Phi Beta Kappa (if he left 
 off athletics), and in Forrest a potential magna, 
 triple X, summa, double-barrelled cum lauda 
 if he didn't put so much effort into the evening 
 classes for the Italian laborers down at the 
 Reservoir. But the truth is — these men, like 
 myself, aren't very enthusiastic about high 
 marks, or the honors that high marks and class 
 rankings bring to the undergraduate." 
 
 "No wonder the professors get discouraged, 
 Garvin. It's enough to make the college founder 
 place dynamite under the campus and blow us 
 to kingdom come!" 
 
 Garvin's eyes twinkled at his next question. 
 
 "Hear about Scholarship Night, Priddy? I 
 know you weren't there for you went home 
 that day." 
 
 "Hear about it?" I gasped. "I should say 
 I had. They say that there was about as much 
 enthusiasm over the reading of the honor roll 
 that night, in assembly hall, before the students 
 and invited guests, as there is enthusiasm over 
 — well, say a book entitled, ' The Thesaurus of 
 Diction — or Recent Explorations into the 
 Vocabulary of Monkeys.' " 
 
 [368] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Enthusiasm!" repeated Garvin, "it was ten 
 miles away that night. Just a handful of 
 students, lonesomely huddled in the first few 
 rows of seats and behind them a lighted vacancy. 
 I tell you, Priddy, the students aren't interested 
 very much in pure scholarship: even many of 
 the men who are here for a serious purpose." 
 
 "Then why do they come here, Garvin, tell 
 me that?" I demanded. 
 
 "For an education, Priddy." 
 
 "But how can they secure an education unless 
 they are solicitous about scholarship, Garvin?" 
 
 "Oh, I see what is the matter, Priddy. You 
 imagine that because so many of us aren't 
 interested in scholarship, pure scholarship, 
 we aren't interested in education. Education 
 and scholarship are two very different things." 
 
 "How do you argue that?" 
 
 "You have the old-fashioned idea of a col- 
 lege," continued Garvin. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "The old New England college: the repre- 
 sentative college of olden days, injected a love 
 of books and the wisdom of books in their stu- 
 dents: reams of the classic poets and prose 
 writers: encyclopaedic furnishings of the mind 
 with the contents of a few good, stimulating 
 books. Those were the hey-days of pure 
 scholarship. They have existed here: but we 
 students, today, are illustrations of an evolu- 
 tion in educational ideals, even if most of us 
 
 [369] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 don't seem to realize it. We represent the 
 changed temper of higher education. If I may 
 phrase, offhand, my idea of the change, — it is 
 that the older generation considered pure 
 scholarship, in itself, the central aim of a college 
 course, and to an ideal of that sort, Scholarship 
 Nights, Phi Beta Kappas, and all such educa- 
 tional fashions were not only in keeping but were 
 producers of tremendous enthusiasms. On the 
 other hand, what seems to me to lie in the heart 
 of the students now is the demand for scholar- 
 ship, — plus accomplishment It is due, no 
 doubt, to the practical turn of the world during 
 the last few years. I am interested mightily 
 in scholarship when it helps towards actual 
 accomplishment: when like a gold coin it pur- 
 chases something; unlike the old notion that 
 scholarship was a gold or silver medal, good 
 only to decorate or dignify the person, or to be 
 kept on exhibition." 
 
 "Are you sincere in that, Garvin?" I de- 
 manded. "If so, you should write it out in 
 editorials, for the criticism of the professors: 
 if you could substantiate it by concrete facts." 
 
 "Concrete facts, Priddy! Why, it would 
 carry us into the small hours of the morning 
 if I were to begin their enumeration. Take 
 Ellis, for instance. You tell me that he went 
 into the medal contest to vindicate the athletes. 
 There is one example of the coin of scholarship 
 purchasing something: one concrete expression 
 
 [370] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of the student interest in scholarship when it 
 leads to something practical and concrete. 
 Can you imagine Ellis going into a literary 
 contest that would wind up in itself, without 
 relation to something practical to be gained 
 by it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You go around the campus with a test like 
 that, Priddy, and you will find that scholarship 
 is highly respected wherever it has resulted in 
 accomplishment. Don't we respect Professor 
 Florette? I should say we did. One of the 
 most perfect scholars in the college and yet 
 even the grafters among the students would 
 throw their caps in the air at any time for the 
 Professor, and why is it? It is because his 
 scholarship has actually made him accomplish 
 something. He is president of the National 
 Science Division of College Instruction and is 
 known and quoted abroad as an authority in 
 his line. That's why the students like him. 
 On the other hand you might pick out a pro- 
 fessor here and a professor there who is very 
 erudite — notice my vocabulary, Priddy — and 
 who is a perfect scholar in his department, and 
 yet who never translates his knowledge into 
 life: never writes a useful book, or influences 
 thought abroad, or is asked to address even a 
 Kindergarten Teachers' Convention. All we 
 know of him is that 'he is a scholar.' You 
 don't catch us shouting much for that man, 
 
 [371] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 do you? He has not accomplished anything 
 tangible, ergo — his scholarship is merely an 
 esthetic satisfaction. That's why we fellows 
 prefer old Florette." 
 
 "But's that a very youthful and shallow way 
 of judging, Garvin," I replied. 
 
 "Well, whether you call it youthful, shallow, 
 or what not, that is the way most of the students 
 seem to regard scholarship. They are only 
 interested in it when it means contact with life 
 and the enlargement of the scholar's ability 
 for civic usefulness. That is the outcome of 
 practical America, I suppose. But for the 
 'grind' who slaves for big marks and the sheer 
 worship of books — and nothing else, why, I 
 don't have much use for him. On the other 
 hand, if a fellow grinds out big marks to play 
 on the football team in security: why, that's 
 the fellow that gets the cheer. It's scholarship 
 plus, with my crowd, and I think you'd better 
 come in the band-wagon with us, Priddy, for 
 whether the professors like it or not, and choose 
 to cling to the seventeenth century exaltation 
 of scholarship per se — note my Latin, Priddy 
 — why, it won't change matters any." 
 
 "That's something to think about, Garvin, 
 at any rate." 
 
 "If you observe the students closely, Priddy, 
 I think you'll find that they do respect scholar- 
 ship; put it in the very highest possible place 
 of influence — when it has led to something." 
 
 [372] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "I am glad I had this talk with you, Garvin. 
 I think I understand the fellows a little better, 
 — I can even forgive the unknown who wrote : 
 Priddy Has A Grouch!" 
 
 "Thank you, Al," replied the editor. "I am 
 the chap!" 
 
 If the failure of Scholarship Night — and a 
 dismal one it was — had seemed to indicate 
 little respect for pure academic accomplishment 
 at the College, there soon took place an event 
 which swallowed up that failure in its over- 
 whelming scholarly success and aroused, in the 
 student heart, every last atom of edmiration 
 for the academical ideal. Our new President 
 was inaugurated. 
 
 Inauguration Day was pre-eminently the real 
 Scholarship Day with the links closely forged 
 between what Garvin called scholarship and 
 accomplishment. The President we were to 
 honor represented the close tie between scholar- 
 ship and accomplishment. His learning had 
 brought him a world reputation as a scientist, 
 and it was extremely interesting, after the 
 talk with Garvin, to note with what unction 
 the students lingered on the reputation of the 
 President, and how deferentially they spoke the 
 names of this Royal Society and that Foreign 
 Body which had honored him for his work. 
 
 Garvin's paper, weeks before the event, 
 teemed with anticipatory gossip concerning 
 the stellar names in education that were to be 
 
 [373] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 printed on the list of college guests. The 
 campus was to be the show ground for the 
 American academic peerage; come to honor 
 our chief! At last even such a loafer in the 
 college as Bridden, who was in danger of losing 
 his degree by reason of his overindulgence in 
 pool: even he expressed a pride and interest 
 in the coming of the scholars: the scholars far 
 excellence. 
 
 Even down to so technical a consideration as 
 the language of hoods, the undergraduates 
 manifested fully as much interest as they had 
 been wont to give to baseball batters' averages. 
 Garvin's paper came out with a color list by 
 which the college presidents, university chan- 
 cellors, international statesmen, state officials, 
 seminary heads and the host of lesser academics 
 could be fully interpreted through the colors 
 on the gowns they would wear in the pro- 
 cession: white signifying arts and letters, scar- 
 let theology, purple for philosophy, blue for 
 science, brown for music and so on through the 
 list, which Garvin editorially advised each 
 student to either cut out and have in his hand 
 when the procession moved, or, better still, to 
 carefully memorize it. 
 
 The dignity of the impending, classic, stately 
 event; the sorting of gowns, the whispers 
 and queries concerning what world famous 
 shoulders were to receive the highest degrees: 
 all this sobered the students and stimulated 
 
 [374] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 imaginations, days before the actual event 
 transpired. To me it promised to be the oppor- 
 tunity to see, face to face, the men of culture 
 and administrative power whose names were 
 familiar in the far corners of the country: men 
 who not only figured as authors, administrators, 
 lecturers, scientists, travelers, and moral leaders, 
 but, among them, potential Presidents of the 
 nation, honored citizens of public reputation, 
 men whose names were already merged with 
 civic movements, patriotic events, and national 
 political advances. It meant that history, suc- 
 cessful ambition, leadership, and *moral fibre 
 were to be personified for me in their highest 
 types. 
 
 The morning of the inauguration brought 
 with it a great excitement. The Seniors were 
 to wear gowns that morning for the first time. 
 On leaving the house, after breakfast, and tak- 
 ing my position near the Senior Fence, to wait 
 for the formation of the line, a sunburst of 
 silken scarlet gown dazzled my eyes, as a sedate 
 man of sixty, with a white beard, hurried along 
 the path, his head topped by a black velvet 
 bonnet. He was followed by others, in the 
 silken glares of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
 a continual procession of black-draped figures 
 whose multi-colored hoods were like lurid gashes 
 cut in the mourning by a deftly wielded blade. 
 
 By nine o'clock the campus was astir with 
 visitors, faculty, alumni, undergraduates, the 
 
 [375] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 band and the sight-seers. Ellis marshalled us 
 into a double line, so that to the beholder, in 
 our black gowns and black caps, we resembled 
 a very mournful, if dignified, procession of up- 
 right ravens. 
 
 Then the band blared forth a martial thunder- 
 clap which pulled our feet into time. Slowly, 
 led by the musicians, we filed on our way around 
 the outer edge of the campus, dragging after us 
 the faculty and distinguished visitors whose 
 chief distinction in the procession lay in their 
 inability or unwillingness to keep to the step we 
 fixed. Our two hundred and odd pairs of hands 
 swished against the sides of our flapping gowns 
 in rhythmic evenness. Not even the precision 
 of a Black Watch drill could have been finer 
 rendered than was our Senior march. The 
 heads and bodies swept from side to side like 
 the orderly attack of a straight, long wave 
 beating backwards and forwards against a cliff. 
 Then, at Assembly Hall, our double line divided 
 and we stood with heads uncovered: a lane of 
 honor, while the recipients of honors, the visit- 
 ing presidents, the faculty and the alumni 
 threaded their way between our lines into the 
 hall. 
 
 Deeper and deeper into f ormalism we plunged : 
 all the traditions of scholarship were called up: 
 all the esthetic possibilities of academic show 
 and etiquette passed in review before us, cap 
 tipping, hood placing, and the summing up of 
 
 [376] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the achievements of a lifetime in two sentences 
 as an honorary degree was bestowed. The 
 trappings and medievalism of scholarship added 
 a new dignity to the college atmosphere. The 
 very air we breathed was musty with the 
 scholar's tradition. 
 
 The only modernness in the event came in 
 the moments of handclapping, as addresses, 
 investiture and degrees followed one another. 
 The undergraduate chorus, massed in the rear 
 of the enormous carpeted platform, added to the 
 impressive solemnity of the exercises by its 
 sonorous harmonies. Then came lie event of 
 the occasion, and Ellis, knight of valor and 
 skill on the football field, was the central figure 
 in the event. He had been assigned the address 
 representing the undergraduates. He stalked 
 his way to the platform and stood before us, 
 backed by the massed greatness of America's 
 university world. But he paid no heed to that, 
 as he had not been wont to pay much heed to 
 the thousands of on-lookers who admired his 
 skill in the games. He took fire, and was the 
 first to disturb the quiet soberness of the pro- 
 gram by putting vivid gesture and loud, vibrant 
 voice into play. The effect on the visitors and 
 the undergraduates was electrical. Each one 
 bent forward as, in no stately rhetoric or formal 
 phrase, Ellis opened his heart which, at the 
 moment, comprehended the loyalty of all the 
 student body. As he concluded, the students 
 
 [377] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 stood in a mass, and after the prolonged ap- 
 plause — the finest applause of the event — 
 our cheer leader dragged a husky, but thrilling 
 college cheer from our throats, while Ellis 
 modestly found his place in our midst. As we 
 filed out into the light of the noon sun, and 
 could easily discover the towering, broad 
 shoulders of Ellis, our leader, at the head of the 
 line, I thought of the honor he had brought to 
 the college in his four years' presence in it, and 
 saw in him the union of all that is best in Ameri- 
 can college life and those qualities which the 
 college aims to invest in every willing student's 
 life: loyalty to one's fellows, physical fitness, 
 moral alertness, humility in success, and a 
 respect for the law that governs men and nations. 
 
 [378] 
 
Chapter XXXIX. The Lost 
 Parrot. Academic Burlesque. "The 
 Nervousness of the Final Minute. 
 A Religious Outcropping in a Non- 
 Pious Heart. 
 
 SINCE the establishment of my family in 
 the college precincts, I had seen very 
 little, in a social way, of my old friend 
 Sanderson. I determined to pay him a 
 visit one evening, and took with me a 
 glass of grape jelly and some hermit cookies, as 
 a remembrance from my wife. 
 
 I found him before a heap of blue papers on 
 which were lead pencil scribbles. A look of 
 anxiety was on his face. When he saw me, 
 however, he smiled his pleasure, went over to 
 the hat rack and put on his fez. 
 
 "How are you getting along, Sanderson?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Say," he pleaded, "you couldn't just run 
 over these reports of mine on your typewriter, 
 could you, Priddy. I'm back about a dozen, 
 
 [379] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 and must have them in to get passing marks. 
 It would be such a help!" 
 
 "Unfortunately, what with sermons, two 
 prize essays on which I am working, and my 
 own studies, Sanderson, I haven't a spare 
 minute !" 
 
 "Then I'll have to root out some freshman 
 and give him the job, though a freshman's so 
 uninformed! Why, I asked one of 'em to just 
 scribble a two-page description of Jane Austen's 
 'Pride and Prejudice' and it took the idiot most 
 a week to do it, and I don't think it can be hard 
 reading, from what the Prof, said about it. 
 Now if I'd had time, I could have read it in a 
 night!" 
 
 "Same old Sanderson," I muttered. "I don't 
 know how you'd get through without help!" 
 
 "Well," he retorted, "since you brought your 
 wife and boy to town, you've done mighty little 
 for me, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, you'll take care of yourself," I replied. 
 
 "Well," he winked, "I have been lucky, 
 lately. Jimmy's stuck by me!" 
 
 "Who's your latest benefactor, c Jimmy?'" 
 I enquired. 
 
 "He's a medic, who rooms across the campus. 
 The nicest man you ever met: patient — oh, so 
 patient, and motherly — oh, so motherly!" 
 
 "Motherly?" 
 
 "Yes, can sew patches on, and buttons, like a 
 real endowed maiden aunt, and when I'm out 
 
 [380] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 of sorts he reads to me, and when I prick my 
 thumb he brings over a medicine case and drops 
 peroxide on. I sprained my wrist at hand-ball, 
 and Jimmy soaked and painted it with stuff, 
 and made a firm leather brace for it. Oh, you 
 wait till he blows in on the medical profession, 
 he'll fit in it as no man, before him, ever fitted 
 in it. He looks after me like a regular private 
 physician, if I'll only let him come in and study 
 with me. You see, his own room's always so 
 full that he wants to get away." 
 
 Sanderson smiled significantly at me. 
 
 "Filled with a lot more soft-soapers like you, 
 eh?" I laughed. 
 
 "Well, willing good-nature like Jimmy's is 
 liable to be imposed on," he agreed. "He comes 
 to my room for protection. I tell you, my 
 lessons have picked up wonderfully since he 
 came." 
 
 "Will he be in tonight?" I asked. 
 
 "He sure will!" said Sanderson. "If he 
 doesn't I don't know how I'll get along with my 
 biology quiz in the morning. I was saving it 
 for him!" 
 
 'You fraud! He has his own work to do!" 
 
 "Don't scold, please," replied Sanderson. 
 "He gets through his work all right. He'd 
 starve if he couldn't be a benefactor to some- 
 body. He will come in tonight. We'll have a 
 few minutes' chat. Then he'll ask me about 
 the quiz and he'll let go at me for an hour or 
 
 [381] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 so. Then we'll have another chat and it will 
 be my bedtime, for I never plan to be out of 
 bed after half-past ten except on exceptional 
 occasions. I'll leave my bedroom door open 
 while I get ready. Jimmy'll talk to me until 
 I let out a snore, — I'll tell him to be sure and 
 snap the lock after he leaves. Perhaps an hour 
 later he'll creep out, and go to his own room. 
 Oh, I swear by Jimmy!" 
 
 "And get your marks by him, too, eh?" 
 "What's a fellow to do?" asked Sanderson. 
 As I turned to go, Sanderson yawned, 
 "Say, Priddy, could you run in with that 
 print on Holbein's 'Saint Barbara?' I failed 
 to get it, and we have to recite on it, in the 
 morning. You might bring me the dope on it, 
 too!" 
 
 I entered at last upon the final stretch towards 
 my degree. In the stress of work and the ex- 
 citement of writing a philosophical and a literary 
 essay, in competition for two senior prizes, the 
 days of winter changed into the brighter aspects 
 of spring almost before I was aware of it. Once 
 more we assembled on the campus for the class 
 "sing," and this time my wife could enjoy the 
 music with me, as we stood on the corner and 
 let our year-old boy ask, "What?" when the 
 cheers began. 
 
 The class elections were held, the photograph 
 of the class was taken, backgrounded against a 
 most rustic wall of stone and arrangement of 
 
 [382] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 wild shrubbery. Our caps and gowns soon 
 followed the class pictures, and then we wore 
 them to chapel, in which we marched so slowly 
 and solemnly under the guide of our marshal, 
 that more than one irrepressible spirit in the 
 ranks would burst out with laughter at so much 
 dignity in so youthful a crowd. Through these 
 days I often grew impatient. I was eager, now, 
 with restored health, and with a richer mine of 
 truth, to be in a parish again, doing my chosen 
 work. 
 
 But when commencement week arrived with 
 its sentimental spirit, — then I felt % the full 
 significance of this last educational experience. 
 
 A band, brought from the city, gave con- 
 certs on the college club porch, amid a forest 
 of plants and shrubs, and under fairylike 
 illuminations. Class reunions brought crowds 
 of graduates, who donned yellow hats, wore 
 clownish clothes, and paraded up and down 
 seeing how much burlesque they could express. 
 One class engaged an Italian hand-organ artist 
 who had also, perched on his music-box, an intel- 
 ligent parrot which would pick out fortune slips 
 from a box — for five cents. In some way the 
 class lost the parrot, and I came across the 
 Italian boy, crying bitterly, as he searched a 
 wild gully for the bird, saying, when I asked him 
 what the trouble could be, 
 
 "Ah, my parrote, he los\ my God, what I do 
 for live now!" 
 
 [383] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Meanwhile the renters of the organ sat in an 
 automobile and raced back and forth down the 
 main street while it scattered its wheezy music 
 along the trail of gasolene fumes. 
 
 On one corner, a group of distinguished-look- 
 ing men and women stood in the dry gutter, 
 with slips of paper in their hands, singing with 
 more or less effect, and great seriousness, 
 
 "Oh, the class of 'Eighty odd, 
 It is a glorious band, 
 It scatters wisdom, grace and power, 
 Throughout this mighty land ! " 
 
 Over on the opposite side of the campus a 
 crowd of lawyers, bankers, ministers, and busi- 
 ness men, who would shock their neighbors at 
 home if they had a shoe-lace untied, paraded in 
 purple wrappers and sun-bonnets topped with 
 paper roses. 
 
 Then the morning of graduation arrived. 
 The mock wrappings were put aside by the 
 visitors, who appeared in frock coats and sedate 
 manners. By nine o'clock I joined my class- 
 mates at the fence and found my place in the 
 line. Meanwhile crowds of people in holiday 
 dress thronged the campus once again, mem- 
 bers of the faculty with gowns fluttering in the 
 wind, and with scarlet, purple, yellow, and white 
 hoods, gathered at the administration building. 
 
 As at the Inauguration the band once more 
 took its place at our head, struck up its 
 vibrant tune, and then at the dropping of 
 
 [ 384 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 the marshal's baton we took the step and 
 marched around the campus, a black, rhythmical 
 procession of academics. The gay -hooded, but 
 sedate faculty followed, to march through the 
 double line of honor we formed at the entrance 
 to the hall. Then we entered and stood at our 
 seats until the marshal's baton gave us the 
 signal to be seated. 
 
 The deep platform before us was ranged with 
 the faculty, the trustees, the recipients of hon- 
 orary degrees, and the musicians, including a 
 robed choir of students and the musical director. 
 
 But my eyes fell on the table at the head of 
 the centre aisle on which lay a thick, flat heap 
 of sheepskins; mine among them. 
 
 Nervously I picked up the program, and, as I 
 looked it through, to see the catalogue cf my 
 academic career, it told to all who searched it 
 through that Albert Priddy graduated cum 
 laude, and that he had won four first prizes : two 
 in his junior year and two in his senior year: 
 two essays, a story, and a research in philosophy. 
 
 The addresses, the salutatory, valedictory, and 
 the greeting by the faculty were given. The 
 choir sang an impressive anthem. The honor- 
 ary degrees were conferred with great solemnity. 
 The classmate next to me said: 
 
 "Priddy, my heart is beating so fast that if 
 we don't get our degrees soon, it will burst. 
 Just think if anything should prevent our getting 
 them — now!" 
 
 [ 385 ] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Don't mention it," I suggested, in nervous 
 agitation, "please." 
 
 Finally, however, the dean came down from 
 the platform and we stood. Then we began a 
 very slow walk around the side aisles, down past 
 the platform to pass before the dean and receive 
 our degrees. Slowly, ever too slowly, I drew 
 near, and then, a whispered "Priddy" from the 
 Dean and the sheepskin was in my hand. 
 
 Immediately I changed the position of the 
 tassel of my cap for I had, that moment, of- 
 ficially shifted myself from the undergraduate 
 role of the college and entered the long, his- 
 toric ranks of the alumni." 
 
 When I got back to my seat, my neighbor, 
 who had expressed the fear that something would 
 occur, whispered with relief: 
 
 "I'm not a religious fellow, Priddy, but I do 
 feel like singing the doxology, now that I've 
 got this!" He pointed to his diploma. 
 
 [386] 
 
Chapter XL. In which the 
 Account Comes to a Conclusion in 
 the Life of a Relative. Martin 
 Quotes Spanish and Has the 
 Last TVord. % 
 
 A FTER we had been established in a 
 
 / % parish for some time, I suggested to 
 
 j "% my wife that probably the best 
 
 / ^Christmas present I could give my 
 
 Uncle Stanwood and Aunt Millie 
 
 would be to make them a personal visit after 
 
 all my years of absence and recite to them all 
 
 the facts of my education, my marriage, and 
 
 describe to them the two interesting members of 
 
 my family. 
 
 So I arrived at Uncle Stanwood's house the 
 week before Christmas with the intention of 
 spending a week with him. I had been asked 
 to preach the Christmas sermon by Mr. Wood- 
 ward, the minister, who had started me off to 
 the seminary. 
 
 My uncle was still living in a mill tenement. 
 
 [387] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "So you've got an education after all!" he com- 
 mented, putting a loving hand on my shoulder. 
 "Education has made a difference in you alto- 
 gether. You are much different. Sit down and 
 tell me all about it." 
 
 As for my Aunt Millie, she said, "What did 
 you marry an American for? Can she cook?" 
 
 Just then the door opened and in slouched 
 the tallest man I ever saw; slouched past us 
 without a word and threw himself moodily into 
 a chair at the end of the supper table. His face 
 had been carved — roughly carved — out of 
 mahogany; it was gaunt, sun-beaten and lined 
 with fret marks. He laid big, scarred hands on 
 his plate. His shoulders drooped and yet were 
 massive in strength. His eyes were like distant 
 lights well back under the shadow of his bulging 
 brows. A look of disgust seemed to have 
 lingered on his thin, curled lips since his birth. 
 
 He was my cousin Martin who had arrived 
 from England two years before. 
 
 When he rose up to reach out one of his great 
 hands to me, there was a curious, unaccountable 
 antagonism in his tone when he said, "Oh, 
 this's him, eh? He's the lucky dog, is he?" 
 
 During the recital of my educational experi- 
 ences which followed, I noticed that my most 
 interested listener was Martin. When I came 
 to those parts which had to do with self-support, 
 he was alert in every muscle. His eyes blazed 
 at me, devouring every word that I said. 
 
 [388] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 When aunt and uncle left us alone, Martin 
 said: "Priddy, do you think the world's treated 
 me — oh, right, just right?" 
 
 "What do you mean, Martin?" I asked. 
 'You've got fight in your tone. What's 
 wrong?" 
 
 "Did you never ask that, too?" he retorted, 
 hotly. "Did you ever kick against the goad? 
 I think you did, once. Don't forget it, Priddy, 
 ever! You're not the only chap that ever 
 wanted to get ahead, don't lose sight of that. If 
 it comes to matching ambition, I've got enough 
 and to spare. Here you are, not milch over 
 twenty, I take it, yet you've got polished by 
 seven years of schooling. Seven years of it! 
 Have you any more right to it than me? Here 
 I am nearly thirty and what am I? Blest if 
 I'm anything but a hod carrier! What have I 
 ever been, Priddy? Did I ever have a chance? 
 I went into the mill at eight and have been there 
 till this winter set in. God knows it's little I 
 know in the way of schooling! I can write my 
 name and read some; but I got it myself. You 
 know what the mill can be to an ambitious 
 chap. You never felt it pressing down and 
 stifling you more than I did. I tell you that." 
 He actually spit on his hands and rubbed them, 
 as if on the verge of striking me. 
 
 "The beginning of this winter I said I wouldn't 
 stand it no longer, and I won't! No mill will 
 get me again; not if I have to starve. I nearly 
 
 [389] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 have starved, this winter, trying to keep out. 
 I've peddled shoes, run a baker's cart, been 
 janitor of a club-room and now I'm carrying 
 bricks! Maybe you don't think it's hard! I 
 wish you had it to go through. Perhaps you 
 have, only your hands arn't spoiled like mine 
 with the frost. Even my feet are lame, this 
 very minute, through frost. I'm earning a 
 dollar seventy-five a day: good pay, but I 
 shouldn't last more than a few years at it and 
 
 then . Besides, I want to get married. 
 
 She's waiting. I've just got fifty dollars in the 
 bank. Do you wonder I feel so?" 
 
 On Christmas Sunday a blackboard in front 
 of the church announced that the "Rev. Albert 
 Priddy, formerly of this church, will preach 
 in the morning and evening. Everybody 
 Welcome!" 
 
 My uncle took me aside, in the morning, and 
 said: 
 
 "I'm coming out to hear you, Al. Do your 
 best, lad. I'll be with you. God knows I 
 don't deserve all this!" 
 
 It was a very simply arranged church; plain, 
 white-washed walls, and a cheaply carpeted 
 platform. While the first hymn was being 
 sung, my Uncle Stanwood crept into a rear 
 pew and kept his eyes down. 
 
 But while I preached, a half smile of pride 
 stole into his face and to my excited imagination 
 his head seemed to be nodding approval to all 
 
 [390] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I said. The look in his eyes seemed to be 
 saying, "Show them, Al!" 
 
 I whispered to the minister, "Let me pro- 
 nounce the benediction and while we are singing 
 the last hymn, get down the aisle and meet my 
 uncle. He may get out before you. He's 
 timid." 
 
 But Uncle Stanwood crept out before the 
 benediction and I did not see him again until 
 my arrival home for dinner. 
 
 On arriving home, I was startled by what 
 Aunt Millie did. She came up to me, patted 
 me lovingly on the head and said, %" I'm glad 
 you did so well, Al. Your uncle's been telling 
 me all about it. I'll go and hear you tonight, 
 too." 
 
 Martin evidently was interested, for in that 
 belligerent tone of his, though softened by a 
 light laugh, he said: 
 
 "I suppose I'll have to go, too, seeing I'm 
 his relation!" 
 
 I left the house that evening somewhat early, 
 because I had to meet some friends. Martin 
 was blacking his shoes; Aunt Millie was 
 troubling herself unduly over what she should 
 wear: a superfluous question, as she had but 
 one Sunday dress and hat. 
 
 On my way to church that night, I could not 
 help feeling that I must have misunderstood 
 my aunt. I chided myself for not having read 
 her aright. I began to realize that there was a 
 
 [391] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 deep under-current to her nature — perhaps 
 one of love? 
 
 It was a thought like that that proved my best 
 girding for the evening sermon. I sat in the 
 pulpit while the church filled; for this evening 
 service was always well attended. The choir 
 of mill boys and girls, led by a patriarchal man 
 whose face and hands were white as fuller's 
 earth, sang stirring anthems in which we saw 
 the Palestinian shepherds in mute adoration of 
 the stable miracle. The congregation sang, with 
 great unction, another Christmas theme. 
 Martin's head towered at the rear; but I could 
 find no trace of Aunt Millie. 
 
 After the service, and the greetings of old- 
 time friends, I looked about for Martin and 
 Aunt Millie. I saw neither. It was somewhat 
 late when I arrived home. Aunt Millie was 
 waiting for me with a troubled face. 
 
 "You managed to hide yourself pretty well!" 
 I laughed. 
 
 She cried as she confessed: 
 
 "I didn't go, Al. I didn't hear you at all. 
 That's the plain truth!" 
 
 "Why, I thought I saw you getting ready 
 when I left," I said. 
 
 "Yes, I was; but I didn't hear you preach. 
 I couldn't!" 
 
 "Oh," I laughed, "you couldn't? What was 
 the matter?" 
 
 "I started out; but on the way I lost heart. 
 
 [392] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I was afraid that I might cry out in church, 
 with you preaching, lad. Besides, I'm not a 
 dissenter. I was passing the Episcopal church 
 and went in there, instead. I felt more at home. 
 You can understand, can't you, lad?" 
 
 Then she asked me to sit on the sofa and tell 
 her everything I had spoken of in my sermon; 
 not to miss a point, but to give it all. She 
 gave my points commendation, remarking every 
 now and then while her eyes brimmed with 
 tears, "It must have done them good, that!" 
 
 Uncle sat at the lower end of the room, say- 
 ing not a word; but listening, carefully. In 
 the midst of my report the front door opened, 
 and Martin, taking long, determined strides, 
 hurried through the room without looking at 
 any of us, closed the kitchen door with a bang, 
 and left us looking into each other's faces in 
 bewilderment. 
 
 "Maybe he's mad at something you said, Al. 
 You didn't chance to look his way and talk of 
 'coming to God,' did you?" 
 
 I solemnly averred that I had not been so 
 evangelical as that. My aunt hurried into the 
 kitchen where she lingered for a few moments. 
 On her return she said: 
 
 "It's all right, Al. There's nothing wrong. 
 He's just impressed by hearing you preach, 
 that's all. He said to me, 'If education can do 
 that, for a fellow, I want some of it!' 
 
 The next morning a heavy snow was falling. 
 
 [393] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 Martin would have no work. After breakfast 
 he asked me if I would go into the parlor and 
 have a talk, he wanted to ask me something. I 
 readily agreed. 
 
 The former antagonism had gone from his 
 voice as he began to speak. His words came 
 quietly, curiously, like a child's. 
 
 "Priddy, what can a chap learn to be in 
 college?" 
 
 "What do you mean? What does a college 
 fit men for?" I asked. 
 
 Martin nodded soberly, his eyes fixed on mine. 
 
 I laughed, "Oh, college will train you for 
 almost any profession; that is, the professional 
 schools will. You can study to be a doctor, a 
 lawyer, a forester, a teacher — oh, anything you 
 think of!" 
 
 "What do you think's the best kind of a thing 
 for a chap to be?" 
 
 "Why," I replied, in embarrassment, "that 
 depends upon the fellow, you know." 
 
 "Well," said Martin, "what kind of a pro- 
 fession would you advise a chap like me to 
 take, for instance!" 
 
 I smiled, knowing what all this fencing meant. 
 "Forestry is a good profession, just now," I 
 advised. "It's a new branch to the govern- 
 ment and brings in good money. I am sure you 
 would like to be a forester." 
 
 "What's his work, especially?" came the 
 question. 
 
 [394] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 I explained, as best I knew, the different 
 functions of a trained forester, emphasizing, 
 " Mind you, Martin, he's paid for what he knows 
 and not what he does with his hands. He doesn't 
 have to chop down trees and all that sort of 
 stuff; but he knows all about saving the forests, 
 improving them, doctoring them." 
 
 "How long does it take a man to learn that 
 trade?" was the next question. 
 
 "About seven years, including college and 
 professional school." 
 
 "It would take a fellow like me that long?" 
 
 "Oh," I admitted, reluctantly, for I felt that 
 this would put a stop to any ambition that he 
 had, "of course you are not ready for college. 
 That would mean at least three years more!" 
 
 Martin mused, 
 
 "Seven and three — ten. I'm twenty-eight 
 years old. That would bring it up to thirty- 
 eight." 
 
 "Yes," I assented, "but you must remember 
 that there are a good many working years left, 
 after that!" 
 
 "I'm not thinking about myself; it's Nora. 
 We planned to get married by spring. Of course 
 I should put it off. I wonder if you'd help me? " 
 
 "Help you — how — what? " 
 
 "Help me to explain to Nora; so she'll wait 
 — wait probably that long!" 
 
 " You can count on me to help you in anything, 
 Martin." 
 
 [395] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "When she knows it's for her betterment, 
 maybe she'll be willing," interjected Martin, as 
 if in argument with himself. 
 
 I nodded, vigorously. 
 
 "Anyway," he said with that belligerent tone 
 of his, "she'll have to be!" 
 
 Under the inspiration of this conversation, I 
 pulled Martin out of the house and took him to 
 the public library, where we asked for a bundle 
 of preparatory school and college catalogues.' 
 These we whispered over and patiently studied 
 until noon. We found that, by unusual labor, 
 it would be possible for Martin to get his 
 preparation, his college degree, and his profes- 
 sional training within nine years! As a further 
 proof of our optimism, we decided that Martin 
 should enter Yale when he was fitted! 
 
 We found from the catalogue of the prepara- 
 tory school that Martin had decided upon, that 
 the term opened within two days. When I 
 advised Martin to write a letter to the principal 
 and await a reply, he stormed at me: 
 
 "And probably it would be a week before I 
 heard from him. That would put me behind 
 the classes — and you would be gone, too. If 
 they aren't overcrowded, why, I'll not wait to 
 write; but just take my fifty dollars and go. 
 They can only say no." 
 
 His decision made, Martin began to show me 
 what a decided nature he possessed. He drew 
 the fifty dollars out of the bank. He bought 
 
 [396] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 some necessary clothes out of the money. 
 The next day he gave notice to the contractor 
 that he would carry bricks no more. Then he 
 outlined his scheme to uncle and aunt. 
 
 My Aunt Millie stormed. 
 
 "This education business is getting on my 
 nerves. First it's one and then another of 
 you." Turning on me she said, "Nice way of 
 treating us: coming to take a good paying 
 boarder from us — and we need the money so, 
 too!" 
 
 But Martin interjected, "Look here, I did it 
 all myself. Blame me for it!" 
 
 But my aunt would not be consoled. "And 
 I'd been planning so for the wedding, too!" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 As I chanced to be going on a trip to the 
 Seminary at the time, I told Martin that I 
 could be his companion as far as he had to go. 
 
 "But you've got to go to the North End with 
 me and help me explain matters to Nora. 
 You've got a smoother tongue than I have and 
 she'll listen to you." 
 
 So Martin and I started out on our dismal 
 mission. Nora lived on the top floor in one of 
 the tenements. She was a stout, fair-faced 
 woman of twenty-seven with a way of casting 
 her head sidewise when she spoke to me, as if 
 she had trouble with her sight. She stood gaz- 
 ing at us, at that unexpected hour, from behind 
 the ironing-board. The odor of burning cloth 
 
 [397] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 reached my nostrils, as she stood wondering. 
 She had burnt the shirtwaist and no amount of 
 frantic rubbing with soap could take the scar 
 out. 
 
 She dismissed us to the parlor while she put 
 on a more presentable dress. Martin said not 
 a word to me; but he pointed dumbly to his 
 photograph in a place of honor on the mantel. 
 
 Nora came into the room exclaiming: 
 
 "Why, Martin, didn't you let me know? 
 What's the matter?" 
 
 Martin started to speak; but could not. He 
 nodded to me. 
 
 Carefully, painfully, hesitantly, I outlined 
 Martin's ambition to Nora. More than that 
 I explained the reasonableness of it, the prime 
 importance of it to their later fortunes. I tried 
 to paint in glowing terms the high station to 
 which Nora, through Martin, might be exalted. 
 I leaped from point to point with enthusiastic 
 eloquence, when the theme had mastered me. 
 But when I had concluded, and was looking 
 eagerly into the young woman's face for a favor- 
 able sign, she gasped, then in a cold voice she 
 said: 
 
 "Oh, yes, it's all right for him; but don't I 
 know that if he goes to college he'll meet other 
 girls, better looking, better dressed, better 
 educated than I am, or can ever hope to be. 
 Suppose I don't break off this engagement now, 
 how am I to know that he'll not forget me, 
 
 [398] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 throw me over. Have you thought of that in 
 all your plans?" 
 
 "Martin's a man of his word, I suppose," I 
 protested. 
 
 "You'd find me true, Nora," declared Martin. 
 
 "How long do you want me to wait?" de- 
 manded the girl. 
 
 "Only about seven or eight years or so!" 
 haltingly explained Martin. 
 
 Nora leaped to her feet and stamped the 
 floor, angrily, imperatively. 
 
 "You'd keep me waiting seven or eight years; 
 waiting that long for you, with* all the risk! 
 Not me ! Not for a thousand Martins! " 
 
 That was her answer. We left her without 
 more words. We left her watching us, crying. 
 Martin commented, when we were outside: 
 
 "Now, if she'd only had more faith in me 
 and made me feel certain of victory, maybe 
 I'd given the whole thing up; but now — we'll 
 go tomorrow, sure!" 
 
 The following evening we sat in the North 
 Station in Boston, awaiting the train that would 
 carry us on an all-night journey. Every nerve 
 Martin possessed quivered with pessimism. He 
 scolded, chided, lodged complaints at everything 
 and everybody. He tried to give me the im- 
 pression that I had made a prisoner of him; 
 that he no longer had any initiative of his own. 
 As we sat in the waiting-room he held humorous 
 monologues the purport of each one being, 
 
 [399] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 "What a fool I am, at my age, to be running 
 out among a lot of kids to get ready for college. 
 What a fool!" During that hour's wait, he 
 had resolved four times to expend that fifty 
 dollars in a ticket to the orange groves of 
 California. Finally, when he had been brood- 
 ing in silence for some moments, with a quick 
 action he pulled out his pocket book, handed 
 it to me and said, savagely, "Here, take this 
 and keep it safe. No matter how I beg or what 
 I say, don't let me have it. To make things 
 sure, you'd better run and get me my ticket to 
 the school; then I'll be sure and not turn back ! " 
 
 As our train started from the station it plunged 
 into a heavy, blinding snow-storm that had been 
 raging throughout the entire day. Once in our 
 seats, Martin recommenced his tirades against 
 this "foolishness." But there were propitious 
 signs near at hand, for his encouragement. A 
 man was coming down the aisle looking for a 
 seat in whom I recognized a Seminary comrade 
 of mine. He was a stubby fellow of middle age, 
 with an ill-kept, drooping moustache. 
 
 "Say, Harlan, old fellow," I greeted, "stop 
 right here and meet my cousin." When he was 
 seated, I talked with him, and, for Martin's 
 benefit, to whom I slyly winked as I talked, 
 brought out the fact that Harlan had been 
 much older than my cousin when he had started 
 out for an education. Nay, he had been handi- 
 capped with a wife and a child! Now he 
 
 [400] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 enjoyed the dignity of the ministerial profes- 
 sion. The moral was evident to Martin. He 
 braced up and became very agreeable, especially 
 to my old friend Harlan. 
 
 We talked in low tones until three o'clock in 
 the morning, at which time the brakeman called 
 out the station where I should leave Martin to 
 his fortunes. The poor fellow seemed on the 
 verge of tears as he gripped his suit-case and 
 followed me to the door as the train slacked up 
 its speed. I looked off from the platform. The 
 storm had not abated. I could see only a great 
 snowdrift where the station platform should 
 have been. A street light flickered weakly out 
 
 on the street. 
 
 As Martin dropped up to his knees in the 
 snowdrift and reached for his suit-case I 
 whispered: 
 
 "Find a hotel, and let me hear from you, old 
 fellow. Keep up your courage. If there's any- 
 thing I can do, call on me!" Harlan waved his 
 hand and called, " Never too late to mend!" 
 an aphorism which might have been pertinent 
 to the occasion, and then the brakeman's 
 lantern swung. As the train lumbered through 
 the drifts, I saw Martin bend his head to the 
 storm, lift his suit-case above the drifts, and 
 go plodding towards the street light. The 
 station was deserted, and I hoped that my 
 cousin would find someone to direct him before 
 the storm discouraged him. 
 
 [401] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 A few months later, I stopped off at the town 
 where I had left my cousin. He met me at the 
 train, the same serious man I had left, though 
 with a trace of a smile on his face and more of 
 content in his speech than before. He guided 
 me past a grocery store and said : 
 
 "I get up at four in the morning, do my study- 
 ing, then before classes I go out and take orders 
 for that firm." 
 
 He led me down a placid street, through the 
 shovelled paths of snow, and after opening the 
 front door led me into a well-warmed and very 
 nicely furnished chamber. 
 
 "I do their chores and earn the rent for this 
 room," he announced, with a grim smile. "Fur- 
 nace to look after, paths to shovel, and baby to 
 keep happy, if it wakens when they want to go 
 to an entertainment." 
 
 At supper time he led me into the heart of 
 the town into an eating-house. He had a 
 meal ticket punched by the waitress. 
 
 "This ticket costs three dollars," he said, 
 "enough to last a week at three meals a day. I 
 make it last three weeks by scrimping and having 
 a bottle of milk a day in my room." 
 
 "How do you like the school?" I asked, 
 pleased with these evidences of his thrift. 
 
 "Well," he mused, "they are a lot of kids, to 
 be sure, and I'm quite a freak among them. 
 'Grandad' Martin they call me. I suppose 
 they've never had so old a man in their classes 
 
 [402] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 before. Anyhow, that's the way you would 
 argue from their looks and talk. But it doesn't 
 bother me — much. I guess we'll all get used 
 to it, by and by." 
 
 "How is Nora getting along?" I ventured to 
 enquire. 
 
 "Married!" he snarled, and talked no more 
 about that. 
 
 "What do you think about this opportunity, 
 Martin?" 
 
 "Wouldn't have missed it for fifty weddings!" 
 he declared. 
 
 Throughout the year I received word from 
 him, couched in various tempers of letters. 
 Sometimes he was about to throw the whole 
 ambition over, because as he wrote, his mind 
 was not as fresh as it might be. Then he would 
 write that the boys wanted him to become a 
 member of the basket-ball team, but he had 
 refused, because, he argued, so old a man, and 
 so tall a one, would not do in playing against six- 
 teen and eighteen-year-olds! In spring, he had 
 trouble with his French. Then a complica- 
 tion of physical troubles cropped out, as if to 
 test his patience. Finally, after being confined 
 to his bed by illness, and having had to forego 
 the final examinations, he decided that he was 
 too old to keep at it, and that he had too many 
 handicaps. He went to the West, thus keeping 
 to his old intention, and after he had secured 
 the position as "boss" of a large gang of men, 
 
 [403] 
 
THROUGH THE SCHOOL 
 
 on construction work, a "shirt-sleeved, and 
 white collar job" as he termed it, he wrote to 
 me the following letter. 
 
 "My dear Cousin: 
 
 Don't feel at all that you did me a bad turn 
 by having me go to that school for a year. It 
 was the most profitable investment I have ever 
 made ! I find that out more and more each day. 
 It has released me, perhaps forever, from that 
 miserable hand drudgery I always hated, for in 
 that single year's contact with polite speech, with 
 teachers, and with the finer opportunities of life, 
 I was given more confidence in myself and my 
 opportunities. I am not afraid to approach 
 educated people any more. I hold my head up 
 higher; I feel myself more of a man. I can 
 even write at the end of my letter, something 
 impossible before, 'Remunda de pasturaje hace 
 becerros gordos, 9 which is a Spanish proverb out 
 here for, ' Change of pasture makes fat calves ! ' 
 God bless our schools!" 
 
 The ErtD 
 
 [404] 
 
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