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Ann Arbor Tales
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CopyRIGHT, 1902,
By GeoRGE W. Jacobs & Co.
Published Movember, 1902.


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TO M1 PARENTS





Contents
THE MAKING of A MAN
THE KIDNAPPING
THE CHAMPIONs
THE CASE of CATHERwood
The Door—A Nocturne .
A MoDERN MeRcuRY .
THE DAY of the GAME
THE OLD PRofessor
Pace
I I
61
97
I23
177
2O7
259
303








-


THE MAKING OF A MAN





The Making of a Man
Florence affected low candle-lights, glowing
through softly tinted shades, of pale-green, blue,
old-rose, pink; for such low lights set each coiled
tress of her golden hair a-dancing—and Florence
knew this. The hangings in the little round room
where she received her guests were deeper than
the shades, and the tapestry of the semi-circular win-
dow-seat was red. It was in the arc of this that
Florence was wont to sit—the star amidst her sat-
ellites.
It was one's privilege to smoke in the little room,
and somehow the odor of the burned tobacco did
not get into the draperies; nor filter through the
portières into the hall beyond; and the air of the
boudoir was always cool and fresh and sweet.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—every night—
and Sunday most of all—there were loungers on
that window-seat, their faces half in shadow. It
was hard at such times to take one's eyes off
Florence, sitting in the arc, the soft light of old-rose
moving across her cheek, creeping around her
13


14 Ann Arbor Tales
white throat, leaping in her twisted hair, quivering
in her blue, soft eyes.
When she smiled, one thought in verse—if one
were that sort—or, perhaps, muttered, “Gad!”
shiveringly under the breath.
Well may you—or l—shake our heads now and
smile, albeit a bit sadly; but then it was different.
We have learned much, too much perhaps, and the
once keen edge of joy is dulled. But then we were
young. Youth was our inheritance and we spent
it, flung it away, you say, as we knelt before the
Shrine of Beauty set up in a little round room
where low lights glimmered among deep shaded
draperies.
We realized that it was a serious matter—a
deadly serious matter; just as did a score or more
of our fellows on the campus in whose hearts, as
well, flared the flame of the fine young love that
we were feeling in our own.
For you—and l—loved Florence.
Dear little room! Dearest, dearest Florence!
Many are the men who never learned; in whose
hearts your image is enshrined to-night. And
few are they who ever learned and really knew
you, dear.
Some few thought they did and called you a
“College Widow,” because they could remember a


The Making of a Man 15
certain tall, dark-browed senior who danced ten
times with you at the Jay Hop of '87. Others were
convinced through them; but these were mostly
freshmen upon whom you had not sought to work
your magic. How far wrong they were! Yet
even you, Florence, I am thinking, were wont, at
least in blue moments, to take yourself at the
scant valuation these few saw fit to place upon
you.
But in the end you, even, saw and understood.
I am glad, my dear, that I may tell the story.
And if those who read it here shall call it fiction,
you, and Jim, and I, at least, shall know it for the
truth.
And then, when I have done, and you have put
aside the book, to hide your eyes from him who
holds you fonder far than you can know, remember,
dear, the glory of it and be glad.
It was June.
The rain had been plentiful and the green things
of earth rioted joyously in their silent life. In the
trees were many birds that sang all day long, and in
the night the moon was pale and the shadows were
ghostly and the air was sweet with roses that hung
in pink profusion from the trellis.


16 Ann Arbor Tales
The grass was soft beneath the quick, light tread
of the lads; and the laughter of the summer-time
was in the eyes of all the maids.
Many the gay straw-rides to the Lake; frequent
and long the walks through leafy lanes, down
which the ſootfalls echoed; sweet the vigils on the
broad stone steps distributed about the campus with
so much regard for youthful lovers.
Too warm for dancing; too languorous for study,
that June was made only for swains and sweet-
hearts.
At least Jack Houston thought as much, and cast-
ing an eye about the town it chanced to fall upon fair
Florence. Older than he by half-a-dozen years—
older still in the experience of her art—her blue eyes
captured him, the sheen of her soft hair, coiled high
upon her head, dazzled him; and the night of the
day they met he forgot—quite forgot—that half-a-
dozen boon companions awaited him in a dingy,
hot room down-town, among whom he was to
have been the ruling spirit—a party of vain mis-
guided youths of his own class, any one of whom
he could drink under the table at a sitting, and
nearly all of whom he had.
The next night, however, he was of the party and
led the roistering and drank longer, harder than the
rest, until—in the little hours of the new day—


The Making of a Man 17
sodden, unsteady, he found his way to his room,
where he flung himself heavily upon his bed to
sleep until the noonday sun mercifully cast a beam
across his heavy eyes and wakened him.
This life he had led for two years and now his
face had lines; his eyes lacked lustre; his hand
trembled when he rolled his cigarettes, but his brain
was keener, his intelligence subtler, than ever. The
wick of his mental lamp was submerged in alcohol
and the light it gave seemed brighter for it. There
were those who shook their heads when his name
was mentioned; while others only laughed and
called it the way of youth unrestrained.
There was only one who seemed to see the end
—Crowley—Houston's room-mate, nearest pal—as
unlike him as white is unlike black, and therefore,
perhaps, more fondly loving. It was because he
loved him as he did that Crowley saw—saw the
end as clearly as he saw the printed page before his
eyes, and shuddered at the sight. He saw a bril-
liant mind dethroned; a splendid body ruined; a
father killed with grief—and seeing, thus, he was
glad that Houston's mother had passed away while
he was yet a little, brown-eyed, red-cheeked boy.
His misgivings heavy upon his heart, he spoke of
them to Florence. At first, her eyes glinted a cold
harsh light, but as he talked on and on, fervently,


18 Ann Arbor Tales
passionately, that light went out, and another came
that burned brighter, as he cried:
“Oh, can't something be done? Something 2"
They walked on a way in silence, and then she
said, quietly, as was her manner, always: “Do
you think I could help ?”
He seized her hand and she looked up into his
eyes, smiling.
“Oh, if you could!” he cried; and then:
“Would you try P” But before she could answer
he flung down her hand saying: “But no, you
couldn't; what was I thinking of . "
They were walking by the river to the east,
where, on the right, the hill rose sheer—a tangle of
vivid green—from the heart of which a spring leapt
and tinkled over smooth, white pebbles, to lose it-
self again in the earth below, bubbling noisily.
At his expression, or, more at the tone he em-
ployed in its utterance, she shrank from him, and
then, regardless of her steps, sped half-way up the
hill, beside the spring course. There she flung her-
self upon a mossy plot, face down. - -
Crowley called to her from the road, but she did
not answer; he went to her, and stooping touched
her shoulder. Her whole body, prone before him,
quivered. She was crying.
He talked to her a long time, there in the wood-
º
.


The Making of a Man 19
land, silence about them save for the calls of the
birds.
She turned her wet eyes upon his face.
“Oh, to think every one doubts me !” she mur-
mured. “You laughed at me when I asked you
if I could help—you think I'm only a toy-like girl—
a sort of great cat to be fondled always.”
She seized a stick, broke it impetuously across her
knee and rose before him.
“I will help!” she cried, “I will—and you'll see
What I'll do!”
Afterward—long afterward—he remembered her,
as she was that moment—her golden hair tum-
bling upon her shoulders; her eyes blazing, her
glorious figure erect, her white hands clenched at
her sides.
So it was Crowley—Jim Crowley the penitent,
yet the sceptical—who brought them together, just
as it was Crowley who waited, who counted the
days, who watched.
II
From the walk he saw them on the tennis courts
one evening a week later.
Unobserved he watched their movements; the
girl's lithe, graceful; Houston's, strong, manly. He
was serving and Crowley noted the swift sweep of


2O Ann Arbor Tales
his white arm, bare almost to the shoulder, and was
thrilled. Florence had slipped the links in her
sleeves and rolled her cuffs back to dimpled elbows
and her forearms were brown from much golf.
Crowley approached the players after a moment
and they joined him at the end of the net. The
flush on the girl's face gave her beauty a radiance
that he could not recall ever having noticed before.
Usually Florence was marbly calm. Houston was
warm, glowing.
“Gad, you're a fine pair; I've been watching
you,” Crowley blurted.
The girl shot him one swift glance, then her lips
parted over her strong, white, even teeth, as she
laughed.
“Aren't we?” she cried gaily—“just splen-
did —” And made a playful lunge at him with
the raguet.
“Venus and Adonis playing tennis, eh?” Crow-
ley said.
“Oh, cut it out,” Houston exclaimed.
“They didn't play tennis, did they?" Florence
asked.
“He ought to know,” Houston put in, “he's
working for that Rome scholarship—but he'll never
get it any more than I shall the Athens. p >
“They used to play hand ball—the gods did—"


The Making of a Man 21
Crowley explained professorily. “And in a court,
too. I suppose your tennis is merely a survival of
that old Greek game.”
The three sat at the edge of the court while
Crowley discoursed learnedly upon the pastimes of
the ancient Greeks. The deep throated bells in the
Library Tower rang out the hour of eight across
the maples and the amateur lecturer rose lazily.
“Do you want to go down town, Jack P” he
asked indifferently.
Had Houston known how breathlessly Crowley
hung upon his answer he would not have taken
so long to make it. As it was he glanced up at
his room-mate and across at Florence whose eyes
met his with a look of inquiry. He looked away
then and Crowley glanced at the girl, and in her
eyes he seemed to see a challenge.
“He’s not going down town,” she said, quite
definitely, though still smiling; “he's going home
with me.”
Crowley shrugged his shoulders.
“Are you, Jack?” he asked.
“She says so,” was the light reply.
“Well, as I'm not invited I guess I had better be
moseying along.”
“Oh, you can come if you want to,” Florence
said naively.


22 Ann Arbor Tales
“Oh, ho; if I want to Well I guess not!”
Crowley exclaimed and moved away, calling over
his shoulder: “Good-night to you—Venus and
Adonis.”
“Isn't he a good sort P” Florence asked as the
youth's tall figure disappeared around the corner of
the red museum.
“Ripping!” Houston replied emphatically, “only
I wish he weren't such an old Dryasdust. . . .”
He carried the raguets under his arm with his
coat wrapped about them. At the door of her
home he started to put on his coat.
“You needn't,” she said, perceiving his intent—
“leave it off; it will be cooler. Shall we go in P”
She took the coat and flung it over a chair in the
hall and led the way into the little round room.
“Don’t light up,” he said—she was feeling along
the top of the teak-wood rack for matches—“Don’t
you think this is nicer P”
In the shadow, and half-turned from him as it
was, he could not see her face nor the smile that
swept across it as he spoke.
He flung himself on the seat between the two
windows, and she sank upon a low, old-fashioned
stool before him, her elbows on her knees, her chin
in her two slim hands. They talked commonplaces
for a space, and gradually silence fell upon them.


The Making of a Man 23
After a while he fumbled for his tobacco and little
book of cigarette papers.
Divining the purpose of his search she glanced
over her shoulder and asked archly in a half-
whisper:
“Wouldn't you rather have a made one P”
She rose before he could reply, and took down
from the rack across the corner a Japanese jar into
the depths of which she plunged her hand. She
held out to him a half-dozen of the little white
tubes. Selecting one he lighted it.
Puffing contentedly: “Doesn't your mother
mind P” he asked.
She shook her head and sat on the circular seat
beside him.
“She's not here,” she added. “There's a social
at the church; she's there. py
“Oh,” he muttered.
While he smoked, she looked out the window
into the silent street now almost dark. Afterward
she watched him blow thin, writhing rings; lean-
ing toward him, supporting herself on one hand,
pressed hard against the cushion.
“Why don't you smoke P” he ventured after a
few moments, emboldened by the deepening
shadows in the little room.
“I’ve a mind to,” she said in a half whisper.


24 Ann Arbor Tales
He crossed the room straightway and dove his
own hand into the jar and held out a cigarette to
her.
“I’ll get a match,” he said.
“Don’t,” she cried, “let me light it from yours.”
They leaned toward each other on the window-
seat until their faces were very close and the fire of
his cigarette touched the tip of hers. Across the
frail white bridge and through the pale cloud that
rose, their eyes met and his gazed deep into hers,
the depths of which he could not fathom. Then
they drew back their heads with one accord and
his hand fell upon hers where it lay on the cushion.
Nor did she withdraw her hand even as his closed
over it. The contact sent his blood tingling to his
heart; he leaned nearer her. Their eyes, as now
and then they saw in the little light the glowing
coals of their cigarettes gave, did not waver. He
ceased smoking, and so did she. His cigarette
dropped from his nerveless fingers. Quickly he
flung an arm about her and drew her toward him,
holding her close, breathlessly. The perfume of her
hair got into his brain, and deadened all but the
consciousness of her nearness. She did not resist
his impulse, but lay calm in his arms, her face up-
turned, her eyes melting, gazing into his.
“Dearest,” he murmured—“dearest—dearest —”
|


The Making of a Man 25
“Kiss me—kiss me—Jack.” The whisper was
like the faint moving of young leaves in the forest.
He bent his head. . . . Their lips met.
He saw the lids fall over her fathomless
eyes like a curtain, and night became radiant day
that instant love was born.
Suddenly he drew his arms away, rose and strode
nervously into the hallway, leaving her in a crouch-
ing attitude upon the seat.
She waited eagerly, voiceless.
She perceived his figure between the portières
and heard him say:
“I’m sorry—perhaps I must ask you to forgive
me—I know I've been a fool—I shall go now —”
She glided toward him with a silent, undulating
movement. He felt irresistibly impelled to meet
her. Afterward he recalled how he had struggled
that moment; had fought; had lost. -
He felt her cool, soft arms against his cheeks.
“Don’t go,-Jack,” she whispered.
He raised his hands and seized her wrists as
though to fling her from him.
“Why?” he muttered hoarsely.
“Because,”—her face was hidden against his
shoulder and her voice was faint—“because—l
don't want you to.”
She flung back her head then and he looked


26 Ann Arbor Tales
down into her face, and kissed her. He kissed
her many times, upon the forehead, lips and eyes,
while she clung to him, murmuring fondly.
He wrenched himself from her close embrace, at
last, and rushing into the hallway, snatched his
coat from the chair where she had flung it.
Standing passively where he had left her, Flor-
ence heard the outer door slam, followed by his
swift tread upon the walk and the click as the gate
latched. . . . Then there was silence.
For a long time she stood there, one hand clutch-
ing the back of a quaint, old-fashioned chair. A
shudder passed over her. She went to the window
and looked out, but in the darkness of the street
she could see nothing but the vague outlines of the
houses across the way and a blot where the lilac-
bush was in the yard.
Sinking upon the seat she proceeded to uncoil
her heavy hair, braiding it deftly over her shoulder.
Gathering up her combs from the cushion, she
went into the hallway and pressed the button
regulating the lights. In the white glow she re-
garded her face in the mirror over the fireplace
shelf and smiled back faintly at the reflection.
As she turned to the stairway she perceived a
white card lying on the floor. She picked it up
and turned it over in her hand. It was a little


The Making of a Man 27
photograph of a young, sweet-faced girl and writ-
ten across the margin at the bottom she read—the
writing ordinary—“To Jack, from Susie." She
turned and stared an instant at the vestibule door.
Then she mounted the stairs, slowly.
Her mother's voice from the hallway below
awakened her.
“I’m here, dear,” she called back. “I went to
bed—I was so tired.”
III
There is this to be said of Jack Houston: when-
ever he took liquor—which was often—he took it
like a man. None of the alley-door for him;
through the front door, as sturdy and frank as a
Crusader or not at all—that was his way. Let a
faculty man be coming toward him half a block
distant, there was no hesitation; not a waver. He
—if such were the circumstance—would nod and
pass directly beyond the double swinging screens,
and not give the incident another thought. Nor
were bottles ever delivered to his room in boxes
marked “Candles.” Indeed the outward signs
were that he took pride in the bravado with which
he carried on the business; for there on the boxes
were the stenciled labels—plain enough to be read
distinctly across the street—“Perth Whiskey.” But


28 Ann Arbor Tales
it was not that he had a pride in what certain of his
fellows were wont to call his “independence.” It
was simply that he drank—drank when he chose;
paid for what he drank; and drank it like a man—a
Southern man, honorably. The real trouble was
not that he saw fit and cared to drink, or what he
drank; but that he drank so much.
And he was in love now; reveling in a multitude
of agreeable sensations, which, perhaps, he had
not even dreamed himself destined ever to ex-
perience in such fulness. Analyzing his emotions
he marveled at the condition he discovered. He
set himself apart and regarded the other Jack
Houston critically. He denied his heart's impeach-
ment; the other Jack sneered and called him a fool.
He laughed; the other Jack said, or seemed to say:
“Laugh away; but it's a serious business all the
same.” He flaunted; the other adhered to the
original charge. In the end he stood before that
other Jack and held out his hand, as it were, and
—like a man—confessed. And it devolved upon
him forthwith to celebrate the discovery of a car-
diac ailment he had not experienced before as he
was experiencing it now. So, with barbaric, almost
beautiful, recklessness, he got drunk; thoroughly,
creditably drunk.
The next morning, heavy-headed, thick-tongued,


The Making of a Man 29
he shifted his eyes sheepishly about the room,
while Crowley, from the high ground of his own
invincible virtue, talked down to him roundly. He
did not interrupt the steady flow of maledic-
tion in which his immaculate room-mate seemed
determined to engulf him; but when the lecture
was ended, he looked up, steadily, and said: “Never
mind, old top, it's the last; on the square it is.”
As he had a perfect right to do under the
circumstances, Crowley shrugged his shoulders,
and looked out the window into the green of a
maple.
“All right, old top,” Houston driveled on pathet-
ically—“mebbe I've said it before; but this time I
mean it—see if I don't.” And he reached across
the table for a bottle of bitters. He poured half a
small glass with shaking hands. Over the edge of
the drink he perceived the sneer on Crowley's face.
He set the glass and bottle on the chiffonier care-
fully.
“Confound you! don't you believe me, you
white-ribbon parson!” he cried.
Crowley smiled broadly.
Houston seized the glass. “There!” he ex-
claimed—“Now do you believe me?—Not even a
bracer!” And he flung glass and liquor into the
waste-paper basket.


3o Ann Arbor Tales
Crowley laughed aloud at that, and went down-
stairs, and Houston, as he finished dressing, heard
him talking to the landlady's collie on the front
porch.
For that afternoon—it being Saturday—he had
planned a boating trip, with a picnic supper, down
the river. The care-taker at the boathouse helped
him tote the canoe around the dam, while Flor-
ence, her face shaded by the blue parasol she
carried, stood on the bank by the railway. Her
hamper was stowed away securely, and while the
man held fast to the frail craft, Houston lifted her
fairly from the ground and set her, fluffy and cool,
in the bow where he had arranged the cushions.
To the attendant music of many little cries of half
fright, the canoe, at one sweep of the paddle, shot
into midstream.
The river was unusually high; the spring rains
had been frequent and plentiful, and now the water
ran flush with the green banks on either side. Past
the ivy-hung station they drifted with the current.
Florence sat silent among the cushions watching the
rhythmic, graceful sweep of the paddle, strongly,
evenly manipulated by her flannel-clad gondolier.
It was an occasion for unvoiced enjoyment. On
the left rose the hills—threaded by the winding,
white boulevard—thick with greenery, through


The Making of a Man 31
which now and then were to be caught glimpses of
The Hermitage—poised obliquely on the hillside, a
sheer declivity falling from its broad canopied
piazza. Skirting the bank, the passage of the
canoe wrought havoc among the birds, and they
flew to and fro across the stream, or, hopping nerv-
ously from branch to branch, screamed their dis-
pleasure at the rude invasion of their domestic quiet.
Florence removed her rings, and, dropping her
hand over the low rail, let it trail through the dark-
green water, alive with the shivering reflections of
the bank verdure.
The boat glided beneath the old wooden bridge
at the boulevard beginning, and two small boys.
who were fishing from the weather-stained struc-
ture forgot their lines to watch the passage of the
silent craft. Further on, the current ran more
swiftly and Jack ceased paddling, relaxed, steered
merely.
They talked of many things in the stillness.
Now and then they were moved to outbursts of
sentiment occasioned by the beauty of the hills and
the little surprises of charm that nature, at each
curve of the wandering stream, brought into view.
Overhead, feathery clouds, almost opalescent, floated
in a turquoise sky; and the breeze that was wafted
across the hills kissed cool their faces.


32 Ann Arbor Tales
Florence drew in her dripping hand and dried it
on her handkerchief. The sun was obscured and
she closed the blue parasol. Finally she said:
“Jack—Jack dear—why did you do it?”
She did not lift her eyes as she spoke, but, rather,
regarded the tip of her parasol, pressed against the
toe of one little patent-leather slipper.
“What?” he asked calmly; so calmly that she
could not tell whether he were dissembling igno-
rance of her meaning.
“You understand,” she said—“last night—”
“How do you know P” he exclaimed suddenly;
but before she could reply he added, gently, “I’m
sorry—I'm dead sorry!”
She was moved to lift her eyes by the note of
contrition in his voice. Her lips parted the least
bit over her teeth and she smiled.
“How—how could you, dear P” she went on;
“after—after—that night. I've been thinking about
it all day. I didn't mean to mention it at first—but
—but—I couldn't help it. You don't really like to
do such things; do you, Jack? There, I know you
don't. It's just what they call—spirits—I sup-
pose—”
He laughed aloud, and his laugh was echoed
back across the river. “Yes,” he cried, gleefully
—“that's it—spirits!”


34 Ann Arbor Tales
They had reached the point where they had
planned to spread their picnic supper. He drove
the canoe into the soft earth of the sloping bank
and steadied it with the paddle while she, gathering
up her fluffy skirts, stepped out. He dragged the
boat upon the bank and handed her the hamper.
They climbed up to a shelf of rock over the edge of
which a spring sent whirling to the road below a
glistening rope of water. They set the basket in
the cool shade, at the edge of the shelf, and de-
scending again followed the road along the stream.
The air was filled with the sounds of joyous Nature.
The world was glad and gay; glad for the tall,
strong youth in flannels who strode beside a yel-
low-haired girl; and gay for the girl.
In the evening they waited on “their rock,” as
she called it, until twilight rose and the birds became
quiet and the wild life about was still.
Over the shoulder of the hill across the river the
moon rose, round, high, white, to light a gleaming
path along the stream.
Paddling back, Houston displayed his skill, for
it was no child's work against the current. She
watched him; the strong, even movements of his
arms, as he fairly bent the paddle blade before his
steady strokes. Rounding a bend the lights of the
town twinkled into view.


The Making of a Man 35
“We're nearly home,” he called, and the words
came quick and short from the effort he had made.
“And you're tired,” she murmured.
“No, not tired,” he replied—“I only wish it
were longer —”
“But we can come again—before you go home."
“Florence—I don't want to go, now.” He hesi-
tated a moment. “I might make the governor be-
lieve that the summer school would materially
benefit his son,” he added.
She laughed at the mockery in his voice. “I’m
afraid I should be your only professor,” she said.
“I would hope so,” he replied.
“No, dear,” she said, seriously, “don’t this
summer—next, perhaps.”
“Will you write me then—often ?” he asked.
“How often ?”
“Don't you suppose you could—l sha'n't say
every day—but every other day P”
“Yes.”
And his heart leaped in his breast at the tone she
employed.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Oh, how I love
you!”
“And you will keep your promise P” She smiled
back at him.
“Yes.”


The Making of a Man 37
In another week he was gone.
He came back to her after many weeks and
although she did not ask, he told her he had kept
his promise.
IV
During the winter that followed, Houston's con-
stant attention to Florence was generally accepted
at its face-value. That they were engaged few of
their intimates doubted; and among the faculty
members of their acquaintance there were many
smiles and sidewise glances.
At a Forty Club dance one night Mrs. Longpré, a
chaperon, said to Mrs. Clifford, another, lowering
her lorgnette through which, for some moments
she had stared, rather impertinently, as was her
custom, at Jack and Florence, “I find that couple
quite interesting.”
“Why, pray ?” Mrs. Clifford asked, roused
suddenly from the doze into which she had lapsed,
due to ennui that she made no effort to conceal.
“That Mr. Houston seems a very nice young
man,” observed the worthy dame, patronizingly,
and as though speaking to herself, “but what he
can see in that girl is beyond me.”
Mrs. Clifford squinted. She refused to add to her
generally aged and wrinkled appearance by wear-
ing spectacles.


38 Ann Arbor Tales
“Isn't she a proper person P” she asked.
Mrs. Clifford had a proper daughter—a very
proper daughter—who at that precise moment was
sitting prim and solitary on the lowest step of the
gallery stairs.
“Well,” Mrs. Longpré observed, significantly,
“there have been stories. Of course one is quite
prepared to hear stories and whether they are true
or not one never knows,” she added, defensively.
“But the girl's mother allows her to have her own
way more than I should, if she were my daughter.
She is old enough to be his aunt, besides, and al-
ways has half-a-dozen young men dancing attend-
ance upon her.”
“I suppose it's just another college engagement
that will end when he graduates,” Mrs. Clifford
ventured. “Is the girl in college at all P” she in-
quired with a smothered yawn.
Mrs. Longpré smiled. “Hardly,” she replied,
drily. “If she had continued—for she started I am
told—she would have graduated quite seven years
ago.” There was a tart venom in the last speech.
“You don't say,” mused Mrs. Clifford who
was new to Ann Arbor, her husband, the professor,
having been called from a little Ohio college to fill
the chair of Norwegian Literature. And she imme-
diately lapsed into another doze from which she did
i


The Making of a Man 39
not emerge—being quite stout, and pleasantly stu-
pid—until the orchestra overhead began the last
dance—“Home, Sweet Home.”
Mrs. Longpré's point-of-view as regarded Jack
and Florence was that of nearly all the faculty
women who knew them. Indeed, there was but
one among them, the jolly little wife of the as-
sistant professor of physics—who did not know
much and did not feign more—who championed
them. And her support was little more than a mere
exclamation at the girl's beauty, now and then at a
“reception,” or a wide-eyed admiration, feelingly
expressed, of Houston's charming manners and
exquisitely maintained poise.
If Florence in the slightest measure realized how
she—for what her judges were pleased to call her
latest “affair"—was held by those judges she did
not express her knowledge even by a sign. As for
Houston, he saw precisely how the companionship
was regarded by the small people among whom
decency required him to mingle, and the knowledge
irritated his nerves. -
“The fools!” he exclaimed to Florence one day,
“don’t they think a fellow can really care for a girl
—ever!”
She laughed and told him not to mind, and he
was satisfied.


The Making of a Man 41
fell down straight off the bat. I'd like to win it;
that's sure enough. It would be fine. I like to
work, too; but it's too late now.” He sighed.
“But there,” he exclaimed, turning to her with a
smile, “what's the use of crying over spilt milk?”
She was still serious.
“Don’t be silly,” she reproved. “Why don't
you go on with it now P Can't you, dear P Please.
Oh, how I'd love to see you win it; and you can if
you'll only try!” She clasped her hands eagerly
and leaned in front of him.
“Do you suppose I could P” he asked, with some
show of earnestness.
“Of course you could!” she cried. “Do try,
Jack, dear; please do; for my sake.”
The shade was deep where they were, and he
stopped the horse and they remained there a space.
She planned for him gaily.
“If I could only help you,” she murmured
tenderly.
“You can—by loving me,” he said.
She looked away.
“If I do take up the work to win,” he went on,
“it’ll mean I can't come down so often. How
would you like that P” he asked, playfully.
“I shouldn't care.” Then she added quickly, a
little frightened by the look he gave her. “You


42 Ann Arbor Tales
know, dear, I didn't mean that! I mean I could
stand it—I could stand it for your sake.”
“So we both might be happier in the end.”
At his words she looked away again.
“Yes,” she repeated slowly—“so we both
might be happier in the end. Won't you try P”
she asked eagerly, after the moment's silence that
ensued.
He did not answer her at once. Then suddenly
he flapped the reins upon the horse's back and
touched the sleek animal with the whip.
“Gad! I will!” he exclaimed. And looking at
her he saw a mist in her eyes, and that she had
drawn her lower lip between her teeth, which were
white upon it.
Moved by her emotion he asked, gently:
“Are you glad P”
“Oh, so glad!” she answered, and there was a
tremor in her voice. “I know you'll win,” she
went on after a moment. “I know, at least you'll
make the effort, for you've promised me. You al-
ways keep your promises to me, don't you, Jack P”
He laughed lightly. “I couldn't do otherwise,”
he said. “I couldn’t if I tried.”
He felt her hand upon his arm, and his heart at
that moment filled to overflowing with love for
her.


The Making of a Man 43
“Crowley, you old parson, I'm going to win
that Athens scholarship or bust—or bust; do you
understand!” he exploded, later in the day, before
his room-mate.
Crowley looked up from the three open books on
the table over which he was bent.
“Good for you!” he cried. “Gad; you're more
apt to win it now than I am the Rome—the way
the work is going.”
“You’d better look to your laurels,” was the
bantering reply. “You just note your little John-
nie's smoke. If he doesn't make the rest of the
bunch that's on the same scent look like thirty cents,
a year from next June, he'll go jump off the dock;
and upon you will devolve the cheerful duty of
telegraphing papa!”
And the next day he began.
It was an Herculean task that confronted him and
he realized fully the labor necessary to its accom-
plishment. He dove into the work with an enthu-
siasm that augured well for the achievement of the
end he had in view. He outlined a system; he
drafted a schedule of diversion and recreation,
which he promised himself he would adhere to.
It permitted of meetings with Florence on only two
nights of the week. For a month he did not
swerve a hair's breath from this plan of employ-


44 Ann Arbor Tales
ment, but at the end of that period he sent her
a brief note breaking an engagement to drive
with her on the Sunday following. He beseeched
Crowley to call upon her and explain, which
Crowley did, while Houston, locked in his room,
studied.
During that call Crowley suffered an embarrass-
ment he had never before experienced in Florence's
presence. The John Alden part he had been so
summarily cast to act, he felt did not fit him. As
for Florence, she perceived his discomfort and sur-
mising something of its cause adapted herself to
the situation delicately.
“Do you think he'll win P” she asked eagerly
after Crowley had made the necessary explanations.
“Win!” he exclaimed. “He'll win or go clear
daft, if he keeps on working like he's been doing
the past three weeks. He's getting thinner, too,”
he added—“actually getting thinner; hadn't you
noticed P” And he laughed with her at the thought
of Houston wearing himself to a shadow over books
of archeology. It was very absurd.
Understanding well that Florence had had some
hand in the change of Houston's fortunes, he hesi-
tated upon the point of asking her to tell him all
about it. They had been very candid in the past.
He recalled their walk by the river and the conver-


The Making of a Man 45
sation of that afternoon bearing upon Jack's mis-
deeds. But, for some reason that he could not, for
his dulness, fathom now, he did hesitate. Houston
had never told him what was the precise relation
between him and Florence, and for him now, he
thought, in the event of a secret engagement, per-
haps, to seek to learn from her what that relation
might be — It was too delicate, he concluded,
altogether too delicate.
“I do hope,” she said, “you won't let him get
sick working so hard.”
“Oh, you needn't worry,” he replied, signifi-
cantly, “I don't think there's any immediate
danger.”
After a moment she said, bluntly: “You haven't
any real faith in him, even now, have you, Jim P”
He was a little startled by her question. Had
she, he asked himself, been sitting there reading his
mind as though it were a show bill, printed in large
type P He felt, for the moment, decidedly uncom-
fortable.
“You haven't, have you?” she repeated.
“Why, yes,” he replied, somewhat indefinitely.
“Why yes I have, too.”
She shook her yellow head and smiled. “I’m
afraid not,” she said quietly.
And that instant Crowley came nearer achieving


46 Ann Arbor Tales
a complete understanding of Houston's case than
he was destined to again—until long after. He
was glad to leave the little round room at the end
of half an hour.
For months Jack and Florence had made plans
for the Junior Hop of his third year, but the first of
February came and with it a realization to Florence
that her hopes were destined to be shattered. Jack
explained to her, as best he could, that the three
days' respite from work after the first-semester ex-
aminations could not be that for him.
“I’m up to my eyes, dear,” he said—“besides I
know you don't care much; you've been to a lot,
and as for me I shouldn't care a snap to go over to
the Gym. and dance all night. I'm going through
the exams. great. I know, dear, I've worked hard,
but I must work harder. You understand, don't
you?”
Of course she understood. Hop P What was a
Hop to her P Pouff That for them! The same
always; a great bore, usually, after one has been to
three or four. That was what she said to him, but
deep in her heart she was disappointed; not keenly
perhaps, but disappointed, nevertheless.
Through the last semester she saw him less fre-
quently, even, than she had during the earlier part
of the year.


The Making of a Man 47
“I've decided to stay over for summer-school,
dear,” he said to her one afternoon in mid-June.
She was quite joyful at the prospect.
“We shall go on the river!” she cried. “We
shall, shan't we ?”
“Of course,” he said, earnestly.
But not once did they go. From week to week
the excursion was postponed, always by Houston,
save once. Then Florence's mother was ill. He
was quite prepared on that occasion and suffered
some displeasure.
“Never mind, we'll go in the fall, when you
come back,” Florence said.
In order that he might work during the scant
vacation permitted him he carried to his southern
home, in August, a case of books.
“You'll write me, dear, often—awfully often,
won't you?” he said to Florence the night before
he left.
“Of course,” she assured him.
And she kept her promise though his letters were
infrequent and brief during the interval.
He met her in the little round room the first night
he was back. He had carried away with him an
impression of her in a soft, fluffy blue gown, but
now it was autumn, and she was dressed differ-
ently. When she came into the room, his senses


48 Ann Arbor Tales
suffered a shock from which he did not immedi-
ately recover.
She seemed much older. He wondered if it
might not be her costume. He could not recall
ever before having seen her in gray. He caught
himself, once or twice, regarding her curiously,
somewhat critically, and marveled at the phenom-
enon.
She did not chide him for his neglect in not hav-
ing written her oftener during the two months he
had been away. He offered no excuses. It was
as though, now, each had forgotten in the other's
nearness. Leaving her, he felt that, on the whole,
he had got through the evening rather miserably.
The weeks sped on fleet wings. He was deep
in his work. He perceived that what, a year be-
fore, had appeared but a remote chance of winning
the coveted scholarship had now resolved itself into
a certain possibility; even more, he considered, with
a sense of pride—a probability.
The campus saw little of him, the town scarcely
a glimpse, save occasionally of a Saturday evening
when he walked to the post-office for his mail.
On such evenings he usually stopped at Florence's
home on his way to his rooms. The conversation
between them at these times was confined almost
wholly to his work. All his efforts were concen-


5o Ann Arbor Tales
Spring came. His winning was now a certainty.
The U. of M. Daily accepted his success as assured
and dismissed the matter at once with all the cock-
sureness of collegiate journalism. Now, the hard
work done, he could loaf.
Loaf |
The prospect appalled him. Loaf P He had for-
gotten how! But Florence should teach him all
over again, he mused, and smiled.
He went to his dressing-table and picked up her
portrait given him two years before. Across the
margin at the bottom he read:—“To Jack, from
Florence.”
After a moment he put the photograph down and
searched among the others that littered the table.
A little look of puzzlement came into his eyes.
He turned to the front window and gazed out
across the maples, their leaves silvered by the moon-
light. He stood there some moments watching the
face of the night. Then he turned back to his
books, doggedly.
“What's the use P” he muttered, sinking into
the chair before his study table.
V
He realized fully the significance of the extreme
to which his course had brought him. If he might


The Making of a Man 51
only talk to Crowley; if he might only tell him
everything, how like a cad he felt, what a cad he
believed himself to be, he must sense a deep re-
lief. But would Crowley understand; could he
understand P.
He smiled at the thought the question prompted.
Poor old Crowley—Meister Dryasdust—he under-
stand a situation so delicate—so exquisitely deli-
cate P It was absurd. Houston laughed aloud; but
the laughter died at once and was like ashes on his
lips.
He had not deceived Florence; not wilfully;
though perhaps in the end it was as though he had.
But now the thought that he had not consoled him.
Still she had his promise. He had hers as well, to
be sure, and in his present state of mind he only
wished that she might be as willing as he to forget
—he could not think, forgive. At the conjecture
his pride suffered a shock. Still, if it were only
true—if there were even a remote possibility of
truth in the circumstance he imagined—that she
might have undergone a change; that she might
have awakened; that she might have—drifted
away. He was coldly analytical enough now, to
turn back a year and hear himself, as he was then,
being told by her that she had erred, had made a
dreadful faux pas of the whole business.


52 Ann Arbor Tales
A grim smile curved his lips as the situation pre-
sented itself more clearly to his mind. He snapped
away his cigarette impatiently.
Leaving his room an hour before he had felt cool-
headed enough, but now he experienced a growing
nervousness with each step he took. It was just
such a day as the one on which they had canoed
down the river and the promises had been ex-
changed. Would it not be well, perhaps, he con-
sidered, to propose another little voyage, and, per-
haps, on the very shelf of rock where they had
spread their luncheon—a dainty luncheon it was,
he remembered—tell her ? He put the thought
away at once as absurdly theatrical.
No, there was but one thing to do—to go to her,
to go to her now, and, like a man, tell her. It
would be over with in half an hour—no longer,
surely, he thought—and then—how good the air
would taste, how blue the sky would seem.
He had not noticed where his steps were leading
him, but now that a determination to act in the
course left open to him had formed, set, and hard-
ened in his mind, he lifted his eyes and looked
about him.
He was approaching a corner. It was a very fa-
miliar corner. There on the left, ridiculously close
to the sidewalk, was the brown house from the


The Making of a Man 53
lilac bush in the scant front yard of which he and
Florence had often, of an evening, stolen arm-
fuls of the fragrant blossoms. A street car dragged
along, its one flat wheel thumping, thumping,
thumping, with a deadly sort of iteration. Stand-
ing there, he lighted another cigarette. When
would he be here again, he mused. Perhaps in
five years he might come back to a class reunion.
Five years would bring many changes, many con-
fusing changes. The lilac bush, for instance, might
not be there in the front yard of the brown house.
He recalled the changes the four years he had lived in
Ann Arbor had brought to the vicinity of his fresh-
man rooming-house. Come to think of it, he
could not even now, familiar as he was with the
town, remember whether that house stood in
Ingalls or Thayer Streets. He could find the place,
certainly; that is, he might locate it after a bit,
but —
“Houston, you're a fool!”
He upbraided himself aloud, unconsciously.
Then, flinging away his half-burned cigarette, he
turned the corner and walked briskly down the
Street.
The maid admitted him and he waited in the little
round room. The shades were low and the place
was filled with shadows, shadows that made the


54 Ann Arbor Tales
close walls seem very far apart, and the teak wood
bookcase quite remote. To satisfy himself of the
illusion Houston thrust one foot forward until it
touched the lowest shelf. He settled back among
the cushions on the circular seat, then, quite sat-
isfied.
He heard the soft, cool swish of skirts on the
stairs and the next instant the portières parted and
framed Florence. In passing she had opened the
outer door and the light, streaming about her, as
for an instant she stood there, filled the little room
with a soft, white glow that seemed to radiate from
her. He did not move; gazed at her simply be-
fore she glided silently to where he sat, and stoop-
ing, kissed him.
She held her cheek close to his an instant then
drew away, and moving to the window raised
one of the shades. Her face was turned from
him.
“Jove!” he muttered, “but you're beautiful,
Florence—in that—in that blue thing.”
She turned, at his exclamation, and a little pale
ghost of a smile hovered about her lips. She came
to him and sat beside him and took one of his
hands in both hers.
“Jack, what is it?” she asked, quietly.
Their eyes met as she spoke, and before his


The Making of a Man 55
could fall, she said: “Tell me, tell me what it
is—"
It seemed to him, that instant, that he ceased to
breathe.
He fairly wrenched his eyes from hers. “Flo"
—it was not often of late that he called her by this
name of his own invention—“Flo, I—I —”
“Tell me,” she whispered, leaning toward him.
“Flo, it's all off.”
He got up quickly and strode out into the hall-
way, and back again.
He stood beside the bookcase and looked at her,
across the room, where she sat between the win-
dows, the little smile, only, perhaps fainter now,
still hovering about her lips.
“I understand, dear,” she said simply.
The relief her words carried to him filled him
with as keen and as complete a joy as he had ever
felt.
“I knew you would,” he said; “I knew you
would—you're so sensible about things.”
The smile flickered an instant brighter as she
replied, with a little pout, “Oh, Jack, never call a
girl ‘sensible': it's as bad as calling her ‘nice,' and
that's like throwing a stone at her.”
He laughed, a little stridently.
“Come here, dear; sit here and tell me all about


56 Ann Arbor Tales
it.” She made room for him beside her and
held the cushions against the wall till he sank
among them.
“Is it your father, dear; did you tell him 2" she
asked quietly.
“No, it isn't,” he blurted, frankly. “I wish to
Heaven it were.”
“So it's you; just yourself; oh, Jack!”
How grateful he was for that little note of gay
mockery in her voice she never knew.
“Can't you tell me all about it P”
He did not answer at once.
“Then shall I tell you ?” she said. He glanced
at her appealingly, but she was still smiling.
“Well—let's see,_where does it begin P Oh,
yes. There was once a boy came to college, and
he fell in with other boys and had the best sort of
time till he met an ogre—no, I mean an ogress—and
after that he didn't have a good time at all —”
He was smiling now, with her.
“— And in some foolish way he began to think
he liked the ogress—whom he shouldn't have liked
—and she, well, she liked him too, and they be-
came pals—regular pals—and one day he told her he
loved her. He thought he did. He didn't really;
but he was to learn that afterward. So they be-
came engaged—this fine fellow and the ogress.


The Making of a Man 57
Silly, wasn't it? Silly of the fine fellow and silly
of the ogress. And for a little while—no,”—she
mused—“not a little while; quite a long while,
they were happy; very, very happy. And all the
time they were drifting closer and closer to the
edge of a precipice over which they were sure
to take a tumble one day. But before that day
came the fine fellow woke up, for, you see, he'd
only been dreaming all the time. And the ogress
wasn't an ogress at all, but just a girl—a sensible
girl. º -
He glanced at her reprovingly.
4 - just a sensible girl,” she went on,
“who, when he told her it was all a dream, said it
had been a happy, happy dream, but that perhaps
the awakening had come just in time. Perhaps it
has, Jack,” there was a note of seriousness in her
voice now. “Perhaps it has; who knows? We
shall think so anyway; shan't we? It will make it
easier. y -
“Yes, it will make it easier,” he muttered, all the
light gone out of his eyes, the smile from his lips.
“Jack; you will tell me one thing, won't you,
dear?”
He looked up into her face wonderingly.
“What is it?” he said.
“Was there another—another besides the ogress


58 Ann Arbor Tales
who turned out to be the sensible girl? Tell me,
Jack; it's all I want to know. I don't know why I
should want to know even that; but I do. I guess
a girl always does. Perhaps it's because it usually
tends either to light-up things or to make her still
more miserable. I don't know which; only it's at
such times that a girl wants either light or more
misery. One seems to do as well as the other.
Tell me—was there, Jack?”
He met her eyes frankly, as he spoke.
“Why Flo—I—you see—” He looked away.
She settled back among the cushions.
“Flo, you wouldn't understand,” he managed to
say. “You see, it's —”
“But I know now,” she exclaimed—“and some-
how it makes me feel better — ”
“Flo!”
She perceived the reproof in his tone and added
eagerly: “Don't think I meant to mock you, dear;
I didn't truly. I meant just what I said—and just
that way. py
Presently he stood up before her and looked down
into her face.
“Flo,”—he spoke earnestly, almost passionately
—“Flo, you're a girl in a million!”
“There!” she cried gaily, “that's better than
“Sensible.’”


The Making of a Man 59
He smiled.
“In a million,” he repeated as though to himself.
“I can never, never forget you—”
“Oh, Jack!” Again the old note of playful
raillery crept into her voice. “Now you've gone
back. Of course you can't forget me; at least you
mustn't, really you mustn't; it wouldn't be fair.”
He took up his hat from the little table.
“Are you going?” she asked.
“I'd better,” he said, simply.
“And shan't I see you again?
Before he could reply she cried: “But I can see
you graduate! I can see you get the Athens scholar-
ship; and I shall too. And oh, Jack, when I read
some day about you I shall be so glad—so glad I'll
cry!” As she spoke he saw the thin mist that he
remembered seeing once before, gather over her
eyes again. He touched her lightly on the cheeks
with the tips of his fingers, and, stooping kissed her
forehead.
“Good-bye,” he said.
She took his hand and pressed it.
“Good-bye—and the best luck in the world!”
she cried.
She heard the door close behind him. For a long
time she did not move from among the cushions.
Finally she rose. From the top shelf of the teak
* *


THE KIDNAPPING





The Kidnapping
I
THE glimpse to be caught of the outer world
through the wide west entrance of the main
building, as a scurrying undergraduate, now and
then, leaned sidewise against the heavy door and
pushed it back, was not cheering. There was
snow upon the ground; snow that lay not white
and glistening in a strong light, but smudged and
indelicate beneath the low hanging smoke. At
either side of the broad, rounded tar walk, now
covered with ashen gray ice, Paddy's plow had
piled the snow in two rows. The maples were
gaunt, skeleton-like, and the wind that cried in
their branches was chill to the ear and to the
cheek.
When the thick door was flung back to permit
the passage of a youth becomingly dressed for the
season in loose trousers that, not infrequently, were
rolled into high russet lace boots; closely buttoned
coat, above the throat of which rose the blue tower
of a sweater collar; or to allow the entrance of a
63


64 Ann Arbor Tales
girl in tam-o'-shanter and furs, her few books
hugged close to her breast, the various notices and
handbills on the bulletin board at the left of the
corridor fluttered, often to be torn from the clips
and sent soaring down the hall.
On the square marble-topped radiator in the
middle of the floor opposite the door of the presi-
dent's office sat Kerwin. Another youth was
slouching beside him.
Kerwin knocked his heavy heels against the pipes
of the heater and looked down at his loafing
acquaintance with eyes that twinkled unceasingly.
Kerwin was not beautiful. He was round of face
—all but his jaw; that was square. His hair was
red and grew in divers “cow licks” that rendered
brushing futile. On the backs of his hands, despite
the season, were large, circular freckles. The frat.
pin he wore on the breast of his blue sweater sug-
gested certain of his characteristics with singular
precision. It was a kite-shaped affair, bordered
with tiny pearls and emeralds, alternating, and the
Greek letters across the middle were Delta Psi Phi.
Not by the Greek, however, were the owner's
characteristics indicated—unless, of course, to Ker-
win himself—but by the symbols of the order the
insignia of which it was and which consisted of
a weird, staring, human eye—the “white" enamel,


The Kidnapping 65
and the “pupil" emerald—, a flat lamp of the sort
they are making in Germany and digging up in
Pompeii, and a round, moon-face.
The little freshman at the radiator had been eyeing
the pin curiously for some minutes.
“Say,” he said finally, and Kerwin looked down.
“What P”
“Tell me the meaning of that eye.”
The twinkle grew in Kerwin's own.
“That!” he exclaimed, burying his chin in the
huge collar of the sweater and pulling out the
garment like the cuticle of the elastic-skinned boy,
the better to examine the badge. “Oh, that is the
all-seeing eye of the frat. It means that the fellow
who wears our pin—it means that I am next, that
I'm on—up to the game; that no hot air goes with
me. See?”
His eyes met the little independent freshman's
squarely and soberly.
“Oh, does it,” the latter replied with interest.
“Then what does that thing mean P” With a
chubby forefinger he indicated the lamp.
“Now, that's different,” Kerwin continued, none
the less grave. “That is symbolic of brilliancy.
It indicates brilliancy of the highest order. Yes,
siree; a chap's got to be mighty brilliant to wear
that!”


66 Ann Arbor Tales
Again their eyes met and the little independent's
were alight with interest still.
“And that P " It was the moon-face at the
bottom of the pin that next came in for an ex-
planation. The little fellow grinned back at it
feelingly.
“Ah, that's the best of all,” Kerwin exclaimed.
It was quite as though he were telling a pretty fairy
story to a child. “That denotes geniality, joviality,
and—there's another ‘ality' in the list, but I've for-
gotten it for the moment. You understand, though,
don't you?”
“Oh, yes, I understand.”
And then—this is hard to believe—what did that
little freshman do but ask:
“Say, what do you think my chances are of ever
wearing a pin like that ?”
Kerwin almost fell off the radiator. He had
heard of freshmen as fresh as this one, but at the
stories of such he had always smiled, regarding
them as pleasant fictions. Recovering, he realized
that his duty was to disillusion the youth who
awaited his reply, with a look of anxiety in his clear
eyes. So —
“Very slim,” he replied, brutally, sliding off his
marble perch. “Very slim indeed! You see,” he
added, buttoning his coat and measuring with his


68 Ann Arbor Tales
waged a valiant fight. Campus legend told them
that for many years their class ancestors had seen
victory wrested from them, once almost at the mo-
ment of victory, so in caucus they decided that they
had “stood it long enough.”
“Winning or not,” an enthusiastic speaker cried
on that occasion, “we’ll show 'em a few things.”
And show them a few things they did, but the
things didn't count, in the wholly unexpected inci-
dent that occurred, of a sudden, to cast them into
confusion, panic, chaos.
Norse was their “man.” After the first ballot
all was rosy for a little minute and then what did
Norse do but rise in his seat, and with a calm-
ness that was appalling withdraw in Kerwin's
favor! It was a proceeding entirely unprecedented.
The jaws of the fraternity men dropped. As for
the independents they merely gazed at one another,
blinking, their cheeks colorless.
In the silence some one with a grain of reason
left in working order moved that Kerwin's election
be made unanimous. The independents forgot to
vote. There was not a solitary “nay.” It was the
succeeding cheer that aroused the independents
finally. They hissed; they wrangled; and a girl
was seen quickly to draw away from a group near
which she was standing, for a youth with eye-


The Kidnapping 69
glasses and long hair had used a few words that
were hardly delicate.
As Kerwin was rushed down the room to the
rostrum he heard some one ask, with cutting sar-
casm, “Is Norse looking for a bid from your
frat.P.”
Kerwin took no note of the irony, replying, “He
ought to have one.” As he stepped behind the
chairman's table he turned suddenly, and brought
his fist down hard, exclaiming: “By Jovel I see
now how it was!”
“How P” a henchman at his elbow asked,
eagerly.
“Why, I helped out Norse in the entrance exam.
in geometry. Never occurred to me till this
minute. He sat next me; told me in the hall
geom. was what he was afraid of. I didn't pass
him a pony but I gave him a couple of cues. I
guess this is his way of repaying me. Wait a
second.” He broke through the crescent that had
formed in front of the table.
Deserted by all his former champions who, with
sneers and dire threats flung in his direction had
left, Norse still sat by a window at the back, bent
over a copy of that day's issue of the U. of M.
Daily. Kerwin went to him and held out his hand,
which the other took, grinning. They talked in


The Kidnapping 71
or you'll show up at the banquet with no hair or an
iodine-face, if you even show up at all—"
“Don't you believe it!” Kerwin exclaimed, with
rare bravado. “Norse said he'd help me if they get
funny. He's a husky guy; did you get a good look
at him, fellows P I'm not worrying about the inde-
pendents any; it's the sophomores I'm going to
keep my eyes on. I inferred from what Norse said,
there's something in the air. If he finds out what
it is he'll put me next. We can depend on him,
fellows. He's a regular crackerjack!”
“Well, don't be too sure of yourself,” was the
significant warning that caused Kerwin to exclaim:
“Rot! Let 'em come—let 'em all come! Don't
you fellows lie awake nights worrying about little
Willie. He's old enough to sit up and take notice.”
And the crescent in front of the table broke.
It was gratitude simply that prompted Kerwin to
take Norse to Ypsilanti one evening during the
week following and make him known to a Miss
Myrtle Green of the normal school. It was obvious
to Kerwin that Norse's ignorance of girls was not
due to any disinclination on his part to abolish that
state. Indeed he seemed to hunger for knowledge
on the subject. As for Miss Green she seemed
quite willing to instruct him. He became a regu-
lar caller. The other girls learned to speak of him


72 Ann Arbor Tales
as “Myrtle's steady.” And Myrtle seemed agreea-
ble that he should continue just that.
II
February promised to go out like a thousand lions.
Toward noon on the twenty-fourth it began to
snow, listlessly, at first, but more thickly as night-
fall approached. The next morning the townsfolk
awoke to find their homes half buried in a white,
downy mass as thick as the height of the fences.
It was a morning of fine sport. Old men and
young turned out with a will to clean the walks
of the city. It was hard work for strong hands
manipulating broad wooden shovels, for so deep
was the snow that after a few feeble attempts
Paddy, the plowman, was forced to give in and
urge his plunging horse back to the stable. His
plow was useless.
The oldest resident experienced such pleasure as
had not been his for many years. He reveled in
vague recollections of the winter of 1830 when
the snow—according to him—had fallen “a mite
deeper,” and the farmers, living along the main
highways, had been compelled to combine their
genius and their strength in digging tunnels to the
market!
That day and the following were clear and crisp.


The Kidnapping 73
Every one wore green spectacles. Cases of snow-
blindness were numerous; and then, toward even-
ing on the twenty-sixth, the mercury, which for
thirty-six hours had hovered near the zero-point,
began slowly to rise. At midnight a weak, half-
hearted rain set in. The next noon, with that
mischievousness in which the elements of our zone
not infrequently indulge, a strong piercing wind,
straight from the north, swept down the state. At
seven o'clock that night the common thermometers
registered five degrees below zero and a shimmer-
ing crust of ice an inch thick lay upon the land.
Across the fields and over the fences the farmers
drove, in heavy bob-sleds, into town. In the south-
west corner of the state a new sect was born whose
leaders proclaimed the dawn of the Age of Ice and
beseeched the people to look to their souls, before
the final congealment of all things.
In town a season of gaiety ensued. Numbers of
art students proceeded to the open spots upon the
campus, and, with hatchets, cut out of the crust
gigantic caricatures of well-known instructors.
With the zeal and yo-heave-ho of lumber-jacks they
raised the figures upright supporting them with
props, and the campus became, as if by magic,
adorned with profile statues of professors!
General as was the interest in the unique enter-


74 Ann Arbor Tales
tainment a kind nature had provided, there were
certain sophomores who, shunning the spectacle
afforded by the decorated campus, sought the
seclusion of a certain back-room down-town where
they evolved a plan of hazing that promised to be
entirely overlooked in the interest otherwise oc-
casioned.
Thus far Kerwin had not been molested and had
begun to think that at least one banquet was to
pass without a recurrence of those adventures
which for years had made it notable among the
events of the college year.
“There's too much else to interest them,” he
said to Norse, one morning in the State Street Bill-
iard Hall. “If they were up to any stunts we'd
have heard before this, with the banquet coming off
day after to-morrow. It's all easy sailing, thanks
to the ice.”
Norse, however, was not so certain. “You can't
tell,” he said, with a significant wag of his head.
“Maybe this keeping-still now means action at the
last minute. What do your own freshmen say P"
“There's not one in the frat. who thinks they'll
attempt anything,” Kerwin replied. “And as for
the sophomores, they say there's too much going on
for them to waste time fooling with a dinky fresh-
man toastmaster."


The Kidnapping 75
Norse's doubts were not, however, to be so easily
dispelled. “You’d better keep an eye out,” he
advised. “I’ll help you all I can. If I get next to
anything I'll let you know.”
But neither that day nor the day after did he hear
a word that sounded in the least suspicious, but on
Friday he did; and thus wise:
At noon he met Kerwin again in the billiard
hall.
The toastmaster drew him to one side. “I’m
fixed,” he whispered with a grin of satisfaction.
“How P” Norse asked.
“Got my dress suit hid.”
“Where, in the furnace P"
“No; better'n that. You know that built-in
closet in my room P Yes. Well, the top of it is
lower than it seems to be from the front, and I've
put my suit, and dress-shirt, and all, up there. Such
a simple way of hiding the stuff they'll never think
of, if they get into the room while I'm away.”
“Anybody know about it?”
“Not a soul but you.”
“Good. It does look as if they were going to
let you alone, but you can't be too careful the rest
of the day. What are you going to do this after-
noon P”
Kerwin was going to do many things; he was


76 Ann Arbor Tales
going to be busier than a puppy with a bone, he
“You see,” he explained, “I want the affair to
go off as smooth as oil; and, by Jove, it's going to,
if I've got anything to say about it. What were
you going to do?”
Norse had planned to go skating.
“Go on," Kerwin urged, then perceiving that his
friend hesitated, he added, slapping him sturdily on
the back, “Don’t you have any fear for me. Go on.
I wish I might go but I simply can't; and that's
21, there is to it.”
“If you think it's safe, all right,” Norse said.
“Safe!" Kerwin exclaimed, flauntingly. “Of
course it's safe. Go on!”
So Norse went.
It was half-past five, and quite dark, when he
clambered over the high iron fence at the Michigan
Central station, and started to climb the slippery
State Street hill. The chimes, ringing out from
the library tower in the crisp air, were clear and
genuinely musical. For four hours he had skated
over the flats above the pulp-mill. He noted
mentally, now, that he would telephone Myrtle in
the morning and have her come over for the after-
noon. Skating alone is all very well for exercise,
but not much in the way of pleasure, he considered.


The Kidnapping 77
His skates, dangling from a strap over his shoulder,
clinked, musically, as he picked his way with ex-
ceeding caution along the icy pavement. A moon
was due in an hour and the street-lamps were un-
lighted. When he reached the top of the hill and
saw ahead of him the street flooded with the
golden glow of the store illuminations, he suddenly
recalled the box of flash-light powder that he had,
till now, forgotten. Myrtle had expressed a desire
for a picture of her room to send “back home,”
and he had promised to take one. He would, he
thought, secure a box at once and have done with
it. He recalled having read in one of Heenan's
U. of M. Daily advertisements that a full line of
photographers' supplies was carried. He noticed
several cameras and plate-holders in the window as
he entered the store. It was the supper hour and
the single salesman was busy with a customer at
the rear. She was examining the stock of tissue
paper. Innumerable rolls lay before her on the
table. Taking advantage of her indecision, the
salesman served Norse, then returned to the girl who
couldn't quite make up her mind whether she de-
sired her lamp-shade to be pink or pale blue.
On a table in front of the fireplace, across the
store, stood several tall piles of a new and exceed-
ingly popular magazine. Norse lingered a moment


78 Ann Arbor Tales
to read the announcement poster. Thus engaged
there fell upon his ear the sound of voices. Uncon-
sciously listening he made out a word now and then
of what seemed an earnest conversation carried on
in undertone. And then he heard mentioned a
name that caused him to start and cast a quick
glance to the rear of the store where the salesman
was still busy with the girl who could not make
up her mind. The speakers whom he could not
see were on the other side of the piles of maga-
zines, in front of the fireplace. Norse craned for-
ward, eagerly. He heard a throat cleared, and then
these words, quite distinctly:
“At seven o'clock, eh? Ain't it funny he's not
to be at his frat. house P”
“No; not under the circumstances,” was the in-
definite reply. “He doesn't suspect anything.”
Norse grinned with sardonic delight.
“Don’t you think it's a bloomin' long way to
take him, Billy P”
“Oh, I don't know,” was the reply. “It ain't
over three miles.”
Every muscle in Norse's body was tense, every
nerve on edge.
“I know,” he heard, “but it's so blasted cold.
We don't want him to freeze on Our hands.”
“He won't. Morton lugged an oil stove out there


The Kidnapping 79
yesterday. We can get some blankets at the
livery.”
Norse felt all hot, yet he shivered.
“Say.”
He held his breath.
“What P "
He gripped the edge of the table.
“Do you think the place is really haunted P."
Could Norse, that instant, have given way to the
rare delight that overcame him, he would have
flung his skates through the great plate-glass win-
dow of the store in a very riot of joy. His eyes
became all alight. He drew away noiselessly.
As he slipped out of the store he was observed
neither by the interested clerk nor by the two stocky
young men to whose conversation he had listened
with such rapt attention, and who, that instant,
stepped from behind the counter into the aisle.
Before they reached the door he was speeding up
State Street, past Tut's, past the Congregational
Church, past the First Ward School, past Newberry
Hall, thoughtless of the icy pavement, and, appar-
ently, of the fact that a slip might mean the failure
of the plan he outlined as he ran.
III
Kerwin's fraternity house stood on a prominent


8o Ann Arbor Tales
corner three blocks above the book-store. Norse
rushed up the steps and inside without stopping to
take breath. There was no one in the smoking-
room; that is to say, no one but a high school
pledgling, who sat in front of the fire, reading, and
pledglings don't count.
“Is Kerwin here P” Norse gasped, leaning heav-
ily against the door.
The youth at the fire turned, nonchalantly, and
removing a cigarette from between his lips, as
calmly as though panting freshmen with obviously
loaded minds were but ordinary phenomena, re-
plied:
“No. Saw him going out just as I came in.
Said he wouldn't be back to dinner.”
“Where did he go?”
“No idea.” The pledgling flecked the ash from
his cigarette.
“Well, I'm going up to his room a minute,” Norse
cried, turning back into the hallway.
“Told you he isn't there!” the infant called after
him; but Norse did not seem to hear.
He knew the location of Kerwin's room from
previous visits. Now he found it deserted. He
perceived all the appointments with one sweep of
his eyes—the signs, the tennis-net draped between
the front windows and sagging with photographs,


The Kidnapping 81
the huge Japanese umbrella dependent from the
ceiling with many little favors and a multitude of
dance cards dangling from the rim, the black-oak
study-table, the swivel chair in front of it, the
Comedy Club poster on the door, and the closet
that projected rudely into the room.
A hand-bag lay on the floor in a corner. Norse
did not pause to reflect, as, being the leading man
in a stirring melodrama, he should have done. He
acted without reflection, mechanically almost; but
when he started back down the stairs, which he
took in three leaps, he carried the hand-bag, stuffed,
now, and fat.
“What you got there P" the pledgling called as
the figure passed the smoking-room.
Norse did not waste breath replying.
The library clock was striking six as he issued
into the street. He had the work of an hour to ac-
complish in twenty-five minutes. Some freshmen,
under the circumstances, would have gritted their
teeth and cursed. Norse only gritted his teeth, for
he was of another sort. Up South University
Avenue to Washtenaw he ran. There, on the
northwest corner, was a huge stone, set, doubtless,
to prevent delivery boys from running their wagons
over the curbing. The wind had blown the snow
clear of this stone and Norse sank upon it, half


82 Ann Arbor Tales
exhausted. He proceeded to fix his skates to the
soles of his heavy shoes without waiting to regain
his breath. He stood up to test the clamps. They
gripped viciously. Ahead lay the road, gleaming
in the pale light. Norse smiled. Through the
handles of the satchel he passed the skate strap and
thrust his head through the loop, that the bag might
swing against his back. He dug the point of one
skate into the gritty crust, struck out with long,
even strokes, and began a swift ascent of the Scott
Hill on the Middle Road to Ypsilanti.
IV
Fifteen years ago there were four distinct and
widely separated haunted houses in the vicinity of
Ann Arbor. One, in West Huron Street, was for
years pointed out to naughty children as the home
of the original bogey man. On an occasion,-so
the story goes—three seniors resolved to spend a
night in the ticklish place for the purpose of de-
termining scientifically the causes of the strange
knockings and human groans that previous tenants
had complained of. The results of their investiga-
tions were never known. The seniors were never
seen again!
That is the tale. The circulation of it tended to
make their abiding-place secure to the spirits for


The Kidnapping 83
many years. But at last an owner braver than
those before him, and fortified by innumerable ex-
pressions of contempt in which a picturesque and
virile profanity played a leading part, proceeded
without more ado to raze the ancient structure to
the ground.
His action gave rise to a second story. It became
generally understood that the spirits, their own
home gone, joined forces with the ghostly occu-
pants of the second haunted house in nightly carry-
ings-on. Then this house was rent asunder.
Thus it went until the time of this story when
there remained but one authentic haunted house in
town. Its location added to the mystery supposed
to surround it. It capped a bleak hill on the left of
the so-called “Middle Road” to Ypsilanti. Behind
it loomed a dense wood and to the right and left
stretched dreary fields, deserted save by the gophers
and chipmunks whose superstition seemed not to
warrant their leaving the premises after establishing
or disestablishing the presence of ghostly occupants
in the bleak house on the hill.
The place was consistently pointed out to stran-
gers as the midnight carnival-ground of the devil
and his imps, and it was further gravely averred
that horses shied in passing after nightfall.
Such was the weird spot to which Norse, inde-


84 Ann Arbor Tales
pendent freshman, skated, one freezing night, on
the crust of that famous winter, to save a friend
from the hands of the enemy.
At the bottom of the hill he stopped to recon-
noitre. The blue-black of the heavens seemed
strangely less dense above the house. Now and
then a weird shimmer passed back and forth
across the ragged wall. No light shone anywhere.
Several of the windows gaped black, like open
mouths, waiting to devour. Others were boarded.
Up the path from the gate the door careened on one
rotting hinge. In the summer this path was a
shallow of tangled weeds, but now the crust lay
level across it.
Norse advanced stealthily to the open door.
The silence was thick. He removed his skates
and tiptoed within. A breath of wind whistled
through the warped clap-boards and the old house
sighed. Tumbling stairs led to the floor above.
Stooping, and feeling the steps ahead of him, he
ascended.
At the top of the flight he struck a match, shield-
ing the flame with his curved palm. In the faint
illumination he perceived the second story to con-
sist of two connecting rooms of unequal size with
the larger at the front. Against the rear wall of the
back room stood an old bin, at one time probably


The Kidnapping 85
used for storing grain. In the corner of the front
room was an oil stove; near it, a can. Lighting
another match Norse deposited the satchel and his
skates in the bin and tested the cover. The hinges
did not creak and seemed firm. He looked at his
watch. It was half-past seven.
He went into the front room and crouching,
peered through a crack between the boards of the
window. As far as he could see in either direc-
tion the road was deserted. A pale moon was
rising behind black clouds.
In all probability Kerwin would be accompanied
by two—possibly three—kidnappers. He would
be bound, of course, and, more than likely, gagged.
His guard would observe the greatest care. He
would not be misused.
Norse ceased procrastinating. He realized that in
one hour the representative freshmen would be
gathering around the banquet board, spread in
Nickels Hall on State Street, away back in town.
Undetermined as to the means of accomplishment
he was none the less conscious of the work that lay
before him. It rested with him—with him, alone
—to produce the toastmaster at the banquet, if not
at its beginning, in time, at least, to announce the
first toast.
He heard a slight scraping noise outside and


86 Ann Arbor Tales
crouching peered through the crack again. That
instant the thin moon mounted the bank of clouds
and cast a ghostly light upon the scene.
A hack on runners had drawn up at the gate.
The door was opened from within and two men
alighted. One of them stood at the step while the
other held a whispered conversation with the
driver; then, with his companion, he helped a third
man out of the carriage. The hack drew away at
once, turned and started back in the direction of
to Wn.
The young man at the window could not dis-
tinguish the features of the two men supporting a
third between them who seemed to be hobbled, for
the brims of their hats were pulled low over their
faces. Save for the slight crunch as the trio ad-
vanced toward the house there was no sound.
Norse tiptoed back into the smaller room. He held
out his arms and his fingers touched the corner of
the grain-bin. He heard footsteps that advanced,
then stopped, on the floor below. He heard the
crack of a match as it was struck. He lifted the
cover of the bin carefully, threw one leg over the
edge, felt the floor under his foot, drew the other
leg after him, and sank, lowering the lid as he did
so, like a trap-door.
The bin was sufficiently large to permit of sitting


The Kidnapping 87
with a certain degree of comfort. With his fingers
he detected several cracks in the front wall. By
twisting he could bring his eyes to the level of
them. Groping he touched the hand-bag with his
right hand and drew it nearer. The next moment
he heard the stairs creak. He held his breath as
the trio entered the room in front. One of them
carried a dark lantern and in the pale illumination it
afforded, Norse recognized Kerwin's captors and
smiled.
Kerwin was blindfolded. The gag he wore was
a tightly twisted handkerchief drawn taut through
his mouth and tied behind. His hands were tied
at his back. The taller of the kidnappers carried
two horse blankets over his arm, one of which
he flung upon the floor beside the oil stove. His
companion set the lantern in the corner and stoop-
ing in front of the stove proceeded to light it.
Kerwin stood in the middle of the floor. The man
who had spread the blanket came around in front
of him and placing a hand on either shoulder pushed
him back. Bumping him into the wall he bore
down upon him growling in a voice obviously as-
sumed and grossly piratical: “Sit there!”
Kerwin slumped upon the blanket. The stove
lighted, the kidnappers squatted in front of it and
one of them produced a pipe and pouch of tobacco.


88 Ann Arbor Tales
Striking a match he said: “Well, how d'ye like
the banquet P”
Kerwin shook his head.
“Let's take out that gag; he dassent yell,” pro-
posed the second outlaw.
“Aw right. --
They untied the handkerchief. Kerwin had worn
it so long it was difficult at first for him to get his
mouth back into its normal shape. For an instant
his face resembled that of a gargoyle.
“Cold P” he was asked.
“A little,” he replied. There was an utter ab-
sence of rancor in his tone.
The bandit nearest him drew the second blanket
over his legs.
“Say, won't you fellows tie my hands in front of
me. . . . I'm sittin' on 'em and they feel as
though they were dead. --
“Sure we will, turn over."
He offered no resistance.
“You sure you ain't cold P. . . . We don't
want you to catch cold.”
." No, I'm not cold,” the captive replied.
Silence ensued which lasted some minutes.
Finally one of them ventured, glancing over his
shoulder: “Well, we ain't seen any ghosts yet,
have we, Billy?"


The Kidnapping 89
“Nope,” was the dogged reply.
Billy extended his leg and kicked Kerwin on the
ankle.
“Ever in a haunted house before ?” he asked.
“Not that I remember,” Kerwin answered.
“Guess you'd remember if you had been,” sug-
gested Billy. “Used to be one down in my town
about six years ago. Fellow murdered there once,
they said. Funniest things used to happen.
A hand would open the doors in front of you.
You could see the tracks of a man's bare-feet in the
dust when you went up-stairs. p- -
“Aw, shut up, Billy, cancha! ” his companion
muttered edging near him. “What's the use
talkin' such stuff?”
“Why, I was just tellin' you,” Billy replied, de-
fensively. “I never took any stock in the stories,
but one day, a fellow by the name of Thurber–
Hank Thurber, regular dare-devil sort of chap—
swore he'd spend the night in that house or die
in the attempt. Next morning he didn't show up.
The town marshal went to find him. He found
him all right. It was in one of the up-stairs' rooms,
and there he sat in a busted chair, stone dead, with
his fishy eyes staring at a hole in the wall. They
got a bundle of old letters out of the hole. Seems it
was a sort of secret cupboard in the first place, and


90 Ann Arbor Tales
had been plastered over. That wasn't all though;
they found Thurber's dog jammed into the fire-
place of a room down-stairs, with his neck
broken. -
“Good Heavens! Billy! Billy! What was that!"
The story-teller caught himself quickly and he
and his companion turned frightened eyes upon
each other. In that moment's stillness they noted
that the wind had freshened. Something creaked
somewhere. Billy clutched his companion's leg.
“What was it?” His whisper rasped,
“Thought I heard something click. . . .”
“Sure P"
“Sure's I'm sittin' here. . . .”
“Where'd it seem to come from P. "
“I dunno; thought it was—in there.” He indi-
cated the little room behind with a jerk of his head,
“Aw, 'twasn't anything; old rusty nail snapped,
probably, in the wind.” Billy swaggered with a
monstrous assumption of bravery. There was
more silence for a moment, then Billy went on:
“I was just tellin' you bout that haunted house
down home. **
“Say, Billy, shut up, cancha º I don't care a
darn 'bout that haunted house, I'm --
“Come off! You ain't really afraid of ghosts,
are you?”


The Kidnapping 91
“Well, maybe I ain’t, but . . .”
“What's the matter with you, anyway?"
“Never you mind, I —”
He broke off suddenly and his face went ashy
pale.
“Did you see that P” he cried. “Did you see
that! Like a blue flame!”
He got upon his feet unsteadily. His mouth was
open; his eyes were staring.
“Why, what's the matter? You ain't drunk,
are you? What did you see—?”
“See / Look / "
Billy wheeled like a flash. A light of dazzling
brilliancy shone for an instant, and in the smaller
room, through the doorway of which they gazed
as though transfixed, floated a gossamer of unholy,
blue smoke. Then, before the instant became an
aeon, they saw rise, as though from the very heart
of the dazzle, the upper-half of a white, shrouded
form. One arm waved sweepingly toward them.
Before the aeon died an unearthly screech rent the
silence, followed by a scuffle and thug as both
youths rushed down the stairs. They sped into
the road and the deep shadows of the woods swal-
lowed them.
V
Blindfolded, Kerwin had seen nothing, but the


92 Ann Arbor Tales
dazzle had pierced the covering of his eyes and he
had felt the light, and he had heard. His head
was like thistle-down borne on the wings of a
zephyr. He attempted to move, to call out. A
deadly nausea overcame him. He realized that he
was fainting. Then, of a sudden, his melting
senses took form again, as he heard a familiar voice
cry:
“Kerwin, old chap! . . . By Jove! We'll
fool 'em yet, if you hurry!”
And at that the handkerchief was torn from his
eyes and he looked up blinking into the beaming
countenance of Norse.
Norse did not wait to explain. He cut the twine
binding his friend's hands and flung down the
satchel within the circle of the lantern light.
“What are you looking at P” he asked, tersely,
stooping to open the bag and noting Kerwin's
steady gaze fixed upon him.
“For Heaven's sake what have you got on /"
“What . . . got . . .” And Norse
burst out laughing.
“What have I got on P” he cried. “I’ve got
on your dress-shirt — Made me look more like
a ghost.” He whipped the garment off. “And
now you get into it just as quick as you can!"
he added.


The Kidnapping 93
For a brief moment a light of puzzlement lingered
in Kerwin's eyes.
“Here's the collar and tie.” Norse handed them
to him. “And here's your dress-suit— You
see I overheard them talking it over — I looked
for you — Then I came out here — I'd a box
of flash-light powder in my pocket— That's all.
I thought it was all up when they heard the satchel
click. You see I'd opened it to get out your shirt.
I had to put a good deal of trust in Provi-
dence! --
“But Norsey
“Never mind talking! Hustle, man! Hustle!"
“I know, but in
“There; there are your trousers. . . . Freeze
if it wasn't for that stove, eh? Thoughtful of
them, wasn't it? Here's your vest! What's the
matter? Can't you button your collar P Scott,
man, you've got to hustle! Touched her off just
the right time, eh? Worked themselves all up
talking about that other haunted . . . Here's
your coat! Say, you've got to hustle to make it;
there's not over twenty minutes to spare! .”
“But, Norsey, it's no use. I can't get back to
town in twenty minutes. Why, it will take two
hours, walking over that crust. pr
“You’re not going to walk.-Gad! Here, let


The Kidnapping 95
around here!” he exclaimed. “Around here /
Great Heavens, man! They're a million miles from
here and runnin' yet if they're still alive and not
scared to death. You ready ?"
Kerwin slung the satchelover his shoulder. “Am
I all right?” he asked.
Norse stepped back and regarded him curiously,
a little smile playing around his mouth. Kerwin's
face was very grimy. It looked almost black in
the shadow above the white shirt-bosom, and there
were three or four unmistakable smudges on that.
Moreover it was a cold night for a man to skate
three or four miles in evening clothes.
“My! You look funny!” Norse laughed. “But
what's the difference P” he added. “Come on. . . .”
Taking him by the arm he steadied him down the
creaking stairs. “Now you can go it like the
wind, right up to the door of Nickles,” he said at
the gate. “Are you ready ?”
Kerwin dug the toe of his right skate into the
crust and crouched like an animal about to spring.
“Go!”
For a moment his body was poised like a blot
above the brow of the hill, then it disappeared.
Norse heard his name shouted. He ran forward
and peered down.
“What's up P” he called.


96 Ann Arbor Tales
“Nothing. I just wanted to say I'll suggest the
toast “The Kidnapping' and then you'll tell the
whole tale. It'll make 'em look like a postage
stamp. . . ."
Norse laughed. “Why, I'm not going to your
darn banquet,” he said.
“Not going! The idea! You are, too, going."
“No, I'm not,” Norse contended, “I’ve got some-
thing else to do. * *
“What?”
“I’ve got to go over to Ypsilanti and tell Miss
Green I can't take that picture of her room till next
week. I'm as near there now as I am home. . . .”
Before Kerwin could call to him again he turned
on his heel and walked away.
Fifty yards along he glanced back over his
shoulder. What he saw caused a sort of Mephisto-
phelian grin to curve his lips.
Smoke, like a billowy veil in the moonlight, was
rolling from the unboarded windows of the haunted
house, and through the cracks he glimpsed the
dance of flames.
“The stove must have been kicked over in the
shuffle,” he muttered, unctuously.
A moment he stood there watching the growth
of the fire, then, resolutely turning his face to the
east, he moved on down the icy road.


THE CHAMPIONS





The Champions 1 O1
lack, of confidence in the other, that evenly bal-
anced the other's really splendid confidence in
himself.
When first Nibs had expressed his intention of
posting a challenge to Billy Shaw on the Bulletin
Board in the Main Hall, Jimmy had sniffed and
sneered derisively.
“What's the use making a Jack of yourself P” he
asked.
“Who's going to ?” Nibs replied, tartly.
“You are. He'll beat you by a rod,” was the
cool retort.
“Don’t you believe it.”
“Well, I do.”
“You needn't.”
“All right; we'll see.”
And Jimmy did see, and it was a glorious sight—
a splendid picture of a righteous triumph in which
the best man won; to revel in the joy of victory a
space, and then to meet, and join in combat, with a
foeman vastly worthier of his steel. For, in spite
of Jimmy's discouragement—which could not have
been that, really, and perhaps was not even meant
for that—Nibs posted the challenge.
It was written in huge letters, that all who ran
might read, and was made doubly conspicuous, by
its poster style, among the score or more announce-


1O2 Ann Arbor Tales
ments of class-meetings, conferences, and graduate-
events that fluttered with it on the Board.
Nibs hung up the challenge one evening while the
janitor's back was turned. He carried it into the
corridor folded beneath his coat. Satisfied that
they were not observed, he drew it out and spread
it upon the long, marble-topped radiator, and in-
vited the criticism of Jimmy, the which Jimmy was
not loth to utter.
“Big as a barn, eh?” he said, sniffing.
“But I want him surely to see it,” the author of
the broadside replied, tilting his head and viewing
his work admiringly in the dim light of the slim
chandelier above.
“Well, I'm still thinking you're a fool,—a blamed
big fool.”
“Don’t you think he'll accept P” Nibs asked
eagerly, passing lightly over Jimmy's expression of
what appeared at least superficially to be a definite
opinion.
“Of course he will, that's just it; he'll see it and
he'll accept it, and he'll beat the life out of you,” was
the discouraging rejoinder. “Hurry, hang it up,"
he added, “I don't want to wait here all night."
And Jimmy slouched away in the direction of the
great door.
So the document challenging Billy Shaw to run


The Champions lo3
against Nibs Morey in State Street, on the evening
of October nineteenth, at seven o'clock, was forth-
with tacked upon the Board to the complete con-
cealment of one bill announcing the publication of
the Palladium, and another displayed to notify the
scornful that the Dramatic Club would—at an early
date—repeat its marvelously successful and deli-
cately artistic performance of “Among the Break-
ers.”
“There! I guess he'll take notice, now!” ex-
claimed the joyous Nibs, stepping back from the
board, and gazing at the poster proudly.
“And so will all the University,” replied Jimmy,
not, however, without a secret pride in the valor of
his friend, after all; for Billy Shaw, the prospective
opponent, had brought with him to Ann Arbor a
country record for swift running that was not to be
considered lightly, even by a sprinter of the attain-
ments of Nibs Morey.
All efforts to match the two had thus far failed.
It was Nibs' zeal, purely, though tempered, of
course, by his fine conceit, that prompted the post-
ing of the challenge now—a zeal to prove—perhaps
to Jimmy, more than to the others—his wisdom,
and the justification of his own abundant confi-
dence. And the challenge thus publicly offered
achieved the end that Nibs had hoped it might.


1O4 Ann Arbor Tales
There is record in undergraduate history of the
excitement that prevailed upon the campus the day
after its publication. No one seemed to doubt
Billy Shaw's acceptance of it. He would have to
run now, or ever after hold his peace,—they said—
an alternative not to the relish of a youth of his
temperament. And he did accept the challenge,
and he did run; and bets were made, and money
was won and lost, all to the undying credit of Alma
Mater, who looked on, smiling, proud of her sons
in their glorious youth, their honor and their
prowess.
II
For a week, now, the Gown had been speculating;
placing its bets with the Town eagerly, enthusiastic-
ally, and many of those bets—sad to relate—were
on the wrong side of the book, so far as Nibs Morey
was concerned. When Jimmy, learning the way
of the wind, informed his friend of the odds against
him, with all the coldness of a perfect enmity, Nibs
experienced his first twinge of uneasiness. For the
Gown, loyal to its foreign upholder, Billy—in the
excess of its patriotism and without regard to pos-
sible consequences such as unpaid laundry bills, and
staved-off tailor accounts—had wagered against
poor Nibs, who, though he was of the Gown, can-


loé Ann Arbor Tales
of study, begged off from going “down town,” he
had dressed himself in a thin undershirt, loose, full
breeches and spiked shoes, and wrapped in a bath-
robe and crouching in the shadow, had sought the
solemn, ghostly cemetery, there to run among the
white stones, glistening in the pale light, to his full
heart's content. Later, on those same nights, tired
out, he had sneaked back to his room unobserved in
the silent streets. No, Jimmy did not know of this
strenuous course of Nibs' training. He knew his
legs were wiry, elastic, to be sure; but how wiry,
how elastic, he did not dream. And though deride
him he did, in his cheerful confidence and self-as-
surance, when, on the Monday following their meet-
ing in Nat's low-ceiled bar-room, a particularly ven-
turesome sophomore laid him a wager of five to
three on Billy, Jimmy took the shorter end of the
bet with amazing alacrity.
During the week immediately preceding the day
for which the race was set, interest in the event in-
creased with the passage of the hours. Posey's
billiard-room on Main Street became the betting-
green, where Town met Gown, and Gown flung
its challenges into the teeth of Town, which Town
at first snarled at, but eventually bit into and clung
to tenaciously.
Once, during the tempestuous seven days, Nibs


The Champions 107
encountered Billy face to face. The latter was leav-
ing the president's office; Nibs was approaching the
door.
As their eyes met, a spark flashed between them,
and their faces became hard and set. There were
several loiterers in the corridor who witnessed the
meeting, and one of these, “Pinkey" Bush—a law-
yer in Chicago now, never tires of recalling the in-
cident. You have but to mention it to him to hear
him say, with a brilliant twinkle in his eye:
“Gad! It was great! Simply great! There they
stood, face to face; Nibsey, long, thin as a lath,
glaring down at Billy, who was shorter, but just as
gaunt. Their eyes gleamed like new shoe buttons,
and their hands were clenched tight at their sides.
A second P It seemed an age! They didn't
speak; just drilled little wells in each other's eyes
with their own—and it was over. The door of the
president's office closed upon Nibsey; the big west
door rattled shut after Billy. It was like a dissolving
view—great, while it lasted, but soon ended. I
thought every instant—and held my breath—that
one of 'em would shoot out his fist and land it on
the other's jaw. No reason, of course; but it
wouldn't have surprised any of us who saw the
meeting, if one or the other had.”
Two days before the race, the entire student body


lo8 Ann Arbor Tales
became divided in its sympathy; wordy quarrels
were hourly occurrences on the campus; nor were
bodily assaults infrequent.
The next day the excitement was as tense as the
air before a cyclone. A million pounds of young
animal spirits, the highest explosive known to sci-
ence, were encased in delicate human bottles, need-
ing but a jar to touch them off.
At six o'clock, men passing in the streets gazed
mad-eyed at one another, their jaws set square,
their lips drawn tight across their teeth.
III
Friday came, eventually, as Fridays have a way
of doing, and it came like a breath from the North-
land where ice and snow and cold are. The air set
one's teeth on edge and one's flesh a-tingling, but
there was no frost. That was destined to come a
week later, and, over night, convert the summer
into the pageant of autumn, the scarlet king at its
head, his crimson, gold and purple banners flaunting
gaily.
When Nibs appeared on the campus in the morn-
ing, he was besieged by a horde of the faithful, who
wanted to know if the weather was “going to make
any difference.”
“You bet it won't; not to me,” he replied, with a


The Champions 109
sort of vocal swagger, and with a marked enuncia-
tory underlining of the pronoun.
“You don't mean to say you're going to prance
up and down State Street in those dinky flapping
white pants of yours, bare-legged, in such weather
as this, do you?” inquired Jimmy, with a most per-
ceptible sneer in his voice.
“Yes, I am. I shan’t think of the cold,” was the
brave reply.
“Rah! Rah! Rah! Nibsey!” yelled a little pug-
nosed freshman on the edge of the crowd, and the
cry was taken up lustily.
“Oh, shut up, you fellows,” said Nibs, blushing;
“leave your yelling till after the race, can't you?”
But he sensed an expansion of his chest, just the
same, an expansion that, for the moment, made his
waistcoat feel uncomfortably tight.
Meanwhile, Billy Shaw was being besieged in pre-
cisely the same manner at another point on the
campus. With considerable less than Nibs' brag-
gadocio he informed his followers and backers that
so far at least as he was concerned, there would be
no postponement of the race. And he, too, was
cheered forthwith.
Thurston Hubert, a Law, large with importance,—
he had been chosen to fire the pistol for the start—
was in the little crowd that surged around Billy. He


1 1 O Ann Arbor Tales
gave it as his opinion that the weather was “great
for a running event—simply great.” But by six
o'clock the mischievous mercury had dropped
another five degrees.
They were a muffled, overcoated lot of young
men, who, an hour later, began to gather in State
Street.
From all directions they came, and they formed
in double line from the Psi Upsilon House to the
end of the course, precisely one-quarter of a mile.
Waiting, they shouted, jeered one another, spoke
disrespectfully of a whimsical Nature that had given
them without warning so keen a touch of winter,
and otherwise disported as college men have a
way of doing, when they are waiting for something
to OCCur.
Along the outer edge of the street's double course
were many vehicles, for the Town's interest in the
extensively advertised event was almost as great as
the Gown's; and in that day the lines between the
two were not so closely drawn as they are now.
Girls, there were, waiting in several of the car-
riages; young women of the institution; serious-
faced girls, but still girls, and being such, interested
in deeds of prowess, and devoted, with a sort of
holy devotion, to the doers, as were the women of
Greece in the olden time.


1 12 Ann Arbor Tales
ton Hubert, he whose function it was to fire the
pistol, his hat cocked over one ear, a cigarette be-
tween his lips, the smoke of which he artistically
exhaled through his nostrils without removing the
tube—a feat that none but an upperclassman is
known ever to have accomplished.
Billy was wrapped in a blue and green bath-robe,
the hem of which was not deep enough to hide his
bare, big-boned ankles. He wore his spiked, soft
shoes, and had walked from his room—not without
some little triumph—in the middle of the street.
He was bareheaded, as was Nibs.
The latter's lank form was enveloped in a great
mackintosh with a deep cape. He carried his run-
ning shoes in his hand.
As the two came face to face at the starting
point their eyes met a second time, and again a
challenge leaped between them.
In the excitement attendant upon their arrival the
crowd did not take notice of the little things, and
the significance of that meeting and the look was
lost. That is, lost to all but one man—whom no
one knew; a stranger, who thus far had looked on
smiling. He had crossed the street some ten min-
utes before and joined the crowd unobserved. He
had spoken only once. When the throng cheered
the president he had touched on the arm a youth


The Champions 113
who stood beside him, and asked, “Who's that P”
Informed, he had continued to smile saying, “I
thought so; ” at the same time taking a cigar from
his waistcoat pocket and lighting it. He was tall,
this stranger, and his face was long and thin, but
not unhandsome, for his eyes were brown and
gentle. His little, flat hat sat close upon his head.
Of unusual height, his lengthy legs were concealed
by the long light overcoat he wore. From his
shoulder, by a strap, after the manner of the day,
dangled a fat hand-bag. He had not cheered thus
far. He had only smiled and pulled at his cigar,
sending up huge feathery clouds of opalescent
smoke.
Leaning forward now, he glanced along the line
to the starting point. The moment had arrived.
The contestants had flung off their wrappings and
stood forth in their trappings. It made one shiver
to see them; clothed only in their gauze, sleeveless
shirts, and the white flapping breeches of the sport.
Hubert and Jimmy conferred aside, while the
bare-legged Mercurys stood, now on one foot, now
on the other, blowing in their hands, and flinging
their arms transversely across their breasts to coun-
teract the cold.
The crowd cried its impatience. The stranger
craned forward again.


114 Ann Arbor Tales
“Back up!” called Hubert. “Keep back down
there, you fellows!" and the crowd obeyed, form-
ing a splendid gantlet of spirited youth.
The contestants took their places side by side.
Hubert's arm rose, and seeing the pistol pointed
heavenward several of the young women in the
carriages screwed their fingers into their ears.
“Ready!”
There was a dead silence. The arms of the
champions shot forward and back, rigid.
“Settl”
Like perfect machines, they crouched at the word
with one accord.
At the crack of the pistol there was a swift in-
taking of breath along the lines.
As they shot forward the double ranks of the
gantlet fell together like a house of cards and the
crowd surged upon the heels of the runners.
The president had proceeded to the end of the
course. Looking back he saw them coming. He
saw them straining, neck and neck, the nerves and
cords below their ears standing out round, like ropes.
He saw their lips drawn back, thin and livid over
gritted teeth. He saw their bulging eyes, eyes that in
turn saw nothing; and he heard the crowd at the rear.
Closer and closer—they seemed abreast—and then
—and then —


The Champions 115
A scant fifteen feet from the string, Nibs Morey
leaped and plunged forward. Such a spurt had
never before been seen on State Street. Even
the president, flinging aside his well-worn dignity,
cheered on the long, lank figure, which hurled
itself that instant across the string, and fell limp
and panting into his open arms!
“Well done, my boy,” he cried,—“and you,
too!” This to Billy, who was upon him a fine
fraction of a second later. “You are both cham-
pions,—I am proud of you.”
And as they relaxed, weak and faint, he seized a
hand of each in his own and shook them strongly.
Then he threaded his way back through the seeth-
ing crowd that had come up. Cheer upon cheer
rent the atmosphere—cheers for Nibs, and cheers
for Billy, who had done his best and failed, with
greater honor to him, than if he had won without
effort.
IV
At the bottom of the course, with the long-
heralded event slipping with the moments into
history, and surrounded by their cheering fellow-
collegians, the eyes of the contestants met again,
nor did they waver, nor did a challenge leap be-
tween them. They smiled; their hands shot forth


1 16 Ann Arbor Tales
with one accord, met and clutched, and it was then
that another cheer arose unlike those that had gone
before—a cheer that was a cheer. As it ended,
Jimmy Hulburt, in a moment of fine frenzy, for
him, cried:
“I’m willing to bet ten dollars at two to one that
Nibsey Morey can beat anybody runnin' that
walks! ”
Even that brave if paradoxical cry was cheered,
and the sportive Jimmy looked about him valiantly.
He felt a hand upon his arm in another instant and
heard a voice above him. Lifting his eyes, he
looked up into the stranger's face.
“What was your bet?” the soft voice inquired.
Jimmy repeated it, none the less vigorously, at the
same time pushing back to survey the uncouth
figure of the man in the long coat, with a satchel
dangling from his shoulder.
“I’ll take it,” the stranger said, simply.
Some one laughed, another called: “Shut up."
As for Jimmy, he only stared at the absurd person
before him, who had with such aggravating non-
chalance picked up the glove that he had so bravely
flung down.
“Are you a student here P” he asked.
“l entered today,” was the reply, spoken in the
same calm tones.


The Champions 117
“Where you from ?”
“NileS.”
“So you want to take that bet?”
“I’m willing.” He smiled most exasperatingly.
“When do you want to run ?”
“Suit yourself.”
“Say,” Jimmy exclaimed, perhaps a shade angrily,
“are you fooling P To hear you talk anybody'd
think you wanted to run now.”
“That would be all right. I will run now.”
The laughter became general. The stranger only
pulled at his cigar more quickly.
“Where are your togs P” Jimmy inquired scorn-
fully.
“I've got them on.” So saying he flung back
his overcoat. He was ordinarily dressed.
The laughter broke out afresh.
Jimmy hesitated just one instant.
“Wait a moment, may be we can fix up a race,”
he cried, and pushing through the crowd he ran
across the street to a confectionery store, where
Nibs had gone with Billy for a soda. He burst in
upon them out of breath. He told them of the
wise fool over the way who needed a tuck taken
in him.
“Will you run, Nibsey P Come on,” he cried.
Nibs looked at Billy.


118 Ann Arbor Tales
“Do it, do it,” the latter urged.
“All right,” Nibs agreed, and arm in arm with
his backer he issued into the street, clutching his
mackintosh about him.
The stranger had, meanwhile, walked back along
the course followed by a great throng, anxious to
witness what to them promised to be a fiasco of
immense proportions. Only three carriages had
waited. The occupants perceiving the crowd at the
lower end of the street had lingered for develop-
ments. In one of the carriages was Nibs Morey's
sister Wilma. She called a youth to the wheel and
questioned him concerning the throng which still
surged in the street. The freshman explained gaily.
“And will Nibs run that great tall thing?” the
girl inquired anxiously.
“Oh, don't you worry, Miss Morey,” the little
freshman replied consolingly. “He'll beat him so
far he won't know he's running.”
“But he's all tired out,” she expostulated.
“Oh, no, he isn't. Only a little over a hundred
yards.”
A cry rang out just then, down the course, and
Wilma, turning, caught a glimpse of her brother,
surrounded by his supporters—and all the crowd
supported him now—approaching the start.
She was moved to call him, to demand his instant


The Champions 119
withdrawal from this silly, useless race; but her
voice—this she realized—would not have been
heard above the shouting. She sank back upon
the seat, her face flushed, her forehead furrowed
with little lines, her fingers locking and unlock-
ing.
Some one had stopped just behind the carriage.
Afterward she was wont to say she had “felt" the
presence; for, looking around and down, her eyes
met those of the stranger. His were the first to drop
before her unflinching, flashing gaze. Why he had
stopped just there, the centre of a little group of the
curious, he could never explain. It was only an in-
stant, merely for the exchange of that glance per-
haps, for he moved on again almost immediately,
up the course, half running, stepping high, grace-
fully.
The double lines of spectators now were not so
long nor so thick as they had been; nor did they
manifest those signs of interest that had marked the
earlier event.
At the start, the tall stranger removed neither his
long overcoat nor his satchel. His cigar had gone
out, but he still held it, cold, between his teeth.
Little Thurston, who was to fire the pistol a
second time, exclaimed, amazedly: “Aren't you
goin' to take off those things P”


12O Ann Arbor Tales
“No, guess not,” was the cool reply. “What's
the use ! ”
Nibsey Morey, Billy Shaw and Jimmy exchanged
glances; Billy smiled outright.
“Say," Jimmy snapped somewhat angrily.
“Let’s get a hustle on and end this—you willing P”
He nodded toward the stranger.
“Quite.”
“Then—ready 1" cried the starter.
Again two figures, sadly matched, crouched at
the start.
Another second and the pistol cracked.
Following the report, there was a little instant of
dead silence in the street, then there broke forth
pandemonium, for half way down the course, his
coat tails flying, his satchel standing out behind,
the cold cigar gripped tight between his teeth, the
stranger led Nibs Morey by a rod. Twenty-five
feet from the string, he turned, and running back-
ward, beckoned with a crooked forefinger to the
straining Mercury that he faced. -
Not in all undergraduate history is there recorded
an event which created more excitement on the
campus after its occurrence than this.
Nibs Morey had defeated Billy Shaw; and a stran-
ger who had sprung from the earth had defeated
Nibs as no man before had ever been defeated.





THE CASE OF CATHERWOOD





The Case of Catherwood
“STOP 1"
The command from the rostrum brought the class
up in their seats. Every eye was bent upon Cather-
wood standing at the end of a bench in the second
roW.
Some one snickered.
Catherwood stared at the floor, a blush of shame
mounting his cheek and melting into his thin,
bristly red hair at his freckled temples.
The assistant professor of history glared through
his spectacles.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “this is
most unseemly! Mr. Catherwood, you may be
seated! I should advise you, ladies and gentlemen,
to devote a little more time to this course; and a
little less, perhaps, to the Junior Hop. I am sure
you do not wish me to make general the mailing of
conditions next week. As you know the examina-
tion is set for nine o'clock on the morning of
February 10th. I trust you will act upon the sug-
gestion I have given you. pz
125


126 Ann Arbor Tales
The gong in the corridor clanged just then and
the class shuffled out of the room.
Shunning his acquaintances in the hall Cather-
wood disappeared. The blush did not recede from
his face until he banged the wide door shut behind
him and the cold of the crisp February morning
smote him full.
He walked swiftly down Williams Street to his
room, not once lifting his eyes from the pavement,
which was dirty white from the much trampled
SnOW.
Another flunk! The third in as many weeks!
Catherwood with a muttered imprecation reviewed
the succession of class-room disasters.
“Confound history!” he growled as he strode
into his room. He flung his books upon the bed and
himself into the deep Morris chair by the window.
A sparrow was hopping on the porch roof without.
He rattled the window violently and the sparrow
flew away in fright.
“Go it, you imp,” he snarled; and again he con-
demned all history and its study to the deepest
depths.
It was bad. The assistant professor had been
lenient, but fate seemed to have composed that par-
ticular section of every history hater in the junior
class.


The Case of Catherwood 127
Catherwood realized this—or thought he did—as
he sat staring out of the windows into the skeleton
branches of the trees, and from the thought he ob-
tained a modicum of consolation.
He had worked. He had worked hard—but for
some unknown reason he couldn't bite into the
course, couldn't dig his teeth into the subject. He
did not fear; on the contrary he was certain—as
certain as a man can be—that his semester's work
in class-room was of sufficiently high a grade to as-
sure him his full credit in the course. And yet, he
considered, there was the examination, five days
away. In two hours he would be required to write
out in a thin “blue book” all he was supposed to
have learned in twenty weeks.
He ruminated.
How much of what he had learned had stopped
in his head P. He asked himself this, seriously, then
smiled. He confessed to himself that he had
worked merely from recitation to recitation with no
effort to hold the subjects in that mathematical
brain of his that caused his forehead to bulge.
And the examination only five days away!
As he reviewed the situation Catherwood's brow
darkened and he scowled. For a space he twiddled
his large thumbs and glared at a horse hitched to a
grocery wagon across the street.


128 Ann Arbor Tales
“I wish you'd freeze,” he muttered viciously to
the horse; but of course the horse did not hear for
the window was down.
Catherwood counted his flunks on his fingers.
Five; five clean, perfect flunks, altogether, he re-
called. Not so bad, he considered; that is, not so
very bad.
But there before him like a great monster with
dripping jaws and green, slimy body, was the ex-
amination; and it was creeping, creeping upon him
with the passage of the minutes.
He stood up and shook himself nervously.
From the window he saw the assistant professor
approaching his home next door. He carried sev-
eral bulky volumes in his arms, hugged to his breast
lovingly.
Catherwood watched him sourly.
There was the man, he mused, in whose hands—
now covered with gray-striped woolen mittens—
lay his fate! Pretty serious business—one's fate ly-
ing in hands covered with gray-striped woolen
mittens.
The courses in mathematics Catherwood did not
fear; nor those in shop work; not the one in elocu-
tion, to be sure, for that was a snap; nor yet the two
in political economy; indeed, those were rather fun.
But history! Ugh!


The Case of Catherwood 129
The assistant professor turned in at the gate of his
house next door, and as he vanished the scowl fled
from Catherwood's brow and his face lighted.
He would drop in on the assistant professor
within the week and call. Admirable! He won-
dered if the date might be anywhere reasonably
near the birthday of one of his children. A box of
sweets might work wonders; a china headed doll
greater wonders. He marveled that the idea had
never before occurred to him. And, too, he
considered, there was the president.
The president!
Ah, that would be different. There were no little
tads in the president's family. Then he quickly re-
called having read in the 'Varsity News of the day
before that the president was in the east and would
not return until the thirteenth.
Three days after!
Futile—absolutely futile!
And Catherwood Scowled again and stared out
the window, idly twisting his trunk-check watch
fob.
He saw the assistant professor's wife on the walk
below with the little Mary.
It was the psychological moment and Catherwood
recognized it. Snatching his hat from the book
rack he plunged down the stairs. He pulled him-


13o Ann Arbor Tales
self together at the door and stepped, unconcern-
edly, out upon the porch.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Lowe,” he called quite
gaily. “Ah, and there's little Mary—sweet child.
Come here, Mary, won't you?”
He squatted in the snow at the gate and held out
his hands to her. She ran to him with a little cry
of delight. The mother's face was radiant.
“Oh, good-morning, Mr. Catherwood,” she
called.
He smiled and nodded. On the instant he made
a vague calculation of the value of Mrs. Lowe's
good-will.
He flung his arms around the child and lifted her
clear of the walk to her great delight as attested by
the cries of glee that escaped her.
Mrs. Lowe stopped at the gate.
“Such a dear child,” Catherwood gurgled, hold-
ing the tot close to him.
“Do you think so P” the mother murmured.
“So strong and so well,” Catherwood added,
weighing little Mary in his strong hands.
“Yes, she is heavy,” Mrs. Lowe said.
Then the child cried in her pretty patois:
“Pleese frow Mary up an' catch her.”
“Oh, ho,” Catherwood exclaimed gaily, “so that
is what Mary wants, is it? Well then, here goes.”


The Case of Catherwood 131
“Careful, Mary daughter,” the mother cautioned,
smiling.
Catherwood never before had felt his strength as
keenly as he did that moment. It had for him,
then, a definite, precise meaning; even a value; yes,
an incalculable value.
“Frow up Mary 'n' catch her like farver do,” the
child urged.
He tossed her into the air.
“There!” he said as she left his arms.
His hands—broad fine hands—were outspread to
catch her.
Afterward, when recollection of that vivid, scarlet
instant returned to him, he was never quite able to
explain to himself how it had happened. Perhaps
he did not reckon with his various courses in
physics—certain laws of falling bodies, accelerated
motion, and such uninteresting things. In any
event it was as though his hands had not been
there; for before he could clutch at the little furry
ball of falling femininity it had shot between those
groping hands of his and in an infinitesimal space
of time had struck the low snow-drift beside the
walk, no longer a furry ball but a sprawl of scream-
ing child.
“Oh! Mr. Catherwood!” cried Mrs. Lowe.
There was an instant's silence and then the at-


132 Ann Arbor Tales
mosphere was punctured by the piercing yelps of
the little Mary.
Mrs. Lowe snatched her daughter from the drift
and, clutching her close, cooed to her, consolingly.
“Did the great horrid man drop mother's dar-
ling P” she murmured.
Catherwood, stricken momentarily dumb by the
accident, finally found his voice though it was un-
steady and very much in his throat.
“Mrs. Lowe,” he exclaimed, despairingly, “I’m
very sorry; believe me; I guess, I must—”
She shot him one glance of injured motherhood,
and without replying turned and strode out of the
yard still hugging close to her maternal bosom the
wailing Mary.
The shrieks had penetrated to the study of the
assistant professor and as she turned in at her own
gate he appeared upon the porch.
“What's the matter?” he asked sharply.
“The young man next door dropped Mary on the
tar walk.” -
Catherwood clearly distinguished below the
child's still frantic yells the grunt of the man who
waited on the steps.
He was prompted to shout: “You lie; it was a
drift,” but a quick second thought restrained him.
As it was he took the stairs in the darkened hall-


The Case of Catherwood 133
way in three bounds and, rushing into his room,
raved impotently. He kicked the legs of the Mor-
ris chair; he kicked the legs of the table; he kicked
the backs of the books on the lowest shelf of the
rack. He seized a pillow from the divan and pro-
ceeded to punch it violently, viciously. Then he
flung himself face down upon the divan, and from
the heart of the cushions came the muffled words:
“I wish the confounded kid had never been
born!”
After some minutes he rolled over and for a space
stared blankly at the ceiling. Then he rose, took
a book from the rack and flinging himself into the
Morris chair by the window opened it upon his
knee.
It was a volume of the marvelous and enthralling
adventures of the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes.
II
There are two kinds of hazing, as practiced by
undergraduates at Ann Arbor; the plain and the
ornamental.
The first may be a mere practical joke, as the
“stacking ” of a room, the kidnapping of a fresh-
man toastmaster, or the “losing” of a fraternity ini-
tiate in the broad fields that lie between the town
and the North Pole.


134 Ann Arbor Tales
But ornamental hazing is quite a different thing.
It is the sort most indulged in by practical hazers,
professionals, as it were ; by juniors; even by
seniors; and as such is found to have many and
varied forms. Moreover it differs from the plain
brand in that a genuine injury is, by its application,
wrought upon the hazee. Thus, a man may be lost
in a swamp and made to find his own way home
by the tenets of the plain hazing code; whereas, if,
in the swamp, he is “injured,” that is to say if he
is painted with iodine, if a broad pink parting is
shaved across his scalp, or if his hair is cut off in
scrubby patches, he may quite properly consider
himself to have been allowed a taste of the orna-
mental sort.
It may be seen from these distinctions therefore,
that plain hazing is really harmless; no one is hurt,
unless, as not infrequently occurs, and justly, the
hazers, themselves; and as a consequence of this
the University authorities seldom concern themselves
in these really feeble attempts to smirch the honor
and destroy the valor of the freshman class, which
in most instances is sufficiently lusty an infant to
take excellent care of itself.
For instance, no excitement is created by the ap-
pearance on the campus, or even in the corridors of
the recitation buildings, of a lanky youth in ex-


The Case of Catherwood 135
ceedingly snug knee breeches who drags about be-
hind him by a long string a gaudy little horse on
squeaking wheels. Indeed, men whose height
reaches a flat six feet have not infrequently ridden to
classes on very small tricycles to the ecstatic delight
of certain upper classmen and to the pitying sneers
of their instructors.
As has been observed, the authorities of the Uni-
versity are not wont to interest themselves in such
manifestations of under-class idiocy.
But a hazing of the second sort!
That, truly, is a different matter.
There was the case of Cleaver, for instance, whose
disappearance from Ann Arbor on a wet night in
March six years ago was telegraphed to every paper
of consequence in the country and which furnished
a delectable topic of conversation at faculty dinners
for the entire two months of his absence.
Hazed P
Of course he was hazed.
He was persona non grata to the sophomore class
as represented by the fraternity contingent and that
contingent had simply done away with him tempo-
rarily. When he did return it was a wan and hag-
gard figure that he presented. The belief gained
currency that his people had known his where-
abouts, but no one ever knew to a certainty. As


136 Ann Arbor Tales
for Cleaver himself, he would not—or perhaps
could not—tell what had been done to him or who
had planned and carried out the adventure of his
disappearance. The faculty was nonplussed. No
one else had been missed. Who, then, could have
accompanied Cleaver to his dungeon, if dungeon
had been his residence for two months P No one,
to this day, has solved the mystery. As for Cleaver,
he was given his credits and permitted to graduate
in due time. And to-day whenever he speaks of a
certain individual—now a lawyer in Syracuse—who
was a sophomore during his own freshman days,
it is with a twinkle in his eyes. But he still keeps
a sacred silence.
Ann Arbor was shaken to its foundations by the
incident. Shaken, too, has it been by circus riots;
but it is doubted if ever within the period of the
University's establishment has it been so tremen-
dously excited, for a little period, as it became over
the case of Catherwood.
In the first place Catherwood had incurred the
enmity of no one. A student of fair attainments
and average record who, during his three years in
the University, had taken but small part in under-
graduate activities, he found himself, of a sudden,
standing in the blinding lime-light of an official
investigation. And an official investigation at the


The Case of Catherwood 137
University of Michigan is not to be considered
lightly. All over this broad land are men who have
the questionable privilege of looking back upon a
time when they were the unwilling subjects of such
investigations.
Catherwood's case, to be sure, was different in
that he was the sufferer from others' depredations,
but the odium of participation rested upon him
nevertheless, and so delicate and shrinking was his
nature that he was known to suffer miserably from
the publicity of his position.
For three days he was conscious that every man's
eye was upon him; that every finger pointed at
him, that every tongue discussed him. An attempt
was made to heroize him, but he withdrew to the
seclusion of his room and would see no one. His,
indeed, was a case to defy, in its solution, the most
subtle reasoner, the most invincible logician on the
faculty.
In detail it was as follows:
Mrs. Turner, Catherwood's landlady, a most es-
timable woman who had moved into town from a
not-distant farm for the purpose of “putting Willie
through school,” was away from the house all the
evening of February ninth. A “social” at the
Congregational Church—socials were her chief, in-
deed, her only, diversion—on the arrangement com-


138 Ann Arbor Tales
mittee of which she was most active, delayed her
return until nearly midnight. Willie accompanied
her to the church and at nine o'clock was put to bed
in a pew up-stairs. Therefore Mrs. Turner could
not know what had transpired in one of her second-
floor rooms between the hours of seven-thirty and
twelve on that momentous night. Moreover, as
Mrs. Turner varied the monotony of house work
with “plain sewing by the day” and was, all the
morning of the tenth, at the Alpha Phi house “fit-
ting "Miss Houston, she did not set about to “do
the room work” until eleven-thirty.
At that hour, tired beyond measure, Miss Hous-
ton had been so finicky about the hang of the skirt
—she suddenly realized that if she did not make
haste Mr. Catherwood would return from college
to find his room in the condition of untidiness that
he, presumably, had left it on going out.
So she dragged her leaden limbs up the stairs
and from force of habit knocked on the door of
the second room, back. There was no reply. She
had expected none. She pushed open the door.
The scene of chaos that met her gaze defies de-
scription. The room had been completely and most
effectively “stacked.” Strewn about the floor were
papers. The inverted waste-basket was cocked
rakishly upon an arm of the chandelier. Books


The Case of Catherwood 139
from the rack were lying everywhere. The rack
lay flat on the floor. The face of every hanging
picture was turned to the wall, and the Morris
chair, which had been carefully taken apart, was
piled upon the writing table. Mrs. Turner at a
single sweep of her eye noted these details and also
certain splotches that were unmistakably ink spots
on the walls and on the carpet.
The divan had reared itself and now stood upon
one end. Three chairs were piled upon the bed.
These Mrs. Turner noted last.
She understood the meaning of the chaos. Some-
one, during his absence, had entered Mr. Cather-
wood's room and “stacked" it. And as she calcu-
lated the time necessary to complete a restoration
of its usual neat appearance, the poor woman
sighed deeply.
Suddenly she started.
Was it an echo of her sigh she heard P Surely
she had heard a human sound. She peered,
stooping.
“Mr. Catherwood!” she called; her face pale.
A distinct, graveyard moan was the answer.
The blood fled from Mrs. Turner's lips and her
eyes bulged. She cautiously approached the bed,
whence, seemingly, had come the moan. She
peered between the legs of the chairs. Then, with


14o Ann Arbor Tales
a cry that rang through the house, she fled from
the room, down the stairs and into the freezing
out-of-doors.
As she ran down the walk, slipping, stumbling,
the bells in the library tower rang out twice,
musically clear on the frosty air—fifteen minutes
past twelve. And approaching, she saw her neigh-
bor, the assistant professor of history, returning
from the examination.
Mrs. Turner flung herself heavily upon him. His
spectacles slipped from his nose. The armful of
thin “blue books” he was carrying littered the
walk. He parried awkwardly with hands that
were encased in gray-striped woolen mittens.
“Madame! Madame!” he cried, “what the-
what is the matter—are you crazy?”
Mrs. Turner gasped—gasped like a pickerel dying
on the grass. It was quite half a minute before
she found her voice and when she spoke it was
with many vocal quavers.
“Oh, Professor Lowe! Professor Lowel” she
wailed, “Mr. Catherwood—Mr. Catherwood—"
“Well, well; what of him, madame, what of
him P''
The assistant professor spoke sharply.
“He’s been murdered / "
“WHAT!”


The Case of Catherwood 141
She seized him by the arm.
“Come—come, quick,” she cried. “He’s on the
bed: his face is all blood.”
“Yes, yes,” he replied, stooping and hastily
gathering up the “blue books”—“I’ll fling these in
the hall; you run on ahead—I'll be right there.”
From the doorway he called to his wife,
“Young man murdered next door, Jenny," and
from the porch at the end nearest Mrs. Turner's
house he leaped into a snow-drift. He floundered
out and into the house as his wife appeared upon
the porch wringing her hands and moaning.
He bounded up the stairs in the wake of Mrs.
Turner and brushed past her into the room of
horror.
He brought up stock still and looked about.
“There's the corpse! There; over there on the
bed!” the woman wailed, frantically.
He pulled away the piled chairs, and seizing the
body rolled it upon its back. Over Catherwood's
eyes was bound a strip of cloth and a gag made
of a stocking was tied across his mouth. The as-
sistant professor unknotted the gag with trembling
fingers and tore away the blindfold and Catherwood
blinked up at him owlishly.
“Are you dead?” the assistant professor asked
with bated breath.
n


142 Ann Arbor Tales
Catherwood's mouth worked convulsively and
then he muttered hoarsely: “Water! water!”
Mrs. Turner hurried to the bathroom and returned
with a cup, which the assistant professor took from
her and held to the young man's lips. He gulped
eagerly.
“Look at his face!” cried Mrs. Turner.
It was streaked and spotted with a brown stain.
“Is it blood P” The woman shivered.
The assistant professor sniffed.
“Iodine,” he exclaimed. “And see,” he added,
stooping, “here's the bottle.” He held up the
phial that had caught his eye where it lay on the
floor at the foot of the bed.
“Untie my hands,” Catherwood gurgled—
“Here, behind me!”
They were tied securely by two handkerchiefs
knotted together. The assistant professor fumbled
at the loops. He disengaged the swollen wrists
and Catherwood sat up in bed. He loosened the
bindings of his ankles himself and stood up.
“Whew 1" he whistled.
He caught sight of his brown-streaked and
spotted face in the dresser mirror.
“Caesar!” he exclaimed, “that was a fine job!”
Satisfied that a rescue had been accomplished in
good time, the assistant professor said:


The Case of Catherwood 143
“Sit down, Mr. Catherwood, and explain, if
possible, the meaning of this—this hazing. I ob-
served you were not present at the examination
to-day.”
Mrs. Turner, who till now had stood by wringing
her hands, commenced, with mechanical precision,
to wrest order out of chaos in the room.
From time to time during Catherwood's re-
cital she stopped in her work long enough to
voice an ejaculatory “oh,” or exclaim—“Well, I
declare.”
“It is clearly a case of hazing—hazing of the
most malicious sort,” observed the assistant pro-
fessor, “and as such merits the fullest investiga-
tion on the part of the faculty, which I have no
doubt the faculty will undertake. Do you know
your assailants, Mr. Catherwood P”
“Yes—and no,” the young man replied, rubbing
a red and swollen wrist.
“Why do you say that?” the assistant pro-
fessor inquired, significantly.
“I thought I did from the writing of the note I
received yesterday afternoon—”
“Ah—you received a note then P”
“Yes—wait.” Catherwood dove a hand into
the inside pocket of his coat. “Here it is,” he
said, and held out to his questioner a crumpled


144 Ann Arbor Tales
bit of paper written in a hand obviously dis-
guised.
The assistant professor examined the writing
closely.
“This, Mr. Catherwood,” he opined finally, “is,
as you see, ‘back-hand." Moreover, it is quite
clear to me that it was penned by some one who
used his left hand, although he is, naturally, what
we call ‘right handed.’”
The professor remembered his “The Count of
Monte Cristo.”
“Ah —”
At Catherwood's exclamation he looked up
quickly.
“That's why I could not identify it,” the young
man added.
“But, Mr. Catherwood,” the assistant professor
continued, “isn't it rather odd that you did not see
—did not recognize the two men who assailed
you; for of course there were two—the note
reads —”
He looked down at the crumpled sheet again—
“‘We shall call at your room this evening.' Isn't
it rather strange P” He awaited Catherwood's
reply, calmly.
“I think there was but one!”
The assistant professor started.


The Case of Catherwood 145
“One / " he exclaimed. “Why it is more mys-
terious than ever—and you didn't see him, Mr.
Catherwood P”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“You did not P”
“No, sir.
“Well, I declare,” ejaculated Mrs. Turner.
Mr. Lowe smoothed over the note and folded it.
“I shall take this,” he said—“that is, if you do not
mind.”
“No–no—of course not —”
“And, Mr. Catherwood,” he added, “I am to
assume, am I, that you can throw no light on this—
on this most mysterious matter . . . P.”
At that instant a knock fell on the door.
“Come in,” Catherwood called.
The door was pushed back and a young man
with a note-book in his hand stood on the thresh-
old.
“I'm Green,” he explained. “I'm on the
'Varsity News. You're Catherwood, aren't you ?
Yes; well, we got wind of the case. Fellow heard
your landlady yell and telephoned us. What does
it amount to — ?”
The assistant professor, squaring his shoulders,
assumed the privilege of answering the breezy
youth.
->


146 Ann Arbor Tales
“Perhaps,” he said, “it might be as well not to
go into details just now. Mr. Catherwood was
assaulted in his room last night and was found
gagged and tied in his bed not an hour ago. It is a
case for official investigation. Mr. Catherwood
was made, much against his will, naturally, to miss
an important examination this morning—I may say
a very important examination. There is a meeting
of the faculty to be held to-night when I shall pre-
sent the facts of this most shocking affair as I have
gathered them and I am confident that an official
investigation will follow. You may say as
much. p 7
The reporter had been busy with his note-book.
Now looking up at Catherwood, he asked:
“What's the matter with his face P”
“I believe it is iodine,” the assistant professor re-
plied, frigidly.
Little Green grinned.
“You’re a sure beaut,” he exclaimed.
“I think that will be all,” observed the assistant
professor drily.
“Oh yes, yes—that's all—thank you very much;
good-morning.” And the journalist vanished.
The eyes of Catherwood and the assistant pro-
fessor met.
“I think I should wash my face, if I were you,”


The Case of Catherwood 147
suggested Mr. Lowe. “You may be able to re-
move some of the stain.”
Catherwood went to the stand in the corner of
the room. For a space he sputtered the water in
the bowl. “Any better?” he asked, at length.
Mr. Lowe shook his head sadly.
“No-it won't come off. You had best see a
doctor.”
He rose.
“Now, Mr. Catherwood,” he said, “as I have
said, this is a case for the most thorough investiga-
tion. You need not give yourself any uneasiness.
The University authorities will, you may be sure, sift
matters to the bottom. You have been maltreated;
abused, tortured, and, I may say, disfigured.”
Catherwood, with a sigh, sank into the Morris
chair by the window.
“I shall take the matter up this evening at faculty
meeting. Mark my word, we shall discover your
assailant or assailants at once; for despite your
belief to the contrary, it is my opinion that two
men, if, indeed, not more, had a hand in your un-
doing. We shall see. I shall talk of the case to
several this afternoon and I suppose you would
have no hesitancy in appearing at the meeting to-
night, if your presence there should be deemed de-
sirable.”


148 Ann Arbor Tales
“No,” Catherwood replied, weakly, “not if they
want me.” The hand he passed across his brow
trembled.
“I observe you are nervous,” the assistant pro-
fessor said. “Get a little rest this afternoon.” He
shook his head slowly. “It is very unfortunate,”
he added, “that the president is away; however, I
am confident we shall have the case cleared up be-
fore his return. You, of course, Mr. Catherwood,
have no reason not to assist us in every way pos-
sible P”
“None at all.” The young man leaned back and
closed his eyes, and sighed deeply.
“However, I must say, you have not seemed to
me as interested as —”
Catherwood sat upright.
“I’m half sick,” he cried, “half sick. It's so
strange. I know no one who would have a reason
for hazing me; I can't understand it; it's like a bad
dream.”
He rose and paced back and forth the length of
the room.
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” the assistant professor
murmured, consolingly. “Now, I shall go. You
will hear from me later—perhaps very soon.”
Catherwood stood motionless in the middle of the
floor until he heard the outer door close, then he


The Case of Catherwood 149
descended the stairs slowly, and encountering Mrs.
Turner in the kitchen begged the privilege of taking
dinner at her table.
“This face,” he explained. “I can't go to
“Pret's ' with this face.”
And she, gentle motherly soul, bade him be
seated, and fed him well, and consoled him; while
Willie, fascinated by the streaked and horrid face of
the self-bidden guest, allowed his rice-pudding to
grow cold while he gazed at him.
III
Little Green, the pink-cheeked reporter of the
'Varsity News, was not that at all, and on this oc-
casion he gave his name the lie direct.
Little Green possessed a nasal organ keenly atuned
to news. As he hastened back down town after
his summary dismissal from Catherwood's room,
he calculated accurately the latent story value in the
assistant professor's indefinite account of his pupil's
CaSe.
He glanced at his watch, snapped the case, thrust
it back into his pocket—and ran.
He estimated the time with reference to the pub-
lication hour of the Detroit afternoon papers.
He saw before him, as plainly as he saw the snow
banks, one hour and thirty minutes. The period


The Case of Catherwood 151
“Yep.” Calmly.
Little Green emitted a sigh of relief and proceeded,
carefully but hastily, to fill sheet after sheet torn
from the block of blue-white paper. He scratched
out, wrote in, amplified, condensed. He wrote in
many tiny paragraphs; for little Green was wise
beyond his years.
And while he wrote, oblivious of the clickety—
click—click of the little machine on the table, of the
droning tick of the electrically regulated clock, of
the rasp of his pencil on the paper, the indolent op-
erator looked up.
“Rush three hundred,” he called with a yawn.
Little Green grinned. Another page and he
brought his “story” to a snappy end with a tiny,
quick little sentence.
He knew the run of his own “copy.”
He was conscious that he had exceeded the order
by sixty words, approximately, and he hesitated an
instant. Then thrusting the numbered sheets at the
operator, he exclaimed: “Here, take it; I'll wait for
another order.”
In half an hour it came. It was for a photograph
of Catherwood.
How little Green procured that photograph even
after Catherwood's threat that he'd kill him if he
used it, is a story in itself—a story for another time.


152 Ann Arbor Tales
But in less than an hour after the receipt of the tele-
graphic request it was in the post-office bearing on
its plain wrapper a special delivery stamp.
It has been suggested that little Green was wise
beyond his years. He was just wise enough not to
tell all his story to an afternoon paper at so late an
hour.
So, with a confidence born of a short but crowded
experience, he sent out by wire eight queries to as
many morning papers in the middle- and the fur-
ther-west.
Meanwhile that occurred which little Green had
been far-sighted enough to expect would occur.
The tall, angular, boy-faced agent of the Asso-
ciated Press in Detroit wandered into the office of
the Journal shortly after one o'clock.
Passing the city desk he tickled the man sitting
there, on his round, shiny, bald spot, and as he
looked up with a scowl, asked blandly:
“Anything doing?”
The city editor growled and resumed reading the
typewritten page that lay before him.
The agent wandered into the office of the state
editor, where a man with long hair sat, fidgeting in
a swivel chair and mumbling to himself under his
breath.
“Anything P” asked the agent, tersely, at the


The Case of Catherwood 153
same time reaching for the proofs that dangled from
a hook at the side of the desk.
The state editor looked up, scowling. He disliked
being annoyed when talking to himself.
“Pretty good one from Ann Arbor,” he snapped.
“Find it there.”
The agent ran hastily through the proofs and re-
tained one. The others he hung back on the hook.
“Much obliged,” he said, and strolled out of the
office.
At six o'clock that night the story was “on the
A. P. wire,” and being ticked off in every newspa-
per telegraph room from Portland to Portland, for
the night manager at Chicago had called it “bully
good stuff.”
And when it came clicking into those offices to
which little Green had wired shortly after noon, the
desk men in charge recognized the incompleteness
of the “A. P. story,” and forthwith telegraphed their
unknown correspondent for more. Regular corre-
spondents were totally disregarded. Little Green
was supreme ; and no one realized that supremacy
more keenly than little Green himself. He was the
king of the night with his story; and sheet after
sheet he filled with his jagged, irregular chirography,
and the dreamy operator kept up with him.
But there came an end to his work at last, as there


154 Ann Arbor Tales
comes an end to all things; and when the end came
in this particular case, little Green whistled, slipped
his pencil into his pocket and sauntered out of the
telegraph box jauntily. He did not recall until he
reached the office of the 'Varsity News that he had
not eaten since morning. He glanced at his watch.
He would write the “story” for his own paper now
—and then—Supper.
All of which may explain to the reader of this
veracious tale why it was that the president of the
University, as he glanced over his Providence
Journal in Providence the next morning, suddenly
started in his chair, and calling for a telegraph blank
sent this message to the dean of the Department of
Literature, Science, and the Arts:
“Take no action in Catherwood case. Sift it.
Leave for Ann Arbor at once.” -
And likewise it may account for the sudden excla-
mation of the dean himself, as at breakfast, earlier
that same morning in Ann Arbor, his eye chanced
to fall upon a column-and-one-half story with a
two column display head, that blazed forth to all
the world many details unknown to him in the
case of Frederick Edward Catherwood.
He had attended the faculty meeting the night be-
fore, when the case was threshed out to the finest
grain, and he had heard no such explanation of the


The Case of Catherwood 155
affair as stared at him now in cold black type from
the front page of his morning paper.
A secret secret society in the University, the func-
tion of which was to haze every one big or little
who for one reason or another, might fall under its
bann | He had never heard of any such organiza-
tion. And yet—and yet—
Oh, little Green! Oh, little Green! Little did
you dream to what ill end your rare invention, your
insane imaginings, would result!
For, after partaking that night of a luncheon and
dinner rolled into one big steak in “Tuts,” little
Green sought his room where he slept the sleep of
vigorous youth till a beam of the winter sun, shi-
ning through his alcove window, fell athwart his
eyes and wakened him.
As for Catherwood, he had not been commanded
to appear before the faculty. Indeed, of what
transpired at that momentous meeting he never
knew; that is to say, definitely, but every one
learned, in a general way, something of the wordy
resolutions that were passed and the learned
opinions that were there put forth, all of which
tended to no purpose save to obscure more thickly,
rather than illumine more brilliantly, the strange
affair.
The dean presided—a large man with reddish


The Case of Catherwood 157
simple. It shows that Mr.—oh—ah—Catherwood
was assaulted by two—two—persons. But, that,
gentlemen, we already know. What we now
wish to learn is: Who were they 2”
The assistant professor shook his head, wearily.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered.
At this point an aged man at the rear of the
room rose, and clearing his throat asked in a dry,
metallic cackle: “Am I to understand that the
young gentleman is a member of a fraternity ?”
It was quite apparent that no one appreciated
clearly the significance of the old gentleman's ques-
tion.
The dean stared inquiringly over his glasses at
the assistant professor of history.
“He is not—”
“He is not,” echoed the dean.
“Oh,” cackled the old gentleman and sat down.
His prejudice against fraternities was well known.
Several of the younger men present, who wore their
pins on occasion, glanced at one another and smiled.
“It would—oh—ah—seem to me,” began the
dean, when he was interrupted by that dry, metallic
cackle a second time.
“Does he contemplate joining a fraternity ?”
“No,” Lowe shouted.
“Oh"—and the old gentleman sat down again.


158 Ann Arbor Tales
In the second row there rose a round, boy-
faced man with a pompadour, who, after clearing
his throat, began:
“It would seem to me, gentlemen, that we are on
the wrong track; what? It would seem to me that
there is a way—a sure way—of apprehending the
villains who seem to have worsted our young
friend, Mr. Catherwood; what P”
Every man in the room leaned forward, and again
the hush became awesome.
“And it is P” observed the dean, very soberly.
“That we compare the handwriting of that note
with all the students' signatures in our possession;
what?”
There ensued a general exchange of puzzled
looks and then the dean exclaimed:
“A very good idea, my dear professor—oh—
ah—a most ingenious idea; but—oh—ah—would
you be willing to undertake to make the suggested
comparisons P”
“Well I thought the clerks in the registrar's
office might—”
“Very good—very good!” said the dean—“I be-
lieve there are about thirty-five hundred such sig-
natures—oh—ah—quite a week's work for the entire
office force—quite —”
Several of his colleagues openly congratulated the


The Case of Catherwood 1.59
boy-faced genius who seemed to them to be the
only man with a plan worthy of adoption.
Amid the general exchange of felicitations before
which the genius blushed and stammered his con-
fusion, assistant professor Lowe rose and caught
the eye of the dean.
“Order—oh—ah—order, gentlemen!” the latter
called. “Professor Lowe seems to have a
word —”
“It's just a word,” was the reply, “but, gentle-
men, the plan suggested can be of no avail and for
a very simple reason—” He looked down at the
boy-faced junior professor in astronomy who had
formulated the plan referred to and who looked up
at him, weakly, sufferingly.
“And what is the reason P” inquired the dean
severely, loth to have a theory declared impracti-
cable which he had seemed to favor.
“It is that this note was written—ingeniously I
am willing to admit—by a right handed person,
who, to disguise his writing, wrote with his left
hand in what we call the ‘back-hand' style. All
writings, under such circumstances, are alike. My
authority, gentlemen, is Dumas; of whom some of
you may have heard.” And with this cuttingly
sarcastic speech the assistant professor of history
sat down.


The Case of Catherwood 161
standing “call” for him from an eastern institution.
—“Now I have a suggestion to make. It is this:
Suppose we all go home, and await the return of
the president. Meanwhile let us keep our eyes and
ears open, and our mouths shut; perhaps we may
see and hear things that will indicate the proper
course for us to take. In any event, it would seem
wisest for us to await the return of the president.
Good-night, gentlemen.”
And buttoning his overcoat about him, the pro-
fessor of French left the room.
It was not until then that the futility of their dis-
cussion dawned upon his colleagues. Some one
moved that the meeting adjourn. The motion was
carried. The old gentleman voted the single nay.
The dean walked home with assistant professor
Lowe. Their conversation was wholly upon the
case in hand. And when the dean left the younger
man at the latter's door, he said: “I—oh—ah—I
confess to being more puzzled than ever. A very
mysterious affair—oh—ah—a most mysterious
affair.”
And so it was that the puzzlement of the worthy
dean deepened next morning as he read little
Green's sprightly, suggestive story.
But the frown vanished from his brow and the
wonder from his eyes, when, as he left the house,


162 Ann Arbor Tales
a messenger handed him the president's telegram.
And he hastened to the campus to make known to
his colleagues the glad tidings that had come to him
in the depths of his perplexity.
IV
The various and varying newspaper accounts of
the affair awoke Ann Arbor from its peaceful slum-
ber and for a space the town lived. For two days
interest developed with the passage of the hours.
Speculation became general. Opinions were as
many as those who offered them; until there was
not a man or woman from the Cat Hole to Ashley
Street who did not advance a theory, new or old.
A like puzzlement, but one tempered by more
original conjecture, characterized the attitude of the
undergraduate body as a whole. For two days
Catherwood had not appeared upon the campus,
but at all hours friends and mere nodding acquaint-
ances called at his rooms only to be refused admit-
tance by Mrs. Turner, whom he had bade inform all
callers that he was ill, very ill, quite too ill to be
seen.
Little Green was one of these callers. He had
expected the refusal of admission which Mrs.
Turner, with many apologies, gave him and straight-
way he telegraphed his papers that Catherwood was


The Case of Catherwood 163
dying as the result of the great bodily injuries he
had received at the hands of his unknown under-
graduate assailants. For little Green knew by in-
stinct what many a reporter requires long years to
learn—that a “story” is “good” just as long as
there is a drop of “life" blood left in it, and not
an instant longer.
Little Green fairly reveled in the commotion he
had caused. The regular college correspondents,
anaemic, frightened little fellows, were at a loss to
know who had beaten them in their own papers.
It was little Green's game, absolutely his, and he
purposed playing it alone, aided and abetted in the
achievement of this purpose by the various tele-
graph editors whom he sought to serve. And so
far as the faculty was concerned, the frequenter the
dispatches, the more woefully addled did the pro-
fessorial brain become.
Out in the state, and in adjoining states, wise edi-
tors, looking down, as it were, from some high
place, wrote venemous and vicious editorials in
which the legislature was called upon to pass laws
abolishing hazing in institutions of the common-
wealth by making the practice of it a felony, pun-
ishable by imprisonment. Parents in the further
west with sons and daughters at Ann Arbor feared
for their children's lives. School boards passed


164 Ann Arbor Tales
resolutions. Guardians wrote to the heads of vari-
ous university departments asking if their wards
were quite safe, alone and unprotected in Ann
Arbor. A New York newspaper, on the second day,
dispatched its most ingenious “woman reporter”
to the scene of action and in three hours the
sprightly creature had woven a fictional fabric be-
side which the tale of Ali Baba was the glowing,
gleaming truth. She revived all the half-forgotten
stories of ancient hazing rites, dead these many
years, and wrote of them as of contemporary prac-
tice. And the imaginative artist in the home office
illustrated her vivacious article elaborately, seeking
to convey to the eye horrors of undergraduate tor-
ture that words were useless to describe.
Skeletonized, the story was wired across the sea
and the ponderous Times gave forth an editorial in
which it averred that such refined cruelty had never
been heard of in English academic life; not even in
the palmiest days of Rugby and of Eton at the
height of the fagging system.
Amidst the wild excitement, little pink-cheeked
Green grinned at his reflection in his mirror and ex-
claimed:
“Gad! You've got 'em goin', Greeny; you've
got 'em goin'. Greeny, you're it!”
And he was; for three swift, brilliant days.


The Case of Catherwood 165
For then the president came.
He came unannounced save by the telegram the
dean received at breakfast on the second day.
He was driven direct to his home; and ten min-
utes after entering the front door he issued from the
back and hastened across the campus.
The registrar met him in the main corridor.
“What is this I have been reading P” he asked
sharply. “This that the papers are full of P What
is it?”
The registrar followed him into his private office
where, as the president unlocked his desk, he ex-
plained accurately, tersely, the frenzy that had
seized the University, and the town; the state,
the nation, and the world.
As he spoke he was interrupted again and again
by the characteristic “ah " of the president, who as
he listened, toyed with a steel envelope opener.
“And those are the facts in the case as you—that
is to say the faculty—know them; are they P” he
asked, when the other had done.
The registrar nodded.
“Ah, yes,” murmured the president—“now let
me see if I have them correct and in their order; ”
and he recited the story as he had heard it from the
other's lips, accurately, succinctly, with no point
missing.


166 Ann Arbor Tales
“Those are the facts, doctor,” the registrar cor-
roborated.
“Ah yes, quite simple—yes.”
The registrar was about to move away.
“Ah, just a moment,” the president called.
“You know Mr. Catherwood's address—”
“One hundred and three, Williams Street—"
“Ah, yes.” And he hastily wrote a note which
he folded and addressed.
“Have this delivered to Mr. Catherwood at once
at his rooms.”
The registrar nodded. -
“And if he should call here at the office, have
him wait, please—have him wait. I wish a word
with professor Lowe.”
He wanished into the corridor.
He was absent ten minutes and as he passed
through the waiting-room to the inner private office
he glanced into the office of the registrar.
He closed the door noiselessly and seating him-
self at his desk, proceeded with slow deliberation to
open his accumulated mail.
>k :k :k >k >k >k
The bells in the library tower clanged twelve
o'clock. As the last detonation sounded through
the high corridors of the main building a timid
knock fell upon the door.


The Case of Catherwood 167
The president glanced up quickly. He drew
from an inner pocket of his coat two envelopes,
which he laid on the top of the desk.
Then :—
“Come in ” he called.
The door opened and Catherwood, streaked of
face and hollow eyed, stood upon the threshold.
The president rose.
“Ah, Mr. Catherwood,” he exclaimed, smiling.
He advanced upon his caller with outstretched
hand.
Catherwood was not conscious of the warm clasp;
he only knew one thing—that he had been sum-
moned and that now he was in the presence of the
genius of the institution of which he himself was
a little part.
“You—you sent for me, sir,” he managed to say.
“Yes—ah—you got my note of course. Sit
down.”
The president seated himself at his desk and
wheeled that he might face the odd creature near
the door.
“Well, well, Mr. Catherwood,” he exclaimed,
after a moment, “they appear to have been treat-
ing you rather badly, eh?”
Catherwood pleaded with his eyes alone.
“Well, well; what does it all mean, Mr. Cather-


168 Ann Arbor Tales
wood P” he went on, kindly. “You've no enemies
here, have you —”
The young man brightened perceptibly—“Not
one, sir; that is to say, not one that I know of,” he
added, less brightly.
“Ah, so I'm told. How do you account for this
attack upon you, then P”
Catherwood's eyes dropped to the carpet. The
president watched him covertly, fumbling the
seal that dangled from his watch-chain.
“I can't," Catherwood replied at last, looking up.
“No, of course you can't. I hardly expected you
could,” the president exclaimed. “But, Mr. Cath-
erwood"—he spoke slowly—“have you no idea
who it was committed this most dastardly assault
upon you?”
There was an instant's silence during which
Catherwood followed the scroll design of the car-
pet up one row and down another.
“Yes, sir—I have.”
“Who?" The president leaned forward.
“I don't feel justified in saying, sir.”
Catherwood did not look up as he spoke.
The president leaned back and passed his hand
across his forehead.
“Ah, yes; I think I understand, Mr. Catherwood
—you—you—perhaps fear the blame may be placed


The Case of Catherwood 169
where it should not—a fine sense of justice; Mr.
Catherwood—a very fine sense of justice—I con-
gratulate you upon it, sir.”
Catherwood glanced up now, moved to a sort of
secret impatience by what he assumed to be a note
of sarcasm in the president's voice.
But the face his eyes encountered was most
kindly.
His eyes fell again.
The president took up the envelope opener and
placed the steel point to his lips.
“Mr. Catherwood,” he began, and hesitated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course you know,” he went on, “that since
my return the facts in your case have been placed
before me by certain members of the faculty who
are familiar with them.”
“Yes, sir,” Catherwood murmured.
“Now, Mr. Catherwood, while they have told
me many things of interest, there is one little detail
that seems to me to have a very important bearing
upon the case, but which, for some unaccountable
reason, they all seem to have missed. Perhaps you
can throw some light upon this dark place.” The
president indulged here in a round, full laugh.
Encouraged by the infinite kindness of this voice,
Catherwood lifted his eyes.


17o Ann Arbor Tales
“Yes, sir; if I can—what is it?”
“Ah, yes.” The president cleared his throat.
“Mr. Catherwood,” he resumed calmly, twirling
the envelope opener between his fingers, “what I
wish so very much to know is how you managed to
tie your hands behind you !"
“Why I —” Catherwood began, and stopped.
He tried to wrench his eyes from those of the
president, calm, blue—but could not. The room
whirled. The design in the carpet became the
design of the walls and of the ceiling; and there
were no windows in the room, or doors—and all
was black—black—black, save for two points of
light; for there were those calm blue eyes, shining
back at his. -
And then as though it spoke from some great
height he heard the mellow voice in his ears again.
“Go on, Mr. Catherwood,” the voice said.
At last he managed to wrench his eyes away and
stood up, and strode over to the window and
looked out upon the white world. He saw two
sparrows poise an instant on the crest of a drift.
“Well, Mr. Catherwood —” The voice again.
He turned slowly. His face was pale beneath
the disfiguring streaks and stripes of brown.
“I—I—I confess, sir—I confess.”
He flung himself into the chair at the end of the


The Case of Catherwood 171
desk and covering his poor face with his two hands,
sobbed aloud.
The president waited for the paroxysm to pass.
“Why did you do it, Mr. Catherwood P” he
asked, quietly.
“I—I—was afraid of that history examination.”
The reply came faint.
Turning his face away, he stood up. He groped
for his hat.
“But wait a moment, Mr. Catherwood."
Shame-faced the impostor turned, his hand upon
the knob of the door.
“You have, I believe, neither credit nor condition
in that course. Professor Lowe was at a loss which
to give you; and awaited my return. Ah, sit down,
Mr. Catherwood.”
He obeyed, meekly. He fumbled his cap.
“Ah, Mr. Catherwood.” The voice still was
calm and even.
“Yes, sir,” Catherwood murmured without
changing his position.
“Mr. Catherwood, this is a delicate case—I may
say a most delicate case. It is unique in my expe-
rience. Indeed I believe it is absolutely unique.
Moreover, honesty compels me to say that it was
most ingeniously managed—most ingeniously.”
The president coughed and raised his hand to his


172 Ann Arbor Tales
lips. Catherwood looked up an instant and then
away again. -
“Now, Mr. Catherwood,” the president went on
in the same dispassionate tone, “let us look first at
the case from your point of view. You were zeal-
ous to pass your history course, ahem, too zealous,
perhaps. However, be that as it may. And I am
right, am I not, when I infer that your zeal, your
desire in the matter, is still unabated P”
Catherwood nodded, slightly.
“Ah, I thought so. So be it. It is your zeal,
then, that induces a certain definite longing for the
credit in that course P Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.” Weakly.
“Ah, yes. But, Mr. Catherwood, there is that
beside our zeal to which we must listen. There is
our conscience.”
Catherwood shifted uneasily.
“Consult your conscience, Mr. Catherwood.
Shall I tell you what it whispers ? Very well. It
bids you ask for a condition—a condition, Mr.
Catherwood.”
“Give it me, doctor; give it me.”
The suddenness, the eagerness of the request
caused the president to raise his eyebrows. The
pale ghost of a smile lingered an instant about his
lips.


The Case of Catherwood 173
He held out a restraining hand.
“Just a moment, Mr. Catherwood,” he said.
“There is another point of view. Mine.”
Catherwood had sunk back into his previous atti-
tude of dejection. -
“I may state it briefly,” the president continued.
“My interest in the proper conduct of this Univer-
sity, Mr. Catherwood, bids me give you a condition
in the course to which we—ah—have referred. But
—and I say this frankly—my interest in you, my
boy, bids me hesitate. You are young. Your
whole life is before you. A misstep now might
mean the ruin of that life.”
Catherwood caught his breath with a little spasm
of the throat.
“Far be it from me to be the cause of such a
misstep.” The president spoke less rapidly now.
“Too, you have brains. This—ah—your recent
exploit is proof of that. Such ingenuity properly
directed might work great good for not only you,
but—ah—the country at large. Mr. Catherwood,”
—every word was voiced with a cutting precision—
“my genuine interest in you prompts me to give
you your credit in this course; but —”
Catherwood started in his chair. The face he
turned to the president was aglow; the eyes alight.
“But,” the speaker emphasized—“I am not


174 Ann Arbor Tales
permitted to do this, Mr. Catherwood. Had you
taken that examination you might—mind you I say
‘might'—have passed. Again you might not.
There would have been, you see, an element of
chance. Mr. Catherwood, we shall let Chance hold
the scales this morning.”
The young man looked up wonderingly.
“I don't understand, sir,” he said, weakly.
In his hand the president held two envelopes.
“Mr. Catherwood,” he said, “you see these
envelopes P Yes. Well, in one of them—I do not
know which one—is a credit-slip; in the other is a
condition. The envelopes are sealed.”
He held them out to the limp creature at the end
of the desk.
“Choose,” he commanded.
Catherwood shrank back. “Oh, sir,” he mur-
mured, brokenly.
“Choose.”
Their eyes met then; and there was that in the
president's that forbade his disobeying.
He put forth a trembling hand. His fingers
touched the smooth paper. He drew. He crushed
the envelope in his hand.
“Is—is—that all, sir?” he begged, falteringly.
“That is all, Mr. Catherwood, good-morning.”
And he seized his cap and rushed from the room.


The Case of Catherwood 175
The president, alone, leaned back in his chair and
stared at the ceiling. Then he looked down. He
still held the second envelope.
He ran the slim blade of the ebon-handled dagger
beneath the flap and ripped it open.
He drew out the slip that it contained.
A queer little look came into his eyes. Then he
pursed his lips, and smiled.
He tore the slip into tiny flakes and let them fall
from his open hand like snow, into the waste-
basket.
Just then the bells in the library tower clanged
out four times.
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed the president. “Half-
past one! I shall be late for luncheon!"
And gathering up his coat and hat he left his
office, hurriedly.





THE DOOR-A NOCTURNE





The Door—A Nocturne
THERE is a pale moon, consequently the electric
street-lamps are unlighted. The setting is nowise
picturesque. The street is narrow, unpaved, and
fringed on either side with maples in leaf. It is late
June. To right and left, are to be discerned behind
the trees rows of characterless frame houses, that,
for the greater part, are set well back in yards, where,
here and there, are lilac bushes, rose trees, smoke
trees, and silver birches, ghostly in the thin light.
The moon's rays, glimmering upon the latched
green blinds of the lower stories—which seem
black—streak them with white.
At the end of the block, on the east side of the
street, stands a house markedly different from the
others. It is three stories in height, whilst they are
two; the lawn, cut by a gravel path, slopes gently
to the walk, and is close cropped; across the front
of the house and continuing unbroken along either
side to the back is a broad, covered porch with a
spindled rail at its edge like a little fence. The only
door is at the top of the path, in front. In a win-
179


180 Ann Arbor Tales
dow directly above the door is a card the legend on
which the moon makes clear—“Rooms to Rent.”
There is no fence about the place. On the south
side another gravel path, narrower than the one in
front and bordered with box, links the sidewalk to
the porch. The main path prongs to still another
set of steps on the north side. The house is white
and looms big in the paleness. In a pear-tree near
the south porch-steps a katydid scrapes her dreary
tune; whilst, on the north steps, a vagrant cat sits
in silent adoration of the night, contemplating, pre-
sumably, the joys thereof. A stillness made the more
tangible by the katydid's song pervades the scene.
The deep throated bells in the library tower on
the campus ring out six times—ding-dong, ding-
dong, ding-dong. Accurately it lacks but fifteen
minutes of being midnight.
Suddenly the song of the katydid ceases, and the
cat, seized with panic, leaps from the north steps
and vanishes beneath the grape trellis at the back.
Footfalls sound on the cement, and presently a
couple slant across the lawn to the porch, issuing
from the shadow of the trees into the white light
that floods the lawn. He is seen to be a well set up
youth who looks twenty-three. It is the moon, for
he is twenty. Upon his blond head is perched a
slouch hat of a dirty gray color and bound with a


The Door—A Nocturne 181
wide black band. His trousers, turned up at the
ankles, are baggy at the hips and bulge beneath the
belted Norfolk jacket that he wears. His hat is
pulled down rakishly in front. She is a head shorter
than he, and plump. Were it high noon her face
would glow ruddy. She wears a straw sailor-hat
such as no sailor ever wore; a shirt waist, and a
white duck skirt that flares at the hem and appears
somewhat crumpled. Her steps are mincing; he
slouches. Between them they carry by its two out-
springing handles a small luncheon hamper. He is
a junior; his walk gives the clue to his class. So is
she; so does hers. At the porch he sets the basket
on the lowest step and turns to her:—
JAMIE. Well, we beat 'em; didn't we ?
HILDA [fumbling in her finger purse]. Uh huh.
Let's go up-stairs and wait.
JAMIE [doubtfully]. Had we better? Won't
your landlady think— It's awful late.
HILDA [testily]. We don't pay her three dollars
a week to think; besides, they'll surely be here in a
minute. We couldn't have been more than a mile
ahead of them. They're at the livery now, proba-
bly. [During this speech she fumbles in her purse.]
Oh, dear!
JAMIE [endeavoring to smother a yawn]. Wha's
mat'r P


184 Ann Arbor Tales
JAMIE. Of course I did, dear; I want you to be
happy all the time — We are going to be happy
always, aren't we ?
HILDA. Are we ?
JAMIE. Aren't we ?
HILDA [tenderly]. Y-e-s— [Their lips are
very close. The moon rushes behind a cloud.]
There! Now you've shocked the man in the
moon!
JAMIE. I guess he's used to it. I wish I had a
dollar for all the times he's seen that!
HILDA. And just think! There isn't a soul he can
talk to about it!
JAME. Maybe he tells Mars; you don't know.
HILDA. Oh, Jamie, you ought to take course one
in astronomy! Mars and the moon are miles and
miles apart!
JAMIE. Are they P
HILDA ſtapping his hand]. Yes, and you ought
to know it.
JAMIE. But I don't know as much as you do, dearie.
HILDA. That's a very pretty speech, but you do,
all the same. Sometimes I think you know just a
little bit more.
JAME. Well, I don't; besides, how could I?
You're working for Ph. B., and I'll only get a cheap
old B. L.


The Door—A Nocturne 185
Hilda. That's your own fault. You could have
selected Ph. B. Herbert did.
JAMIE. But Herbert knows more than I do, too.
[He grins, away from her.]
HildA. Why, Jamie, he doesn't either! He
doesn't know anything but botany. I'm glad you
aren't an old prosy botanist.
JAMIE. Maybe I'm not a very good botanist, but
I've prided myself on my taste in flowers —
HildA. Now what makes you say that? You
don't know a cowslip from a hollyhock!
JAME. Maybe not, but I fell in love with you,
didn't I?
HILDA [smuggling very close]. Dearest! [Again
the modest man in the moon hides his face behind
a cloud.]
JAMIE [reminiscently]. Do you remember what
happened a month ago to-night?
HILDA [softly]. Of course I do.
JAMIE. What?
HILDA [more softly]. You proposed.
JAMIE [stroking her hair]. Where P
HILDA: Why, where we were to-day—at Whit-
more—in Mr. Stevens' sail-boat.
JAME. Yes, that's so. I thought maybe you'd
forgotten. -
HILDA [drawing back]. Jamie! Forget! Never!


186 Ann Arbor Tales
Why that's the greatest thing that ever comes into
a girl's life! Forget it? How could you!
JAMIE. And you're just the same P
HILDA [her head against his shoulder again].
Always!
JAMIE. The old lake looked somewhat different
to-day, didn't it; so many of the cottages open, and
such a crowd around P
HILDA. Yes, but it wasn't so nice as it was that
day. I thought there were just a few too many
around to-day, didn't you?
JAMIE. Yes—once—or—twice—
HILDA: Why?
JAME. Oh, because I wanted to walk on and on
alone with you—just you. I wanted to talk to you
as we're talking now, but I couldn't with so many
folks everywhere. But I had my chance when we
started for home. I looked for interference; that's
why I suggested separate carriages.
HILDA [indifferently]. I knew it.
JAME. You did P. Now that shows you know
more than I do. I didn't think you'd understand.
HILDA. Did you really think me as dense as all
that P -
JAME. I'm afraid I did. But I shan't again. I
shall tell you everything, hereafter. I find I might
as well.


The Door—A Nocturne 189
did student, too. [Anxiously.] I don't see why
in the world they don't come. Jamie, maybe
they've had an accident!
JAME. Oh, no, they haven't. That old giraffe of
theirs couldn't run away. They're walking up
from the livery now, like as not, just as we did.
They'll be here in a minute. Maybe we came in
faster than we thought. It's a good ten miles, and
with their horse it would take 'em half again as
long as it did us.
HILDA. Maybe.
JAMIE [irrelevantly]. Jove! What a magnificent
night this is!
HILDA. Isn't it? And see how round the moon
is—it's perfectly lovely.
JAMIE. Dearest!
HILDA. What?
JAMIE. I love you.
HILDA [pressing his arm]. Sweetheart!
JAME. I do. [HildA murmurs incoherently.]
Tired of scurrying, the silent moon shines down
upon these two of all the world, regardless. They
lapse into silence—he holding one of her hands—
and gaze at the pale orb of night floating up the
sky. A couple turn the corner, south of the house.
The young man is tall and angular. He wears huge
spectacles. His face is thin and wan, very like that


190 Ann Arbor Tales
of the girl beside him. Indeed, they have many
physical characteristics in common. She, too,
wears spectacles. Her mouth is straight, her com-
plexion cloudy, but her eyes give evidence of an
active brain behind them. He carries a luncheon
basket awkwardly. At the corner they stop and
he turns away as she lifts her dark cloth overskirt,
and searches for her pocket. The quill, riding her
curled-brimmed straw-hat at an angle of danger,
sways impatiently.
HERBERT [calmly]. Something appears to annoy
you—have you —
MINNIE [impetuously]. I've lost my key! Now
isn't that aggravating! To think anything so per-
fectly absurd should —
HERBERT. The others haven't yet arrived appar-
ently. Possibly we might—
MINNIE [with surprise]. Oh, I wouldn't have
you wait for the world! It must be one o'clock!
[She glances up at a window of the second floor.]
No, evidently, they haven't come. There's no
light. Of course Hilda would wait. Well, we'll
ring and arouse the landlady; that's all.
HERBERT [solicitously]. Please don't think it
would annoy me to wait for your room-mate and
her friend—here on the porch. It wouldn't in the
least, I assure you. Besides, it always puts one out


The Door—A Nocturne 191
to be awakened late at night, and I dare say your
landlady isn't a young person.
MINNIE [smiling]. It's very good of you. She
isn't young; she's quite old. Quite as old, I think,
as my mother. Still I could ring, you know.
HERBERT. Oh, don't, please don't; that is, don't
on my account. This isn't late for me. I often
study till two. Besides, to-morrow will be Sun-
day, and one isn't required to be about so early on
Sunday.
MINNIE [still smiling]. I think it would be a trifle
more accurate if you had said, “This is Sunday.” I
am positive it is after midnight. Have you a watch P
HERBERT. I am exceedingly sorry, but—but I
didn't wear my watch to-day; being around the
water, I thought—I thought, I might lose—
MINNIE. Yes, one does have to be careful around
the water. I've lost my key, I know!
HERBERT. I can't tell you how sorry I am.
MINNIE. And the injustice of it is that you must
be the one to suffer—waiting here for Hilda.
HERBERT. I shan't suffer; it will be a pleasure,
believe —
MINNIE. It's very good of you, of course; but
you are quite sure I hadn't better ring P
HERBERT. Quite. Don't do it, really. It's a
lovely night, and —


192 Ann Arbor Tales
MINNIE. Well, we'd better sit on the porch, then,
it's rather damp here, don't you think? [She moves
toward the south steps.]
HERBERT [following]. Yes, I believe it is rather
damp. There's been a heavy dew. One can't
afford to get one's feet wet with so much bron-
chitis about.
MINNIE [sitting on the top step]. No indeed—l
can't imagine where they can be! They were
ahead of us all the way in. Why didn't we think
to ask at the livery if—
HERBERT. I'm sure it wouldn't have done any
good. You see they didn't get their horse where I
got ours.
MINNIE. Oh, yes, to be sure. [Anxiously..] But
where in the world can they be P
HERBERT. I recall having read once—in some
French book if I remember rightly—that one should
never count upon an affianced couple being in a
given place at a given time.
MINNIE [smiling at him]. I'm not sure that isn't
true. Still, Hilda is usually quite discreet, and I
can't —
HERBERT. Doubtless they'll be here in a moment;
I shouldn't worry.
MINNIE [suddenly]. Why, how very impolite of
me. To allow you to sit there all this time holding


The Door—A Nocturne - 193
that basket. Won't you set it on the porch? [HER-
BERT has held the basket on his knees with his hands
spread out over the cover.]
HERBERT. Oh—ah—I wasn't thinking of-there,
I guess that will be safe. [He sets the basket on the
porch at his side.]
MINNIE [leaning forward and gazing past him
toward the street]. I wish they'd come! Wasn't
it perfectly absurd of me to lose my key P Keep-
ing you here! Are you quite sure you'd just as
lief ?
HERBERT. Yes, indeed—really—I like to sit out—
really, it doesn't matter, not in the least.
MINNIE. Well while we are waiting we might as
well go on where we left off. You were saying,
on the way up from the livery — [Hardly for a
moment has HERBERT taken his eyes off the girl at
his side.]
HERBERT [floundering]. Oh, yes, as I was saying
—the—oh—ah—I was say—what was I saying,
Miss —
MINNIE. Have you forgotten so soon P I'm afraid
the subject couldn't have held all your thought.
You were telling me about the triliums.
HERBERT [brightly]. Oh, yes, to be sure; of
course—the triliums. I was telling you they were
to be found on the plains—of all places in the world


194 Ann Arbor Tales
—right in the heart of the great American desert—
as I'm told.
MINNIE [earnestly]. Are they, indeed P Really, I
never heard of such a thing. Gray says positively,
I am sure, that they are to be found growing only
in damp soil; near rivers, for instance, or in marshes.
I've never succeeded in finding them around here
anywhere except down by the Huron River or out
State Street at Tamarack Swamp. And to think of
them growing away out there! It is the strangest
thing I ever heard of—why, there's no water for
miles, is there P
HERBERT. Not a drop. I'm told they've been
found in the most barren places; flowering along-
side cacti and sage-brush.
MINNIE. You are quite sure they were the trilium,
are you? It's possible of course—
HERBERT. That my informant might be mistaken
—yes; but I don't think he was. They look pre-
cisely the same, and they analyze the same. I've
seen his specimens. The leaf is identical in form.
It is a trifle larger, that is all. I've never been able
to distinguish any other variation, however slight.
MINNIE. Have you ever mentioned it to Professor
Yarb P I'm sure —
HERBERT. Yes, I told him about them, and last
summer I sent him a box. He analyzed them and


The Door—A Nocturne 195
is as much mystified as I. He's going to write a
paper on the subject for this year's meeting of the
American Society.
MINNIE. How I should love to see some! I won-
der if it would be too much trouble for you to send
me a few; just one or two. You have some
pressed, doubtless. I'd like to take a hand in solv-
ing the riddle. I intend to keep up with my botany,
no matter where or what I teach, finally.
HERBERT [joyfully]. Do you? Do you, really P
MINNIE [earnestly]. I do indeed.
HERBERT. Of course I'll send you some. I'll
mail you a box as soon —
MINNIE [with a protesting gesture]. Oh, I wouldn't
have you go to that trouble for the world. Just two
or three, in an envelope. They will do quite as
well. [She leans forward again and gazes past
him down the street. He does not draw back as he
did before.] Why in the world don't they come P
I shall have to talk to Hilda, severely.
HERBERT. Oh, don't be hard on her. They're in
—that is to say, they think a very great deal of each
other, and no doubt —
MINNIE. But it is so terribly late!
HERBERT. I know, but it's very pleasant—such
a night—much pleasanter than it is inside. And
as for sleep, why one can sleep any night, while


196 Ann Arbor Tales
such a moon as that, up there, one can't see
often.
MINNIE [quickly]. I do believe you're senti-
mental. I'm not a bit, so we'll never get on.
HERBERT [gazing into space]. I don't think two
people ought to be alike — [He catches himself,
stares at the moon and whistles without whistling.
Minnie regards him curiously from the end of her
eye.]
MINNIE [examining the cuff of one sleeve]. What
do you mean by that?
HERBERT [again floundering]. I—oh—ah—I was
just thinking— We had a lecture on some such
subject in psychology the other day.
MINNIE [with a little sigh]. Do you enjoy
psychology P
HERBERT. Very much.
MINNIE. Have you ever made any experiments P
HERBERT. Only a few, just the more common
ones. I've only had one course in it, you see.
MINNIE [making a thrilling conversational leap).
I've no doubt it is all very fascinating, but I don't
think I should care to marry a psychologist.
HERBERT ſquickly; edging nearer]. But I'm not
a psychologist! I'm a botanist.
MINNIE [very softly; looking away]. What do
you mean—l —


The Door—A Nocturne 197
HERBERT [seemingly about to run madly into the
face of the storm, but recovering himself]. I—oh
—ah—I was just defending myself, you know.
But why wouldn't you care to marry one P
MINNIE [sighing again]. Oh, I don't know. I
think I should be in mortal terror all the time that
he was just analyzing me and every one of my
motives.
HERBERT [dreamily]. I don't think you would
have occasion. If he loved you he couldn't—
MINNIE [trying to laugh lightly and succeeding
in emitting a rather tame cackle]. Love me! The
idea! Who would ever love a spectacled old thing
like me?
HERBERT. Oh, you don't know, you know. Be-
sides you shouldn't talk that way about yourself.
MINNIE [smiling full at him]. I should tell the
truth, shouldn't I?
HERBERT [locking and unlocking his fingers].
But it isn't the truth.
MINNIE [looking down]. Oh!
HERBERT [with real courage]. That's the truth!
You see the difference, don't you ?
MINNIE. Well, I'd like to know what I am if I'm
not that. No one ever intimated before that I am
anything else. My little brother has maintained it
ever since he learned to talk.


198 Ann Arbor Tales
HERBERT. Well, you're not; you're — [He
hesitates. Thereafter he speaks quite as a loco-
motive puffs on a steep grade. There are two or
three large, lusty puffs followed by a chain of spas-
modic little puffs.]
MINNIE [encouragingly). Yes?
HERBERT. You're not! You're a—oh, don't you
understand P I can't keep from telling you any
longer, really—I tried to in the carriage, but the
road was so bumpy, I — It seems as though I
must make you understand. Please try to—I —
Don't you see! I care for you very, very much and—
I wrote my people all about it and—oh, don't you see,
Miss — I mean Minnie — I want to ask —
Will you—
MINNIE [they are very close. She looks up at
him feelingly]. Herbert! [The moon, aghast, dazed,
thrown into a veritable spasm of lunar consterna-
tion, darts behind a cloud. But these two do not
notice. The moon is forgotten—all is forgotten—the
stars, the earth, the hour—even botany / Their heads
are near together; thus they remain a long time, with-
out speaking. The hatydid has ceased again her dis-
mal song, and long since the cat slunk away behind
the grape-trellis to seek new fields. The intense
stillness of the hour absorbs them and makes them a
part of itself. After a myriad atoms a bird, some—


The Door—A Nocturne 199
where, pipes a warning note, which is taken up by
another bird. The couple on the further porch stir.
Her head has been resting against his shoulder and
for a little time she has slept. In one hand he holds
a bit of angel's food, left over from the luncheon,
which he from time to time has nibbled indifferently.]
JAMIE [flinging the cake away and stretching].
Gee whiz!
HILDA [starting, sleepily]. Wha—what is it?
JAMIE [grumblingly]. Aw, nothin', I just wish
they'd come, that's all.
HILDA [plaintively]. Aren't you happy, dear?
JAMIE [yawning]. Oh, I'm happy enough, I
suppose, but this porch isn't exactly downy; I feel
as though I'd been sitting here a month.
HiLDA [sighing]. Well I can't see where they
are, either—for the life of me.
JAMIE [bitterly]. The darned fools!
HILDA [with horror]. Jamie!
JAME. Well, aren't they P
HiLDA [with some show of spirit]. No, they're
not; and if you're so sick of sitting here, why don't
you go home; I can wait. I'm not afraid.
JAMIE [yawning again]. Don't be silly.
HILDA. It seems to me you're the silly one; just
as though you couldn't —
JAMIE [impatiently]. Well, if you think it's


2OO Ann Arbor Tales
fun sitting here all night waiting for two soft heads
that don't know enough to ache when they're in
pain, you're mistaken ; that's all.
HiLDA [moving away from him]. I should think
you'd be ashamed !
JAMIE [with rising impatience]. That's right; now
get mad /
HILDA. I'm not mad; so there! But—I — [She
begins to sniffle suspiciously. For some time
neither speaks. The moon has waned and a
strange, new light, of a sickly cast, is rising in the
eastern shy. A restless bird in a tree near by pipes
one nervous note ; them all is silence again.]
JAMIE [stretching and again yawning]. What
are you crying about?
HILDA [swallowing two or three times, chokingly].
I—l—I'm not crying —
JAMIE [indifferently and quite as though he felt
he must say something]. You are, too; what about?
HILDA. Nothing.
JAMIE. [He mutters.]
HILDA. What did you say ?
JAMIE [doggedly]. I didn't say anything.
HILDA [Coming a little closer]. You did, too, and
I want to know what it was.
JAMIE [impatiently]. I didn't say anything, I tell
you!


The Door—A Nocturne 2O1
HILDA [Choking up again]. That's right; now be
ugly; just as though it were my fault; when you
yourself suggested that we sit here.
JAME. I didn't think it would be for all night !
HILDA [sticking to the point]. Well you did sug-
gest it, didn't you?
JAMIE [jerking his head]. Oh, I suppose so!
[He sits with his elbows on his knees, his chin in his
hands, and gazes at the rising light.]
HILDA. I'm just as tired as you are.
JAMIE [sneeringly]. Yes, I've no doubt!
HILDA [hopelessly]. Oh, Jamie!
JAMIE [with a fiendishly sarcastic grin that she
doesn't see between her fingers]. And you're catch-
ing cold, too.
HILDA [recovering]. Why, I'm not either; what
makes you say that ?
JAMIE [with withering sarcasm]. Oh, aren't you?
I thought you were—by the sniffles
HILDA [with some return of her former spirit].
You're a mean, horrid, old thing, just as mean and
horrid as you can be; and I'll never speak to you
again as long as I live!
JAMIE [significantly]. Oh, I guess you will.
HILDA. Well, 1 won't.
JAMIE [gleefully]. There, didn't I tell you you
would P


2O4 Ann Arbor Tales
MINNIE. Hilda, where in the world have you
been P
HILDA. And I should like to know where in the
world you have been P
MINNIE [severely and indicating the porch behind
her]. We've been sitting on that porch all night,
waiting for you.
HILDA [mocking her severity and indicating the
porch behind her]. And we've been sitting on that
porch all night, waiting for you !
JAMIE [to HILDA coldly]. Now that you have other
company, I'll go. Good-bye! [He rushes down
the steps.]
HILDA [running to the rail and calling after him
softly]. Jamie! Jamie! Oh, Jamiel [He appar-
ently does not hear her. HERBERT stands by
fumbling his hat and looking first at one girl then
at the other, wonderingly. HILDA turns from the
rail and gazes at MINNIE who returns the gaze
searchingly. HiLDA bites her lower lip and looks
down. MINNIE leans against the casing of the front
door, her hand on the knob. She anticipates a
scene.]
MINNIE. Good-night—Herbert!
HERBERT. Good-night—Minnie! [They exchange
one loving look and he is off. He proceeds in a
direction opposite to that taken by JAMIE.]


The Door—A Nocturne 2O5
MINNIE [regarding HildA whose eyes are upon her
and filled with surprise]. Hilda—tell me—what—
HILDA [hiding her face against the shoulder of
her room-mate, who strokes her hair caressingly].
Oh, Minnie—Minnie—he's gone—it's broken—
MINNIE [convulsively, her grasp upon the door-
knob, tightening. The knob turns. The door swings
back]. Oh! See 1
HILDA [lifting her face]. Oh! [Her eyes meet
MINNIE’s. In the latter there is a smile which she
shares weakly.]
MINNIE. This is too absurd . Open all night !
HILDA [trying hard not to cry]. Oh, Minnie ' I
don't know what—
MINNIE [her arm around HildA]. There dear.
Don't cry. It will come out all right. And to think
you should have broken with Jamie while Herbert
and I were — [They pass into the hallway. MIN-
NIE, by closing the door softly behind them, renders the
rest unintelligible to any one who might be passing
just at this instant.]





A Modern Mercury
On a cool morning in mid-June two little boys,
very dusty and wearing very grimy waists, sat on
the turfed mound of an ancient circus ring in the
old fair ground enclosure, intently watching the
gaunt, half-naked figure of a man in flapping white
breeches who, high-stepping, sprinted back and
forth along the stretch of the old race track. Their
elbows on their knees, their chins in their grimy
hands, they gazed fixedly at him whom they had
trudged across the lots to see. For in his day he
was the small boys' god, their best-loved hero, be-
fore whom it was their greatest joy to bend the
knee.
“D’ you think he kin do it?” Jimmy Thurston
finally inquired, as the spare, ridiculous figure of
the man brought up behind the tenantless judges'
stand and for an instant was lost to sight.
Willie Trigger sneered. He was very superior,
was Willie.
“Sure he kin!” he exclaimed. “Sure he kin || "
209


2 I O Ann Arbor Tales
“I bet he can't,” Jimmy replied curtly.
“He kin too—'sides —”
“'Sides what?” the challenging Jimmy asked,
contemptuously.
“My father says he kin.”
“Aw —”
“He does too.”
“Aw, my pa says he can't—”
“I d'care; he kin.”
“How d'you know?”
“Well"—Willie Trigger hesitated. “Well, my
father says he guesses he kin beat a mengine / "
At that Jimmy Thurston burst into jeering
laughter.
“He! hel hel” he cackled—“a nengine / He!
He! Why, a nengine goes—a nengine goes a
mile in a minnit / "
Willie Trigger had become very red; moreover
he was choking, half with rage, half with confusion.
He recognized the need of personal support. So he
blurted:—
“I know he kin, 'cause I seen him—onct!”
“Aw, yeh didn't neether,” Jimmy Thurston flatly
contradicted.
Willie wriggled and dug his heel into the soft
earth.
“I did —”


A Modern Mercury 2 11
“Didn't neether / "
Willie Trigger sprang to his feet, his fists
clenched. Tears were rising now.
With his eye Jimmy Thurston measured the dis-
tance across the field to the white house at the gate
where he knew his mother was. Leaping forward
he dashed suddenly away, and as he dodged the
gurgling Willie, cried:
“Li-ar! Li-ar! Li-ar!”
It took Willie Trigger three seconds to perceive
the situation and to act. Like a hound, then, he
was off in the other's wake.
The straining Jimmy, his heart bursting with re-
gret, heard his pursuer panting at his heels.
Nearer! Nearer!
A scream suddenly rent the air, a scream that was
carried on by a willing wind to the keen apprecia-
tive ears of motherhood. As Willie Trigger was
about to close upon the plunging form of Jimmie,
Mrs. Thurston flung back the screen door and ap-
peared upon the narrow back porch, wiping her
hands on her apron.
“Jim—mee/ Jim—mee Thurston!” she screamed.
“Maw!” yelled Jimmy dolorously.
At the maternal screech, Willie Trigger brought
up standing. One instant he hesitated and then,
showing his heels to the woman on the porch


212 Ann Arbor Tales
whose arms were outstretched to receive her own,
he scurried off in the direction of the judges' stand,
as fast as his little legs could carry him. He heard
the warning cry from the back porch:—
“Willie Trigger, if you hurt Jimmy, I'll skin you
alive!”
And at the corner of the judges' stand he ran full
into the long, lank creature in the flapping “shorts”
—and brought up, gaping.
“Well, well, who was after you ?” asked the
towering runner, gazing down at the little grimy
boy whose head seemed to come somewhere about
his high-set knees.
“Nobody,” Willie Trigger mumbled.
“Who was that calling P”
“I dunno.” Willie looked up and the runner
smiled down at him.
“Where do you live P” he asked.
“On Thayer Street.”
“Way down there, eh? What you doing up
here, then P”
Willie Trigger again looked up into the gaunt
creature's long, thin face, then down at the ground
into which he proceeded to bore with the stubbed
toe of one small shoe.
“Come to see you run,” he mumbled, and
grinned sheepishly.


A Modern Mercury 213
Bunny laughed drily.
“Well, I'll "–he began and stopped. Then he
said:—“You wait here, little chap; I'll just get into
some clothes and we'll go home together; it's nearly
noon. I live down your way —”
The gentleness of his voice gave Willie Trigger a
new courage.
“I know it,” he exclaimed proudly; “I live 'cross
the street.”
The runner plunged into the box-like compart-
ment of the disused judges' stand from which he
issued in an incredibly short space of time more
properly and far more becomingly clad.
“How did you know I was going to practice out
here P” he inquired with a show of interest. He
made no effort to look down—for it would have
meant an effort.
“I follered yeh,” was the now prompt reply.
And into Bunny's man-heart that instant there
welled a certain pride, but it was nowise to be
compared to that which swelled the boy-heart of
Willie Trigger, hero-worshipper.
And so, down Washtenaw Avenue they walked
together, through College Street and on into the
campus and across; Willie Trigger the while at-
tempting vainly to keep step with his ill-matched
companion.


A Modern Mercury 215
tor by casting light upon an unforeseen occurrence
of great import, that but for him, must forever re-
main obscure.
As it was, Bunny had made a friend, a champion,
though he knew it not.
II
In University Hall that Saturday night a man with
steel-blue eyes, a white imperial and a single set of
gestures, lectured on “The Reconstruction of the
South.” Having been an active and successful
carpet-bagger twenty-five years before, he had
played a part of some importance in the rehabilita-
tion of the Southland and was qualified to speak
with authority on the subject.
The immense hall was but partially filled. The
lecture was very dry and very uninteresting, save
when, now and again a rolling period crowded with
platitudes and false metaphors, was delivered by
the pompous person on the rostrum. Wilma found
herself finally attempting to repeat backward the
clause from the Ordinance of '37 which stared down
at her from the arch of the stage.
“Religion, morality and knowledge, being
necessary to good government and the happiness of
mankind, schools and the means of education shall
forever be encouraged —”


216 Ann Arbor Tales
&e tapped her knee with her fan 2nd moved her
#24.
“Encouraged be forever shall education of
the 2nd º
She foundered.
She tried again as so many others have tried
and with no more success. She tapped her knee
angrily, and nudged the sleepy Bunny at her side.
“Let's get out," she whispered.
He nodded.
They were sitting on the aisle at the back. It
was but a step to the door. He followed her,
noiselessly.
In the broad, silent corridor she looked up at him
with a smile.
“I simply couldn't stand it another minute.”
she said.
As they issued into the moonlight she drew in a
full, long breath and asked: “Why should any
one want to sit indoors on such a night? It's—it's
a crime / "
She was very tiny beside him; he was very awk-
ward beside her. “The long and the short of it,”
they were called by those who knew them best.
She was wont to defend their friendship by saying
she detested little men, whilst he complained that
great, tall, awkward women he abhorred.


A Modern Mercury 217
“Well, if you're both satisfied,” Nibs, her
brother, said one day after half an hour of teasing;
“I guess the public ought to be.”
Their friendship had grown from the chance
meeting on the day of the State Street race when
Nibsey defeated Billy Shaw and then was so igno-
miniously defeated by the lank creature who now
was his, as well as his sister's, closest friend and
constant companion. That day their eyes had
met—Bunny's and the girl's—across a carriage seat.
Only for an instant though it was, each remembered
the instant; Wilma with a certain indefinite anger,
Bunny with a very definite desire that one day he
might meet the owner of the eyes.
They did not meet formally until a month after
and then it was Nibsey who named them to each
other with many flourishes and mock heroics. In a
very short time that glance across the carriage seat
had developed into a close, fine companionship; a
companionship so close indeed that it was deemed
sufficient by divers of their friends to warrant
whispers that Bunny and Wilma were engaged.
For in Ann Arbor He has but to play two games
of tennis with Her, and take Her on the river once,
to have it become known that They are “engaged ”
—whatever that sadly misused term may signify to
the non-elect.


218 Ann Arbor Tales
Perhaps, however, in this case there was some
reason for the smiles of patronizing acceptance and
whispered suggestions on the part of their friends,
of an unestablished but imagined relationship.
Bunny never was seen with any other girl and
Wilma, being out of college and therefore having a
wider acquaintance among undergraduates than if
she were a college girl, was only now and again
beheld in the company of another man.
One winter they had attended the Choral Union
concerts together, had driven together, and in the
spring they had walked together, rowed together.
It was doubly hard for their friends to believe they
were not engaged, for did they not, as well, attend
all the lectures on the course of the S. L. A. P
Would a girl demean herself so far, suffer torture so
exquisite, it was asked, as to attend sad lectures
with one certain man if she were not very much in
love with him P And if a man were not willing to
make sacrifice of his happiness to be beside her
would he take her to a lecture on a night in June, or
even so much as suggest such a proceeding?
In commenting and in speculating upon the
“affair” their friends asked these questions, and
other equally pertinent; and, as there were no re-
plies forthcoming, they were compelled by the very
absence of contradictory evidence to nod and smile


A Modern Mercury 219
in that patronizing and agonizing way that the un-
engaged have ever smiled upon those whose hearts
they believe Dan Cupid has been using for a
target.
As for Nibsey, her brother, he said nothing. Per-
haps he did not care. Or if he did care his certain
knowledge that Bunny was what he was wont to
call “a ripper” and his sister “a good fellow,”
may have carried with it a satisfaction that made
the relation between them just and proper.
However, that there may be no misunderstanding
at the outset, it is quite safe to affirm so far at least
as Bunny was concerned, that he was hard hit. It
was realization of this, a realization keen, active,
that dismayed him. Of course he believed, as was
his right, that Wilma liked him. But he more than
liked her. He hardly felt it his privilege yet to tell
her just how much he liked her, and doubtless could
not even though he deemed the time had arrived
to-day. Thus he fretted, and procrastinated.
Even now as he walked beside her under the stars
of a night in June that was full of fragrance, he felt
himself floundering in a sea of uncertainty where
edged the shores of which he knew not. So he
sighed, then pulled himself together before she could
seek to know the reason, and said:
“You ought to have seen me this morning—ought


22O Ann Arbor Tales
to have seen me with a new acquaintance I made
on the fair grounds.”
And he told her of Willie Trigger and his exploit.
She heard him through in silence.
“Do you know Willie?” he asked.
“No,” she said. After a moment she added,
“Don't you rather hate to be followed about by the
small boys as though you were—as though you
were a circus parade?”
He laughed.
It was not the first time she had made fun, as he
deemed her attitude to be, of his athletic attain-
ments, and the admiration engendered by them
among Ann Arbor youth.
“It's great!” he exclaimed. “Simply great!
You have no idea how it seems to know the small
boys are gaping at you in wonder as you pass.
I've watched them lots of times from the tail of my
eye and seen them nudge their companions. Oh, I
tell you it's satisfying!”
Conscious as she was of the assumed vanity she
affected a seriousness when she said:— -
“But I should think you would rather grown-ups
gaped at you.”
“But what can I do to make 'em P’’ he asked
wonderingly. “Just point the way and I'll take
it —”
–––––


A Modern Mercury 221
“Oh, there are lots of ways,” she went on.
“You're in the medical department, why don't you
become a great doctor P”
“I shall,” he exclaimed, “but that takes time.
Meanwhile I am steeling myself, practicing with the
little boys, you know, so I sha'n't be overwhelmed
when big people gape at me in wonder a little
later —”
“Oh, you can't be serious!” she cried petulantly.
“What's the use P” he asked and laughed.
“What's the use on such a night, with the stars
overhead, the tree toads scraping, and—and—you
here P”
“But I want you to be,” she said; and then ran
on: “It has always seemed so silly to me when
you great men come out in ridiculous clothes and
run around and jump and play ball—just like over-
grown babies.”
“That's what we are,” he replied. “Ann Arbor
is only a nursery. It's only different from other
nurseries in that the nurses don't wear little caps
and aprons.” He chuckled.
“Well, anyway, I wish you wouldn't,” she said
plaintively. She lifted her face and looked up at
him.
“Really P” He was in earnest now.
“Yes.”


A Modern Mercury 223
could do—as to take her in his two big hands and
shake her until her bronze hair fell about her shoul-
ders. But he did no such thing.
She said, “Well?"
“You'll see,” he answered and they walked on.
They sat on her porch for an hour and talked of
other things. They did not hear the bells in the
library tower as they rang out quarters, halves,
three-quarters of the hour.
In her room, after he had gone, her eyes chanced
to fall upon his picture fixed with many others on a
tennis-net ingeniously draped between two win-
dows, and she said to the picture:
“You're a great, tall, awkward, foolish old dear!
There. . . .”
But Bunny, in the solitude of his own alcove, lay
awake half the night floundering in that tossing
sea of doubt.
With the morning however, came resolve.
“What's the use,” he muttered as he lathered his
chin before the little square mirror tilted against the
window at the height of his eyes.
He would run once more—only once. And
then —
Could she have meant it, he wondered, when she
told him she would cut him from her list of friends
if he failed to break the record. He smiled at the


A Modern Mercury 225
As he stepped out upon the broad porch of the
low roofed house, the light of determination was
in his eyes and the firmness of a set resolve had
squared his chin.
III
Thursday evening, after he had had his supper,
Willie Trigger's mother dispatched him to the post-
office, with a strict injunction to be home by eight
o'clock. Primarily as a result of this injunction and
secondarily as the result of an inherent love of
night, Willie Trigger dawdled on the way. A
down-town lad of his acquaintance prevailed upon
him to assist in an attack upon a certain cherry-tree,
the location of which, on Spring Street, he very
well knew. He was not loth to join forces with
the down-town youth and forth they fared together,
to the end that it was after eight even before Willie
turned into Huron Street on his long way home.
Full of ox-heart cherries and contentment, he did
not hasten. A whipping perhaps, in any event a
scolding and a summary dismissal to his bed might
await him, but what availed it?
“I d' care,” he grumbled, bravely, and scuffed his
feet.
As he approached the Cook House loud talk at-
tracted his attention away from a confectioner's


226 Ann Arbor Tales
window where were displayed all the goodies dear-
est to the hearts of little boys. He quickened his
pace.
Two men were quarreling with a hackman at the
hotel door. The hackman proclaimed his right to a
dollar fare; his patrons contested.
Willie Trigger, looking up from the walk, noted
the appearance of the men. The one was short
and squat and gross of features, with a great black
mustache like a duster that he pulled persistently
as he haggled with the angry hackman. His com-
panion was taller, Square of shoulder, with a long,
thin face, and a straight, hard mouth above his
square, clean-shaven chin. In expectation of a
fight, Willie Trigger held his breath.
“There's a half-dollar,” he heard the fat man say,
“now take it or leave it.” He flung the coin to the
pavement, turned and entered the hotel behind his
friend, while the hackman, grumbling still, stooped,
recovered the coin and, clambering upon his ancient
vehicle, drove away. Willie Trigger was disap-
pointed; disappointed that there had been no open
fight and disappointed that the hackman had found
the half-dollar. His nimble eyes had followed it as
it rolled half way beneath a trunk that stood on end
beside the curb. When the hackman discovered
the coin, Willie's heart sunk and he set out upon his


A Modern Mercury 227
way. Presently he commenced to whistle shrilly
and it was apparent that the incident had made no
more impression upon his plastic mind than it had
upon the minds of the men with whom the hack-
man had exchanged compliments.
As it was, they were shown to a room by a boy
in buttons and the loafers in the office saw them
together not again that night.
The short, squat creature with the huge mustache
locked the door and flung off his coat.
“Well, we're here!” he exclaimed.
His friend made no reply.
“Jack,” he went on, “if I don't make a killin'
Saturday, my name's Mud—Mud with a big M!
This town is jammed full of marks—soft, easy,
mushy marks. A guy could come in here with
three shells and a pea and clean it up in a day —”
“If the police would let him," his friend put in
with a grin.
“Rats!” was the contemptuous retort. “I’ve
been figgerin' it all out," he went on, sinking upon
a chair and spreading his short legs to accommodate
his capacious portliness. He savagely bit the tip
from a black, fat cigar. “I’ve been figgerin' it all
out and it's goin' to be easy. They're muckers;
farm-hands; easiest sort o' pickin'!”
“Well, how you going to do it P”


228 Ann Arbor Tales
Before the wavy mirror on the imitation mahog-
any dresser, his companion smoothed his hair with
a pair of military brushes taken from his satchel.
The fat man chewed his cigar.
“I’m goin' to get next to-night,” he said.
“There's always more or less geezers hangin' round
the hotel in a college town, and I'll do a little
pumpin'. I'll find out just what this phenom's been
doin' since he went into trainin’.”
“He’s the only one I'm fearin’,” his friend put in.
“If he can do the sprint under ten seconds flat he's
got Morrison beat!”
“And you the trainer!” exclaimed the fat man
with a deep laugh. “Say, if your man don't lay
all over him—say, I won't do a thing —”
“Well, be careful, that's all,” the other warned.
“Don’t try to do anything to-night. Plenty of
time to-morrow. You can go out to the track and
have a look at him; he'll be tryin' out.”
“Won't you go?” the pudgy creature asked.
His friend turned from the stand where he was
washing his hands.
“Say Punky!” he exclaimed, “do you take me
for a blamed fool P. Big business me goin' out
there; wouldn't it P Do you suppose some of those
wise guys wouldn't know me? I guess not! I'll
stay right here under cover till Morrison shows up


A Modern Mercury 229
to-morrow afternoon. You can go out; and when
you get back you can tell me how this Bunny
strikes you—but if I were you I wouldn't distribute
any coin until Saturday. Talk “Morrison' and wag
your head a bit and get 'em going; then cover their
cash all you want to —”
“Aw —” the other began.
“That's right!” his friend warned; “I’ve been
up against this game a little oftener 'n what you
have and I know 'em; I haven't been doin' the
strong arm act for two years at Western College for
nothin'—if it wasn't that I'm goin' tº quit I wouldn't
go into the game with you; as it is, ain't I got as
big an interest in th' killin' as you have, I'd like to
know P Don’t we break even P It's a fair chance
and if they's any show of coppin' out any of the
loose change of these mamma's boys, I'm the child
to do it—with your valuable and sporty assistance,
Punky. D'you see?”
Apparently Punky did, for he muttered, “Aw
right,” and flecked the ash from his cigar. He
puffed quickly twice and then said:
“Giddings, do you s'pose Morrison's next P”
“Naw,” Giddings replied contemptuously. “I
sent out a feeler—sorter touched him up on a “sell-
out” to see how he'd take it and he got red-headed.
Said if it wasn't to be a fair race and the best man


23o Ann Arbor Tales
win, he'd pull out. I gave him the ‘ha-ha' and
passed him a con. about just seein how he felt be-
cause I wanted it square and then worked the
“honor-talk’ strong. He calmed right down and
got interested. He's all right; you needn't worry
about him. It's this Bunny; you've got to have a
peek at him before Saturday, then let your judg-
ment do the rest.”
“Aw yes!” Punky exploded—“Aw yes —
Judgment be blowed! If this Bunny's square, O.
K. ; if he's square and slow, O. K.; if he's square
and too fast for your “wonder,’ why —” He
hesitated.
“What?” his friend inquired calmly.
“Oh well; you leave it to me,” was the signifi-
cant reply.
Giddings laughed.
“You can work the game,” he said, “only don't
let 'em think we're playin' together; some wise guy
might have an idea and put the whole push next.
You know what would happen then, don't you?”
he inquired wisely.
His companion did not reply. He went over to
the one window of the room and gazed down into
the lighted street. Suddenly he turned back and
said: “You go to bed; I'm goin' down to the office
and get next.” And he vanished.


A Modern Mercury 231
The public room of the old hotel was filled with
students. The events of Saturday formed the one
topic of conversation. In the process of “getting
next” Punky Williams, sporting man, (with a
record not altogether immaculate) by maintaining
an open ear and a closed mouth, learned that one
name was on the common lips almost as frequently
as that of “Bunny.” It was “Morrison.” Punky
Williams was satisfied. He asked simple but sig-
nificant questions now and again of various youths
who lounged near him. He affected a passive, a
rather paternal interest in the “meet,” the sprinting
event in which was conceded by all to be the most
important. He learned enough to satisfy him that,
so far as he was concerned, but two men would
run—Bunny of the U. of M. and Morrison of West-
ern College, trainer Giddings' protégé, the other
entries were unworthy of consideration. He sought
his companion in the little room up-stairs with a
heart as light as thistle down and a face that glowed
with pleasure.
The next morning he walked out to the fair
grounds, seeking direction from time to time from
the people whom he passed.
There were perhaps a hundred students in the
paddock watching the exercises. Punky Williams
wriggled his way among them; his little ears recep-


232 Ann Arbor Tales
tive, his mouth close shut. Presently the crowd
yelled and he craned over the enclosure rail. At
the top of the course Bunny paused. With an air
of passive interest, Punky Williams took out a stop
watch, then fixed his eyes upon the figure up the
course. He saw an arm thrust above his head and
the sunlight glinted on the metal of the starter's
pistol. He caught the time as the report rang out.
And as Bunny high-stepped across the tape he shut
his watch with a click and wriggled back to the
rim of the crowd, observed in the moment's clamor
by no one save a single small boy in a very grimy
shirt-waist.
As the bells in the tower of the court-house op-
posite the hotel rang out the hour of noon, he burst
in upon the loafing Giddings, who, at his friend's
most obvious excitement exclaimed:
“What th' devil's th’ matter; you look as though
you'd seen a ghost?” -
“Well! I have!” the breathless Punky puffed.
“Giddings,” he cried, “I’ve seen him / I held the
watch on him. It wasn't his real speed,—and he
came over the tape grinning; but—he did it in
10 1-5 /"
Giddings with an expression of complete disgust
upon his smooth, thin face, sat down again.
“Punky, you give me a pain!” he exclaimed.


234 Ann Arbor Tales
Perhaps Willie had not heard the maternal call.
At the instant of its issue he was balanced on the
top of the back fence across the street, hidden from
the maternal eye by the intervening house. At the
second call he plumped down upon a soft ash heap
on the other side. If he did hear he gave no sign,
but, after dusting his pantaloons with little flips and
pats of his small brown hands, he ran with all the
speed that he could muster, across the wide, uneven
lot. Presently he became lost to sight among the
gnarled and broken trees of a once prolific apple
orchard, beyond. Issuing from the orchard on the
farther side, he crossed another lot—first wriggling
wormlike beneath a low wire fence—and came out
into the dusty road that led to the old fair ground
enclosure. To-day that road, as a wide, smooth
street disfigured only by the tracks over which the
flat-wheeled trolleys bump, marks the northern
boundary of Ann Arbor's ultra exclusiveness. Be-
hind hedges or half hidden amid the trees, nestle
snug little houses that seem to cry out against all
vulgar intrusion and hug themselves in the very joy
of their most obvious respectability.
Along this road, thick with dust; now obscured
in a cloud of his own raising, now distinct against
the background of the high board fence, Willie
Trigger trudged. Arriving at the long ticket win-


A Modern Mercury 235
dow he was dismayed to find that the hatch was
shut. Bunny had told him there would be a
ticket for him at the window—a ticket for him ex-
pressly, in an envelope bearing his name, else he
would not have deserted his dinner to be the first
on hand. Save for a solitary woman whom he saw
among the trees in the wood across the way, the
region about appeared deserted. It was not yet one
o'clock, but Willie Trigger did not realize this.
Stoically he sat down at the edge of the long low
platform below the ticket-office window and re-
signed himself to waiting.
After ten minutes a dog bounded from the wood
into the road. Motionless, he regarded the lad
curiously. As long as he remained in sight Willie
amused himself by throwing stones at him.
After half an hour a carriage drew up close to the
fence and stopped. He slouched over to the narrow
pedestrians' gate at one side of the office. Two
young men, carrying a large, black tin box between
them, alighted from the vehicle, paid the driver and
entered the enclosure, fastening the gate behind
them. When they had disappeared Willie pulled
at the gate but suddenly desisted in his attempt to
force an entrance as the heavy hatch of the ticket-
office fell with a bang and the same two young
men were revealed at the weather beaten counter.


A Modern Mercury 237
ceased. He picked up the stone. He poised it in
the air an instant, then with all the strength at his
command he flung it diagonally across the fence.
He heard the clatter as it struck the thin boards at
the end of the ticket office. He did not linger to
observe any further effect of his assault, for when
the officious young man who had denied to him the
existence of his ticket, crawled upon the ledge and
gazed off down the road, there was no little boy in
sight.
Chagrined though he was, Willie did not for an
instant accuse his hero of any lack of faithlessness.
Indeed, as is the wont of small boyhood, he ac-
cepted the rebuff unquestioningly. He made no
effort at analysis. It was merely a whimsical cavort
of that unreliable Fate that not infrequently plays
tricks on those who walk in knickerbockers. So
Willie, nothing loth, reasoned simply that as a
ticket had never been necessary before, he was quite
prepared to gain an entrance to the grounds without
one, now. Indeed, even as the young man in the
office climbed upon the ledge and gazed off down
the road, Willie was examining the fence for loose
boards, along the familiar stretch behind the ancient
grand stand. Many times and oft, when ball games
were in progress, had he, with the assistance of
Jimmy Thurston, clambered over that tall board


238 Ann Arbor Tales
fence frequently to the complete demolishment of
his shirt waist, which had a nasty habit of catching
on the barbs of the wire that an ingenious care-
taker had strung along the top, but, in any event,
successfully, to the more important issue of an en-
trance to the field. To-day, however, he was alone,
and getting over the fence was quite a different
matter. Since Thursday he had not caught a
glimpse of Jimmy, but now he was wishing that
the fat, familiar figure of the lad would appear
around the corner of the fence. There was not a
loose board along the whole stretch, so far as he
could discover. Not infrequently he had, with half
a dozen sturdy jerks, succeeded in ripping off a
plank sufficiently wide to permit of squeezing
through; but two days before the same far seeing
care-taker who, with so much ingenuity, profanity
and trouble, had strung the barbed wire at the top,
had gone over the entire stockade and nailed securely
every board that seemed to him to be deficient in
tightness. It is saddening to tell it; for it rather
weakens the character of Willie Trigger, but at the
end of his second futile patrol along the fence, he
flung himself down at the roots of an ancient apple-
tree and cried. Were all the Fates of boyhood set
against him this day in June 2
“Dum it—gosh dum it,” he mumbled, gazing


A Modern Mercury 241
to the small boy, peering around the corner, to see
them run. Two men detached themselves from the
crowd and seemed to him to be making directly for
where he stood. Willie Trigger wasted no time in
idle speculation as to their purpose. Turning heel
he ran. He plunged around the upper end of the
stand. The door there was open. He disappeared
into the long room directly beneath the seats. He
was familiar with the floor plan. He knew that the
partition on his left was false and that the various
little doors on the right opened into tiny dressing
rooms. He knew that the one door on the left
offered access, if unfastened, to the cramped and
crowded space beneath the lower tiers of seats,<-
a dark hole used these may years as a catch-all for
the débris of the grounds, old cans, broken bottles,
worn out shoes, and ancient hoop-skirts. He tried
the door; it opened and he pulled it shut after him,
just as the door at the end was flung back and the
two men entered.
“Where's his room P” he heard asked, in an un-
dertone; then the heavy footfalls on the loose
boards of the floor.
His eyes became adjusted to the darkness and
through the many chinks of the partition he per-
ceived the men. He recognized them as those who
had haggled with the hackman at the Cook House


242 Ann Arbor Tales
two days before. He held his breath, and, as there
really was nothing else for him to do, became an
eavesdropper.
“Punky, we got t' separate,” Giddings said.
“They'll be next if you don't; it'll be all right for
you to drop in here while they're dressin' but don't
be wise. And for heaven's sake, don't get gay;
it's a long chance you're takin' and you'll take it I
know, with five hundred dollars in the balance.”
“Don't you worry,” Punky replied significantly.
“I’m takin' no chances; that's why I got the dope.
You couldn't buy this Bunny for a million; and you
say Morrison's as bad. You just leave it to me.
I'll be hangin' around, you bet. When you're dishin'
up the soft stuff, you just call me and say, ‘Here,
take this in there.' I'll take it—in she goes—and if
it don't mean Morrison'll win this here Intercolle-
giate, I'm a lobster, good and plenty. They'd never
git next in the world.”
“Well, for heaven's sake don't put in too much,”
Giddings muttered.
“Leave it to me,”—was the terse reply and then
they went into one of the dressing-rooms and their
voices came only in muffled tone to Willie in his
hiding-place.
He was not quite certain of the meaning of what
he had heard. He was only certain of the name—


246 Ann Arbor Tales
Wilma Morey's face flushed crimson. Her eyes
lighted and her lips quivered with the excitement of
the moment. Behind her the pressure of the crowd
had given away somewhat and she leaned over the
rail, eagerly, her fingers curled in the palms of her
hands, every muscle tense. She saw an arm sud-
denly lifted above the runners' heads and caught
the glint of the sunlight on the barrel of the pistol.
The report sounded a long way off, or as though
her ears were muffled. Down the course they
came, all heads low save Bunny's; he had a way of
tilting his back, and breathing hard through his
nose. In an instant, as she watched, they passed
the further end of the grand stand and in another
the foremost had crossed the line. Pandemonium
broke loose. The crowd in the paddock tore down
the fence and rushed into the track surrounding
these modern Mercuries. Wrapped in the robes
their coaches had held out to them they were led
away and the megaphone man in the judges' stand
was compelled to clang the deep-throated bell quite
three minutes before he was able to convince the
throng that he had something very particular to
say.
“First heat,” he shouted. “Morrison, ten and
one fifth; Bunette, ten and two-fifths; Cady, ten
and a half.” The stand, the crowd in the track,


A Modern Mercury 247
even the ancient circus rings in the distance swam
before Wilma Morey's eyes. She lifted her hand-
kerchief to her burning cheek. It was cruel. He
had lost; lost after all his patience, all his hope, all
his effort. Conscious as she was that the first heat
did not mean all, she yet realized that it might
mean much. If she might only catch his eye, she
thought, and let him know that she among all the
others believed in him. What was she thinking,
she asked herself, suddenly. Then she smiled. In
the buzz of conversation all about, and amid the
cries from the track below she caught varying
words that seemed to her, in her state of supreme
suspense, to offer a modicum of hope. Still—
still — She confessed to herself her disappoint-
ment. She wished that she had not come out at all.
The next event was “throwing the hammer”;
and then the hurdles would be run. Should she
stay ? she asked herself. Involuntarily she moved
toward the end of the stand where the stairs were.
“What in thunder's the matter; you going?”
she heard a voice ask, then felt a strong hand on
her arm. She turned and looked up into the face
of her brother.
She clutched his wrist. “Oh, Nibsey,” she cried,
“he was beaten; wasn't he P”
He stared at her quizzically. Then he laughed


A Modern Mercury 249
Willie Trigger decided then and there that he had
never before seen such a pretty girl. She was ever
so much prettier, he calculated, than the new hired
girl in the house next door, at home. He had
fallen desperately in love with her at first sight.
Then Wilma spoke to him and his boy heart
bounded.
“Do you know him, little man P” she asked,
softly.
He wished she had not called him “little man"
particularly with so many about, but her voice was
so gentle and her eyes were so beautiful that he for-
gave her in his heart straightway and answered,
looking down, “Uh huh; he lives 'cross th' street
from our house.”
Her eyes took on a greater brilliance then and a
smile played about the corners of her pretty mouth.
“So you are Willie Trigger, are you?” she asked
so low that he alone might hear. “Oh, I know all
about you ; he told me.”
Willie Trigger never knew what joy it was to
live until that instant. To think that He, the great
Bunny, had told Her all about Him! It rendered him
for the moment speechless. Yet he gave no sign of
the swelling of his heart unless a sudden kick at the
post to which he clung, and a low, foolish laugh
might be taken as a sign. He felt her hand upon


252 Ann Arbor Tales
side of the thin partition. He glimpsed, as well,
the other man; his trousers turned up, his coat and
waistcoat off, his sleeves rolled to his shoulders.
He was busy squeezing lemons into a pail. Pres-
ently he poured the contents of another pail into the
first, then dumped a bag of sugar into the mixture
which he stirred vigorously.
“Here, Morrison; don't drink that rotten water;
drink this,” he shouted and filled a glass from the
pail. Morrison, a curly-headed man with knots of
muscle on his legs that looked like coils of rope,
gulped greedily.
“Here, gimme some of that; this man in here's
thirsty,” the familiar black mustached man called
out. He took up the glass and moved toward the
half-open door of one of the little dressing-rooms.
Willie Trigger was by some instinctive force, seem-
ingly, moved to sudden action. He was about
to slip past the black mustached man and enter the
little room when he was perceived. A kick was
aimed at him and he was adjured to “make himself
scarce or git his block knocked off.” Thoroughly
frightened, he slouched away and ran into the open
where people were too interested in other things to
knock the blocks off little boys and where it didn't
smell so stuffy and unpleasant.
He sped across the track where the uprights had


A Modern Mercury 253
been erected for the pole vaulting, and later he be-
came one of the group that formed a crescent be-
hind the football kickers. He watched, with admira-
tion unconcealed, the unerring pedal movements of
the heavily shod young men who sent the ball so
beautifully skyward.
Meanwhile, Wilma awaited impatiently at the
grand stand rail the last heat in the sprint event.
She saw the drop-kickers leave the paddock and
heard indistinctly the record that was called across
from the tower-like judges' stand; but these things
were not to her liking. Her eyes upon the track
below, she saw a young man in sweater and knee
breeches vault the fence beside the stretch and rush
across. He shouted a word to the megaphone man
who at once lifted the glistening instrument to his
lips and shouted:
“Is there a doctor on the grand stand P He's
wanted down below. A man has been taken sud-
denly sick.”
The pink fled from her cheeks. Then she smiled.
She realized the absurdity of the little spasm of fear
that had seized her. She glanced down at her card
again.
The runners were jogging up the stretch. She
counted them. There was one missing. Another
look of fright came into her eyes. She felt some


256 Ann Arbor Tales
face. His lips were tight drawn and showed his
teeth and—his eyes were shut! On he came in ad-
vance of all the rest, plunging, swerving. Five
more strides! She closed her eyes, and when she
opened them it was to see him throw up his arms
and fall headlong across the line.
He lay there motionless. The other runners
passed him, and the crowd broke into the track
and she saw no more.
In the judges' stand the megaphone man waited.
How she got there, whether she was carried,
walked naturally, or flew, she could never tell, but
of a sudden, as it seemed, Wilma discovered that
she was in the grand stand again, clinging to a post
at the top of the stairs, while beside her hovered
Willie Trigger. She heard the bellow of the mega-
phone man:
“Last heat, one hundred yards! Winning time
nine and four-fifths seconds, breaking the Inter-
collegiate record! Winner—” The crowd knew
the winner and did not wait.
Her fingers relaxed in the palms of her hands.
A tremor passed over her. She looked down,
breathing hard.
“Oh, you darling!” she cried, and Willie Trigger,
who had not really understood at all, hung his head
in mute embarrassment.


A Modern Mercury 257
VI
That night, on a low stone horse-block in front
of his mother's house sat Willie Trigger gazing at
a lighted window in the second story of the house
opposite, across the drawn shade of which figures
passed and passed again. In that room he knew
his hero lay sick. He wondered how sick; per-
haps, he speculated, as sick as he once had been
after eating many green apples. He would watch
and wait. Some one surely would come out of the
house before his bedtime. He had followed the
hack from the grounds, had seen the long, slim
body carried into the house. No one paid the least
attention to him so he crossed the street and seated
himself on the horse-block. It was not for him to
witness the little drama that was being played be-
hind the window shade.
Before he opened his eyes Bunny heard, like high
running surf, a low and rythmic rumble. It was
very soothing.
“What's the matter P” he exclaimed, suddenly,
staring at Nibsey Morey who stood, like a wooden
Indian, at the foot of the bed.
Then he felt something very cool against his fore-
head and closed his eyes again. It was no matter,
he thought.
Nibsey withdrew with a nod.


258 Ann Arbor Tales
“He seems to be going to sleep,” Wilma said.
He heard the voice and opened his eyes again
with a start.
“You here!” he muttered.
And he knew it was she by the touch of her hand
upon his cheek.
She told him then what had happened. He
smiled feebly, patiently, as though he realized she
was only trying to comfort him.
She slipped down upon her knees beside the bed.
“Don't you understand,” she whispered, and her
voice sounded far away to him, “you ran so fast
the others were away behind, and you broke the
record, and—oh—oh—Bunny."
She hid her face on the pillow beside his.
Then it all became clear to him, her love, and the
depth and meaning of it. He forgave her for what
he was pleased to call, in his mind, the white lie of
her comfort.
“Dearest,” he murmured, dreamily, “it’s all right;
it's all right.” He stroked her hair, feebly. Then,
after a moment, he muttered, quite to himself:
“What happened, anyway; why was it they
wouldn't let me run ?”





The Day of the Game 263
in which they had so valiantly wallowed for a good
two hours—a splendid contest for the honor of the
colors on their stockings—rode their fellows' shoul-
ders uncomfortably, as the cavalcade, shapeless,
soulless, inchoate but voiceful, seethed and surged
across the field. One of them, to save himself from
falling, clutched wildly at the long hair of the bare-
headed youth beneath him; another planted a
heavy heel unwittingly in a second bearer's mouth,
and the youth wrenched free and ran up the field
sopping his bloody lips, but turning each tenth step
to wave his reddened handkerchief and yell.
It was such a scene as might have been witnessed
by Grecian maidens in the Stadium of old, when
other young giants—the distant ancestors of these
borne now in triumph—were themselves carried, as
loftily, as triumphantly, down the course.
The shouting continued so vigorously that it
shook the windows of the narrow, low-ceiled,
suffocating room where other youths—the van-
quished—were peeling the garments of the battle,
and silently rubbing their smooth, pink bodies with
wide, coarse towels.
The eyes of every girl above were turned down
the field and all were alight; each soft cheek glowed
with ruddy color, every nerve was tense.
Among these now subdued spectators was one


The Day of the Game 265
With a yell of almost demoniacal joy, the mob
surged beneath the veranda, the warriors crouching
on their unsteady pedestals to avoid the timbers
overhead. As he was borne beneath, and out of
her delighted sight, Adams cast one glance up at
the girl leaning eagerly across the rail. Her eyes
had been awaiting his and the light that flared in
both their eyes as they met told her that he had
fought for her; told him that she had known he'd
win. -
She rose, then, folded her little flag and thrust it
into the pocket of her coat. With the others she
descended to the club room below and waited for
him there.
She withdrew to one side and watched with curi-
ous interest the great crowd in the street, fretting
impatiently for a nearer glimpse of the victors.
The four horses had been taken from a high
tally-ho and a score of youths were running ropes
from the front axle of the vehicle away down the
street. The girl perceived it was the intention of
the crowd to drag the tally-ho to the city in the
good old way of joyous, eager crowds. And as
she watched she saw a man in the blue overalls of
a laborer, his face and hands smoke-blackened,
break through the throng on the walk and approach
the club house. She saw a policeman step in front


266 Ann Arbor Tales
of him and bar the way. The laborer and the
officer seemed to argue. The former, his face to-
ward her, she saw gesticulate angrily and stamp his
foot, and then she saw a look of dumb pain in his
blackened face as the officer, without more ado,
seized him by the shoulders, roughly, and turn-
ing him about, pushed him into the crowd which
parted to make way for his broad, squat figure.
The girl felt a hand upon her arm. She turned
quickly and looked up into Adams' face.
The little light of fright fled from her eyes and a
mist gathered in its place as she murmured eagerly:
“Oh, John, John, how glorious it was!”
He smiled down at her gladly.
“And see,” she said, “ look—they are going to
drag the team down town in the tally-ho.”
Through the window he saw the throng. His
face at the pane was recognized and a cheer rose
that prompted the girl to draw back, blushing.
From where she stood at one side she could see a
broken line of the crowd.
“Oh, look, John!" she cried, “there's that dirty
old man again. He's been drinking—the police
drove him away before.”
He turned in the direction of her gaze, then drew
away instantly from the window.
“What's the matter P” she asked.


The Day of the Game 267
His face was pale and his mouth was set in a
straight line.
“Nothing,” he replied quickly. “Come—"
and started toward the door opening upon the now
deserted field.
She followed him unquestioningly.
On the porch she said:
“Aren't you going on the tally-ho with the
team P.”
“No," he replied, “I don't like being made a fool
of. There's a gate over there on Cass Avenue.
We'll go out that way and they won't see us.”
“But, John—”
“I don't want to ride down town in state,” he
complained, testily. “I'd rather be with you. I
shall have to be with them until train time. Now,
I'd rather be with you.” And he looked down at
her and smiled.
By a devious route they finally reached the
Campus Martius and at the little door of a big
Woodward Avenue hotel he left her, for she had
told him there would be friends awaiting her there
with whom she would take dinner later.
“At the train, dear?” she said, as he opened the
door for her.
“Yes. Good-bye till then.”
She followed his great figure with her eyes and


The Day of the Game 269
“But what about the girls 2" inquired the cap-
tain with a twinkle in his own eyes that was almost
youthful.
“Well—they will be, too—sometimes,” the com-
missioner replied.
In the lobby of the Russell House, where the team
was installed, the mayor of Detroit—who himself
had been an undergraduate once and remembered
it—addressed the throng below him, from the first
broad landing of the wide marble stairway.
His rounded periods were cheered to the echo;
and when he drily observed that all the policemen
had been taken off duty the roof fairly lifted and
guests came pouring into the corridors, their faces
clearly indicating their alarm.
“You know,” the mayor observed, his eyes
twinkling,-“we’ve what they call a slow town
here. Well, it rests with you boys, for this night
at least, to make it fast. Moreover, it's an old
town, a very old town, and wherever you find an
absence of paint you have my permission and the
permission of the commissioner of police to re-
decorate. I suppose red would be the proper tint.
I have had a fondness for the color ever since I was
one of you—an undergrad. at old Ann Arbor —”
In the pandemonium that ensued the mayor judi-
ciously withdrew. The crowd “rushed” the lobby,


27o Ann Arbor Tales
and staid old men, in town over the day, sought
places of greater security on landings, behind pil-
lars, and in corners whence might be had a view of
the proceedings without, necessarily, participation.
One by one various members of the team ap-
peared at the head of the stairway and at each ap-
pearance a welcome of ringing cheers was sounded.
The director of athletics, a little man with a wiry
mustache and a square chin addressed the crowd
from the top step after prolonged cries of “Speech!
Speech!”
The trainer, a huge man with a face like a fist, a
Cockney accent, and the shoulders of an ox, shouted
a few phrases above the din. Each time he uttered
the word, “Michigan,” which he insisted upon pro-
nouncing “Mitch-ti-gan,” he was cheered wildly.
When Adams appeared on the upper landing
and hesitated there the commotion became deafen-
ing.
A section of the throng swept up to him, seized
him and carried him further down where he was
made to blurt a few incoherent sentences in which
one caught, above the noise, a constant repetition
of the words—“fellows”—“great”—“wiped 'em
up "—“knew it.”—“right stuff"—and others from
the campus jargon, generally as unintelligible as
Ute gutterals.


272 Ann Arbor Tales
And why all this stampede of ecstasy P
Because two minutes before the umpire's call of
time, John Adams, a tall, broad, blonde giant, whom
few of his worshippers really knew, had found an
elliptical pig-skin and, rushing like an engine of
destruction down a well turfed field, had touched
it to the ground behind a pair of slim, straight poles.
III
The theatre was packed. The throng extended
into the lobby where the ticket scalpers in the faces
of the police hawked their coupons each of which
called for “an orchestra chair on the aisle three rows
back.” The leader of one group leaned against a
convex bulletin board bearing the lithograph of a
gaily garbed soubrette in red, and waving his cane
shouted the first line of a familiar college song.
Each man of the group lent his voice to the clamor
and there was at once precipitated a riot of discord
in which the original air was lost in a brazen yell.
There was much rushing; a congestion at the win-
dow of the box office at which hands were thrust
between the fingers of which dangled government
notes of various denominations. Beyond the win-
dow, his bust framed in the narrow rim of metal
the treasurer of the theatre sat on his high stool
dealing out the tickets with the sang-froid and ease


278 Ann Arbor Tales
crowd cried its huge delight and the college yell
was flung across the footlights to the end that
several of the dancers made missteps, and, covered
with a confusion that brought forth another cheer,
rushed into the wings.
After that first catastrophe the audience lent itself
to a full enjoyment of the piece. Occasionally
when the chief comedian gave utterance to a joke
of ancient manufacture, the throng gave voice to its
displeasure, by way of criticism, but more often
the clamor sprang from keen appreciation of a song
or bit of funny “business.”
In all the audience there was, perhaps, but a
single spectator whose face showed him to have no
interest either in the audience and its noise or the
action on the stage. He sat at one end of the bal-
cony, back from the rail, unnoticed by those about
him, satisfied, seemingly, to look on without partic-
ipation either in the pleasure or the anger of the
crowd around him. When his gallery champion
cried out his name he had shrunk in his seat and
almost held his breath, but now he sat up, his arms
folded across his deep, broad breast.
He had entered the theatre late. Indeed there
had been no one in the lobby when he bought
his ticket. He was glad when he learned the lo-
cation of his seat. He had thus far avoided all


The Day of the Game 279
contact with the crowd. He would continue to
avoid it. Through the first long act he sat looking
down, apparently seeing nothing, staring blankly as
though dreaming, yet awake.
When the second act was well under way, he
glanced at his watch. He drew out his hat from be-
neath the chair and inconveniencing no one, left his
seat. He glided up the aisle close to the wall. In
the lobby, less brilliant now, he squared his shoul-
ders and pulled in a long, deep breath. He lighted
a cigarette and for a space stood just outside the
door, in the street, idly watching the passers-by.
At the soldier's monument a group of students
—he recognized them as such in the lighted thor-
oughfare—had formed a ring around some one who
appeared to be dancing on the asphalt as they
shouted, rythmically, and clapped their hands. As
he watched, Adams saw the ring part on the side
nearest him and he glimpsed the dancer. All
the blood went out of his face. He threw away
his cigarette and buttoned his coat nervously. With
a cry, the ring resolved itself into two lines and
paraded down the street with the dancer, who was
obviously unsteady on his legs, supported by a twain
of students at the front. Adams, at the edge of the
curb, perceived the goal toward which the poor
little procession was making its way—the portal of


28o Ann Arbor Tales
a huge German restaurant which he knew well. A
picture of its interior as he remembered it flashed
upon his mind—the long room, filled with tables,
many white clad waiters, stolid of face, light of
tread. The head of the procession reached the wide
door, bright beneath the great electric sign above.
He waited until the last man had entered, then
crossed the street swiftly. In the outer hall he
heard a medley of noises beyond the mahogany and
glass partition. He heard the quick shuffle of feet.
Some one was trying to dance on the sanded floor.
In the midst of the jig he flung back the connecting
door and entered the room of riot.
IV
He was immediately perceived and the crowd
with a single voice shouted him a welcome.
Through the shifting gossamer of smoke that filled
the room he distinguished many familiar faces.
“Come over here, old man,” he heard some one
call, and turned. He stared without sign of recog-
nition at a young man, who, with many gestures,
indicated a vacant chair at a near-by table. He saw
the smoke, the waiters gliding noiselessly through
it, the littered floor, the wet, glistening table-tops.
These misty details he saw mistily, as one sees
things in a dream.


The Day of the Game 281
His face was pale; there were unfamiliar lines
about his mouth, and an unnatural glitter was in his
eyes.
He saw the dancer, a man of age who wore the
clothes of a laborer, fling himself heavily upon
a frail chair at the nearest table, across which he
leaned unsteadily, wagging his head and muttering
incoherently.
Adams strode over to him and laid a hand upon
his shoulder.
“Come,” he said, quietly.
With an effort the man balanced his head and
lifted his heavy eyes.
“Come,” Adams repeated.
It was as though the youths at the other tables
knew it to be a psychological moment. The noise
subsided. Every eye in the room was intent upon
Adams, strong in his splendid youth, and the man
beside whom he stood and who was weak in his
age.
Adams was seen to encircle the man's shoulders
with one arm and fairly lift him from the chair.
On his feet he was unsteady. Adams supported
him to the door of the restaurant, which swung
back noiselessly as the ill-mated couple disappeared.
Then were exchanged many glances among
those who had watched the little play in silence.
--


The Day of the Game 283
the city streets at night the uncertain quality of a
looking-glass wantonly smeared with pitch.
He blinked in the yellow glare of the street illu-
mination. It was as though he were passing
through a tunnel of brilliance. A car whirred by,
with clanging gong. He caught a fleeting, swift
glimpse of the several passengers.
As the cab proceeded, his attention was attracted
now and then to groups of young men loitering at
various corners as though in contemplation of some
deed, very secret, if not very terrible. The lilting
chorus of a college song that he recognized was
brought to him in the noiselessly rolling cab. Be-
fore the last store-lights in the business district were
passed, he had obtained such an impression of the
city as he had never had before.
Through the window in the door he saw the
skeleton trees in Grand Circus Park as the cab cut
the circle of its area, and he shivered at the pros-
pect of the winter they suggested.
A sound very close to him caused him to start.
He smiled, looked down, and the smile went out of
his eyes and left them cold and hard.
The man beside him had succumbed to the com-
fort of the cab, and, asleep, was snoring gently.
Passing beneath an electric lamp, the light fell an
instant on his face—pale beneath the stubble beard


The Day of the Game 285
policeman passed, indolently swinging his night
stick.
Adams smiled at the recollection.
The cab came opposite a tall apartment house at
the junction of a cross-town car line. On the
ground now occupied by the ungainly, rambling
pile of stone, he remembered vividly, had stood,
when he was a very small boy—hardly big enough
to push his cart—a little shack occupied by an old
cobbler, deserted in his age by a son who had
robbed him. Very many were the hours he had
spent in that little shop. He recalled certain of
those hours with a momentary pang of sadness.
The cobbler had been a soldier in Poland, in his
time, and was wont to tell great stories of his own
valor, to which the yellow-headed lad, all forgetful
of his mission and his cart, had listened wide-eyed
and open-mouthed. The memory came swift and
certain and distinct in detail and in the richness of
it Adams shrank from the ugly stone pile in pass-
ing, as though it were a horrid thing thus to thrust
itself upon a young man's memory of his little
boyhood.
As he dreamed thus the cab turned a corner, sud-
denly. The rich residential thoroughfare vanished
like the palace in the pantomime, and Adams, his
face still close to the glass, saw a row of little,


The Day of the Game 291
as pointed as the elbows of the youngsters that the
youngsters thrust into their sides.
The crowd discovered at once that the team was
in the second coach and before a man of the eleven
had reached the platform the car was surrounded.
Late as was the hour, speeches were demanded,
nor was a path opened through the throng until
the demand had been acceded to. A circle formed
around the band and its brassy noise blared out upon
the night until every townsman within range of the
farthest-carrying horn flung up his window and
poked a head wonderingly into the outer darkness.
As the crowd surged down the platform to the
front of the train, Adams, taking advantage of the
clear way at the rear, assisted Janet to the ground
and unobserved they passed out into the street
through the tall turnstile in the shadow of the
baggage-room.
She breathed deeply of the cool night air and he
felt the pressure of her hand upon his arm as her
steps quickened to his.
In the crowded train she had refrained from all
attempts to learn the reason for his silence. Only
now and then, as in answer to some question that
she asked him, had he spoken in the hour and a half
required to cover the forty miles between Detroit
and Ann Arbor.


294 Ann Arbor Tales
is something I must tell you for your own sake.
And when I'm through, you can say to me what
you think; it won't hurt.”
A step and they were at her home.
“Can't you sit here on the porch a few min-
utes ?” he asked; “I shan't keep you long.”
With sudden anger she replied:—
“John, if you don't speak out at once what you
have to say, I shall go in immediately. You've said
again and again that there is something you must
tell me; why don't you? Couldn't you see; can't
you see now that I haven't begged you to tell be-
cause it seems to pain you."
“It does,” he exclaimed, “you can't know how
it pains me.” He looked down at her where she
sat on the step and into her uplifted face.
“What is it?” she asked calmly, now.
He sat beside her.
“I hardly know where to begin,” he commenced
and hesitated. He seemed to be arranging the
words in his mind, for, after a moment he resumed.
“I told you it wasn't any crime,” he said.
“Well, maybe it isn't, but Janet,” he went on
quickly, “while you were standing at the window
of the club this afternoon, you saw a man—do you
remember P He wore overalls. His face and hands
were black. You said you saw a policeman push


THE OLD PROFESSOR


306 Ann Arbor Tales
swinging doors of baize and silently mount the
gray iron stairs to the narrow galleries of the book-
room where the life of his waking hours was lived
among his unresponsive loves.
For he did love them, his books, whose friendship
did not suffer change be the day gay or gray, and
with them all about him—he the centre of the chaos
of wisdom—he was happy. Among them he lived
his simple life in sweet companionship and was
joyous for the privilege, for without the books
darkness would be his, whilst in them was light
for his dim eyes and solace for his gently beating
heart. So, day in, day out, in sunshine and in rain,
in cold and snow and warmth, the old professor
mounted, silently, the gray inon stairs in the child-
hood of the day, to come down again, as silently,
when the lights were extinguished one by one and
the broad campus without was wrapped in melan-
choly black.
Once he had been young. But that was in the
day of hard work, when youth toiled to live. Then
no lad was more sprightly than he. His early home
was a long, low, rambling farmhouse in a southern
state, where the flowers came early in the spring
and bloomed and bloomed again late into autumn.
There, to him, imaginative, dreaming, for all his boy-
ish activity, the life out-of-doors was little less than


The Old Professor 307
participation in a splendid pageant—the Pageant of
Summer.
On the farm adjoining lived another boy and to-
gether they builded air-castles and procrastinated
through the long, still evenings, when the work of
the day was done. And of such sort were the
castles that they lived in them, even as they worked
afield, and sowed, and reaped, and sowed again.
Of all their dreams one was fairer than the others.
It was of a college in the north where boys might
go, and, once there, might learn the finer things.
One day they resolved to make their goal that
college. They toiled longer each day, then, until
the red sun slipped below the wood-line to the
west, and when the summer died they fared forth
together.
Side by side they sat at lectures and at recitations.
They lived together in a little room across the river
where rooms were more cheaply to be had and where
landladies were more accommodating and framed
no loud objections to simple cooking on a smoky
oil stove. Halcyon days those were to the lads, and
the very experience of poverty whetted their appe-
tites for the luxuries they dreamed one day would
be for them.
Together they had from the hands of the presi-
dent their diplomas, squares of sheepskin all written


308 Ann Arbor Tales
over in stately Latin—the golden fleece of their
heroic quest.
He who later was to be the old professor, became
the young professor then; and the friend of the four
years in the little room across the river, where
simple cooking was permitted, went away, nor ever
came back again.
So near had been their lives that for a time the
young professor was sad. A portrait on tin was all
he had to recall the face of him who was gone, and
frequently, of a Sunday afternoon which was set
apart for a walk afield, he would seat himself beside
the river and with the little portrait on his knee in-
dulge in retrospections of the by-gone days when
they were lads together on adjoining farms. Such
fragrant reveries constituted the leaven needed in the
young professor's life, for in the University circle he
was much sought. He was a brilliant man; his
ideas were “advanced" then, original and new.
His conversation at dinner was sprightly, vivacious.
He had the gallantry of generations of Southern
gentlemen and was beloved of all the ladies. He
was wont on occasion to pass the compliment
with an almost Italian grace and he rejoiced in the tap
of the fan upon his wrist which was his feminine
reward.
“You must not fail us,’
a hostess would say,


31o Ann Arbor Tales
the youth for all time, and he never knew his error.
Little by little, year by year, he became less often the
honored guest at a faculty dinner. He clung to the
manners of his youth and the younger wives called
him an old fogey and smiled when his name was
mentioned.
Thus it continued until he became a mere ghost
of dead days, an occasional, living reminder of an
ancient system of education or method of class-room
work long since relegated to that dusty storehouse
where are heaped “old things” that have served
their usefulness, flung aside to make room for
papier maché manikins and varnished maps of paste-
board with the mountains raised to scale and the
winding streams indented.
And yet in the official circle of the institution
there lingered a certain reverence for the old pro-
fessor. His sweetness of character, his gentleness
of spirit, his humility, made it a sad duty to point
the way to him; and so, from month to month,
the president's request for his resignation was de-
layed, and then there occurred a little incident
that secured for him, unknowing, another period
of service.
The trembling country awaited application of the
torch of war. In the college town a meeting was
called and the citizenry swarmed into a church



314 Ann Arbor Tales
And he would laugh with himself at the philo-
sophic quip.
His friend in his later years was another old man;
not a scholar, but a man who had worked hard and
lived hard, and at sunset took his rest. He too, had
many graces.
On Sunday afternoons whenever the weather
would permit the old professor sought him out and
they walked afield, or by the river where the old
professor had loved to wander as a boy. If their
path were barricaded by a turnstile it always meant
a lengthy parley as to whom should cross it first.
“After you, my friend,” the old professor would
say, bowing low.
Lifting a protesting hand, “No,” the other would
respond, “after you.”
“I insist,” the old professor would contend.
The other would indicate the turnstile with a
gesture. “You first,” he would repeat.
And so they would stand there bowing, insisting,
until, neither seeing fit to give way, they would re-
trace their steps and seek a path that had no turn-
stile.
But once, filled with zeal to explore the wood be-
yond a certain stile, an ingenious plan occurred to
the old professor which was immediately carried to
a successful issue. Both clambered over the fence


The Old Professor 315
at one side of the opening and proceeded on their
way.
And for a long time after each held the incident
as a joke against the other.
The conversation of the friends on such occasions
was of the life that lay before them, serious; never
of the past. And they agreed in their philosophy
at all points. They never argued.
“Well, friend,” the old professor said one day,
“when the time comes for us to go I hope we may
go together—may continue our walk.”
“I hope we may,” the other answered.
“I have always thought,” the old professor added
with a twinkle in his eyes, “that there must be
many a pleasant walk in heaven—after one has left
the pavement.”
III
Alike as they were, there was one joy that now
and then came into the old professor's life that the
other could not share. -
It came to him when, at widely separated inter-
vals, there crossed his path a man with hair almost
as white as his own, who in the days long gone
had sat before him on the benches of the class-room
as a student, and absorbed his wider wisdom.
When such an one he met, the old professor's voice


318 Ann Arbor Tales
it? I'd forgotten all about it. I—I just remem-
bered the mule / "
“And do you recall,” the man who was a boy,
again would ask, “how you found all the wood
from the big wood—box in the south-wing corridor
piled against your door P”
The old professor would wrinkle his forehead
here and stare thoughtfully at the floor.
“No, I don't seem to recollect,” he would say.
“Well you did, we boys had piled it there, of
course. Must have been a cord at least. Then we
hung around to see what you would do.”
“And what did I do P”
“You began to remove the pile, stick by stick,
and to pack them all away in the great wood-
box.”
Here the old professor was always wont to shake
with silent laughter.
“Well, we stood it as long as we could, and then
Billy Green—you remember Billy Green; poor Billy,
he was killed at Gettysburg. Billy went up to you,
as brave as you please, and said: ‘Professor, I
don't know who piled this wood against your door
but un-piling it is no work for you.’ And then he
shouted to us, ‘come on, boys,' and we fell to and
got the wood away from that door in about two
jerks of a lamb's tail. But didn't we feel small!





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