BRARY IVER^TY OF AUFORNIA y COLBY STORIES \ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/colbystoriesOOrumfrich COLBY STORIES AS TOLD BY COLBY MEN OF THE CLASSES 1832 TO 1902 EDITED BY HERBERT CARLYLE LIBBY ILLUSTRATED CONCORD, N. H.: ^be IRumtorD presa 1900 LOAN STACK Copyright, 1900, By Herbert Carlyle Libby LDIdC.1 TO A. H. M. Dear A. H. M. : — You suggested in one of your former letters to me that I mail you one of "the very first vol- umes of those old Colby yarns." It gives me the great- est pleasure, as a slight regard for our friendship, to carry out the suggestion which you make. Should the mission of the book prove wholly praiseworthy, and the words between its covers tend to arouse a too dormant college-spirit, I shall feel liberally rewarded for all the work that the volume has cost me. Sincerely yours, H. C. L. 896 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the following men of Colby College who have con- tributed to these pages, the editor wishes to thus pub- licly proclaim his thanks for their kindly co-operation and good wishes : Dr. William Mathews, '35 ; Prof. A. F. Caldwell, '90; Hon. Asher Hinds, '83 ; Holman F. Day, '87 ; R. Wes- ley Dunn, '68; Prin. W. S. Knowlton, '64; Hon. A. W. Paine, '32; Oliver L. Hall, '93; Henry W. Dunn, '96; Joseph H. Files, '"]'] \ Jacob B. Shaw, '60; William O. Stevens, '99 ; Harry L. Koopman, '80 ; Rev. Abram Wyman, '89 ; Angier Louis Goodwin, '02 ; Rev. H. R. Mitchell, '72; J. F. Norris, '63. Grateful acknowledgments are also due President Nathaniel Butler, for encouragement in the work ; Dr. George D. B. Pepper, for valuable advice ; all Colby men and women who have taken occasion from time to time to wish the book prosperity. CONTENTS Page A Heavy Artillery Sortie i In the Days of Hazing 19 How Wally Went to the Fire 36 An Imputed Sin 47 Number 'Steen, North College 55 Tom and Smith 62 The Freshman Deluge 72 " Abe " of Seventy-Blank 83 A Cure for Nervousness 105 The Leg that Failed 117 Class-Spirit 130 Unvarnished Tales The Enterprise of Freshman D 159 Tales of the Early Days 164 Daniel Pratt, G. A. T 168 How the Turkey Gobbler " Said Prayers" . . . 172 A Coincidence 174 In Memoriam 176 Nil de Mortuis Nisi Bonum 178 Encouraged 182 A Curt Rejoinder 184 Higher Authority 185 An Effective " Water Treatment " .... 187 A Martyr to Science 190 Incidents and Accidents of a Former Generation . . 193 Rare "Ben" Butler Ben Butler in College 205 Ben Butler and the Sign 211 The Broken Engagement 225 ILLUSTRATIONS Facing page Group of contributors. Frontispiece. Yo' mabbe Col-ladge fellaire, heh .?" . . . .11 A product not uncommon to a college town was The Girl." 19 . . . The unfortunate Freshman . . . plunged headforemost into the bank on the other side." . 27 With this announcement . . . the door was thrown wide open." 31 His bare legs stretched out to the fire, . . . the cigar in his mouth, his face the picture of peace after pain." 45 . . . Forthwith I was made the smiling but unwill- ing victim of her first Welsh rarebit." • • • 57 . . . Dodge . . . broad-jumped the seat directly in front of us." 87 Never had he put into it the fire and the life that thrilled it now." 112 Dillingham . . . raised his hat politely to the co-ed with Brown." 141 College Boys of the Fifties 161 Sam " addressing Graduating Class at "Last Chapel." 192 COLBY STORIES A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE I think there were eight Democrats in college that year. No matter what year. This is n't an eulogium of a class. It isn't a page from history. It is a typical Colby story and it's true — well, as to that I can refer you to a chap who will some day be Governor of Maine if he happens to want the job. Of those eight Democrats, one was a Democrat because he had read the papers and studied the issues. The rest of us had been too busy " plugging" to post ourselves. We were Demo- crats because our fathers were. That's an easy and justifiable method of selecting your political stripe when you're on the downy side of minority. But the eight Democrats were not lonesome. Political morals are always easy in college. The boys organized a campaign club — a club to help swell up processions. The eight Demo- crats always turned to and helped fill up the 4 COLBY STORIES ranks when there were RepubHcan ** grand par- ades," and the RepubHcans — which was a remark- able evidence of good feeHng, for there were an hundred and ten — would graciously go along with the eight Democrats and march in a Dem- ocratic parade. You see there are times when college friendships are ahead of political afifini- ties. It is true that some of these Republican volunteers didn't act wholly the part of good Democrats at these "grand rallies." At one of them in order to ease his conscience a young Republican with a hooked wire dragged the bag of coffee out of the great kettle in which a de- coction for the marching host was boiling. And the water was desperately boiled half an hour before the absence of the coffee was noted. Then also those ''incidental Republicans" used to exert themselves to steal all the Demo- cratic plates and spoons they could get hold of. At last it got to that pass that eminent politicians would rather see a flock of turkey buzzards in a parade than those patriots wearing the old gold capes of Colby. But though the one hundred and ten Repub- licans could tolerate the marching music of a A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE 5 Democratic band, could tolerate a Democratic barbecue and eat more ravenously than the hungriest Democrat there, it developed that there were things that they could not tolerate. And this brings me more nearly to the story. There was a peculiar political situation that fall. Both sides for several days were confident of victory. I mean to say, that after the day of election the actual results of the ballots were in question. Both sides claimed the presidency. Both sides took occasion to celebrate. When the Waterville Democrats got ready to burn some powder one of the most enthusiastic of the local Unterrified proffered the use of his lawn and also gave the Democrats permission to spread out over the railroad lawn that stretched its green expanse along parallel with the campus. It had been at first arranged that the Democratic celebration should be postponed until the final result of the ballots should be announced. But the crowd became too impatient. Especially were the mercurial Democrats of '*The Plains" wrought up. They feared that they would be cheated out of their celebration altogether. The Republicans were claiming so earnestly that the last count would settle Democratic hash for four 6 COLBY STORIES years that this cocksureness impressed the excit- able gentlemen from the south end of the city. Therefore, shortly after supper one evening there were signs of activity on railroad lawn. First came several scores of humble patriots glad of the evening hour after work in the mills. Each puffed his pipe and sat patiently on the sward waiting for some event. It was evident that the word had gone round. And even as the hoi polloi gathered silently on the railroad lawn, so did the college world range itself along the fence and survey with in- creasing interest the preparations that were making across the street. Then trundling through the dust of Front Street came an object surrounded by a little swarm of boys and men. It was dragged along with a sort of reverence as though it were a car of Juggernaut in miniature. It was a brass can- non, its breech stained with powder from many a patriotic bout. Traditions surrounded that cannon. It had been stolen from somewhere or other and that fact always gives a cannon a value. Soon after the cannon had been located on railroad lawn men with band instruments ap- peared — a sort of picked-up organization that A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE 7 had been playing patriotic tunes during the fall at suburban rallies. They tuned up and with the bass horn woofing mightily struck into the " Star Spangled Ban- ner." The man in charge of the cannon was still occupied with his cans and his priming and so the band, whose Gallic sympathies were re- vealed by their patois, rendered the ** Marseil- laise " very spiritedly. By that time the Canadian patriots of the North end had flocked with the voluble and vociferous dwellers of the South end, and the college men, ranged in solemn rows along the fence, were looking out on a very lively and very noisy scene. The universal opinion on the college side of the street was that a celebration of that sort before the great national contest had been de- cided, and right under the nose of a Republican college, too, was an arrogant piece of gall. While the band was playing the third selec- tion — with the bass a little less vociferous and rather tremulous — Justin Brown came saunter- ing down the walk from the reading-room. He wore his baseball cap and his jersey and was slapping one sturdy leg with a bamboo cane. 8 COLBY STORIES He cocked one leg over a stone post at the entrance of the path and cHcked a heel against the ringing granite in time to the beat of the big drum. '* Yagger gang, isn't it?" he asked of the three men who were nearest. " Mostly/' said they. " The whole crowd come from the Plains and over on Kennebec Street. There is n't a Yankee in the gang." *' No more news from the count, is there?" asked Brown. ** I did n't go down town to- night." ** I just came up past the telegraph office," said " Skinny" Edes, ** and they told me that it would take two days before they could get the count in shape." ** Those Frenchmen chipped in last week to buy that powder," explained a Senior, " and they are bound to burn it. They do n't care who is elected or who is beaten. They just want a chance to chew the rag and kick up a hulla- baloo." *' They probably never heard of a college study hour," suggested Brown in his cool tones. At that moment the crowd was scuttling back and leaving a wide space for His Majesty, the A HEAVY ARTILLENY SORTIE 9 cannon. The master of ceremonies was about to touch off the first blast. He and two others had poured in plenty of powder and then had rammed newspaper and grass into the muzzle, pounding in this wadding with short bludgeons. This work finished, half of a sheet of newspaper was laid over the touch- hole and the powder was sprinkled over it. Then two of the volunteers held their hats to shield the match that the gunner struck against the leg of his humble trousers. He set fire to the edge of the paper and all three ran back into the crowd. The corner of the paper flared for a moment in the half dusk, then pouf ! Up shot a tuft of flame and the next moment, boom ! There was a shock that jolted the ground. Through the cloud of yellow smoke the cannon turned somer- saults backward, its recoil sending it over and over along the sward. As soon as the smoke had cleared away the gunner and his crew went back and commenced to load once more. And with the woof, woof, of the bass horn leading off, the band galloped into another patriotic tune. '* Looks as though it might be fun firing that lO COLBY STORIES cannon," remarked Brown. ''Any of you fel- lows ever fire a cannon of that size?" " The one we have in our place," said ''Ancient" Ham, " is about the size of that and there's more fun in firing salutes with it than being on the side line in a ten-inning game." "That so?" said Brown lazily. "I never fired a cannon. I believe I'll go over and vol- unteer." And he strolled across the road and slowly forced himself through the crowd that fringed the lawn. Those who remember Brown remember the ease of his manner. He had an especially soft voice and a blandness and sweetness of tone that somehow didn't appear to go with his stalwart figure. Therefore, those whom he addressed always were impressed a bit by his bearing. He walked up to the three men who were loading the cannon. " No objection to my watching you, have you?" he asked with a winning smile, for the boss of the job looked up a bit surlily at the approach of the college man. College men are not in especial favor with townsmen in the aver- age locality. Yo' mabbe col-ladsje fellaire, heh ?" A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE II " I 'd like to know how to fire a cannon," said Brown. ** If we get the ball pennant next year we probably would want to hire that cannon of you gentlemen. And I 'd like to know how to run it." The Canadian stopped in his work of pulling grass. "Yo' mabbe col-ladge fellaire, heh?" he asked. *'Yes, I go to school over across the road," returned Brown. *' Wal, yo' mabbe t'ink yo' come here pla' som treeck, heh?" asked the other with a knowing grimace. ** Why, my dear Democratic colleague," said Brown in his smoothest tone, " do you think I would try to interfere with the great and the glorious occasion that is here in progress? Why, I have almost been expelled from that school there for sticking up for my Democratic principles. I am here to shake you by the hand and compliment you on the manner in which you are running this thing. And I want to know how to fire a cannon. What are you putting in all that grass for? That grass isn't explosive, is it? " he queried with his blue eyes opening innocently. 12 . COLBY STORIES "• Mak' him spik, by gar, dat grass do," said the Canadian, grinning a bit in spite of his sus- picions that the bland collegian was n't wholly as ignorant as he seemed. ** You are perfectly sure that your man is elected, are n't you? " asked Brown. " It would be too bad to make all this noise for nothing, and disturb all those nice young men over there, all for nothing, too." "Wat we care for nice yong mans, heh? M'ser le Boss tal us can come here and fire cannon and ras' noise. And we ras' noise, now yo' bat ma hfe." ''How much powder have you?" asked Brown ; ** enough to keep her a going all the evening? " *' Gass he go boon-boon tal meednight putty good," said the Canadian with a broad smile. And he proceeded to ram in the grass and paper. When the charge was lighted off Brown re- treated through the crowd back to the fence. " I fear," said he, "that our friends, the yags, are inclined to be rebellious. They are both suspicious and opinionated. They also refer to the young men of this institution in uncompli- A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE 1 3 mentary terms, and are going to fire their can- non till midnight." A groan went up in the dusk from the figures roosting along the fence. " But," continued Brown, " there may be a Providence that will direct otherwise." And then he sauntered along the fence and talked with the little knots, one after the other, in a low tone of voice. *' But, Brown," regularly came the expostula- ting tone of some spokesman for his group, '• you do n't for a moment think you are going to get a cannon away from five hundred French- men, do you? " •• Did I ever attempt anything I did n't do? " Brown would answer in each case. As he went to his room for a moment the rail birds excitedly discussed the project. The almost universal agreement was that it was nonsense to try it. ** Why, there are five hundred able-bodied men there," said ''Ancient" Ham. **And that cannon is right in the middle of them. And from what little I know of French Democrats I feel sure that they will assassinate the man who touches it." 14 - COLBY STORIES When Brown came back with a slouch hat on and a faded coat on his back the men gath- ered around him. '* Now, Brown, really," was the whispered chorus, '* really you do n't mean to try it. Why, man, you'll get eaten up! It's prepos- terous ! " "All I want to know," said Brown, '' is whether you fellows are going to stand behind me. I tell you I'm going to get that cannon. A dozen of you can help me in the way I have told you. If you won't help me I 'm going in and do the job all by my lonesome. Now, what are you going to say? " There was a moment of pregnant silence. Then the indomitable spirit of college bravado rose, kindled by the flashing eyes of the college leader. ** Go in, old man, we 're with you ! " was the reply. Brown went away first. It was dark by this time. The people were grouped in a great cir- cle around the cannon and the band. The only light came from the flaring helmet lamps of the musicians, and from a few torches held by boys. A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE 1 5 Brown strolled forward through the zone of spluttering lights and stood beside the men who w^ere loading the cannon. The trim college suit had been replaced by old garments and the celebrators paid no especial attention to him. He even pulled some grass and handed it to the man who was stuffing the gaping can- non mouth. He sort of identified himself with the crowd. While he was there a dozen col- lege men had followed him across the street and were then mingling with the crowd that stood across the walk leading toward the col- lege. They were trusty chaps — that dozen, else Brown had never chosen them. As before the bit of paper was laid over the touch-hole, was lighted and the gunners ran back. They ran back still further than the first time for they were putting heavier and heavier charges in the cannon, and the frisky little thing was performing wilder gyrations on the grass every time he was fired. Pouf ! Boom ! Out puffed the great cloud of smoke and rolled along the ground. But there was one man who had not run away with the others. He had stood right there with his back rounded up and with his old coat hugged 1 6 COLBY STORIES close round his ears. The moment the cannon barked, he leaped on it, hidden by the smoke, even as the piece was cavorting on the grass. At the same time a dozen strong arms and poking elbows were busy in the astonished throng that jammed the walk leading off the lawn. "■ Back, back, team — team ! " was the shout. The people obeyed, almost falling over each other. And down the space thus cleared dashed a figure on the dead run. An object trundled behind him in the darkness. It was the cannon. In amazement the throng poured together again in a welded, struggling mass as he passed. The pursuers yelling behind could not get through the press of their countrymen and the louder they yelled and swore and the more they pushed, the worse was the confusion — the more inextricable the snarl of humanity. When the angry men most nearly concerned in the celebration broke through the mass the cannon had been lifted through the gateway and was even well on its way to the darkness of the rear of South College. Shrieking like fiends in their patois the Canadians rushed against the deserted college fence. A HEAVY ARTILLERY SORTIE 1 7 And then — now if you are neither a college graduate nor a dweller in a college town, I am going to say something that will in a measure surprise you. That crowd of infuriated men stopped at the fence. They mounted its rails, five hundred of them. They stood there and yelled against the echoing Bricks all the Yankee, French, and international vituperation and imprecation they could think of, but, not one of them put his foot on college territory. Why not? College men and dwellers in college towns are familiar with the peculiar and almost unex- plainable influence that college confines exert on the feelings of the mob. Even five hundred angry men would not venture on that mysteri- ous territory, a college campus. I have not time, I have not inclination, to analyze this silent force that thus holds college grounds sacred from trespass by the mob. I simply tell you the story. Even when the captors brought the cannon out on the walk before South College a little later and made it roar sarcasm and ridicule at those who owned it, though its red eruptions 3 1 8 COLBY STORIES disclosed long lines of convulsed faces yammer- ing beyond the bars of the fence, the owners of those faces did nothing but curse, and when they were weary of cursing they strode away into the darkness still cursing, and the growl- ings of their grumblings echoed along all the dark streets of the city as they dispersed to their homes that night. But not an alien foot profaned the magic cir- cle of the Colby campus. 'A product not uncommon to a college town was The Girl." IN THE DAYS OF HAZING The Girl smiled. It was a habit that she had, as she was fully aware of the natural advantages, including a bewitching pair of dimples and an even set of firm white teeth, that she could best exhibit in that way. She also knew that oppo- sition is unpleasant to the masculine mind and a smile betokens assent, although when The Girl was the party in question the symbol was often a very misleading one. Many an awk- ward Freshman, fierce Sophomore, dandified Junior, and even dignified Senior had suc- cumbed to that smile, and many a dinner at Bradley's, or trip up the smooth flowing Mes- salonskee, had it won for her. A product not uncommpn to a college town was The Girl. Undeniably a flirt, she lived in the gilded present, nor gave a thought to past victims nor to the future, save to idly wonder how many more " scalps " (for in such classic manner did she allude to photographs of former 20 COLBY STORIES swains) would be added to the collection that now almost covered the walls of her boudoir. The Girl was not alone this evening. All the other girls living along the street could have told you this, for, as they would have said, *'the sign was out." The sign referred to was a harmless looking pair of rubbers, but they would as effectually drive off male callers as would a bulldog. The Girl preferred to re- ceive her masculine friends singly, and had her callers leave their rubbers without the door, while her relatives kept theirs within. The sig- nal was well-known and universally respected by the applicants for her favor. The Girl was a close confidante of the college men and no one in the University City on the Kennebec was more intimately acquainted with the doings around the campus and the various episodes of the class-room than she. From the sturdy youth at her side The Girl had just learned of an elaborate plan, about to be carried out by the Sophomores, a project that included the abduction of one of the Freshman leaders, and that would, so the bloody Sophomore thought, cast undying lustre upon the name of his class. It was nearing the end of the fall term, and IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 21 the year was in the early nineties. Hazing at Colby was at this time right in its prime and as each Freshman class had a very hard row to hoe, so in its next year it was determined to square accounts with interest upon its successor. Class-spirit had been running very high all the term. The Freshman class was large in numbers, having about sixty-five men, while the Sophomores, owing to several reasons, were reduced to about thirty as a working force. Some of the latter class were out teaching, a few would have nothing to do with hazing, while the unkindness of the faculty in compel- ling a temporary eviction of several members from their college quarters because of a slight familiarity with tHe chapel seats, had still fur- ther reduced the effectiveness of the Sopho- more force. The familiarity above mentioned had con- sisted of the application of a large quantity of molasses to the benches on which the Fresh- men listened to devotions, it being the idea of the sophomoric mind to form an undying attachment between the seats of the Freshmen and the seats of the Freshmen's trousers. Jan- itor Sam, however, was on hand and the ex- 22 COLBY STORIES pected denouement did not occur. Explana- tions were in order and the members of '9- well remember the afternoon on which they were sent out one by one from "Teddy's" French recitation to undergo a rigid cross- examination from President Small. The culprits acknowledged their misdeed rather than involve the entire class and were granted a vacation for the remainder of the term. The Freshmen were not satisfied to leave matters here. They found it necessary to gloat over the discomfort of their foes. Sarcastic ref- erences to " rustication " and '* molasses " flew about the campus. "Phi Chi" was chanted in Freshmen rooms to be changed to Yankee Doodle or something less offensive upon Sopho- more appearance, canes were surreptitiously carried when the shades of night had fallen, and on a memorable occasion one was borne across the campus at open noonday. It was appropriated this time, but the sting of Fresh- man defiance rankled in the breasts of the sons of '9— and at last the grand plan was evolved, the splendid scheme for the abasement of the Freshmen, that The Girl by a shrewd system of questioning had just enticed from her friend, IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 23 for they were all friends to her, just friends and nothing more. Smith, the Sophomore, had not intended to divulge the plan of his class when he visited The Girl that evening. A swell ball had been planned by the college men and Smith wished The Girl to accompany him and to wear his fra- ternity colors. She had neither accepted nor refused his invitation but, keeping him on the anxious seat as was her tantalizing custom, had proceeded to harass him with allusions to the daring of the Freshmen and the apathy of the Sophs. This was particularly galling to Smith, as Brown, the leader ol the Freshmen, was his most detested rival in The Girl's affection. The badinage had the desired effect, and the shrewd young lady was soon in possession of all the details. She then told the eager swain that she would don his colors if his party got the better of the Freshmen in the abduction project and hustled him out on his way to the Bricks as she ex- pected another caller. Shortly after the sophomoric rubbers were removed from the front porch, they were re- placed by another pair and Brown was ushered 24 COLBY STORIES in. It is sad to state it, but he was soon famil- iar with the designs of his sophomoric foes, for The Girl wished the struggle to be an entertain- ing one. Brown also proffered his request to be allowed to escort his hostess to the ball and that she wear his fraternity colors on that festive occasion. Her answer was similar to that vouch- safed to Smith. And thus it was that the favor of a lady was involved in the outcome of a hazing episode. The night itself was dark and cloudy and as the little band of Sophomores gathered on the campus, they felt that their undertaking was a vast one. They were but ten in number due to an unexpected defection caused by faint hearts. It was evident that the Freshmen realized that something was in the wind as all of the members of the class who had rooms down town were at the Bricks this evening. Brown was hustling from room to room encouraging his cohorts and telHng them (as was heard at the keyhole by a listening Sophomore ear) to rush for the campus if they should hear the name of the class year ring out suddenly in the still night. And then Brown placed himself in the hands IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 25 of the enemy. He went from South College over to North, his passage being marked by his would-be abductors who crouched shivering be- hind Recitation Hall. Eagerly they awaited his return. Nearly all the lights were out in the college buildings. Across the road at the restaurant the genial Murray had locked his door as the night pullman had long since rattled across the bridge. Out in the road was an express wagon driven by one who knew his part in the program. All was ready and then the bird slipped care- lessly into the net of the fowler. Brown, emerging from South College, met a Sophomore in front of Recitation Hall. He was halted and while engaged in parley with the midnight sentinel there came a rush of feet from behind. Brown struck out wildly, shrieked for assistance," '9 — all out, — Help !" and was picked up and hustled toward the gate. Out from the dormitories rushed the Fresh- men in answer to the signal they had so long awaited. Had they been able to see through the darkness they might have discerned a kick- ing, squirming mass half way across the campus, but the darkness was too intense and the un- 26 COLBY STORIES sophisticated Freshmen here fell victims to the wiles of their opponents. With great forethought, Sophomores had been placed in front of each dormitory. As the Fresh- men rushed out into the darkness they were directed to the other college by these sentinels and for a minute there was a great rushing back and forth. The Freshmen, **they raced and they ran," while the sophomoric Lochinvars bore their, in this case, unwilling victim to where their fiery steed was in waiting. At last, however, the Freshmen made a rush for the road. There was a brief scramble and Brown was thrown headfirst into the bottom of the wagon, a couple of his captors sitting on his prostrate figure. Four of the Sophs met the oncoming rush of the Freshman hordes, stand- ing them off for a second only, but it sufftced. The whip cracked across the flank of the pranc- ing horse and the express wagon started for Fairfield, fruitlessly pursued to the railroad crossing by the Freshmen, who were finally obliged to abandon their chase and watch the humiliating spectacle of the president of their class being borne into captivity by their hered- itary foemen. . . The unfortunate Freshman . . plunged headforemost into the bank on the other side." IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 27 The interest of the reader would certainly flag if that midnight ride were described in detail. During the first mile or two Brown attempted an occasional outcry, but his captors summarily squelched such attempts by sitting on his head and he was soon glad to subside into silence. The team was driven a mile or two above Fairfield Center and halted where a high board fence crowned a deep snow bank. Brown was raised from the bottom of the wagon by eager hands. Back and forth he was swung until suf- ficient momentum was obtained and then sky- ward he flew. Followed by shouts of derision the unfortunate Freshman described a beautiful parabola, and, passing high above the top rail of the fence in his aerial transit, plunged head- foremost into the bank on the other side and entirely disappeared from view, only a flurry of snow marking the place of interment. But not for long did the infuriated Freshman remain in his snowy sepulchre. Gasping and spluttering he soon emerged, and, wallowing through the snow, reached the fence. With a strength accentuated by passion, he ripped off the top tail and thus armed started for his foe- men ; the latter, however, did not wait his com- 28 COLBY STORIES ing, but laughing with unbridled glee at the epithets and objurgations hurled after them, drove away on their homeward journey, leaving their erstwhile captive to commence his pedes- trian act to the Bricks, six long and weary miles away. And what happened at the colleges during this time ? There had certainly been plenty of excite- ment for the four Sophomores who were left behind when the wagon started. For a moment they were a bit phased at their predicament but then their second-year assurance manifested itself and they elbowed their way through the crowd of gaping Freshmen, too overcome by the suddenness of the affair to offer to detain them, to South College, and, running up the stairs to a room in the south division, heaved a sigh of relief when they had shot the heavy bolt that guarded the door on the inside. But not long were they allowed to rest in their fancied security. The Freshmen had re- covered from their panic and the desire for revenge ran high. They promptly decided to capture the four Sophs and introduce them to the pump. Up the stairs of South College they IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 29 trooped, some sixty in number. In the mean- time the Seniors and Juniors attracted by the noise had turned out to watch the fun, the latter egging the Freshmen on with their usual promises of support inspired, not by any love for the ''Freshies" but by that desire of wit- nessing a rumpus that seems inherent in Juniors. The throng of avengers sweeping up the stairs, found their way balked by the strong oak-door. They clamored for admission and were told from within that they would receive their answer in a few minutes. In the room sat the four Sophs, not, as one would suppose, discussing the situation, but awaiting a decision from the owner of the room. They well knew the purpose of the Freshmen and did not propose to yield, but left it to J. to say whether he would open his door or have it battered down, for there seemed no other alternative. The scene that followed will never be for- gotten by the Sophs within the room. J. was an intensely religious young man and it may seem odd that he was to be found implicated in a hazing affair, but while not favoring hazing on general principles, he was far more violently op- 30 CO LB V STORIES posed to the exhibition of brashness on the part of Freshmen, and felt that an effort to reduce such freshness was a legitimate transaction. Now J. was at his wits' end. He was in doubt whether to open his door and humble his head to the smiter, or if he should resist to the last ounce of his strength. The latter course more surely appealed to his manly valor and pride, the former at the first thought seemed more nearly to coincide with his religious ideals. J. bowed his head upon his hands and re- mained a minute or two as if in prayer, regard- less of the growing murmurs in the passage without, where the Freshmen were becoming impatient of the delay, but had not reached that pitch of supreme boldness at which they must arrive before proceeding to emancipate them- selves from thraldom by breaking in the door of an upper classman. J. raised his face from his hands and upon his features was a look of defiance which clearly indicated that an unalterable decision had been taken and that coercion was now entirely out of the question. He strode across the room to the corner where several baseball bats were resting against " With this announcement . . . the door was thrown wide open.' IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 3 1 the wall ; grasping a club firmly in his hands with the style of the practiced ball player which he was, J. took his position in front of the door, and thus theatrically but forcibly an- nounced his decision to the raging crowd without : " I have thought the matter over and have come to a decision. You ask to come in and say 'Open the door or we will break it down.' I do not care to have the door broken so I shall open it. But my room is my castle and no man is entitled to enter without my permis- sion. I extend to you no such invitation nor do I wish your company. For your own good I will state that I stand here with a baseball bat in my hands, and if you attempt to rush in when the door is opened the first man will get a broken head. I am in earnest and shall do as I say. If you try to come in you must take the consequences, and I beheve that the law and the Lord will uphold me in what I may do." With this announcement which became cele- brated in the annals of the class as " J's Ulti- matum " the door was thrown wide open. About three feet from the threshold stood J. with his bat aloft and a very determined look 32 COLBY STORIES upon his visage. Without were grouped the Freshmen, irresohite, undetermined. There were brave men among them and they disHked to be balked of their prey so pubHcly. But they knew J. and that he would keep his word to the letter. They would have rushed al- most any other man in college in a similar posi- tion, feeling sure that he would surrender rather than run the chance of killing a man in his resistance. But J. was made of different cali- bre from ordinary college students, and while most of the Freshmen were willing to follow, none would lead. And so the minutes passed until, ashamed of their irresolution, the invaders gradually retreated, and J. and his colleagues were at ease once more. Nor did it hurt their feelings any to learn a little later that the Freshmen had descended upon the Sophs who had backed out of the enterprise of the evening and subjected them to a bit of rough treatment, which would have terminated with a trip to the pump but for the intervention of some of the Seniors. 'It was six A. M. when Brown arrived back at the campus utterly fagged out and disgusted. IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 33 He had tried to rouse a farmer to drive him back but had been warned off the premises and threatened with a charge of buckshot in case he did not instantly obey. He had be«n chased by a dog, and torn his clothes and fingers on a barbed wire fence. But during his long walk home, Brown had been steadily conjuring his brain for some plan of revenge upon his enemies, and ere he had arrived at the college gates he had decided upon a course of action. At that time the board of conference or col- lege jury had just been established. The board was composed of students chosen by their vari- ous classes and was for the purpose of arbitrating differences between students, preventing the wanton destruction of college property, etc. It was also customary to assess each Sopho- more class for the entire cost of the broken windows, doors, lamps, and other damaged articles around the college. Now, Brown had discovered a slight rent in his ulster caused by contact with the barbed wire. Herein lay his opportunity. He would put in a bill to the conference board demanding damages of $25 for the wanton destruction of 4 34 COLBY STORIES his property. He carried out his plan and after a fierce but fruitless opposition on the part of the Sophomores of the board, the petition of Brown \\;as granted, and a few weeks later the term bills of the Sophomores contained a special item of 66 cents per man for their share of the purchase money of a new ulster. The evening before the ball at length arrived, and at the appointed hour, Smith and Brown, the eager swains, started for The Girl's home for the decision. As neither knew The Girl had set the same hour for their coming, they were a little surprised to find themselves traveling down College avenue together and especially that their ways did not part. Each was stubborn, how- ever, and they walked along until the termina- tion of the journey was reached. The Girl answered the bell and was not a bit put out to find the applicants for her favor coming in pairs. She had dealt with too many undergraduates before and rather enjoyed the situation. She ushered them in and entertained them merrily although each of the visitors was as silent as the grave. The hours passed. Brown and Smith doggedly setting themselves to the task of stay- IN THE DAYS OF HAZING 35 ing the other out At last the midnight hour arrived and then The Girl suddenly arose. In one hand she held the blue and white tassel, in the other the red, yellow, and blue. *• Each of you gentlemen has asked me to wear his colors," said she, ** and I left the deci- sion to your wits. I find that honors are about equal, one is about equally as stupid as the other. As there is no choice, I will wear both." And so saying, to the intense disgust of her visitors. The Girl proceeded to fasten both tassels to her gown, using for the purpose the glittering society emblem of a third fraternity. '' It is really the pin, not the colors that count," she remarked, " and I have promised to go to the ball with Black of the Junior class, who is a Gamma Gamma man, you know." It was the last straw. Smith and Brown silently arose, reached for their hats, and de- parted. The night air finally revived them somewhat and on their way to the Bricks they formed a solemn compact and as a result the house of The Girl knew them no more during their college course. HOW WALLY WENT TO THE FIRE "A story about my college days? Well, let me see ; did I ever tell you how Wally went to the fire? You've heard me speak of Walsing- ham, — he was a round-cheeked, dapper little man, who always dressed well, always met the world with a smile, and always did everything in quite an appropriate and regular manner. One night, however, chance or long habit led him to dress his part too faithfully, and — but I '11 begin at the beginning. " 'T was the night of the annual night-shirt parade, which is never premeditated, and never announced, and always happens spontaneously once a year. It had been a stifling day, some- where about the middle of June, and even at midnight was decidedly warm. The heat and the impossibility of sleeping, and the restless- ness that marks the end of the college year, had made us all uneasy that evening, and those who had gone to bed were wondering why they HOW WALLY WENT TO THE FIRE 37 had done so. All at once someone in the group still lingering on the steps of South College ex- claimed, * Let 's have a night-shirt parade ! ' The suggestion was enough ; the others took up the cry, shouts and horn-blasts roused the inmates of the dormitories, and in fifteen min- utes the whole college was out. Even Billy * Grinds' was there with his eye-shade over his forehead — the man who stayed in from the base- ball games to study Greek. His real name was Grimes, and it was a disputed point whether he wore his eye-shade to bed or not. ** Every man wore a night-shirt over his clothes, every man had a tin horn, and every man was an oflficer and told the others what to do. In spite of this last difficulty the lines were soon formed, and our white clad procession, ghostly to the eye, and anything but ghostly to the ear, tooted and. shouted and sang its way through the principal streets of the little city. Some hundreds, at least, of peaceful citizens were waked from sleep by a tumult, which to a less hardened community would have suggested a Ku Klux Klan or a band of Indians, accord- ing to individual imagination and taste in fiction. But those long-suffering Watervillians, with the 38 COLBY STORIES usual patience of dwellers in a college town, went quietly to sleep again, murmuring with or without an expletive, 'It's only the college boys on the rampage.' The official program closed with a marvelous concert and ghost- dance on the lawn next the president's house, while all the neighboring residents watched from their windows. ** But the unofficial program was not so soon terminated. With an enthusiasm which few of us ever displayed in working hours, we all set to work changing the positions of vari- ous landmarks about the campus, to try the artistic effects of a new arrangement. We planted the neighboring electric car station on the Library steps; moved the settees from the recitation rooms to a location on the river bank where we thought the scenery more inspiring than the blackboards which usually confronted them ; leaned about fifty feet of circus bill- board against the Freshman side of the chapel, so that all might read the legend ' Greatest Show on Earth,' and stopped to wonder what we should do next. ''Just then we caught sight of a blaze of yellow light over the tops of the houses toward HO IV WALLY WENT TO THE FIRE 39 the upper end of the city. The whole crowd started on the run for what looked like an unusually fine fire. But before we had gone far it became evident that the burning building was some distance out in the country, and most of the boys, one by one, turned back, till four of us, — ' Hop ' and Arthur and Wally and I — found ourselves alone on the outskirts of the city. Wally was willing to turn back, too, but we told him the fire was only a little way off across the fields and we were not going to have our run for nothing. "The peculiar thing was that Wally was bashful about going back without us. You see he was in bed when the first summons to join the parade was howled through his door, and he did n't stop to put anything on under his night-shirt. The rest of us had taken our uniforms off before the fun on the campus began, but Wally could n't waste time to dress, and so for obvious reasons he had retained what covering he had, and now he found himself a quarter of a mile from the Bricks, in night- shirt, eyeglasses, cap, and shoes. Somehow he did n't seem anxious to go back through the streets alone. I suppose he felt as if our conT- 40 COLBY STORIES pany protected him from the * blows and buffets of the world ' to which he had so much surface exposed. At any rate when we started off across the fields Wally disconsolately followed. '* The first field was all well enough, but when we climbed the fence into the second we found ourselves in a regular jungle of bushes and thorns. Wally's night-shirt caught on the brambles, his bare legs were scratched and bruised, his glasses tumbled off. When the rest of us had struggled through the tangle we missed him, but a plaintive voice told us he was near, and soon we caught sight of his white night-shirt in the darkness of the thicket, shin- ing like the famous bit of virtue in a world of sin. "When Wally came up he seemed to feel decidedly grieved with us and the world in gen- eral, and he began to reason with us again on the subject of going back. But 'Hop' pointed with one eloquent gesture at the thicket behind and Wally said no more. He knew that if he made that passage again, he would be qualified, at least half way up his body, for the position of tattooed man in a side-show. *' We thought the worst was over now and pressed eagerly on. We found ourselves next HO IV WALLY WENT TO THE FIRE 4 1 in a hayfield where the grass was up to our waists and dripping with dew. In two minutes we were wet to the skin from the waist down ; it was as if we were wading in three feet of •water. Wally did n't Hke the feehng of the wet night-shirt flapping against his legs, so he carried out the wading idea by gathering the garment up around his waist, — girding up his loins like the prophets of old. The rear view thus presented was irresistibly suggestive of the maternal slipper, and no doubt if Wally's mother had been there she would have followed out the suggestion most vigorously. '* We waded on, through field after field of the same kind, while from each hilltop the fire seemed further off than ever. When we started, it was not more than half a mile away; now it was at least two miles. Wally would have gone back long ago but for the thought of the thicket behind, and the terrors of a solitary passage through the city streets in a costume more suited to the time than to the place. At last the hayfields came to an end, and we comforted ourselves with the thought that our passage would now be easier at least. Wally began to grow cold so * Hop' lent him a coat, and the up- 42 COLBY STORIES per half of the night-shirt was ecHpsed ; the lower half still flapped disconsolately about his legs. But Wally himself had grown more cheerful and was now resolved to make the best of a difificult situation. ♦ ''With a feeling of relief, which was soon to be dissipated, we emerged from the last hayfield into a pasture, whose surface was a succession of rocks, hollows, and mounds, all covered with a deceptive growth of ferns and moss. In the dark it was impossible to pick our way, and every now and then Wally's white night-shirt would disappear from sight, as he stubbed his toe on a rock, and pitched headlong into an un- suspected abyss, leaving only a pair of waving legs visible to mark the spot. Each time he emerged, a little more soiled and bedraggled but still cheerful, even in his comments on the arrangement of the landscape. "And so we kept on until the twelve labors of Hercules were nothing to the difficulties we had conquered. At last, after what seemed hours of traveling, we came to a road ! And right across this road, twenty rods back, was the burning house, still blazing brightly. Trium- phantly we started up the driveway, but there HOW WALLY WENT TO THE FIRE 43 in the light of the fire, seated on a pile of fur- niture, Wally caught sight of a girl. Now Wally was a modest youth — in spite of appearances — and he stopped short. Probably the girl's ap- parel was not much more abundant than Wally's own, but the outer layer at least was more conventional, and Wally could not bear the thought of embarrassing her. So he sent the rest of us along to warm ourselves at the fire while he squatted down in the tall grass by the roadside and rested from the labors of his journey. As we sat on a log before the blazing house, and questioned the family, who were sitting motionless and silent, watching the de- struction of their home, we could see Wally's round cheeks and nicely parted hair peeping at us over the tall grass, while the firelight shone and glistened on his glasses. " Before long we were astonished to see three more fellows coming up the driveway. 'Hop' remarked that he would not have believed there were three more such fools in college. When these new-comers caught sight of Wally's head above the tops of the grass they stopped to in- vestigate what seemed to be a new style of vegetation ; and when they recognized Wally, 44 COLBY STORIES ' they took pity on his forlorn condition and per- suaded him that his costume was perfectly proper and presentable. The night-shirt alone, they said, might be a bit unconventional, al- though they felt sure that few people in Water- ville were wearing more at that moment. But they pointed out that Wally had on other gar- ments which quite altered the effect. The eye- glasses, in their opinion, removed any suggesticn of undress and no one could deny that a coat was an altogether modest and conventional garment. "■ Thus persuaded, Wally overcame his scruples and all four joined us on the log. Whether the inhabitants of that region were accustomed to wear similarly simple costumes on their even- ing rambles, or whether misfortune had benumbed the senses of the little group of people who sat there among their household gods, I have never known ; but certain it is that not a word or glance betrayed their curiosity at Wally's unique get up, or deepened the blush which tinged his cheek. Indeed, I suspect that their indifference cut him just a little, for, contrary to all his past experience with the fair sex, the girl paid ab- solutely no attention to his presence. " But this temporary annoyance was dispelled . His bare legs stretched out to the fire, . . . the cigar in his mouth, his face the picture of peace after pain." HOW IV ALLY WENT TO THE FIRE 45 by a new joy. In the pocket of ' Hop's ' coat, Wally found a cigar, and straightway h'ghted it with a brand from the fire. I can see him now as he sat there on the log, his bare legs stretched out to the fire, the steam rising from the wet flaps of his night-shirt, the cigar in his mouth, his face the picture of peace after pain. **An hour later when the light of the early morning made the last flames of the dying fire look pale behind us, a milkman driving his cart into the city overtook our little band of seven weary travelers, plodding down the road. Being a kind-hearted soul he offered to give two of us a ride, and the lot fell to Wally and me. The milkman cast a good many curious and medita- tive glances at Wally's bare legs, but our gravity was perfect and no question betrayed his curiosity. When he drove into College avenue and pulled up in front of North College, Wally climbed out, thanked our benefactor gravely and walked up the path with all the dignity his costume allowed. The milkman looked after him with with a curious glance, and then turned to me. " 'If that feller belonged to me,' he said, * I should n't send him to this college. I sh'd locate him jest a little further down river.' 4^ COLBY STORIES '''Down river?' I enquired. 'Oh! you mean Bowdoin? ' "'Wa'al, no,' the man said slowly, with an oracular wink, — ' it was the Insane Hospittle I was thinkin' of." AN IMPUTED SIN " The gentleman from the effete East will tell a story." I was seated as a chance guest at the annual banquet given by the University Club of a bust- ling Michigan city last winter. Stories and songs, chiefly of college days, had been circling the board, and I had listened with all the enjoy- ment of a non-participant secure in the protec- tion of my obscurity. Suddenly from the president's lips fell the words that I have quoted. I became conscious that the eyes of the company were centered upon me. Before I quite knew what was hap- pening, I found myself on my feet; and after a wild dive into my mental storage, I brought out the following reminiscence of Colby, which I proceeded to tell in some such fashion as I here repeat it : Poets are of two kinds, the full-blooded and the anaemic ; the poets from excess of strength 48 COLBY STORIES and the poets from excess of weakness; the poets whose overcharged emotional natures, unable to find sufficient outlet in action, turn to artistic expression as a safety-valve, and the poets, who, incapable of strong feeling, instinc- tively resort to the stimulus of verse to supply their emotional deficiency. Eddy Wildflower was a poet of the anaemic type. He entered Colby in one of the classes immediately succeeding mine, that is, soon after the Centennial year. He had read the Colby Oracle for several years, and he had devoured the Colby Echo from its first number down to the date of his entrance examination. He knew by heart the poems of the distinguished contrib- utors who had shed a glory upon those publica- tions, and it was the strongest yearning of his sub-freshman existence to meet face to face these literary Immortals. Eddy was himself a prolific writer, and there was no kind of poetry that daunted him. It may be too much to ask that a poet in our day should invent new metrical forms ; but we cer- tainly have a right to demand of any poet, who forces his work upon our attention, that it shall contain something new, a fresh fancy, a gleam AN IMPUTED SIN 49 of insight, a flash of imagination illuminating some depth of human experience. Any such requisition, however, upon the creative abih'ty of Eddy Wildflower would have been a waste of effort. The poetry that he wrote was not the product of his own communion with nature or life, but the mere froth that ran over when he had filled up his own aesthetic empti- ness from the springs of some real poet's imagi- nation. Unflattering as this description may seem, it is difificult in any other words to set forth the utterly vapid character of his versifying. Eddy once quoted to me the anecdote of Swinburne's taking a stool and sitting at the feet of Browning, though for his part he deemed the homage due the other way, and he therefore sympathized with Browning's comment, while shocked at his profanity, in calling Swinburne a " damned fool " for doing it. I am not aware that Eddy ever imitated literally this act of his favorite poet, but he certainly did so in all other senses. To every college poet — and were we not in those days at Colby, as Dr. Johnson said of Pembroke college, " a nest of singing birds?" — Eddy Wildflower offered up the most persistent and abject adoration. He 5 50 COLBY STORIES would talk with us by the hour about poetry and poets, never venturing an opinion himself that had not the sanction of triteness, but treas- uring our remarks as if they were the poetic wisdom of Horace, Boileau, and Pope rolled into one. Fortunately for our comfort he had not a scrap of pretense, and, strange to say, he fully understood his own weakness and even its emotional source. '' Oh ! if I could only suffer some blighting, blasting, affliction," he once said to me, '' be crossed in love and nearly go mad, then I might become a great poet. But I am afraid such good luck is too much for me to hope for. However, I am young yet, and I sha'n't despair." I told him that if he only could despair it might fill the bill ; but he an- swered with a sigh, '* Ah ! if I only could." In outward appearance Wildflower was a well-built fellow, six feet tall, with an intellec- tual head. He was a blonde, wore side whis- kers and a moustache, and would have been fine looking had it not been for a weakness that per- vaded his facial expression and even his bodily movements. He was too lackadaisical for a scholar, and too dawdling to care for athletics. The only exercise he ever took besides sitting AN IMPUTED SIN 5 1 on the river bank — if that can be called exer- cise — was bowling, and once while he was en- gaged in this recreation, the crisis of his life oc- curred, the incident that changed his whole career. It was a dull, cold Saturday morning in spring. Eddy and I were bowling against Fritz and Jerry, and for once were getting a little the better of them. Eddy's face shone with triumph and perspiration, and he was just poising a ball to bowl off a spare — ^.he always used small balls, as he disliked the exertion of lifting heavy ones — when the door of the gym- nasium flew open, and Eddy's roommate, with three or four other fellows, burst in, exclaiming, '• You 've got to look out, Eddy ! The father of one of the girls in your school last winter is down here, and he swears by ginger he will make it hot for you." Eddy dropped his ball, turned as white as chalk, and looked as if he would sink upon the alley. Finally he gasped, " For Heaven's sake, fellows, what must I do? " "Oh! we've fixed that all right," his chum replied. **Some of the boys took him over to the Library, telling him you would probably be there. They agreed to keep him out of the 52 COLBY STORIES way for half an hour. The best thing you can do is to pack your trunk and skip on the eleven o'clock train." Eddy wrung his chum's hand, and staggered out with the group, cov- ering them with thanks, and vowing that no fellow ever had such faithful friends. The rest of us followed out of curiosity, and we all went up to Wildflower's room, where we helped him pitch his things into his trunk, he all the time talking a blue streak, one moment pouring out protestations of gratitude, and the next minute eloquent with fear lest he should be caught before he could get away. Suddenly to my surprise, for I was not in the secret, Eddy's roommate snickered, and the others burst into a loud laugh. Eddy stood still for a moment, then the blood rushed into his face, and he seized a limp Bible which happened to be near his hand — for Eddy was a Sunday- school teacher — and flung it so quickly and with such force at his chum's head as to knock him off his feet. Eddy then snatched up the spittoon and threw it among us, yelling, "■ Clear out, you ! " We were all so appalled by his fury and his profanity, for none of us had ever imagined Eddy knew how to swear, that AN IMPUTED SIN 53 we tumbled over each other in a rush to escape. Eddy slammed and locked the door behind us, and nobody saw him again until Monday morn- ing. Then he appeared upon the campus as calm as if nothing had happened. But he was a changed man, or rather a man, from that time forth. It is a curious fact that he wrote no more poetry nor even mentioned it, nor, so long as he remained in college, did he renew his religious associations. Strange to say, the boys now began to speak of Eddy with a certain respect as if he were a man of the world and capable of self-assertion, even before it became evident what a change the occurrence had wrought in him. Of course everybody at the time put the worst construc- tion on the incident; but afterwards, in thinking the matter over, I decided that his natural tim- idity alone was sufficient to have caused his ter- rified behavior. I saw no reason why his con- science need have had anything more criminal to reproach him with than indiscreet words of endearment, or possibly caresses, bestowed upon some too-willing country maiden, which his fears had magnified at the moment into a claim for a promise of marriage. At the pres- 54 COLBY STORIES ent time, however, in reviewing the whole affair, I feel confident that his fright had not even this foundation, but was the result of a stampede, pure and simple. The next morning at my hotel I was sui- prised to receive a call from the president of the University Club. He was a florid, clean-shaven busines^ man, a lumber dealer, evidently pros- perous, and proud of his success. Disregard- ing the meaningless comment on the weather with which I essayed to open the conversation, he began at once with the subject of his visit. " When you started in last night," he said, *' I did n't see what you were driving at. But after a while I caught on, and then I watched mighty close to see how you were coming out. You had the whole thing right, even to your solution of the problem at the end." I stared at my visitor in a vain puzzle to catch his meaning. But he went on, " By Jove, though, I'm glad you used the name you did. I would n't have that story get out here for twice the amount of my college bills." At last a light flashed in upon me. I started back and exclaimed, " Great Caesar's ghost, if it isn't old Sideboards!" NUMBER 'STEEN, NORTH COLLEGE This room, though It had one of the best locations in the division, had been unoccupied ever since I entered college ; and year in, year out, it had collected trunks, broken furniture, old mattresses and dirt, until it was literally full of rubbish. The room had the reputation of being " hoo- dooed," among the boys, but little was said on the subject as no one cared to be regarded as superstitious; they merely said that there was something unhealthy about the room, as no one had stayed in it long, and so it lay neglected. A Freshman, however, bought it and furnished it upon entering college, but after the first week hurriedly moved out and could scarcely be per- suaded to enter the door again. I liked the location of the room and when I wanted to move in the spring, bought it from the Fresh- man, who had offered it at a very low figure. Before the transaction was complete, however, 56 COLBY STORIES his sense of honor impelled him to tell me sol- emnly that the room was haunted. '' Rats, or B. B.'s? " I inquired. '' No, no, ghosts, as I live," he answered with a look of terror. *' It groans, and — Gad, it's awful ! " he added with a shudder. Now my ancestors were hard headed tillers of the soil, who believed impHcitly in the articles of the Baptist faith, the Republican party, and the Ziofis Advocate, but they were not given to belief in the supernatural. I had paid no attention to the foolish legends that the room had collected along with its dirt and rubbish, and promptly laughed the poor Freshman to scorn, and told him that if the ghosts were thrown in, I 'd take the room at the price agreed upon. The first few evenings spent in my new quar- ters were peaceful enough, and I congratulated myself on the bargain I had made. One hot, tedious afternoon had melted into evening before I left my work in the laboratory. I had bun- gled and slopped through the process for the metals of Group II ; I had missed many of them, received a well-deserved and characteris- tic rebuke in consequence, and at last crawled out into the fresh air, saturated with fumes of NUMBER 'STEEN, NORTH COLLEGE 57 hydrogen sulphid, smelling and feeling very- like a bad ^g^. I was tired, discouraged, and disgusted. I decided that I needed diversion, so I donned my war paint and went calling. During this performance I was called upon to admire the new chafing-dish of my hostess, and forthwith I was made the smiling but unwilling victim of her first Welsh rarebit. This was of the delicate consistency of a rubber door-mat, but I dared not refuse and returned to the Bricks with inward misgivings. As I stumbled into the darkness of my room I remembered that my lamp was empty, and that I had failed to borrow any oil in the division as my credit was bad ; so I sank into my arm- chair facing the windows and gazed through the swaying foliage of the trees, at a couple of arc lights that blinked sleepily at me from be- yond the crossing. I reflected sentimentally that *' she " wore a very becoming dress that evening, and then I thought of the rarebit, — with a pang, — and remembered sadly that the Jamaica ginger bottle stood empty on the shelf. I do n't know how long I sat there staring dreamily out on the campus when a misty something formed around the two lights which 58 COLBY STORIES now glared on my startled vision like fearful eyes. Then a nebulous human figure became more and more distinctly visible, sitting in my window-seat directly opposite me. There was a slow, ponderous clank of chains, and then a most indescribably horrible groan burst from the shadowy figure before me. My hair stood stiffly erect and a chill sweat of terror oozed from every pore. It was the ghost at last ! For a few moments I was too frightened to move a muscle, but I thought of my matter- of-fact ancestors, and vowed with all the strength of my will that I would not be terrified by anything so unreal as a ghost. As soon as I could steady my voice, I asked my visitor, with a feeble attempt at a sneer, if he did n't think this clanking-chain act rather obsolete? " These are n't the days of castles and dun- geon-keeps," I expostulated. '* Now a real up-to-date ghost, like an up-to-date wheel, you know, ought to be chainless." The ghost looked huffy and replied in a sepulchral tone that he supposed that was what all self-respecting ghosts were accustomed to do, and he thought he did it pretty well. NUMBER 'STEEN, NORTH COLLEGE 59 seeing he had n't been in the business ten years. He admitted that it was rather inconvenient hauhng the chain around, but asked me what I thought of his groan, and promptly shot off one for my edification. Human ear never heard such a sound ; fiendish hatred and utter despair were rolled together in a groan that froze my blood and nearly shattered my nerves. When I recovered, I stammered that the groan was a good one, but he 'd better save it, then, in a burst of vexation, said that I wished he would dispense with the groan as well, and asked why in thunder he did n't rest in peace, instead of annoying people at unearthly hours, and gave him to understand that the ghost busi- ness itself was out of date anyway. *'I can't rest," said he, mournfully, "my life was a terrible tragedy." Then he went on to say that this was his old room in college, and he intended to haunt it whether I liked it or not. I invited him to go to — well, where he came from, but the hint was wholly ignored. Then, with a malicious glance of those glaring eyes, he let off another of his fiendish groans. That nearly finished me, and when I caught my breath, I hurriedly changed the subject and asked him if 6o COLBY STORIES he would just as soon sit somewhere else, as on my favorite cushion on the window-seat. ** You see," I explained," I do n't want to get it wet, and I suppose a foggy affair like you is n't perfectly anhydrous." At that final word a sudden change came over him. He wobbled, as if a breeze had struck him, the entire apparition grew fainter and the blazing eyes faded with a look of ter- ror. That word hit him somewhere, I reflected. Chemistry ! The inspiration struck me full blast, and I asked him with a grin, what made him *' evaporate to one-third of his former bulk." He had just started one of his knock-out groans in self-defence, but it dwindled off into a dis- tressful moan. "Aw, infantile V I snorted contemptuously, " I call that bad work," I continued with a most annihilating drawl. Now the ghost was the victim, and he had become so faint as to be scarcely visible. I even pitied him, and offered him my favorite briar pipe to help him regain his density. He lighted the pipe with trem- bling fingers and dropped the burnt match to the floor. " Do n't you know," I fairly yelled at him, NUMBER 'STEEN, NORTH COLLEGE 6l " that the man who throws a match on the floor is a Bungler}'' A scarcely audible moan of anguish was the only response, and the pipe dropped from his ghostly fingers. " That '11 do, thanks!" I shouted in stern exultation. "Next, pi ," but the ghost had feebly flickered and vanished, and the next I heard was a pounding upon the door, as I struggled for consciousness with the sun shining brightly on the trees out- side my window. The fellows who roomed above me wanted to know what made me so infernally noisy last night, and advised me to take the pledge. I did, to forever abstain from Welsh rarebit, but said nothing of my experience. I browsed around the Library that afternoon, and looked up thoroughly the history of ' Steen, North College. It ap- peared that several years ago, a fellow had died there in the spring of his Junior year and since then the room had not been popular. I found his name and learned, as I expected, that he had elected the spring Chemistry. I understood. I have never been disturbed since that night, and when the Freshman asked anxiously if I had seen the ghost, I answered oracularly that I had - laid " it. TOM AND SMITH One day in July, i860, a carriage passed slowly down College street drawn by a dusty black horse, and containing two very anxious looking boys. The cause of their anxiety was twofold, — examination next day, and a desire to find a blacksmith shop. The shop was soon discovered and a shoe set on the said horse. And when the financier of the duet demurred at the price, fifty cents, the begrimed son of Vulcan informed them that it was *' Commence- ment Week," and horseshoeing was on the cornua taurorimi. ^^ Dies irae'' occurred the next day in the Plutonean abodes of the old Chapel. Teste Lyford cum Prof. Johnnie, con- cerning which ajitmtis merninisse horret. By the way, the platform in that underground room became decayed and a motherly-looking toad had a home there, and she came out every day to hear Waldron's essay in the rhetoric class. One summer the wicked boys put ten TOM AND SMITH 63 toads under the platform and waited for the Prof, to come. All were quiet enough till Brackett began to read Latin. They could n't stand that anyhow, so out they came and hop- ped for the door at full speed. "The effect was electrical." There were few X*s that term. On Commencement Day those two adven- turesome youths were allowed to follow at a respectful distance the awe-inspiring Sophs down to the church. The boys discovered some very original characters among them. During the halt of the procession, one of the Sophs stepped back and asked Smith in a very per- emptory manner, ** How did you get that hump on your back ?" Fresh replied that the Al- mighty had put it there. The Soph seemed to be astonished that it should have been done with- out his consent. He then demanded of Tom — "Why in thunder do you wear glasses?" Tom said he was near-sighted. The Soph was still dissatisfied, and said so. We will call said Soph by way of distinction, "Judge." There used to be a tradition around the college that the habit of inquisitiveness commenced very young with the "Judge." His first inquiry was, why he did n't have two mouths as well as two eyes, and 64 COLBY STORIES his next sentence criticised his father for not wear- ing more clothes on the top of his head. The ''Judge" still retains the same censorious way of looking at the deeds of frail humanity. Very few are satisfied with his estimate of their moral turpitude. Soon another Soph stepped back and seemed anxious to know where they had left their "horns" when they came to college. Smith timidly asked what he meant, and received for an answer that "cattle" from the country always had horns. Smith replied that he was a "buff- alo" and did n't have horns, and later on showed said Soph that he was a vigorous kicker if he couldn't hook. Another small, black-eyed, black-haired, pretty little Soph attracted their attention. He said nothing to them but every hair on his aris- tocratic head seemed to say, frocul^ -procul^ cste, ye Freshmen ! Let's call him Billy. He is a great man now, occupies a high position, and is a first-rate fellow ; glad to meet any of the old boys. The two Freshmen looked down the line ahead and noticed in the Junior class a dark-haired man, tall, rather good looking, and modest. TOM AND SMITH 65 Smith afterward learned that the name of that Junior was Isaiah Record. Later he roomed opposite him in North College ; he further learned that Mr. Record was the noblest man he ever knew. Conscience in him was the rul- ing power. Nor was he a cad. On one occasion when the faculty, disregard- ing the wise counsels of the students, employed an unregenerate man to cut the grass on the campus, the boys sent Somnus to the ivory gate and helped the faculty out by cutting the grass themselves by moonlight. Every boy practiced in that star-pictured gym. that night, Record and Barker excepted. Barker unfortu- nately slept over, and Record stayed in his room and interviewed conscience. He reproved no one in the matter, and it was all talked over before him with perfect freedom. There was no pharasaical spirit in him. In after years Smith sat by his bedside, with tears coursing down his face, received his last farewells, and has found less on earth to enjoy ever since. A strange circumstance was connected with Mr. Record's funeral. At one commencement, Annie Louise Carey sang. In the gallery sat Isaiah Record, Rev. A. C. Herrick, Paymaster 6 66 COLBY STORIES Barton, U. S. N., and Smith. At the close of the concert, the four adjourned to the hotel and talked till two o'clock. They were to separate next morning. One was going. to Japan, one to California, Record to Houlton, and Smith to Massachusetts. As they parted that night Mr. Record said, ''When shall we four meet again?" One dark day later, the body of Isaiah Record lay at rest in a casket, in the vestibule of the church at Houlton. Gazing sadly down upon those noble features, stood Smith, when upon the right and left stepped simultaneously Mr. Barton and Mr. Herrick, and as they mutely and tearfully clasped hands, they felt they had all met again. The peculiar laugh of a Soph attracted the boys' attention next. He had a perfect Grecian face and a smile that was exhilarating. Some one called him Thomas. He was a fine fellow and liked a joke. One day the president called him up on review in Butler's Analogy and told him to pass on to the "■ Future Life." Thomas promptly responded, ''Not prepared, sir." They noticed a Junior there with a sort of Cassius face. He thought too much — about his little "girl," and was quite jealous. So, to TOM AND SMITH 67 keep guard over her, he sent his chum up one winter to teach school in the district where she Hved. Before the term was over said chum was engaged to the fickle fair one. The boys did not room together next term. Gazing further down the line Smith saw what seemed a human head seated on top of a tall pole, but a rift in the crowd showed that it was a human form divine, but not *' divinely fair." He heard " Mac " declaim later on in the Chapel when he, with his head ad astras, in a sort of piping, grunting voice, said — "It is strange how little some people know about the stars." Had "Mac" lived in Job's days he could have sung with the " Morning Stars." While waiting at the church Smith took a good look at his classmates. Near him stood Seeley, — a harmless little fellow. He had a brother in the Sophomore class who was a genius. He went up into Aroostook county to farm and preach. He was a far better farmer than preacher. He made a failure of farming. One day he was ploughing on the side of a steep hill with a pair of steers. The cattle were untrained and he did n't know how to drive. The steers would "turn the yoke," thus half the time they 68 COLBY STORIES faced the plow. To prevent this movement he tied their tails together, and at noon unyoked them thus united a tergo. One started east, the other west. For a time action and reaction were equal ; at last one fell down, the other hauled him down the mountain by the adhesive force of the caudal vertebrae. The sight was inspiring. The hos on -pedes^ ferens caput altuvi cormbus, snorting victory with every wild leap ; the bos on dorsum, roar- ing with disgust and marking the dust with his horns like Hector's spear. Brother Seeley gazed calmly on the scene and gently whispered, ** Descensus Aver no facile est,'' and the next Sabbath took for his text — *'Be not unequally yoked together." Next to Seeley stood a tall, finely propor- tioned man who to-day wears the insignia of a Major General, U. S. A.,— H. C. Merriam. He and Smith were great friends later on ; Merriam liked a joke and so did Smith. In those days the Junior class doled out an original declamation in the Chapel every spring. The other classes must attend or be fined ten cents. The whole thing was a bore. The night before '63 spoke, Merriam and Smith went down town and "bor- TOM AND SMITH 69 rowed" from Mr. Merryfield's back shop a huge cloth sign. The heraldic emblem on said cloth was a life- size picture of an elephant. The boys added a legend, reading, ''Elephant Show — $.10 admission," and nailed the advertisement high above the Chapel door. The third-year men were not pleased a whit, but the Profs thought it a grand good joke. You see, they were not in it. If the General sees this I hope he will not give Smith away. The General was a good scholar and wrote poetry sometimes. There were two or three more poets in the class. They belonged to different schools of poetry. David said if he got the rhyme all right, he did n't care for the metre. Harry said if he got the metre all right, he did n't care for the rhyme. And Smith also wrote one poetic translation of Horace. It was Ode XVI, and here is a speci- men of it: O ! bewitching filia, Handsomer than your mamma ! How could I such an onus prove To write Iambics 'bout my love ! Burn those verses, every speck; 70 COLB V STORIES Dump them in the Kennebec. When Prometheus made my head, Softer than a loaf of bread, In my bosom he put this : Vi7n insatii leonis. Smith bet the peanuts he would read it in the class. Prof. Foster was rash enough to call him up on the advance and Smith read the whole thing through. ** Sit down, young man !" Result — Ten minus the one. Smith never wrote poetry afterwards. Near by stood Mayo. He was a very rigid man in morals. One night when "■ town and gown " were discussing how hard a blow it re- quired to paralyze the brain, Mayo received a severe shock from a club in the hands of a ''yager." He brought up reinforcements and threw said "yager" into a muddy pool. The "yager" naturally swore. Mayo remarked, "Look here, this is a Baptist institution and swearing is not allowed. Chuck him in again, boys !" And in he went until the profanity was all washed out of him. A little behind stood Young of Calais. He had a witty way of putting things. When Wes- TOM AND SMITH 7 1 ton's name appeared in the catalogue with a f before it, Young said, "• Weston must be a mighty good man; he bears his cross daily." Just behind Tom stood a girlish-looking boy. His name was Littlefield. Studious, talented, he carried off most of the honors. He was very absent minded. A club of twelve once boarded with a lady who frequently reminded them that she had seen better days. Before the term was over the boys thought they had. Now there boarded at the place a very prim lady whose age had never been accurately ascertained. Lit- tlefield sat beside her. One day in the heat of argument he placed his arm on the back of her chair. She sat up a little primly ; he became a little excited and proceeded to put his arm around her, and soon was emphasizing every remark by an unmistakable hug, all unconscious that he was disregarding proprieties. Smith will never forget the expression on that woman's face. Glorious Littlefield ! The daisies adorn his grave to-day. *♦ Green be the Uirf above thee, friend of my better days." Just here the procession moved on ; the two boys were lost in the crowd and Smith has never emerged therefrom. THE FRESHMAN DELUGE " Forsan et haec oUni meminisse juvabity — Virgil. "We cannot buy witli gold the old associations." It was late in the afternoon and the Hght was waning. From across the campus in front of the college, shot a few lingering beams, feebly struggling at a game of hide-and-seek on the walls of Champlin Hall. Like over-excited chil- dren, they seemed reluctant to leave even for a night's repose their classic playground. Within, an indefinable restlessness pervaded the oblong Greek recitation-room ; even the marble bust of Aristophanes, on the corner bracket, felt the subtle influence, and appeared anxious to be off, to give to the world one more comedy — that of a typical Freshman Greek recitation, for in such an effort he fancied his greatest bid for immortality. '^Nichols!" A hurried turning of leaves, and a whispered, "Third paragraph on the forty-third page, sec- THE FRESHMAN DELUGE 73 ond line," from the seat directly behind him, inaugurated the preliminaries of an exceedingly free translation, which, perhaps, was eminently proper in reading the work of so free an histo- rian as the author in hand. As Nichols painfully arose, a martyr to the whimsical notion of an unfeeling professor, Reynolds moved anxiously on his end of the front settee, at the same moment taking out for the who-could-tellth-time his watch. ** Ten minutes more," he said slowly to him- self, accompanied by the monotonous tick, tick, tick ! " If I'm destined to be hanged I want my last moments spent in a recitation-room — they'll never pass ! I have n't looked at the les- son, and I knew 'twas my day to be pulled. Profess," he added irreverently, ''hasn't 'shuf- fled' his cards for the month — I'm due Tuesdays and Fridays — and I know mine's at the bottom. Did n't s'pose he'd get 'round to it this after- noon, though !" He whispered to " Steve" in the seat beside him. " Say, old man, get him started on explain- ing the use of the infinitive after irpiv. He'd be on to me if I suggested it, but if you ask him 74 COLBY STORIES 'twill save me from a dead flunk; besides, your interest in the subject will score you an x." The last card was in the professor's hand — number twelve was absent — when the bell an- nouncing the end of the recitation period reluc- tantly rang. The professor quietly closed his ''Herodotus," and surreptitiously reached his hand under the desk for a "hid treasure." Like the dislodgment of long pent-up debris in a swollen current, the class of '92, on being dismissed, rushed headlong from the room. Bonney turned as he reached the entrance to the Boardman missionary room, perhaps uncon- sciously restrained by the influence of the place, then noticing the diminutive female portion of the class hesitating for a moment on the land- ing, led in a boisterous chorus, "Oh, the co-eds they grow small in '92 ! " Sam was just emerging from South College. He stopped, turned his head, listened a mo- ment, and chuckled, ducking his head the while, "Pretty good boys on de whole, only dey don' know what's spected ob 'em." Then shaking his head prophetically, "Dey'll learn — Soph'mores haint all dead by no means ; dey's got one eye THE FRESHMAN DELUGE 75 open ! An' de ol' jan'tor, he's libin,' an' jes' got to show dem where dey b 'long." Still chuckling intermittently, he slowly turned towards Memorial Hall. Suddenly he stopped. In front of North College the ^entire Fresh- man class had collected. " There's a baby born in Colby, boys, way back in sixty- four ; She's thundered for admittance at many a Freshman's door. But thanks to God and '92 she'll live forevermore. For Phi Chi is in her ancient glory." Sam bent almost double with suppressed merriment, not unmixed with just surprise. "Dey'U pay fo' singin' dat — mind what de ol' jan'tor tell yo' ! Gettin' too fresh." This last was hardly audible, lest the elms along the walk should hear it, and silently ac- cuse him — him, the friend of every Colby stu- dent — of treason, to the gossiping breeze as it loitered by. Not a Sophomore appeared. " Brave class, those ninety-oners !" exclaimed Nichols ironically. '* Better get their co-eds out," laughed Graves in derisidh. "They'll show more sand. Say, 76 COLBY STORIES fellows, let's go down to the 'roost' and sing to them." " Oh, they're all of a kind — the Sophomores," and Donovan tossed his Greek lexicon over to Smith, who was standing on the steps, and started down town. During supper a hurriedly written note found its way under each Sophomore's door. "Meet in Parson's room at 8 130 sharp," it read. " Don't make any noise in the halls." At the appointed time, as a step was heard at No. 6, the door softly opened, and a ninety- one man glided silently in. ** Wonder if we are all here," and Whit, the acknowledged leader of the class, took a mental inventory of the faces before him. ''All but Chip; he couldn't come. Had an errand to do for Professor Elder," and Norman had surveyed the crouching forms in the four cor- ners of the room, before Whit had even reached the sofa, in his deliberate calculation. " I suppose, gentlemen, you know the cause of our gathering," and Whit leaned carelessly against the book-case. " Better pull down the side curtain a trifle lower; any one can see in just like a fly," sug- THE FRESHMAN DELUGE 77 gested Luce, pointing to an uncovered space in the lower lights of the east window. ** Probably because we decided not to ob- serve Bloody Monday, and discussed the advis- ability of discontinuing the False Orders, the Freshmen think we're dead game. All along they've been grow^'ng bolder, and this afternoon, as you know, they reached the end of their rope. If two thirds of the class had been here — well, some one would have paid the fiddler, and I'll be willing to wager 'twould be the ones that did the dancing. ** They knew most of our fellows were down town, so their singing Phi Chi, and giving the Sophomore yell, did n't show a great amount of unpremeditated bravery." '* It's high time they were taught a thing or two," interrupted Luce emphatically. "What'd we better do ? " The discussion was long and animated. " Give them a sufficient dose this time, and a second application won't be necessary. I be- lieve in doing the kill-or-cure act at the appear- ance of the first symptoms," and Morse, as though to further his argument, brought his hand down vigorously on Gorham^s shoulder. 78 COLBY STORIES "■ Gad, man, I 'm not a Fresh ! " Before leaving the room a plan was decided on, a " water cure " being the remedy pre- scribed. '* I wonder if we all understand. We don't want any bungling in the matter — 'twould spoil the whole thing. You 're all to get ready the minute the squad leader raps. By the way, you 'd better not lock your doors — perhaps it might occasion less noise, and, on the whole, be safer for us." Whit took out his memorandum. " You have the first squad, Luce, — first two floors of the north end of North College. Gor- ham, you have the third and fourth floors. First and second floors, south end, are yours, Mugg; you have the other two, Dick. " Now for South College. I '11 take all the north end," and Whit looked around to see if all his men were there. '' The south end, first two floors, are Watson's, the other two are yours, Bassett. Now I imagine everything is clear." '' Don't make the slightest noise getting to the river," cautioned Foster, as he arose from his cramped position on the dictionary. '' And THE FRESHMAN DELUGE 79 be sure to have the pails where you can lay your hands on them in an instant." " Better go out singly," suggested Mathews, with one hand on the door knob. '* If we should be^seen together it might create suspicion." "Twelve o'clock, sharp!" and Whit threw himself down on the sofa. "They'll sing, 'We'll hang our clothes on a hickory limb,' in the morning," he laughed. At midnight the historic Boardman willows, forming a graceful avenue down to the Kenne- bec, guarded on either side a strange procession, separated by fives into individual squads, each one a few feet ahead of that immediately follow- ing. If it were not for the dissimilarity in costume, from the pails they carried one might judge them to be an ocean steamer's fire brigade out on practice duty. Quietly they formed in line at the water's edge, and silently filled their pails from the flowing stream. " My ! it 's cold, though," whispered Gor- ham, as he slipped on a smooth pebble, thus plunging his arm to the elbow into the moving current. 8o COLBY STORIES " The colder the better for swelled heads," chuckled Luce. ''Mighty fine for that kind of inflammation ! " The procession was not long in re-forming, and silently, like Druids of old, marched slowly up the path, under the overhanging willow branches, that fell like a benediction over the determined men. Who can say that they did n't show their sympathy for the vindication of Sophomoric rights ! At the rear of Champlin Hall the procession parted, one division cautiously working its way around North College ; the other moving grue- somely towards the sister dormitory. **Be careful of noise in the halls," came the whispered command from Whit. " Every squad wait by each Freshman's door till I give the signal — then down she goes, and let them have it full blast before they 're fairly awake." He hurried over to North College with the same order. In a few moments all was ready ; each was in his place. The suppressed excitement in the little groups could hardly be restrained. ''We'll fix 'em!" THE FRESHMAN DELUGE 8 1 " S-s-s-h-h ! Not so loud," and Foster laid a cautioning hand on Luce's shoulder. The signal was given. Crash ! went the doors. In rushed the Sophomores, each with a pail poised aloft in his hands. " Aim for their heads ! " was the order. Not a Freshman moved. " Quick ! " cried the leader. One, two, three, four, five pails, full to the brim, were dashed in rapid succession upon the sleeping occupants — not a Freshman escaped. Smothered gasps only, were heard from some ; others broke out with — well, not what was learned in the days of *' Mother Goose," or from the family catechism. Without a word the midnight guests passed noiselessly into the halls. Not a Freshman ap- peared, for fear by so doing of meeting a still more startling surprise. " There 's moisture in the college, boys," hummed the Sophomores, as they quietly re- turned to their rooms, and the moon smiled approval behind a cloud. The Kennebec gurgled gleefully over the falls, and never missed the water that the next 7 82 COLBY STORIES day's sun absorbed from the bedding that hung so conspicuously from many a Freshman's win- dow, "Dey all look limp's de bed-clo's," chuckled Sam, mischievously, the next morning at the chapel entrance, as the Freshmen went mince- ingly in to prayers. ''What'd de ol' jan'tor tell yo'!" ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK "Abe" had arrived on the afternoon express to attend commencement exercises, and on the following day to be present at his class reunion. He had wandered up about the college at eve- ning time, finally into old South to hunt up the room in which he and '* Bottle " had spent four happy years, in the days gone by ; and having found the door with the split panel (no matter how it happened to get split), behind which many a " happy old time " as " Abe " branded them, had taken place, he rapped and was ad- mitted. Within he found a crowd of some eight men, indulging in a little game of whist; a few bottles (contents, rare!), but empty, as " Abe " soon discovered, rolled around on the floor, the room full of smoke of the eight black pipes — looking, as "Abe" vowed, "pretty much like them days of seventy-blank." The boys tossed aside the cards as the stranger entered ; one proffered a chair, another 84 COLBY STORIES a cigar — both of which were thankfully accepted — then all fell to firing questions at the old grad. "Call me 'Abe,' boys; that sounds more like the old days." "Well, 'Abe' it is, then," said Hawthorne, picking up a guitar. "I 've heard my father tell of those old days and sing their praises, too. He never encouraged me to get into soyne of the ways you fellows trod. He must have entered along about the time you got your sheep-skin. I wish, often-times, the old days were here again ! " Swift reached over and took the guitar from Hawthorne's lap. Striking a chord or tw^o he sang sweet and low : " Once in the dear, dead days beyond recall, When on the world the mists began to fall." "Abe" got up, went over to a black case leaning against the desk, unstrapped it and revealed a brand new violin that Perkins of eighty-blank had recently purchased. He drew the bow softly across the strings a few times, tightened one key, loosened another — the boys looking on the wdiile — then carelessly swung off into a beautiful anthem he had picked ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 85 Up while in college. The boys listened breath- lessly till he had finished. There was some- thing about "Abe's" playing, so careless, yet so clear, sweet, that the anthem was only an appetizer. ** Oh ! go on, boys," cried ** Abe" desperate- ly, "that's all guff; why, you can all beat me, hands down. Put the thing up, I say; I could play once, but it's no use now. In all my col- lege course I could n't draw an X to save my life, but when it came to violin-playing and tell- ing stories there were mighty few of them to hold a candle-stick to me." *' Well, then," said Aldrich, stretching out his long body on the couch, " if we can't have the fiddler we must have the fiddler's song," — a quotation of his own. Aldrich was original, — it stopped there. " That's right, give us the stories." Chorus. " Abe " slid down into his chair till his elbows rested on its arms, crossed his legs mid- way of the floor, puffed a few times at his cigar, then began. " Of course you fellows have heard of stiff old Prexy Champlin. Well, the best story the boys told on him, which they did pretty 86 COLBY STORIES often, was the one at the time he unbended his straight old back, and deigned to speak to his nearest neighbor. It was just after a heavy rain, the Hghtning and wind having played havoc with the whole neighborhood, when the doctor as he saw it clear up, came out of his house and started for the college. An aged farmer, who lived next door to the punc- tilious president, stood leaning against his front fence, calmly smoking his black T. D., and the while feeding his cow by the roadside. To the old farmer the doctor thus addressed him- self : •' * Fellow neighbor,' he began, in a basso voice, dignified air, * this has been a tempes- tuous downpour and an extremely annoying and terrifying onset in the ethereal sky above us.' "■ Neighbor Hitch took out his black T. D., spilt the ashes on the rail fence, looked quizzi- cally up at the doctor, then at the heavens, and finally said, — * Wa-al, ye-es, neighbor, — ye-es, you 're right; this ere has been a d heavy rain.'" Scott laughed and counted " One." York drew his fingertips unconsciously across the strings of his mandolin, and sank into a chair — -a a. E ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 87 laughing. Scott could laugh and appreciate a joke, though he was a crammer. " Never shall forget the one we told on Dodge," continued "Abe." "Dodge was a hunchback and the most laughable fellow that breathed. One day in rhetoric Prof. Johnnie held forth on the subject of choosing words to fit the thought. ' Why,' he expounded, * a man should grovel on the floor till he can find the word he wants, rather than use a wrong one.' A few minutes later he called on Dodge to recite on * Laws of Division.' Dodge punched me when he got up, and I knew the devil was afoul of him. He began in a piping voice : " * Seek to find the distinctions wholly in the nature of the idea, and beware of fanciful analo- gies or arbitrary — ' He stopped sudden ; an- other fierce kick on my shins. ' Arbitrary — , arbitrary — ' he repeated thoughtfully. He shifted his weight to the right foot, and again I got a kick from his left. What in blazes he was up to was beyond me, so I gave him more room and sat as glum as you please. But you may judge of my surprise when presently that hunchback Dodge gave me a parting salute, broad-jumped the seat directly in front of us, 88 COLBY STORIES landed lightly on his hump, before the desk of the terrified Prof., and then ! — Why, boys, talk about circus tumbling ! Those fellows were n't in it a minute with Dodge. Fact was, you couldn't see him. 'T was first hump, then shoes, then head. Well, he kept that sort of thing up for full three minutes till everybody thought him crazy mad, when the wise and now cool-headed Johnnie remarked : ' Keep on groveling, Mr. Dodge, you '11 get it yet!' " Dodge rolled back on his hump, leaped to his seat as lightly as a cat, and then as cool and ^collected as a pitcher in the ninth inning of a tie game he resumed his former position and continued, * — arbitrary preconceptions of sym- metry of the subject,' and sat down. '' Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Well, do you know, boys, that old hard-shelled, sober-faced Baptist Prof, could n't hold in to save his life, and he laughed and laughed and laughed, and finally he saw it was no use and blurted out 'Excused.' Dodge was a corker, no mistake." '• Fat" Lewis pushed open the door. *' ' Fat ' Lewis," said Aldrich, " this is just * Abe ' of the seventies." '' Fat," said '* Abe," rising and laughing. "ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 89 "Just Abe," replied ''Fat," clasping hands. *• You want to take the quotient after divid- ing by two of these yarns of the men of the seventies," said Lewis. "And never append 'Just' before their names," added the old grad. " Sit down, Lewis," said Alden, " ' Abe ' is having his inning now. You had yours last fall, you know." Alden referred to the grandstand-play " Fat" made in the Colby-Bowdoin game. " Great play, that," came from Aldrich. '* Yankety, yank, why ! What's the score? Bowdoin's down, sir — oh, my ! Six to four! 0-O-O-H ! MY ! Who did that? {All) WH-Y-Y 'FAT!' DID THAT!!-" " Shut up," said " Fat," when Aldrich finish- ed the cry. " Let by-gones be by-gones." " 'Nuff said," and Aldrich dodged a book. All eyes were turned on "Abe" again. " Did you ever hear about ' French Leave?' " he began. "No? Well it was a good joke, well executed. It happened in the summer along about '7-. It was spoken of as the mys- terious disappearance of Le Cid — not the Cam- pO COLBY STORIES peador in his proper person, but Corneille's play celebrating his adventures. '* One of the classes was reading Le Cid that term. It so fell out upon a day that the imp of mischief inspired two of his votaries with the notion that it would be a capital joke to steal the books and so get a ' cut.' Steal is not the word. A fico for the phrase ! Convey the wise call it, quoth ancient Pistol. They meant temporarily to abstract the books for the gen- eral good. 'T was kept pretty close home, you may know. The plot was so well laid and ex- ecuted that by the next recitation every book had vanished, nobody knew where. Well, the bell rang, the class filed into recitation, minus books, minus lessons. '''What does this mean?' demanded the good old Prof, sternly. He had heard three straight flunks. " ' No book ! ' ' Book gone ! ' ' Lost my book!' 'Book stolen!' came a chorus of answers. Some the old Prof, did n't hear, such as ' Book swiped !' 'Flew the coop!' 'Up the stump!' etc., etc., etc. " When the state of the case became fully known Prof. Blank was highly indignant. ' It ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 9 1 is an outrage ! ' he cried * a mean, low, witless, and criminal performance. It is an offence against not only the college, but the state. If these perpetrators are discovered, they should not be allowed to remain in college over night. It is larceny, gentlemen, larceny, and those who have lost their books have ground to institute a criminal prosecution, and I advise you to go ahead.' " The guilty two looked perfect innocence. They appeared deeply interested in all that the Prof, said, and now and again nodded heads in approval. ' Prof, is right, just right,' said the kidnappers of the Cid as soon as the class was dismissed. The two circulated about, discussing the mat- ter, expressing a proper sense of its enormity, and advising that a proper investigation be made. The class agreed, crammers leading, and the remarkable thing about the procedure was that the very two who abstracted the books were made a committee of two to wait upon the Prof, and ask him to lay the matter before the faculty. With grave mien the committee attend- ed to its duty. They represented that the class was of one mind, namely : that the outrage 92 COLBY STORIES should be investigated and the culprits detected and punished without fear or favor. They said in a solemn voice, ' Can't the matter be brought before the faculty, sir?' •** Gentlemen,' replied the dignitary taking off one pair of nose glasses, and scratching his head slowly, 'What's the clue? It will be of little use to bring the matter before us unless there is some clue. Think of a clue, gentle- men, think of a clue.' "'Clue and be hanged!' said the first kid- napper softly to the second. ' The faculty be hanged ! ' whispered second to first. " The committee reported to the class, and the matter was dropped. Two days later Sam opened the Chapel door. 'Fo' de Lawd Massy ! ' he exclaimed, ' dat am de case eb'ry- time ; de los' am always hid in de open.' Well, sir, nobody outside of those two know to-day who the kidnappers were." "How's that?" asked Aldrich, looking sharply with half closed eyes at " Abe." " That's a fact, sir, sure's you're born," added the old grad. convincingly. " Well, then," queried Swift, " how in Jehos- haphat did you happen to know so much about it, unless " ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 93 "Say," said "Abe" slowly, "that cigar I just finished was a corker." The boys all laughed when they saw how badly poor "Abe" had slumped. " I got what you could call actually mad just once while I was in college," continued " Abe," lighting a second cigar that Al gave him. " How's that? " asked Bobs waking up from a long snooze. " Those stories you are telling are peaches. Ought to be chronicled, sure thing ! Wish they were in a book," and Bobs dropped off to sleep again. " It must have been in the spring of '7- that the great Sophomore cremation of mathematics took place. Doubtless burnt offerings of calcu- lus, analytical geometry and all that tribe had been made before, and have since been offered up, but in the decade of the seventies, at least, no affair of the kind approached in celebrity the one of which I am speaking. It is amusing, boys, to look back upon, but at the time it was taken pretty seriously by those most concerned. " After the mathematical studies had been finished some suggested that it would be the most proper thing in the world to take the books and burn them ceremoniously. I was 94 COLBY STORIES mightily in favor of it — I got cut out first term of Fresh, year. Interest lagged at first until it came out that the men of first-year were plan- ning something of the sort on their own hook. Then interest took a brace, fellows woke up, things became lively. The wind had just got to be taken out of their sails. Committees were formed and arrangements were made in hot haste. Two men worked a good part of the next Sunday in a Fairfield job printing office, supervising the getting out of posters and pro- grams. I 've one of those programs now. It is not a masterpiece of the art preservative, but it set forth the case with a sufficient elaboration of ghastliness. The pages were deeply bor- dered with black, and ornamented with coffin hds. In more or less correct Latin the docu- ment announced something as follows : "'CONCREMATIS. U ( Classis. VI Calendas Maias.' *' And as a sort of explanation, or justi- fication, this solemn statement appeared : Magnus liber, magnum malum. The ■pomj>a funehris consisted of dux^ sacerdos, taedarum geruli lecticarii, more lecticarii and taeda- ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 95 rum geridi^ qui -princeps funis exsequitur and quifunus exsequitur, ending up with the vulgus. For the information of the latter the particulars as to the time and route of the pro- cession were given in English. The various odes written to be sung on the occasion, to such airs as * Auld Lang Syne,' 'Shall We Gather at the River,' and 'Annie Lisle,' were given, and after 'Consolation to mourning friends by the Priest,' this maddening quotation appeared : " ' The differential of any power of a function is equal to the exponent multiplied by the func- tion raised to a power less one, multiplied by the differential of the function.' " Monday morning discovered the posters nailed to trees, posts, and bill-boards every- where. They caused a great sensation, espe- cially among the men of first-year, whose fun was up. The Sophs could n't help that. They were mighty sorry to have interfered, and had they known — but anyhow they would offer commiseration and — grin up their sleeves. " Meanwhile preparations went on apace. Appropriate costumes were designed, the local brass band hired, and a member of the class, g6 COLBY STORIES the son of a professor and since a missionary on the other side of the world, being handy with carpenter's tools, was commissioned to make the coffin and bier. " On the afternoon of the great day a funeral pile was built on the upper part of the campus, where now is the athletic field. It was then a cow pasture. Driftwood from the river, fence rails, boxes, and what-not furnished the mate- rial, and altogether it took over a cord of wood; We felt pretty sure first-year men would attempt revenge. They had shown their teeth several times that day, so a guard of upper- classmen was enlisted to keep watch while the procession was down town. '' Well, it was about nine o'clock in the eve- ning when the parade was formed without mis- hap, and moved through the main streets ac- cording to program. That was a memor- able night for staid and quiet Waterville. * Big ' Allen carried a baton and led off, the band came next, then the black bier of books and the class, two abreast, with torches and standards of appropriate lettering, followed. To the music of dirges the leciicarti, geruli, and others stepped solemnly elate and congratulated ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 97 themselves on the booming success of their show. The thing was going on as merrily as anything so mournful could be expected to go. " We turned up College Avenue on the return march. The first thing we saw was a mighty sheet of flame rise into the heavens. A dread- ful thought gripped our hearts. The rumor ran along the line that the smart Freshies had stolen a march and fired our pile prematurely. " At the campus our crowd was met by those babies of first-year and their allies armed with fish-horns. Then a bray of horns and shrieks like the wicked Saracens of old ensued. The racket, kept up during the re- mainder of the exercises, was so terrific that the band was completely drowned and panto- mime had to take the place of speech. *' It appeared that while the procession was marching, the guards either proved faithless to their trust or were lured away. When the remains of the burning pile were reached, the coffin containing the corpses of the condemned books was flung upon the embers, and with the help of Sam's kerosene can was consumed. "I tell you, boys, we fellows were hot. Triumph had been turned into defeat, and the 8 98 COLBY STORIES revenge of the enemy was complete. By- standers did not perhaps perceive any differ- ence, but the fact was that the untoward event threw the remaining exercises into confusion and cut them short — too short. Cast down in spirit though outwardly calm we mourners withdrew from the scene, pursued by the mad- dening bray of horns, and assembled in one of the rooms to relieve our feelings and discuss ways and means. '' We packed in thirty strong, and the schemes of retaliation rolled out sixty per min- ute. I proposed tying the whole blank crowd together and dragging them over the city. All agreed. Then some one sang out, ' Tar and feather them ;' all agreed. ' Stack their rooms,' yelled a third ; ' that's the checker.' Again all agreed. "■ Gilbert said things about seventy-blank men that would n't look well in print; Pierson swore he would have revenge if he got fired for it ; * Short ' Parker jumped upon a table, knocked over the ink-bottle, crushed the pen to smither- eens and said he did n't think but a blank little of such a blank class to do such a blankety- blank-blank, open-doored, measly trick as they ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK 99 had, and to have a gibbet's rope around their necTcs was none too good for them. ' I do n't give a rip for the faculty ; I'm in favor of hang- ing a millstone about their necks and throwing them into the Kennebec — the whole blank posse of them,' he declared, ' and the sooner they're in, the better for humanity — and the worse for the water.' I opened the door and stalked out. I was just about as mad as a mad man can be. I believed then and there that I could wallop about any man that lived. I went down the stairs and out upon the campus where there was a knot of first-year men, and posting myself in an elevated place expressed my opinion of them in mighty plain terms and challenged the whole class to single combat. "The challenge wasn't accepted. But we put them up, one and all, and I never enjoyed spanking any more than I did that night. Those days, I hear, are not yet over, — well, don't go back on the old days entirely. Peo- ple tell you hazing is out of style, borders on the 'barbaric*, and all that sort of thing. Well, believe it if you choose. I tell you what, I 'm no exponent of the old style hazing, but I can count you twenty-five boys whom a pail of lOO COLBY STORIES water and a spanking helped to make men. What are you to do when a man comes to col- lege, swells around, bosses Sam, and owns the earth generally? Just get a big pail of water, perch in the fourth story of old South and when the white shirt, stand up collar, goggles and cane come swinging around the corner, let go ! If that does n't settle matters, call on him the next night just before he goes calling, and during the course of your conversation tell him' what may be rightfully expected of all first- year men ; then to clinch matters ask him to sing 'Rally 'Round the Flag,' to sit on the wash bowl and ' row across the briny deep,' — and I '11 guarantee all this ' to cure or kill' nine cases out of ten, — yes, and best of all, the fellows will thank you for it years afterward. No, boys, do n't go back on the old days entirely — the happiest days of my whole life. You men who are going out will say the same thirty years hence, — ponder upon all the happenings inside the old Bricks, recall the boys, — God bless them ! — long to live the old days all over again." The old grad. ceased talking, and a long silence which no one in the room seemed dis- ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK lOl posed to break followed. Bobs snored loudly, rolled over, and woke up. Poor Bobs ! All tired out from last evening's Senior Hop. He sat upright, rubbed his eyes, yawned, looked sheepishly into one countenance, then another, and finally asked, ''What time are you, Al? " Aldrich looked at his watch : " Well, Bobs, it 's going on for eleven-thirty." " Good night, * Abe,' " said Bobs, fumbling for the door-knob, "■ good night, boys." " Good night, old man," came the chorus." " Abe " smiled a little at the sound of his old college name. Bobs led the procession that finally emptied the room, excepting Aldrich and "Abe," — Alden, Hawthorne, Swift, Scott, York, following him. " Do n't hurry," said Aldrich, as '• Abe " rose to go, " this is early, yet. Here for com- mencement? " " Yes, and class reunion. I shall meet your father here tomorrow." ''Abe " laughed lightly. " You know my father, then ? " "Fairly well, fairly well," answered "Abe," with a chuckle, " we bunked in this same room for four years, my boy." I02 COLBY STORIES '* You — why, you bunked with my father ! Mistake, you 've made a mistake, sir. My name is Aldrich ; my father's name is Llewellyn H. Aldrich. His room-mate was Judge Her- bert Alexander of the supreme court of — " ''Quite right, young man, quite right; that individual is before you. My card. Your father was a loyal Xi Delta Psi man like myself. Did n't I see one of our pins on your waist- coat? " Judge Alexander stretched forth his two. hands and gave Aldrich the grip. Poor Al was more amazed than Bobs was a few minutes before. '* Why — this cant be the man my father expects to meet tomorrow ! Judge Alexander — supreme court — tall, spare — ' Abe Lincoln ' they called him, — ' Abe ' — Xi Delta Psi man — great violinist in college — By George ! But this evening — why, we had n't any idea 't was you — and the fellows — thunder and lightning ! Here, Scott, Alden — come up, — bring the rest, fellows !" Scott appeared in the doorway, minus shirt, minus stockings, clinging to his breeches ; Alden peered into the room and yelled, '' Now, what the devil is up?" And then others came, clad ''ABE'' OF SEVENTY-BLANK IO3 much after the style of Scott — if not one bet- ter. " Boys," said Al, excitedly, *' I want you to meet my father's closest friend, not ' Abe,' but, as we have heard him spoken of, Brother Judge Herbert Alexander of ." After the fellows had gone again, the judge having expressed the desire to bunk with Al that night, '* anywhere if only within these walls," the young and old of Xi Delta Psi bunked together. When the morning had come, and the judge had arisen, donned his tall silk hat, black suit, then Al felt sorry for the indifference of the boys the evening before towards this distinguished western jurist. "Judge, you must pardon us for last night. We had no idea that it was you, and — " '' Now, young man," answered Judge Alex- ander, good naturedly,' ** no more of these wretched excuses. The evidence is all against you. I wanted you to receive me in the old ways; I was careful not to tell my name, you know. It did me more good to be welcomed as I was, to be called 'Abe,' to hear that * Bobs ' of yours — and many 's the time I 've been as sleepy as he — tell me he wished my stories I04 COLBY STORIES were in a book — in short, to live those grand old days over again, — than be on a $50,000 case and win it. I tell you what, young man, the happiest moments of a man's life are when he lives and acts as God made him to live and act — naturally. College life makes a man nat- ural ; that is why a college man is so happy ; that is why I long for those days of seventy- blank, and that is why I enjoyed last night bet- ter than any night I have lived for thirty years. Be a gentleman, but be natural ! " And the judge, on his way to the Frat house for a breakfast with Al, tried to breathe again the fragrance of the sweet lilies in the great meadow, of the blossoms of early spring, he had breathed long ago in seventy-blank. A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS It was the night of the Freshman reading. The church was packed with the beauty and chivalry of Waterville's upper eight thousand, ostensibly, of course, to hear the Freshmen read, but really in the ardent hope of seeing a fight between the Sophomores and Freshmen, or at least some disturbance of the exercises. When something does happen that wasn't provided for on the program these good towns- folk are loud-spoken in saying that the thing was scandalous and in hoping that the presi- dent and faculty will punish the offenders ; but in their heart of hearts they would n't have missed it for anything, and go to the reading the next year hoping to see something like it again. This year the friction between the two lower classes had been decidedly warm, and rumors were flying in flocks concerning the deep machinations of the Sophomores in regard to Io6 COLBY STORIES this critical evening. It is true that the presi- dent had warned the Sophomores that no dis- turbances should be brought into the church, but warnings are often forgotten, and many a Freshman felt a vague apprehension of being, at any moment, blown through the roof from a mine in the cellar. All over the house fluttered copies of the War Cry — for those were the days when the discovery had not been made that this publication was not necessary to the honor of a Sophomore class — and the poor vic- tims ground their teeth as they read their ** roasts " and vowed a bitter vengeance the fol- lowing year. The audience fidgeted in their seats, the Freshmen ushers strode through the aisles trying not to appear conscious and green at the business, and the speakers themselves sat in their pews nervously whispering and laughing in the poor attempt to seem confident and at ease. It was for all an atmosphere of nervous expectation. One of the speakers, Richard Curtis, could not have appeared more doleful if he were soon to be burned at the stake. He had gone into the trial readings from a sense of duty to his family and his fraternity, had done his best, and A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS 107 to his great surprise was appointed. His ap- pointment was a surprise to a great many others also because one who was reckoned a sure man for a place was not appointed at all. This was Harris, a youth of speech-making ambitions, — one of those men who take up all the time in class-meetings, — and it is not surprising that he felt his disappointment keenly. The unfortu- nate part of the affair was that he did not know enough at least to keep his mouth shut, but went about confiding his sorrows everywhere and hinting darkly at favoritism in the judging committee as the reason for Curtis's appoint- ment. This spirit deepened into a settled grudge against Curtis himself, shown forth by many ill-natured remarks and mean insinuations. Some of this was reflected in the War Cry, for its editor belonged to the same fraternity as Harris, and as a Freshman feels sorely the slings and arrows of an outrageous War Cry, the abuse that Curtis found shoveled upon him heaped high his load of care till he felt he could never raise his head again, and gave him that look of misery already hinted at. In the first place, he had spoken in public but once before — when he graduated from the I08 COLBY STORIES Academy, and on that dreadful night he had felt the exquisite torture of forgetting in the middle of his essay and of having to stand a full minute and a half in awful silence. With this cheering experience, Curtis felt positive that he should n't remember a word when he reached the platform — and his spirits sank to the lowest circles of the Inferno at the very thought. In short, the boy was at the fog end of weeks of wrong and was in no state of mind for a prize exhibition. His chum and room-mate, Bennett, who sat next to him, was an oldtimer on the platform. He had taken part in Academy debates, won prizes in speaking contests, and was generally admitted to be probable winner of the first prize in this evening's exhibition. He had labored faithfully with his friend, coaching and encour- aging him as best he could, but now the only response to an encouraging word was a misera- ble shake of the head and the groan — "■ Oh ! I know I shall flunk — I wish I was dead ! " ' Bennett, to divert his mind, called his atten- tion to Harris (who happened to be head-usher and who seemed to have become remarkably A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS IO9 absent-minded about his duties that evening), as he tried to put a family of four into a pew with barely two sittings left. Just then the president and the chaplain entered upon the platform from the little door at the left, sat down with grave dignity in the high-backed chairs on opposite sides, — and simultaneously crossed their legs. At this signal the orchestra hit up a lively two-step, but Curtis, as he reflected that he was the first on the program, felt a horrible sinking feeling in the neighbor- hood of his diaphragm and would have thanked some one to shoot him and put him out of his misery. At the close of the two-step the chaplain arose and delivered the prayer, — the prayer which varies not through all the exhibitions of the college year and all the changes of chap- lains. It is one of those prayers in which no- body's interests are neglected and therefore eminently satisfactory. Blessings are first called for upon the college, then individual mercies upon the personnel of the faculty and board of trustees, then upon the student body " and all their friends gathered together in this assembly." Next the Institute and High School are recom- TIO COLBY STORIES mended to the attention of the Omnipresent, and then the chaplain's heart broadens suddenly and he calls for blessings on all educational in- stitutions in the country. As a final favor the chaplain asks that *' presence of mind and sure- ness of memory may be bestowed upon the participants in this evening's exercises." "Lest we forget, — lest we forget," groaned Curtis in fervent response, while Bennett for the tenth time admonished him to brace up. The prayer is generally followed by a lan- guishing serenade from the orchestra, but Cur- tis could not have told you whether they played anything at all; he heard nothing till the an- nouncement, *' Mr. Curtis," fell on his ears like the call to execution. Then the forlorn creature stumbled out of his pew and marched to the choir without a thought in his head and with cold terror in his heart. Those who have taken part in college exhi- bitions will remember the pair of steps leading from the choir to the platform. As Curtis placed his foot on the second step, to his hor- ror, it went through the strip of carpeting, — down, with a painful scraping of his shin, into A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS III something soft, and he fell sprawHng on his hands over the edge of the platform. Those on the floor of the house heard the fall but could see little ; but in the galleries, which com- manded a view of the choir curtain, there was an amused smile on every face and much stretching of necks. This increased to a ripple of laughter as Curtis picked himself up, draw- ing the unlucky foot out of the trap and tear- ing his trouser-leg in several places at once on some ugly nails evidently put there for the purpose, — exhibiting to his unspeakable horror a foot and leg covered with green paint. At the sound of the laughter in the galleries several young women in the. back of the house jumped to their feet and strained their eyes nearly out of their sockets in the excitement of the moment and their anxiety not to miss the fun. A great wave of wrath poured over the soul of the poor victim and swept away every trace of his nervous fear. *' They think they 'II keep me from speaking, do they," he thought to himself savagely. '* Not if I know myself!" And in a moment 112 COLBY STORIES the entire audience saw a young man gracefully bow to the astonished president and then to themselves, — a young man with a foot and leg splashed with green paint, the trouser-leg hanging almost in strips about his ankles, and a trail of green footprints behind him. The longed-for had happened ! The Sopho- mores had done something funny after all, and the great audience shook with a gale of laugh- ter. Curtis expected this and he stood before them defiant and contemptuous, his eyes flash- ing and his hands clenched by his side. He could n't forget his speech if he had to stand there ten years waiting for the laughing to cease, and he z^^?^/(ispeak whether they burned the house over his head or shot at him from the front seats. After a moment the audience settled into silence, feeling a little ashamed of itself, with the exception of the inevitable hysterical per- sons who can never stop laughing when once started. Curtis had an excellent selection and one admirably adapted to his present disposi- tion. He had done well in rehearsals but never had he put into it the fire and the life that thrilled it now ; his fierce determination killed Never had he put into it the fire and the life that thrilled it now." A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS II3 every trace of self-consciousness and swept him along triumphantly. The house stilled ; even the gigglers felt that they were getting somehow conspicuous and managed to control themselves, the English professor beamed through his glasses with sur- prised delight, while Bennett, who had groaned aloud when he heard Curtis fall, stared with open-mouthed astonishment. When it was over, Curtis made a bow, hopped down the awkward distance between the platform and the choir as gracefully as could be expected, and came down to his seat amid the most enthusiastic applause that ever greeted a speaker in all the much-speaking history of that church. Two ushers rigged up a pair of steps by a combination of a stool found in the vestry and a pile of organ books, and the exercises went on. When Bennett's turn came, he disappoint- ed nobody, but when the orchestra had breathed its last and the judges returned from the ante- room, the chairman of the committee came for- ward, and, after the usual preamble concerning the unusual excellence of the evening's perform- ance, announced that the first prize was award- 9 114 COLBY STORIES ed to Richard Henry Curtis and the second prize to Arthur Freeman Bennett. The hearty applause that followed made it evident that the awards suited the audience very generally, and while a candid critic would have told you that Bennett's performance was undoubtedly more artistic, an exhibition of pluck goes a great deal farther than aesthetics with the average com- mittee of awards, and certainly no one was more delighted than Bennett himself After Curtis's classmates and college friends had put him through the siege of back-slapping and hand-shaking, they began to discuss the scheme of the trap itself. The Sophomores were severely reprimanded for setting the thing after the president's admonition, but as a class they disclaimed knowledge of the act, declaring that they had voted to keep all disturbances out of the church in accordance with the wish of the Powers. A close examination of the mutilated step showed that the upper board had been sawn away under the strip of carpet and the car- pet itself slit above so as to give in at the slightest pressure and let the unwary foot into the wide pail of paint placed just beneath. Since that time, by the way, the pair of steps placed there has been uncarpeted. A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS II5 For some days the general impression was that a few Sophomores had devised the trick without the knowledge of the rest of the class, and the feeling was strong that such a trick was unworthy of any class as the whole weight of it came upon a single individual. Then a Fresh- man remembered using that step on the morning before the exhibition as he went into the church to rehearse, and as Freshmen kept watch in the church all day it would have been difficult for Sophomores to have set such an elaborate trap that afternoon. The talk finally centered on Harris, who had spoken and acted rather queerly about the affair, and who happened to have been the class watchman in the church the last three hours of the afternoon. Harris was cornered and forced to admit that he was the guilty man. A howl of indignation arose at the idea of a man's turning traitor to his own classmate out of mere personal jealousy. A class-meeting was called — the only one in which Harris did not make his presence known — and the motion was put to drop Harris formally as a member of the class. Curtis was the only one who objected to the action ; he pleaded for the culprit, de- Il6 COLBY STORIES daring at last that personally he was under great obligations to Harris, for the pail of paint was the only thing that saved him from an utter flunk. Harris did not wait for further developments but wrote home that the college was not large enough for him, — as indeed it was not, — and made a rapid exit from the campus, emitting a string of damns that applied to the college, the class, and Curtis in particular. "That was a fire-of-coals speech you made this morning," remarked a classmate as he en- tered Curtis's room after the class-meeting. "Thanks, but you 're a liar as usual," returned Curtis cheerfully, " what I said was simple fact. I shall always be glad to give my testimonial to the wonderful effects of the Harris treatment for nervousness ; it is a sure cure, — apply exter- nally, and if you are as scared as I was, you will shake well before taking." THE LEG THAT FAILED Adam's leg had been expected for several weeks, now. No one need base a clue to identity on this name. I have merely chosen to give the name of the first man to the first man of my story, — its hero. Adam, not in person but represented by friends, on the way home from the post-office called daily at the office of the American Ex- press Co. By this agency was the expected member to be delivered. To be sure the pack- age would reach Adam at the Bricks. But, should it come on the early morning train, sev- eral hours might be saved by getting it at the express office. And several hours is an impor- tant item when it is the case of a leg or no leg. At any rate, so thought Adam. Stumping around several months on one foot and two sticks naturally makes a man look forward to an easier mode of locomotion. Then add to this the liability of the crutches Il8 COLBY STORIES to disappear at inopportune times. If Adam laid aside these visible means of support for a few minutes while in the reading-room, or if he fell into meditation, to which he was prone, or if he lost himself in the heat of argument, he did not always find them at hand when reached for. This disappearance was usually at the hands of one of the three whom he regarded as his chief friends. They, " Larry," " Forrie," and " Charley," also occupied somewhat the place of grand inquisitors. The heresy to be brought to light was Adam's tempen To tease Adam was one of their recreations. Nor was the pro- cess entirely disagreeable to him. I have noticed that nearly every one likes to be teased, provided it is by the right person, at the right time, in the right way, and is not carried too far. Adam was no exception. It often went too far with him, however. Then it was the part of prudence for his tor- mentors to keep out of reach of his crutch, or remove the weapon of offense. For wielded by his powerful right arm the stick would describe such vicious circles as would have driven the Professor of Logic frantic. Nor was THE LEG THAT FAILED II9 the process entirely without danger to the stick itself, which, as well as surrounding objects, animate or inanimate, ran the risk of annihi- lation. Yet Adam's wrath was of short duration. He was the last person to harbor resentment. So these three tormentors were his trusted emissa- ries to the express ofhce. The winter vacation of 188- Adam had spent at the hospital in Portland. To be rid of a troublesome foot his right leg had been ampu- tated just below the knee. Since the opening of the spring term he had been back among us. It was now nearing the middle of May. Intimations of the coming " high tide of the year" were on every hand. There were cer- tain " signs of spring " that had '' never failed us yet." The carnpus had gone through its annual change. The watchfulness of Sam, ably seconded by his assistant, " Rabbit," could not prevent the customary from hap- pening. [n spite of their vigilance the campus changed one night from dreary brown to dirty black. Until driven into the ground by the rains, there were little patches of grayish-white I20 COLBY STORIES ashes where the dead grass had been thickest. Gradually the black changed to green, giving ample opportunity for the time-honored inter- change of jokes in color between the witty Freshman and Sam. There were other indications, no less to be relied on, of balmier days than this *' sea- change " of the campus. Behind the colleges the willows w^ere in full leaf. The maple leaves were well along towards maturity. From the river came the odor of spruce logs, making you sniff again for their spicy sweetness. The old railroad bed on sunny afternoons was alive here and there with solitary figures, pacing book in hand. If those ''pacing there alone" were co-eds (the women of the college had not yet been advanced backwards to the dignity of co-ords), the solitary figure was at least two. From day to day the Freshmen gathered in little groups under the trees at their Horace. The Freshman reading was now happily — that is, unhappily — over; a thing of the past, at any rate. Why should not these embryo Sophs, rejoice with their Horace out in the ''balm and the blossoming"? And how well Horace and the springtime go together. I THE LEG THAT FAILED 121 wonder if it is the poet in the Professor of Latin that put the Horace in the spring term ; or was it merely the result of what Adam would have called a '* meaningless concatenation of events," emanating from some.trustee or faculty meeting? However that may be, each succes- sive class has felt the fitness, and has rejoiced that it was so. Every afternoon the Juniors went to their experimental chemistry in Coburn Hall, secretly envying those who could be out of doors, and yet reconciled to their long afternoon imprison- ment among unsavory odors by the thought that they were getting one of the very best things of their college course under the faith- fulest of teachers. The Sophomores, meeting by twos and threes, congratulated themselves that they had passed through the year with ranks undepleted, a thing which, considering all that the last eight months had brought forth, was remark- able. The Seniors felt the breath of the Senior vacation close at hand. Their thoughts would continually go out to that after-commencement period when they should first begin to livCy forgetting that this, too, had been life. 122 COLBY STORIES Yes, the editors of the '' Poet's Corner " in the Echo were not the only ones aware of certain sure indications of spring. For some weeks the boys had awakened each morning to hear the song of the sparrows, the sweetest singers among our early bird visitors from the South. The bluebirds added their cadence to the morning. From the very tops of the wil- lows or the elms the robins poured forth their call. A few days earlier the gleam of the first' oriole had been seen in the elms. Each morning Adam would, if it were fair, thrust his head out the window to drink in the beauty of the new day. He would glance at the robin's nest in the branches right opposite his window (his room was on the fourth floor, and so among the treetops). usually to find the mother bird on the nest. Then his eyes would wander to the ground and follow the path out to the street, and then across to the station beyond. When the gleam of the red roof of the baggage-room met his eyes he would won- der, '* Will it come to-day ? If it does n't come to-day, I '11 write and stir them up," thought Adam. It was a resolution that he had made twenty times before, but had never carried out. THE LEG THAT FAILED 1 23 On this particular Wednesday morning in May the window, after a trick it sometimes had and in the stealthy way of inanimate objects bent on mischief, descended slowly and noise- lessly towards the back of its intended victim. It did not catch him this time ; rather, it caught him in another way. *' Larry " came around the corner from the direction of the gym., gnawing with the few teeth he had left a russet apple. The protrud- ing head was too much. " Larry " had not caught on the nine two years and nailed men at second for nothing. The half-eaten apple flew straight for the mark. Adam drew back his head violently just in time to escape the missile, which, splitting against the window- frame, spattered window and Adam's face with juice and bits of apple. The back of his head hit the frame of the descending window. That head was of the hardest, yet unable to support the collision without some damage to the scalp and more to the temper. Adam let fly a few strong words, such as he has often used since in his professional life, I dare say, though not in the same sense, and with a different emphasis. 124 COLBY STORIES As Adam stumped down stairs that morning on his way to breakfast he saw on the hall floor a pin with its head towards him. Superstition was not altogether dead in him, though a Senior. He picked the pin up, putting it in the bottom of his vest in the company of others of its kind similarly gathered. '' That means good luck. My leg will come to-day," he thought. A moment later he caught sight of '* Forrie;" who called ''Hullo, Adam, where 's y'r leg; come yet? " " Not yet," with serenity, and a note of cock- sureness incident upon the pin episode, " but it'll be here to-day, I think." '' Forrie " laughed the laugh of the skeptic ; but Adam was right. The arrival of the eastbound '' Yankee " that afternoon found some fifty of the boys at the station. Among them was Adam. Try- ing to appear unconcerned, he scanned the express packages narrowly as they were taken from the car. No parcel of the probable size and shape was there. The train drew out. The express wagon rumbled away down town. The dust from its wheels drifted across the THE LEG THAT FAILED 1 25 campus, overtaking and surrounding Adam on his way to his room. The few chronic ** pluggers," whom not even this fine afternoon, and a hoHday at that, could tempt out of doors, heard the melancholy and somewhat spiteful thump of crutches ascending the three long flights of stairs. The sound became measured and more muffled as he reached the upper hall and walked its length. A rattle of the key in the lock, a slammed door, a crutch striking the floor too hard to have been merely dropped, showed the state of Adam's mind. The ''plug" in the room di- rectly underneath jumped in surprise at the noise ; the lamp on his table, never too steady on its base, started in a tremulous dance. Adam had no hopes of the local train from Portland to Bangor, which was due an hour and a half after the " Yankee." He took up a book, and soon vexation and disappointment were forgotten in the works of Dr. Johnson. In a half hour or so he laid down Johnson and took up Macaulay. These were the two authors he chiefly admired, and after whom he tried to pattern his style. His admirers thought that at his happiest he equaled or even excelled 126 COLBY STORIES these. Adam was much of the same opinion, and certainly his diction was ponderous with ''words of learned length and thund'ring sound." Deep in the essay on '' Milton," he did not notice the arrival or the departure of the Ban- gor local. He was aroused from his absorption by a roar of voices, amid which he detected his own name pronounced in a manner insult- ing to a man's dignity — '' A-dam." ''In the pauses of the wind " from some half hundred throats he could hear the rumble of wheels. The express wagon was coming up the drive, escorted by a chorus of shouting boys. The numbers increased every moment. A glance told every one what had happened. Adam's leg was come. South College emptied itself. The reading-room was deserted. The noise penetrated even into the quiet of the Library. It, too, was speedily left to the Librarian and the co-eds. To them the Professor remarked sarcastically that education was the one thing of which people were 7iot anxious to get their money's worth. From all sides trooped the boys to rejoice with Adam, now that he had found again — in a little different form, to be sure — the piece of him that had been lost. THE LEG THAT FAILED 1 27 Into the south hall of North College they thronged, ** Forrie," ** Larry," and '* Charley," with the precious bundle between them, at the head. Adam, eyes sparkling, beatific grin, open door and open mouth, stood ready to receive the package and his visitors. It bore the familiar stamp of the American Express Co. Lower down Adam's delighted eye read : "Adam , Colby University, Room — , North College, Waterville, Maine," — just as Adam had ordered it done. The minute ad- dress was not so much for the enlightenment of the agent of the local express company, who knew well enough where to find him ; it was, rather, a bit of harmless vanity on Adam's part, designed to impress duly the firm which had the honor of furnishing the artificial leg. " Three cheers for Adam's leg," proposed "Forrie." "Hurrah !" yelled the boys. Above all rose the exultant voice of Adam. He cer- tainly had the most reason to shout. In a frenzy of delight he clambered on to the bed. One foot and one crutch supported him. The other crutch waved in triumph over his head ; the banner of a hope fulfilled, describing not vicious circles but curves of exultation. His 128 COLBY STORIES voice rose higher, — higher than ever before. The robin, frightened from her nest in the tree outside, though well used to noises, darted away. The boys, crowding for a better view and a nearer approach to the scene of action, extended out into the hall. On the outskirts hovered the " plugs." The excitement was too much even for them. A lamp fell with a crash, and the odor of kerosene filled the room. What cared Adam? A chair gave way under the combined weight of four men, who all tried at once to rise ^by its aid above the heads of their fellows. What did Adam care about a chair to sit in now that he had two feet to stand upon. It would take more than these minor accidents to check his spirits and lower the pitch and power of his hurrahs. Gradually the crowd became silent. Adam, seated on the side of the bed, was opening the box. He was now undoing the last wrap- pings — his dark face lighted up like a gloomy mountain lake under a burst of sunshine. Suddenly his face changed. It wore a momentary, surprised, dazed expression. His countenance darkened. His teeth snapped together. His hand once more clinched the THE LEG THAT FAILED 1 29 discarded crutch. There was a dangerous gleam in his eye as he muttered, ** By the by, * Forrie,' that was mighty mean." But " For- rie " and his two fellow leg-bearers were well towards the door, with a compact body of men between them and the avenging crutch. As Adam started to his feet the contents of the box fell out on the bed. There it lay in all its snowy whiteness, — that plaster-of-paris leg. It never could have belonged to Adam. It might have belonged to Eve. CLASS-SFIRIT. Edgar Dillingham was a typical Colby man. And this was not because he had failed to characterize his course by brilliant recitations or graceful flunks, by stunning entrees in the little world of society lived by the Dunn House and Ladies Hall co-eds, by grand debuts in Bates-Colby debates, by not being a partici- pant in the Commencement exercises of his class — not any one of these — but he was typ- ical, because Colby men called him typical. That is argument enough. He did n't make P. B. K. Well, who knows that he wanted to make it? For all we know he may have reasoned as Professor Blank, who said that he " vould n't join if they should ask him; didn't take to die crowd." He mani- fested no desire to become the head of the Oracle. But this story does n't treat of the office aspirations of Dillingham. It means to show very poorly what Dillingham had to do CLASS-SPIRIT 131 with the making of a healthy class-spirit in ninety-blank. Do n't mind the coloring. Even women paint — bon-bon dishes, you know. Dillingham was popular; he couldn't count his friends if he tried. Some men, — aye, a great many men may be excellent students, very agreeable fellows, particularly at cramming time — more, very perfect fellows; but despite all of these excellences they utterly fail to "get in with the boys." They are they who, bereft of friends, take life as a burden. They grow desperate; they invite the " upper crust" around of a night, set up the cigars and — moxie, play a couple of tables of, say, Authors, crawl into bed at three in the morning, and fall like a thousand of bricks before ** Stet " and ''Dutchy" in the forenoon's recitations. For a week thereafter they hear the thundering reverberations of the ^Egean depths, and ** O-o, oh, Mr. Roberts ! I vill cut you out." Such men forget the words of Baillie, — ** Friendship is no plant of hasty growth." Dillingham never bought friends at the sacri- fice of his principles, he never relied for ** pulls" on the traditional tales of his early ancestors. But it is n't for an old grad. nor a 132 CO LB V S TORIES young grad. to say just what Dillingham had done to bring himself into the centre of so admiring a circle as that in which he found himself toward the end of his collegiate years — because he does n't know. One thing, how- ever, was evident enough — he was popular. He had been chosen Senior president, had played on the 'Varsity elevens since Freshman days, was the head of the loyal working force of the Y. M. C. A. Besides, he had of^ciated at many college functions, was a frequent col- umn-and-a-half contributor to the pages of the Echo — that paper whose editor and make-up changed as often as the sands of the ocean, — and the boys said, found time to attend every rarebit and fudge convocation held inside a five- mile radius of the Bricks. Be that as it may, the writer, an old fudge lover himself, admired his pluck. It is Commencement time now. The story I am to tell you, as truthfully (and with the coloring of which I spoke) as memory will allow, began about a year ago, at the time of the Senior class election. Als Brown, like his father before him, was a man of political aspi- CLASS-SPIRIT 133 rations. He had long set his heart on the presidency of the Senior class. He had never questioned but that every one else wanted him president; in this, also, he was very like his dad. In some unexplainable way he had cajoled three men of his class to his support. They had even guaranteed in the ardor of their Brownish enthusiasm a little speechmaking on the eve of the election. Well, the eve came, and with it a very formidable opponent to the Brown element. The last plank in the platform drawn up urged the nomination by acclamation of Edgar A. Dillingham, the opponent. " I hear Brown is running against you," said Egbert, slapping Dillingham on the shoulder. "Is he?" queried Edgar. ''Well, every man, I suppose, has a right to aspire to any old office he chooses. I never allow oppo- nents to bother me." The election came. Some one in a vigorous speech nominated Dillingham for class presi- dent. The three Brown men kept mum, and when it came to voting, there were four scatter- ing votes marked '* A. Brown." "Speech! speech!" Dillingham got up and accepted the class 134 COLBY STORIES gift with appropriate words. I see him now, with those broad shoulders supporting an intel- Hgent head, and that honest face with the pleasant smile. The very next time Dillingham met Brown, Brown snubbed him straight. Cheering the Halls ! Ah ! What memories then ! While Dillingham led his class this day in the cheering he did not feel at all satisfied with his college course. The farewell to the college home was bitter. He led his followers along the walk to Reci- tation Hall. The great limbs of the maple and elm above them seemed to wave a farewell, too. Within those brick walls he had many times flunked the genial Greek Prof., but he couldn't remember, now, that Als Brown had ever fallen there. Selfishly, perhaps, he believed that that same genial man respected him, likely as well as Als. He recalled what the Prof, had said in his speech before the assem- bled students on the occasion of a football victory, '* Mr. Dillingham, in large measure, is responsible for this victory for our college." CLASS'S PIR 17' 135 There, too, he had fallen before ''Jude," ''Cosign," and *' Dutchy." What hours in that north room of third floor ! That bust of stern old Cicero, that colored map of Rome, — all in that room were memories now. But, whether he chanced to meet the faculty men on the street or at the president's receptions, he ever received from them a kindly word. He recalls how Als at one of these stately gather- ings cornered the professor of mathematics and plied him with every nameable question on Art — her use and abuse. How disconcerted and vexed the good man seemed. Then Als was overheard telling the wife of one of the faculty men that her husband worked more hours than any other one of the professors. This for any other man in the world to say would have taken a deal amount of gall. He remembers what his division boys had said of Brown, that he had no match for wire-pulling in Colby — yet he made Phi Beta Kappa. Now they were cheering the Gym. Dilling- ham remembered how on that very afternoon " Doc " Frew, the Gym. instructor, met him and said, "Well, we're going to lose Dilling- ham, are we? Don't be surprised if you hear 136 COLBY STORIES that Colby's centre is weak this fall, will you ?" Then he and the doctor had a talk on athletics, Edgar's opinion being asked about the matter of a coach. "Yes," said Dillingham, when he was by himself again, *' the doctor and I are good friends." Yet, all these reminiscences did not soothe his troubled spirits; if anything, they vexed him the more for having thought them. The last cry had been flung hoarsely against the rock-sides of the old chapel ; the crowd of people grouped here and there about the college grounds, and the teams from the rear of the dormitories commenced their slow march out the gateways. Dillingham went up to his room in South College to wash up, and at the same time to watch the Commencement crowd disperse. Out in front of Memorial Hall stood a knot of old grads. and their wives. They were telling tales of older college days, and now and then Edgar could catch bits of the stories. Several Seniors, with their caps and gowns laid aside, were lolling lazily about on the greensward, discussing their future. There are three types of Colby graduates, CLASS-SPIRIT 137 the characteristics of each being particularly noticeable at Commencement time. They are, first, that small body of individuals who have long since solved that difficult problem, "What am I to do in life?" This body you are always running up against at any college function ; this body of men seem, to the eye, free from all worry; they rush hither and thither, begging programs from the bewildered ushers of Fresh year, seeing that all the details of the big day go off with a snap and vigor that is refreshing; second, that larger portion of the class, the individuals of which haven't any idea about the future other than that they must soon bid her good-by, and go home to papa and mamma with the one hope that they will have worked out their future, and can tell them just what to do ; third, the perhaps largest percentage of the class, the boys of which, vacillating, undecided, just wish to get a crowd of sympathetic spirits about them and tell how perplexing is that old problem of Life. This last type was represented by the Senior boys whom Dillingham recognized from his windows. In the centre of the group Edgar noticed Brown. He felt a throb of hot blood 138 COLBY STORIES course through his veins. Brown was the only man in college with whom Dillingham was not on the best of terms. Since class election, almost a year back, Brown had not spoken to him. Every man in college had learned the nature of the feud between the two upperclassmen, and, naturally enough, blamed Brown for it. One of the Sophs had the audacity to step up boldly to Brown, who was on his way from the Observatory one day, and say, " I 've got my opinion of a man who will lecture us Sophs on class-spirit, yet hasn't spoken, just because he could n't get the office of his aspira- tions, to his class president for a whole year. A peach of a man to talk about class-spirit, col- lege loyalty," and a good abundance of other guff, which, coming from an underclassman, deserved for him as sound a thrashing as some wayward predecessors had received. Brown, be it remembered, had never ceased making things disagreeable for Dillingham in all the class-meetings; ever ready to throw cold water on every move suggested by Edgar; ever ready to cite instances where Dillingham used favoritism for his frat — and, be it remem- CLASS-SPIRIT 139 bered, too, that few men would have stood a half of what Dillingham did. There came a time, as such times come, when Als saw the errors of his way, and a great change became percepti- ble in his manner. He left off his wire-pulling, treated all students with respect, and gradually attracted about him a goodly number of college chums. It was a few days before the college would finally close her doors for the long vacation when Leary whacked his cane impetuously against the flooring of his room, and asked of his room-mate a very jDertinent question, **Why in the name of the Continental Congress does n't Als shake hands with Dillingham, and call it square? You know yourself. Chum, that Edgar has never really disliked Als, and Als knows that, too, and since Brown has acted the ass so long, why, — well, I 'm not preaching, but then, why on earth aren't they friends?" "That is well put, Mr. Leary; I think we are all of one opinion about that, however," rejoined his room-mate, looking very like the official head of Colby. Then continuing, " Would you have Dillingham get down on his knees to Als? No !" 140 COLBY STORIES " No, surely not, but we ought to get them togeth— " ''Editorial weT' queried the room-mate. '' Now, Leary, old man, let us not mix up in any class quarrel ; things are coming our way, for I feel all will be well in the end. I know just as well as you that because of this quarrel, which is wholly Brown's doings, the old spirit of ninety-blank is gone. We are not to blame, and I can't see that we can successfully bring the two men together. Speaking of that good old spirit, do you remember the exit of our class Freshman year? We were banded together as brothers, then. But now," — the student's mind went back over the four years. What glorious times he had had with his fellow- classmen ! " Say," he continued thoughtfully, " do n't you suppose Brown knows how we feel about this matter? He's blinder than a bat if he does n't ; but we 've got a day or two yet before we break up for good." "Break up?" Leary rose and stood before his room-mate. ** Confound you, chum, you promised you wouldn't say that again!" and thereupon he proceeded to seize him by one leg and tumble him upon the bed. The two " Dillingham . . . raised his hat politely to the co-ed with Brown." CLASS-SPIRIT 141 boys lay there some time listening to the poor Soph in the room below swearing and yelling vociferously, while trying to cram out his next day's special exam. You may call him a Har- vard flugy a Yale grind, or a Princeton -poler ; Colby calls him a crarmncr. Dillingham had come back late from his supper. He passed a great many upperclass- men with their co-eds on their way to the con- cert in Memorial Hall. He hurried on up College avenue, lifting his hat right and left to his many acquaintances. Just opposite Ladies Hall he passed by his old enemy, Brown. Dil- lingham, with the pride of a gentleman, raised his hat politely to the co-ed with Brown. To his great surprise Brown returned the bow very nicely. *' A little extraordinary," mused Dil- lingham ; ** I can't quite fathom the reason for that, coming now just at the end of our course. Have n't seen him bow for a year, co-ed or no co-ed. Just respect for that pretty Colby girl, that's all." Thus Edgar settled matters in his own mind, but there was a breast that heaved heavily, and a mind that reasoned, " He must have understood that I meant it," — both belonged to Als Brown. 142 COLBY STORIES Dillingham went on up the walk leading to South College, stopping just long enough to reply to a group of fellow-classmates, that he would n't be at the concert that evening. He had only a moment before reached that deci- sion. He offered no explanations to the fel- lows ; college men, as a rule, never offer expla- nations. You must know that if a man says he is busy, the question. What have you to do? is never expected ; so it becomes a college law that it is not appropriate. The football and baseball managers have their letters to write, their schedules to make ; the Oracle editor has enough to do, you may be sure ; the Echo editor must write his droning editorials to stimulate a ''healthy college spirit"; the inter- collegiate debater must argue points with *' Rob," and practise that pet position and ges- ture, all alone, before his mirror; the musical club managers and leaders must arrange dates for performances and work up new selections ; and besides all these, there is the statistic man for the Oracle, who will announce to the world just how much ninety-blank weighs, who will vote the Democratic ticket in the city election, the exact '' tonnage " of each man, whether CLASS-SPIRJT 143 Julia says "By gosh darn " or " Goo, goo" for " an expression " ; there is the man who drums up Y. M. C. A. dues; the man who — well, every one is busy ; even the lazy man is busy ■ — he must have time for his smoke. Edgar was busy; he did not have one thing to do now; he was just simply personally engaged — he wanted time to think. He went up to his room and threw himself upon his couch. He realized that the end of his college days had come, and somehow he did n't want them to come just then. He did n't want consolation exactly — he could n't locate any troubles ; no, he did n't wish to see any one, not even his dearest friend, big Joe Lawrence, the full-back. He lay there some time, thinking of nothing in particular and about everything in general. He heard his division boys run down the winding stairs, slamming the doors with a bang that made the bricks on the old building rattle. He heard Collins from up the college walk call out to Junior Harriman to hustle up or they would be late. Leary was assuring his room-mate in the adjoining room that he wouldn't recognize //^r till she recognized him, On this he would 144 COLBY STORIES safely bet his last twopence. Another fellow from third floor was borrowing ** Chum's collar and necktie." He listened now as the men passed beneath his windows along the gravel walks. ''What lingo!" he said to himself. ''Teddy is rank — she's all right and — strong man for 'varsity — punch — swelled head, that's all — Jude's a brick for — B. U. cancels every game — do Bowdoin up easy — college spirit's all right—" "What!" cried Edgar, pulling the side cur- tain back, " Als Brown says college spirit is all right ! " Dillingham watched the retreating figure through the darkness. " Yes," he con- tinued, turning away, "it's this confounded mood I'm in ; college spirit is all right — I guess." Dillingham knew that the concert would soon begin, and he would not be there. He almost decided to go, but something teased him to re- main away, so he lay back on the couch again. The building was very quiet now; only occasionally did he hear steps on the gravel walks outside. Presently he heard the orches- tra strike up the opening selection. He could not hear it very well so he went downstairs to CLASS-SPIRIT 145 the Stone steps and sat down. Now there crept over DiUingham a very disagreeable feeling of loneliness; just such a sensation as comes to the Maine farmer's boy when he balances him- self at evening time on the top fence rail, listens to the plaintive notes of the wood-bird, and dreams of the golden road to fame. You've been in Dillingham's place? Then you know how poorly I tell this bit of my story. His college days were over. He remembers this time last year, — how far away the end of his Senior year seemed then, and now, here he was — at the end. Was he satisfied with him- self? Something told him that he was not. He might have studied harder and made P. B. K. and a part at Commencement, — if only he had crammed a little more, at least, as much as his enemy Brown. Yes, Brown had beaten him out; he felt it now, yet he was not envious. "Als should feel happy as he listens to that sweet music, knowing that he has graduated with honors," mused Edgar. "Here I am, sit- ting and looking very like a bump on a log." He was not thinking how much his eulogistic Greek professor respected him, nor how the other members of the faculty stopped him on 146 COLBY STORIES the Street and chatted pleasantly. In his own way of reasoning, you see, he was a very un- wise and foolish man. Dillingham sat with his head bowed in his hands, half listening to his mumbled words, and half to the sweet music which now floated out to him in all the beauty that the crack Com- mencement orchestra could give. Something moved him to look up; he was astonished to see Brown pass by. He thought he stopped, then hurried on. "Why isn't he at the con- cert?" Edgar asked himself. Then he hap- pened to think, perhaps Brown intended enter- ing the building, and hesitated to do so because he was there. He would go somewhere else ; he would not give him annoyance the last day they would be together as classmates. So Dil- lingham got up and strolled out under the trees in front of North College. He hoped that he would be alone there; he was disappointed. Several people paced back and forth on the lawn, possibly having the same spell of loneli- ness as himself. He would turn back and go down through the willows to the river. He had not gone twenty paces when he came face to face with Brown again. The same apparent CLASS-SPIRIT 147 pause in Brown as if to speak, then he turned abruptly aside to let Dillingham pass. ''Con- found it! " said Edgar under his breath, "you don't imagine he intends to — " He listened awhile to the music that seemed to him far sweeter than before ; it was galloping on in good time to his heart-beats, then he finished a broken sentence — , "be a ninety-blank man again?" Dillingham passed down through the great willows that stretched to the river. He walked very slowly, for the moon only occasionally shone through the towering trees to light the narrow, grass-trodden path. He could see at the further end of the avenue of massive trunks the river that glistened in the soft rays of the moon, as it glided on to the sea. He noticed the poplar and maple trees that lined the river's bank, outlined so clearly against the ruddy east. Can you not recall just how this beauty spot of nature's appeared to you, graduate, when, tired of a Commencement day's program, you wandered down between the hedges of trunks of willow trees, just as the light rose above the eastern hills and the rays crept 148 COLBY STORIES Stealthily into the valley? Do you not recall a time, when the world seemed too big for you, when the objects for which you strove seemed narrow and insincere, you strolled up the old railroad line, till the woods met you back of the Shannon Observatory, and you admired the beauty of the river and the scenery all about you? Well, if you have missed that view by night, with the songs of the happy college boys mingling in strange contrast with the thoughts you harbor, when the dormitories with every window ablaze lighted the whole back campus, then you have not seen the beauty of old Colby. It was such a scene as this that Dillingham looked upon. If anything, it made him even sadder. There was no mistaking, he loved his college. He felt perhaps a little ungrateful at himself because he had not made more out of his college course, yet, had he not entered a green, country lad? had he not become popu- lar with the men on that august faculty and with college men? was he not now a well-formed — aye! a clean, typical Colby man? He may have felt all this and admitted it, but, despite the fact of his advancement in popularity, of CLASS-SPIRIT 149 gaining an excellent physique and so on, he could not help feeling gloomy and displeased. He stood on the bank of the river, leaning against the railing that led down to the water below. He could only faintly hear the band now; of this he was glad. A mill-hand came down to the bank, unloosed his boat and rowed across to the opposite shore. Edgar watched him as he climbed up the steep embankment and disappeared between the long stretch of brick buildings. As he watched he felt a per- ceptible shadow fall before him. Turning quickly, he saw a student step from the shade into the moonlight — it was Brown. For a mo- ment the two men stood there face to face ; then Brown came forward, put out his hands, and Dillingham took them. "Edgar," began Brown huskily, **I — " "Old man," interrupted Dillingham, '* I'm glad of this." "Say, Edgar, I've just been waiting for an opportunity like this for weeks. Wanted to give you a good old ninety-blank handshake, and ask pardon for all my foolish acts." Edgar attempted to speak, but Brown went on with increased courage : 150 COLBY STORIES "You have been too gentlemanly to me, Dil- lingham. What have I done for you to deserve any of your good-will? Nothing! I've made an ass of myself from first to last, while you, — you are ready to graduate, tackle something else ; you have friends in abundance, have an all round education — " "I? Ha! ha!— why, I couldn't make Phi Beta Kappa, while you — " "Yes, I admit it; I've made it — but what of that? What practical good will a wagon do a man when he has no horse? P. B. K. is a very good thing to make when a man has educated himself all round. Y'ou are far better off than I, Dillingham, — just because I imagined about all in this world was Ego^ Ego^ ^^o ; set my- self up as a little Grecian god, you know. Now, thank God, things have changed; I've tried to better my condition ; I think, looking back, I've done pretty well. But there was one thing I did not do and, Dillingham, it has been a keen regret — that is, come to you as I have done to-night, act the part of a true college man, become good friends. The students out- side our class know that I have destroyed the good-feeling ; that cuts me. Even a Soph twit- CLASS-SPIRIT 151 ted me of it just the other day ; I could n't an- swer his charges for he spoke the truth. What nights I have passed in old North College, think- ing over our affair, — no, my affair ! Once I de- cided to pack up and go ; for three frat-nights I waited on the campus to meet you, but you always came up with the crowd, and so it has gone on till now. Dillingham, I never loved my college before ; I love her now — at the end. Can't you and I be friends?" "Brown," said Dillingham, simply. Then Dillingham slipped his arm behind Brown and took his hand ; Als did the same to Dillingham. Thus the two boys stood, locked together after the good old college way, — friends, while before them they saw the river flowing noiselessly on, over them the willows sang softly, and in the souls of the two boys the God of Love worked strangely. -Well! Well! Well!! Well!!! good old friends again, like good old Colby stock!" sang a chorus of voices behind. " By swum !" puffed Big Joe Lawrence, the full-back, ''this is altogether too much to keep inside ; I would propose that Colby yell. It 152 COLBY STORIES would give me great pleasure, gentlemen, on this most auspicious occasion to lead off. One, two, three — C-0-L-B-Y ! RAH ! RAH ! RAH ! ( Three it Dies.) Dillingham and Brown-nn !" The yell rang out loud and clear. It would have attracted little attention from the crowd of men returning from the concert, they thinking it merely an outburst of pent-up patriotism, or a last time, had they not heard distinctly the names of the two Seniors long-drawn out at the close. Some twenty-five men were speedily transferred to the willows. Well, now, you may think there wasn't a pretty joyous reunion down there in the moonlight. We all pounded each other and yelled like demons. Do n't be shocked, old grad.,'t was just the bless- ed blood of old ninety-blank coursing through our veins again. Leary proposed a march back to the Bricks. Good-natured Big Joe with his ''swums" and his soul of patriotism brought up the rear, singing up strong and joyously "In Praise of Alma Mater." The whole line joined in the last verse. CLASS-SPIRIT 153 "Thrice blest the task that she has done, In binding us to one another, In making each a loyal son. And each to each a loyal brother. •• And so with filial pride we raise Our song in Alma Mater's praise, And so with filial pride we raise Our song in dear old Colby's praise." The boys were standing on the lawn in front of South College, it seemed an hundred strong. " This has n't been anywhere near joyful enough for me," drolled out the full-back. *' Come up here, Leary, let's holler! Now, boys," he added after a yell or two, " I want every Senior up in my room ; we'll have a little spread up there in honor of this occasion." This declara- tion was greeted with vociferous cheers. Law- rence looked upon the men about him, brought his hands together with a terrible snap, and added as a sort of convincing proof, — '*By swum ! ! Never felt quite the way I do now. We'll have a class-meeting that'll be the longest one any class ever had, else my name's Jehu." Then Joe was for business. "Here, Fresh- man — oh, you sensitive Soph ! — you've learned a mighty truth to-night, one that ought to stick 154 COLBY STORIES in your mind forever, that class-spirit and friend- ship are tolerably near to synonymous terms; and so, sir," he added impressively, **the straightest path for a virtuous man is the path of duty," he pointed cityward, and tapped his shoe sternly against the stone step, " Go ! young man, order for me at once food of the proper kind that shall fill the bellies of these here as- sembled, — the Staff of Life, young man, with pork or deviled ham interlaid ; likewise punch — Maine punch — five gallons, sir, to quench the appetites of a wicked and perverse genera- tion of college men. Go ! " And the student, glad to do favor to the genial full-back joyfully skipped down the walk. **Tell him, Mac, that Big Joe wants it or you won't get it." Mac waved his hat in reply as he boarded an electric car for the city. "What's the matter with Joe?" cried some one. -He's all right!" ''Who said so?" -C-0-L-B-Y! RAH! RAH! RAH! C-O-L-B-Y!" Then the men sang. Some fifteen faculty men went down in various omnibuses and were CLASS-SPIRIT 155 kicked out of Hades before Joe, even, vowed he hadn't another breath left. Then Joe is- sued the final order for all Seniors to re-assemble in his room. Tables that had heretofore sup- ported long rows of dictionaries and football paraphernalia, were now laden with humanity ; chairs were borrowed from adjoining rooms, pillows were hurled across the room at intervals, and Brown and Dillingham joined most heartily of any in the festivities that were then making. There was a rap on Joe's door. '' Come in !" he fired. Thump ! thump ! swish ! swash ! sounded the litde barrel as it rolled into the crowded room ; then in came boxes and bundles of food and baskets of dishes. ''Open her up, Dillingham !" "There was an old man from Skowhegan, Maine." *'Say, Als, get out that food !" ♦'Reuben Haskins was his name." "Come, Leary, wash up those glasses!" *' Came to the city to have some fun, And he ain't had a darn bit since he come." ordered and sang good-natured Big Joe Law- rence. 156 COLBY STORIES It was long, long past the midnight watch when that crowd on that memorable night broke up. As Dillingham tumbled into his bed that morning, he could not recall a time when he had felt happier, when he thought life so worth the living. He lay for a long time look- ing out through the elm trees at the blinking arc light on the street corners, recalled what Brown had asked about being friends, and remembers now that he had shaken hands with' Brown, — yes, Als Brown — and he was somehow happy, very happy. Finally he closed his eyes, mumbled a few broken sentences to no one in particular, saying : " I feel all right — now, — college — loyalty, class-spirit, — Brown and I — Colby has done a heap — for — me," and dropped off to sleep. UNVARNISHED TALES THE ENTERPRISE OF FRESHMAN D. I shall not soon forget the Colby campus as I saw it in the fall of 1879. There was about it none of the primitive air of the early days of the college ; and it was lacking then two, at least, of the noble buildings which now adorn it. The turf of the campus had then known no other lawn-mower than the mouth of the ever faithful Sam's cow, no tennis courts had ap- peared, and there wa"^ much unevenness and irregularity where now all is trim and neat. But the glories of autumn were as triumphant then as they ever become now. Indeed, as I look back upon the delightful days when the college course began, it seems to me that the autumn of '/9 at the Colby campus was the most glorious I have ever known. And it seems perfectly natural that the overflowing boyish spirits which congregated on the campus at that time should have been as perpetually alert for mischief as for study. l6o COLBY STORIES President Robbins was the able but distant divinity who ruled our student destinies. He seemed to have an eye that would pierce a cul- prit's mind as the modern X-ray searches the bones and tissues; and his awful presence sug- gested Olympian Jove to more than one trembling Freshman. Mischief was perilous in the days of Dr. Robbins, and for this reason I think it became unusually attractive. Even the Freshmen felt the contagion ; and one of them was a leader of the exploit which I am about to relate. At that time there were many -sawmills in Fairfield, and the hauling of edgings to Water- ville to be sold for kindling wood was a regular industry, pursued with success by several French residents of Fairfield. One of the most famous of the merchants w^as an aged Gaul, locally known as '* Forkey." He was a man of orig- inal wit as well as commercial enterprise, and I believe that some of his sayings found their way into the Editor's Drawer of Harper's Mag- azine, where they amused the nation for that month. One night about dusk, when the wind was making the leaves dance over the campus, ♦.""••i^^L.f ^r ^t* iW>«i WlL o THE ENTERPRISE OF FRESHMAN D. l6l '* Forkey's " cart appeared on the Fairfield road, with the usual load of kindling wood, and pro- ceeded by the colleges. Nearly in front of North College the horse stopped, and presently fell. I do not know the trouble. The local horse doctor — it was before the days of the veterinary sur- geon — made public no bulletin. The animal was taken away and the cart with its load of edgings was left by the roadside in front of North College. Among the students was the Freshman D. He is now a well-known and highly respected New England clergyman, a builder of churches and gatherer of flocks. The expectations but not the responsibilities of this career were even then upon him. On that autumn evening a great temptation overmastered him ; and sundry other youths delivered themselves over to the temptation without being overmastered. Ropes were taken from the gymnasium, stray ladders were "com- mandeered " in the town, and before daylight the cart and its load were placed safely on the high roof of Memorial Hall. The kindling wood was nicely loaded on the cart, and everything was ready to start, provided "Forkey" could replace his sick horse with a Pegasus. 1 62 COLBY STORIES Long before prayers the cart was discovered, and word was passed around among the students. With others the Freshman D. came out to view the sight, and expressed the conventional won- der at the achievement. The faculty also viewed the cart, and were soon deliberating in formal assembly. It was feared that Dr. Robbins, with his pierc- ing eye, had searched the hearts of the culprits as the boys came in to prayers, and the pur- pose of the meeting was supposed to be to find a punishment suited to the offense. Such meetings always produce uneasiness in the stu- dent body, and the present case was no excep- tion. There was one, however, who felt no fear. The Freshman D. marched boldly up to the council chamber, asked admittance, and was ushered into the awful presence of the faculty. Without quailing even before the piercing eye of Dr. Robbins, he announced that he supposed they were deliberating upon the best way of getting the cart down. An oppressive silence fell upon the faculty, and Dr. Robbins eyed the intruder sternly. "I was going to say," continued the Fresh- THE ENTERPRISE OF FRESHMAN D. 1 63 man D. with cheery confidence, ''that I am working my way through college, and will get the cart down for ten dollars." ** Young man," said Dr. Robbins impressively, "we accept your offer and appreciate fully your enterprise." But in reality the Doctor only half appreci- ated the enterprise of the Freshman D. '83. TALES OF THE EARL V DA YS One afternoon, as the writer and his classmate of the Senior class were walking up the street from the village after supper, they noticed in the field of corn by the roadside a very well executed object in human form which the culti- vator had that day erected to protect his early corn from crow depredations. The writer, call- ing his associate's attention to the object, carelessly remarked, " Wouldn't it be a good joke if that fellow should make up his mind to attend prayers tomorrow morning?" The writer thought no more of the subject until the prayer bell next morning summoned the stu- dents to their early morning religious exercises, when, sure enough, to the astonishment of all the students as they gradually took their seats in the chapel, they beheld the president's chair occupied by our Corn Protector with the presi- dent's large folio Bible drawn down into his lap and apparently giving it his devoted attention. TALES OF THE EARLY DAYS 1 65 On the arrival of the president, he violently seized his trespasser by the neck and dragged him through the entry, throwing him with much force out of the back door. Legal proceedings were at once instituted by the faculty to detect the perpetrator of the act, it being well understood that the guilty party's college course was soon to end. Every student was duly summoned as a witness and put under oath, except the members of the Senior class, who were too well known as honest, faithful students to be even suspected of such enormous guilt. All testified to their own innocence and lack of knowledge and the result was that no student did it. The writer and his classmate were very careful not to talk of the subject, for neither of them cared for any additional in- formation which might add importance to their testimony if ever called into court. After graduation, one day, the classmate called the writer's attention to the subject with the closing remark, "You did it; you were the guilty party." The writer could but re- spond to the charge with the remark, " I always thought so." 1 66 COLBY STORIES One of the amusing events which took place during the early years of the college history was that which accompanied the wedding exer- cises of the president's daughter and Professor Conant. Although it was well known that such an event was to take place at some time in the near future, yet the particular time or day of the wedding was kept a profound secret. About the appointed hour of the evening selected, all at once and unexpectedly, the college bell began, to toll its solemn sound. The evening and the night were unusually dark and observation with the eye was out of the question as to the cause of the ringing or the mode of its execution. The fire department of the village made its prompt call but found nothing to do in its way. The ladder leading to the belfry in the attic had dis- appeared and no means of reaching the bell ex- isted. Where the bell-ringer was located and who he was were both secrets not capable of explanation. Search was made in vain while the solemn toll still continued until about the break of day on the following morning. The morning light presented to view a rope tied to the tongue of the bell and fastened to an object near the earth at the north end of the college. TALES OF THE EARLY DAYS 1 67 The bell-ringer, however, as it was afterwards ascertained, did his duty while standing at the window on the south end of North College in the fourth story, several bed cords having by their connection overcome the distance between the bell and its ringer, no intervening build- ing then existing between the North and the South Colleges. Who was the bell-ringer and whether he was a human being or not, were secrets never solved or ascertained. K: * * * * « « Late one evening several students had met together for the fun of it and were about to pursue their object into a later hour of the night, all for the pleasure to be derived from their anticipated sport, when, all of a sudden. Professor Keeley made his appearance in their midst. Stepping up to one of the leading mem- bers of the crowd, he tapped him gently on the shoulder with the inquisitive remark, '*Is it not about time to retire? " The result showed that they all thought so and there the fun ceased. The story is a very good illustration of Professor Keeley's high stand in the affections and de- votion of all the students. '32. DANIEL PRATT, G. A. 2\ Poor old cracked-brained Daniel Pratt ! He departed this life long since, and the student of the present day knows of the peripa- tetic philosopher only through tradition. Twen- ty years ago, or thereabouts, Pratt was a familiar figure on the campus. He used to make the rounds of New England colleges, reappearing at irregular intervals, to become the victim of quips and pranks and practical jokes. Daniel was a sort of high-class tramp. Educational institutions seemed to have upon him the fatal attraction of the candle for the moth. Every time he ventured into the collegiate sphere he was doomed to a singeing; but he could never keep away. No matter how much he was made a butt of, no matter, indeed, if rudeness went to the point of personal indignities — it rarely did — he would be back next year, ready to hold forth on any topic, to any length, for the passing of the hat. He had his living to make, and in DANIEL PRATT, G. A. T. 1 69 return for his lectures he expected a moderate compensation. When Daniel died, the newspapers printed brief and inadequate biographical sketches of this queer, quaint, and original character. Could the full story of his life be collected, it would make interesting reading for the many who knew him in his time. Transcendentalism must at some time have turned his brain, for he had a weakness for met- aphysical subjects and high-sounding terms. His discourses, abounding in words of many syllables and consisting of a jumble of unrelated and often grotesque ideas, would have stumped an expert stenographer. Daniel also had a weakness for titles. The students of almost every college he visited conferred one upon him — some several. The titles were burlesque of course, but he was wont to receive them in all sincerity and wear them with pride. The one that stuck permanently was G. A. T. (Great American Traveler). Numerous entertaining anecdotes of Pratt have been related, and doubtless many more are stored in the memories of older graduates. Here are one or two. 170 COLBY STORIES On one of Pratt's visits to Colby, he was in- vited by a throng of students to go into the room of the old Literary Fraternity and hold forth. He accepted, nothing loath, on the usual condition that the hat should be passed and a contribution taken up. After he had rambled on in the customary strain for some time on some abstruse subject or subjects, — for under the interruptions and rallying of his auditors he was apt to wander, though quick and keen in, retort, — he began to look anxious, and asked if he had not talked about long enough and if it was not time to carry out the pecuniary part of the contract. '' Oh, no ! " was the reply. *' Go on ! Go on ! We have n't heard half enough. When we get tired we'll tell you. You shall have your pay all right." In this way his tormentors kept him going for at least an hour, until he had talked himself hoarse and had used up most of the polysylla- bles in the dictionary. Finally, they passed the hat and handed it to the expectant philosopher. He turned the contents upon the table. There were seven cents, besides a button and an old campaign medal. Daniel collapsed into a chair, the picture of disappointment, dejection, and despair. DANIEL PRATT, G. A. T. 1*J1 " Oh, confound it all ! " was his remark. *'Pox take the luck! " He could express himself in vigorous Anglo- Saxon on occasions. At another time, some of the boys persuaded Pratt to call upon Dr. Champlin, who was then president of the college, and introduce himself. They represented that two such distinguished men ought to know each other. So Pratt went along and made himself known. ** Hum ! Hum ! " said Dr. Champlin, in his characteris- tic manner, *' so you are Daniel Pratt, the Great American Traveler? Well, let's see you travel." 'yy. HOW THE TURKEY GOBBLER ''SAID BRA VERS " Some half century ago, college prayers, dur- ing warm weather, were had in an unpretentious old building, in a barren room, whose most con- spicuous article of furniture was an old box stove. On the top of this, near one end, was a crack which had gradually enlarged into a hole several inches long, and wide enough to secure the success of the smart little enterprise whereof I am to tell. Our president at that time was a man of giant proportions, exceedingly dignified in his bearing, with a strong, commanding voice, which, as it seemed to our young ears, did not soften much, though in prayers its tones even when addressing the Deity retaining their magisterial quality. One sweet June morning, for some good rea- son, we were all present, even the usually tardy students being promptly on time. The sacred I/O IV THE GOBBLER ''SAID PRAYERS" 1 73 word was read in the customary emphatic mon- otone; the students quietly Hstening, atten- tive, save that not a few could have been seen furtively eyeing the stove more than the reader. The holy book was closed. The majestic leader slowly rose to his attitude of standing devotion, but scarcely had his sonorous voice broken the waiting stillness, when from the top of the old stove there darted the red flaming shaft of a turkey gobbler's head and neck ; then came his utterance, sudden, loud, and strong, — the most uncouth, unmusical, irreverent of all earthly sounds, — "gobble, gobble, gobble, lob- ble, lobble, lobble ! " We have since learned that one hornet, with his business end, is enough to break up a camp- meeting. We learned, then, that one turkey gobbler could say prayers enough in a second to make all further devotion impossible to us for a week. '63. 'A COINCIDENCE Many of the students saw the old toll bridge between Waterville and Winslow carried off by the freshet in the autumn of 1869. At once an agitation arose for a free bridge. The free bridge was favored by most of the people of Waterville and vicinity, and by many in Wins- low, but it was bitterly opposed by the people of West Waterville, now Oakland, then a part of the town of Waterville. Many meetings were held, and party feeling ran high. At length, on one Saturday afternoon in the early summer of 1870, a town-meeting was called to convene at West Waterville. Many of the students went out on the special train to see the fun. There was no hall large enough to hold the crowd, so the voters lined up in the street. A Water- ville squire was chosen moderator. The result of the meeting was not favorable to the free bridge movement. The decisions of the moderator were thought to be grossly unjust in favor of the anti-free bridge people. A COINCIDENCE 1 75 That night on their return to Waterville, most of the students participated in a serenading party at the residence of the offending moderator. Suddenly the sound of the college horns and other equally musical instruments broke upon the stillness of the midnight air, and cheers were given for the free bridge and groans for the moderator of an anti-free bridge meeting. After a little time a member of the family came out and startled the serenaders by discharging a revol- ver in their faces, probably using blank car- tridges. For a moment there was a complete stampede. But " stone him" was soon the cry, and the assailant retired to cover amid a shower of stones. The serenade was completed accord- ing to program, and the serenaders retired in good order. At prayers the following morning the president read the following passage : "Yet ye have not known him; but I know him ; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you ; but I know him, and keep his saying. Then took they up stones to cast at him." It was doubtless an undesigned coincidence. ■72. IN MEMORIAM In the class of '60 there entered a young man from Mt. Vernon, Maine, by the name of Wiggen. Of athletic frame and apparent strength of constitution, he bid fair to become the strong man of the class. In another sphere he might have proved a long-lived man, and this brief and humble memorial need not have been written. The change of habits from rural, active life to that of a student had probably told upon his life-springs, and thus weakened he fell an easy victim to the first attack of disease. A meeting of the Freshman class was called, and a delegation chosen, including the writer, to attend the funeral. From Readfield the route was by stage. The family of the deceased were deeply affected by the appearance of his class- mates and especially by the resolutions pre- sented. After the exercises at the house, the remains were placed upon a simple bier and four of us bore them across the rolling fields to IN ME MORI AM 1 77 their place of rest. Returning to the house, re- freshments were furnished, and at the table the virtues of Wiggen were freely discussed. The event made a lasting impression upon the class, which in its exuberance of youth had had its first lesson of bereavement. Of sterling character and an ambition that called him to what he considered the highest profession, that of the ministry, his early taking- off led us to consider the mysterious ordering of Providence. Lest the meaning of my words be mistaken, let me say, that '60 is well represented in ** that higher calling," — the ministry. This was the only death in the class before graduation. '60. 13 NIL DE MORTUIS NISI BONUM In order to avoid the semblance of a violation of Nil de mortuis nisi bommi, I have omitted the names of the parties concerned in this episode, at the same time claiming that, in giving the names the adage would not be vio- lated. It was during the summer of one of the late '50's that a red-cheeked boy, a member of an advanced class in college, having been sus- pended, persisted in violating a rule of the college that no suspended student should remain on the college premises, and was therefore brought into court in Waterville by the president of the college. The youth in seeking counsel hit upon a law- yer, an alumnus, and a person who, while he treasured in his heart no animosity for the prex, had no room for any downright love for him. While in college this lawyer was also a lively young man, and during his season of greatest activity had caused the prex such annoyance NIL DE MORTUIS NISI BONUM 1 79 that he was frequently remonstrated with and these remonstrances and warnings were followed by a certain kind of soreness in the mind of the future lawyer. Having graduated and having earned reputa- tion enough to be selected as the orator of one of our Commencements, he waited patiently for the day when he could pay off some of the in- juries that he imagined he had received from what he conceived to be a too close inquiry by the professor into his affairs while a student. And now his opportunity had come. How much more comfortable for the prosecuted stu- dent was that trial than for the prosecuting presi- dent ! While the lawyer nobly defended the beardless youth, he so managed his questions to the prex as to ring in some of the offenses, either real or imaginary, of the former professor towards himself. Questioning him as to whether he thought it was a proper way for a president of a college to treat a youth entrusted to his care, in the next breath he questioned him as to whether his re- treat down the college steps before a rolling stone hurled by the lawyer for defense, was still fresh in his memory? l8o ~ COLBY STORIES Evidence pro and con accumulated. Before the audience of students and citizens the prose- cuting president now became an object of pity, while the accused student was forgotten. With' falling tears and quivering lips the Doctor essayed to answer, while the sheriff in charge, incensed by the flings of the lawyer for defense, undertook to intimidate him with threats unless he was more merciful. Pale and trembling, probably from realizing his responsibility as a conservator of the peace, the sheriff, who was an exceedingly tall man, rose to his utmost height and exclaimed, " I know my duty, sir." The justice, in order to free the president, declared for the prosecution. ''Appeal! Appeal! Appeal! Client!" shouted the lawyer for defense ; and lawyer, sheriff, justice, prosecutor, prosecuted, and as- sembly were soon upon the street. The trial was over and the incident was closed. The ruddy-faced boy, so far as is known, did not further trouble the prex nor the courts ; and I doubt if the prex did not shun them as zealously as a prosecutor of offending students. Of all the parties active in this well-remem- bered episode, the accused, who has acquired NIL DE MORTUIS NISI BONUM l8l something of a national reputation, is the only- one living; the sheriff, the prex, his lawyer, the justice, and the soldier lawyer, all having passed to another sphere of action. Reqiiiescani in face! '60. ENCOURAGED At the Commencement festivities in 1 87 1; the world-renowned preacher and evangeHst, Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., even then a rising star in the Boston pulpit, preached the annual sermon before the Boardman Missionary society. In a very eloquent and entertaining after-dinner speech on Commencement day, he referred to the fact that he had not enjoyed the advantages of a collegiate education. He compared him- self to the poor visitor at the seashore, who after his scanty meal of crackers and cheese, eaten alone in some retired spot, would come around to the veranda of the most fashionable hotel and pick his teeth with those who had just par- taken of the dainty food and costly viands of the house. So he, though not a college grad- uate, esteemed it a great privilege to come around and pick his teeth with those who had enjoyed the advantages of so noble a college as Colby. This evidently appealed to the sympathies of ENCOURAGED 1 83 one of the students, who stepped up to Mr. Pentecost as he was descending the stairs after the exercises closed, and with an air of real solicitude encouraged him with words to this effect, "Never mind. Don't be discouraged if you haven't been to college. You'll make a man yet if you keep on." '72. A CURT REJOINDER Dr. Champlin as a recitation officer, in the main, was admirable. In retort he was quick and cutting. The following incident will show how severely he could address a student if occa- sion required : It was political economy recitation. Dr. Champlin called up A. to recite. He recited very well but the Doctor noted that the connection was not at all times clear. He therefore confronted the student with the unex- pected information that he was leaving out something. The student rejoined that he had thumbed his book so much that the text'was partially destroyed. ''Well," said the Doctor, **you should have thumbed it into your brain by this time- — Recite, Mr. B." A. did not thereafter attempt to draw on his imagination to supply a worn-out text. '60. HIGHER AUTHORITY There was once a janitor of Waterville Col- lege by the name of Martel. He was styled the General, The writer was president of the Republican Club of the college. It was the summer term before the election of Lincoln. We wanted a place to hold our meetings, and the General, who held the keys to the chapel, gave them to me. We had held several meetings and the convention of the state had been held at Bangor, to which we had sent delegates, a student-like proceeding. Of course we had now acquired considerable notoriety as a political organization, and the faculty, especially Dr. Champlin, felt in duty bound to appraise us of their cognizance of our spontaneous patriotism. So, meeting the writer, the Doctor said : "What are you doing in the chapel? What meetings are those?" "They are political meetings, sir, — the meet- l86 COLBY STORIES ings of the Republican Club of Waterville College, sir." " But, how did you get into the chapel? " "Well, sir, we — we — went in through the doors." '' But how did you get the doors open? " '* With the only thing that was ever known to open those massive structures — the keys." " But how did you get the keys? " " W>11, sir, the General of the college, — - General Martel, — gave them to me." "Ah, — but the General of whom you speak is not the General of the college." " But, my dear Doctor — must you suppress these sentiments in the minds of us students by denying us a place of meeting? " " Well, but you have not asked me." " Why should I when General Martel has al- ready given us the privilege? If you deny his authority, — I ask it now." The good Dr. Champlin turned on his heel. We had used the chapel, were bound to use it> and we used it thereafter without question. '60. AN EFFECTIVE ^'WATER TREATMENT'' It was late autumn in the sixties. The tutor in Greek — our pet name for him being " Toot " — was the most upright, down- right, punctual, accurate, faultless man we had ever encountered. Everything about him went with the precision of clockwork ; every step he strode was just as long as every other, and con- sumed in the making an unvarying number of seconds. He never joked, rarely smiled, never got in the least irritated or excited. We held him in respect, so far as our limited ability in that line allowed, but we did not love him. In- deed, we fancied him quite too cold-blooded to ever inspire any such tender feeling towards himself, or to exercise it towards any other hu- man being, even of the opposite sex ; but in this latter particular we found ourselves mis- taken. We were certain he had no love for us, but we did discover that he made regular noc- turnal trips beyond the river. Now we " shad- owed him," and found that his long evening walks always brought him to a stately farm- house, the home of an exceedingly sweet and winning young lady. 1 88 COLBY STORIES We watched the case with increasing interest, and it must be confessed, also, growing exas- peration. It was by no means clear to us that so delicate and beautiful a prize should be won by a beau, so old, so rectangular, so puckered and forbidding in form and feature, and so freez- ing, as we supposed, in his inner man. But we soon found that in this matter he could rise to a temperature past indication by any known thermometer. His visits grew more and more frequent, and were prolonged far into the "small hours" of the morning. A class council, resolved into a committee of the whole, decided that some speedy and he- roic treatment must be had, or the case would be past cure. In going and coming from the envied interviews, he had to traverse a long bridge. We found that some of the planks on this could be readily removed. A dark, frosty night was chosen. We felt tolerably sure of the time for his return trip, and we could not mistake his well-known step for that of any other night wanderer. Our entire class was hidden within good hearing distance. Planks enough had been torn up to surely let him down over water too shallow to drown him, but AN EFFECTIVE ''WATER TREATMENT'' 1 89 sufficiently deep to wet him all over. We had to wait far longer than we expected, thus get- ting still more thoroughly convinced that he had "■ got it bad," and was in desperate need of our *' treatment." At last, when we were ourselves well chilled by the biting air, we faintly heard a tread on the farther end of the bridge. Every boy took the attitude of most eager listening. The sound increased into the well-known step, — fuller and stronger it grows, — tramp, tramp, tramp. We picture in our minds the delightful visions which, no doubt, fill his, — the hot thrills of joy which run through him as he anticipates his wedding-day, his honey-moon, and the full consummation of matrimonial bliss. But he is nearing his Waterloo. " The course of true love never did run smooth." We mean it shall run into ice-water. Tramp, tramp, tramp. We listen with bated breath. ! ! Ough! Ugh! He is in it! We wait to hear him well on his way to the shore, then — save two, whose job it is to re- place the planks — every mother's son of us — guilty wretches — is in bed as soon as his legs will carry him there. '63. A MARTYR TO SCIENCE Once upon a time there lived at Colby an eccentric genius and rider of hobbies. He had many hobbies, and he rode them, sometimes singly, sometimes tandem, and sometimes four abreast. Nor did he spare whip and spur. In whatsoever he took an interest, it was intense while it lasted. It might be velocipedes, it might be painting in water colors, it might be hypnotism, it might be natural history, anatomy, chemistry, esoterics, ancient and forgotten lore, or what not; but whatever was the fancy of the moment, it was sure to be pursued with great zeal. Certain of his investigations led into by and almost forbidden paths. It was a wonder that he was not seized with nervous prostration, did not get blown up by explosive mixtures, or was not killed in experimenting with toxics. At one time his fad was a velocipede. This was in the day before the safety bicycle, or even the lofty ordinary. The bicycle of that time was a springless *' bone-shaker " of wooden frame. Our friend possessed one, and he rode it like Jehu. While the fever lasted, the bone- A MARTYR TO SCIENCE 19I shaker had all seasons and all hours for its own. One of the diversions of its owner was to ride through the town at midnight, pursuing a par- ticular route to a certain point and back. An- other of his eccentricities was a fondness for toads and snakes, of which he often had speci- mens hopping and crawling about his room, that had been captured in country rambles, and that sooner or later became unwilling sacrifices to the cause of science. Having a bent in that direction, this student had the medical profession in view, and at one period was absorbed in studying the nervous system and bony structure of animals. Do not imagine that he ever practised vivisection, for he was too tender-hearted for that. He wanted only dead subjects for experimentation. A gaunt, half-starved tramp cat chanced to stray upon the campus. The would-be Cuvier saw the animal. It occurred to him that he needed a cat's skull in his business. He petted pussy, coaxed her up to his room, fed her, and caused her to feel quite at home. Presently he called a neighbor in to witness the despatch of poor tabby. He had an old revolver of small caliber and uncertain action, and he proposed 192 COLBY STORIES that death should be instant and painless. '' Now see me shoot her through the heart. Kitty, kitty, kitty, here, kitty." Kitty came up unsuspectingly. He took careful aim and fired. The ball went through the cat's body, but without striking a vital part, and embedded itself in the wall. The wretched beast sprang nearly to the ceiling and ran round and round the room like a whirlwind, leaping over and spinning under furniture, — a gyrating, squalling, distracted, and agonized thing. It was a laugh- able as well as a pitiable sight. The murderer, now almost as excited as the cat, followed after, firing wildly. Once he hit as the exhausted animal halted a moment in her mad flight, but more often he missed, until the friend, fearing for his own safety, as soon as he was able for laughter, snatched the pistol away and placing it to the cat's ear shot her dead. " Now," said the scientist, in a complaining tone, '* you 've spoiled my skull." There is, or there should be, a certain room in South College which bears to this day the scars of wounds made by bullets intended for a cat that yielded up its nine lives in the cause of science. ["JJ. Sam " addressing Graduating Class at " Last Chapel." INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS OF A FORMER GENERATION BY ONE WHO CAN SAY WITH AENEAS : ♦ ' Quaeque ipse iiiiserriina vidi, et quorum pars magna futy During the years of the Civil War between the states, the number of students in Waterville College was very small. In the fall of '64, however, a class of twenty-seven entered and the following year nearly as many more. Be- tween these two classes a rivalry that was some- times rather more than a healthy emulation always existed, though often they were found pulling earnestly together in establishing a true college-spirit; '68 and '69 are credited with establishing baseball in the college and putting a good nine into the field ; they also gave the name of The Oracle to the college annual which prior to '68 had borne the villain- ous name of The Watervillian . It was while 14 194 COLB.Y STORIES they were on deck that the institution blossomed out into Colby University, that the Memorial Hall was erected, and that Sam began his illus- trious career as general charge d' affaires. The long and successful reign of this most important member of the distinguished corps of instructors of Colby youth is due mainly to the lessons which he received from the class of '68. To be sure, '69 contributed something in .the way of discipline. Sam, with the innocence of an unsophisticated freedman and with misplaced confidence in his " boys," undertook the culture of turkeys at his home on the north end of the campus. That was more than the dignity of '69, who had recently shed their tadpole tails, could endure. Consequently the head of the flock of turkeys one night wandered into one of the '69 rooms in North College and there laid down his innocent life. For some unexplained reason '68 was invited to the feast. Probably it was in order that the guilt might rest equally upon both. At any rate I can testify that both classes pronounced it a fine, tender-meated turkey and '68 asked no questions for con- science's sake. In the class of '69 was one very industrious INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS 1 95 man who was seldom found engaged in any un- lawful pursuits. His honest countenance and dignified bearing rendered him safe from sus- picion of having committed any misdemeanor. Yet G. is the man who broke into Professor Blank's stable after the family were all in bed one night, stole the horse and carriage and took his sweetheart to ride. Indue time he returned the rig without damage, and left upon the car- riage seat the following note : " Will the professor please accept my thanks for the use of the horse which I have driven moderately for about ten miles, the moderate driving being due in part to my own inclination, but chiefly to the condition of the horse." To this note he signed the name of a good Baptist brother who is now pastor of a large church in one of Massachu- setts' manufacturing cities. When '68 entered upon their Sophomore year they felt the weight of great responsibilities resting upon their weak shoulders. They thought they owned the college and could keep it running' only by maintaining a proper defer- ence for themselves on the part of both faculty and students. It was only after a few bitter ex- periences that they learned the contrary. Among 196 COLBY STORIES Other tasks a delegation from their number took it upon themselves to call upon some of the most unsophisticated members of '69 and smoke them out. In one or two cases they met with a good degree of success, but in at least one instance they caught a Tartar. The victim whom they selected evidently enjoyed their presence and their tobacco as well. After they had filled the room so full of smoke that one could hardly see across it, he coolly produced a pipe, borrowed some of their tobacco, and joined them in a smoke. The fun lasted until the Sophomores began to grow white around the gills, and one of their number threw up his supper. The Freshman afterwards complained that a set of fellows should come into his room for the purpose of smoking themselves sick to the detriment of his new carpet. Though this seemed to be a mighty mean way to receive a new man into the college, the Sophomores were willing to let his version of the affair stand. In the sixties the custom prevailed almost universally among young men to wear *' plug " hats. The Sophomore class, the self-consti- tuted guardian of Freshmen morals and manners, forbade the latter class to indulge in such orna- INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS 1 97 mental extravagance, and in consequence of this prohibition frequent encounters took place be- tween members of these two classes. It was seldom that any blood was shed, but Freshmen's hats were destroyed and sometimes heads were bruised. The particular occasion of which I write came near resulting in the death of a member of the Sophomore class and was only prevented by the inefficiency of the weapon carried by the rebellious Freshman. Mr. R. entered the- Freshman class, coming from Virginia, and bore the reputation of being as hot-blooded as some other Virginians. He wore one empty sleeve. Every Sabbath morn- ing he persisted in wearing a high hat, but since he carefully concealed the offensive head- gear during the remaining portion of the week he went undisturbed for some time. One Sab- bath morning he set out for church arrayed as usual and soon overtook and passed a member of the Sophomore class, Mr. B., who walked slowly and with the aid of a cane. It seemed to Mr. B. as Mr. R. passed that he bore him- self in an especially offensive manner, giving a toss of his head which resembled a challenge. At any rate a sudden impulse seized the Sopho- 198 COLBY STORIES more, Avho raised his cane and struck the hat so sharp a blow as to land it in the ditch. He then started to walk off as if nothing had oc- curred, but hearing the click of a revolver he turned about and finding himself uninjured trod upon the Freshman's hat as it lay upon the ground, and completely ruined it. At this moment he heard the explosion of the revolver and felt the lead strike him in the back of the head. Turning suddenly, he rushed upon the offending Freshman, receiving another shot which just grazed his breast. He then severely caned Mr. R. and probably would have spoiled his countenance but for the presence of other students who interfered to separate them. This occurred on College street, not far below South College. Professor Blank then occupied the house nearly opposite the spot where that encounter took place. He was evidently mak- ing his toilet preparatory to going to church, but hearing the shouts he looked from his win- dow and saw what was causing the commotion. He rushed upon the scene with one side of his face clean shaved and the other covered with lather. The students ran from all directions, some dressed for church and others decidedly undressed. INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS 1 99 It remains to be said, simply, that the next morning both were summarily expelled. In the way of practical jokes one member of '68 was often the victim. The man in question was ratber too confiding and too much of a temptation at times to some of his fellows. One haying season he hired out with a neighboring farmer for a week or two, in order to add a few dollars to his depleted treasury. He began his labors one extremely hot day by swinging a scythe through a piece of stout timothy. The unaccustomed physical exertion under a boiling July sun produced an unusual degree of thirst. This he undertook to quench by frequent draughts from the jug of cold well water. One result of this was a large-sized pain under the waistband of his trousers. By the advice of his employer he was induced to take a little whiskey " for his stomach's sake, and his often infirmi- ties." The effect was so salutary that the dose was repeated with greater frequency than was becoming in a member in good and regular standing in both the Baptist church and the Sons of Temperance. To all who knew D. and his loyalty to prin- ciple it was apparent that the whiskey was taken 200 COLBY STORIES solely as a medicine, but his employer was a young man who loved a joke and could not re- frain from making capital of the exhilarated condition of his student haymaker. The report that D. had been indulging in deep potations from the flowing bowl was soon circulating freely over the campus. It came to the ears of the officials in the church and to the brethren in the temperance society. Formal charges were filed and investigations were begun. The college faculty also summoned the offender before their august body. On the whole the poor fellow began to look upon himself as a blackened sin- ner, when his classmates came to his rescue with such a version of the affair as resulted in his acquittal by each of the tribunals before whom he had been summoned. It was currently re- ported, however, that the verdict was copied after the somewhat famous one ascribed to a Scottish court: ** Not guilty, but do n't do it again." This same unfortunate individual bore the dis- tinction of being the only man in the class who wore store teeth. It was his custom each night to remove them from his mouth and leave them till morning in a tumbler of water. One morn- INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS 20I ing he was very much disturbed by the discov- ery that his teeth had disappeared while he slept. Unless he could recoverthem without delay, his diet until a new set could be obtained must con- sist mainly of liquid food. Furthermore his personal beauty was marred by their absence and his articulation seriously and unfavorably affected. The latter difficulty was of especial moment since his class exhibition was to occur the following evening. It was the Junior Exhi- bition of original articles, and according to the custom of those days every man in the class was down for a part on the program. Now D. was not a remarkably good writer and rather an ordinary speaker. The class as a whole averaged very well in both the above particulars, and some of the '69 boys were wicked enough to insinuate that D.'s own class- mates had stolen the teeth in order to prevent his appearance on the stage, and advised him to get even with the perpetrators of the outrage by exhibiting himself in his toothless condition. This they argued would be the cause of chagrin to the guilty offenders. The '68 men charged '69 with having planned and executed the rob- bery for the express purpose of introducing a 202 COLBY STORIES new feature into '68's exhibition. For a few hours the poor man was so besieged that he scarcely knew whether he had any friends or not. But he finally decided that '69 was trying to play one of their mean games upon him and he declined to go upon the stage. The following morning the teeth returned to their accustomed bath as the venerable old Doctor, who then presided over the destinies of the college, had smilingly prophesied that they would. RARE "BEN" BUTLER BEN BUTLER IN COLLEGE The death of Benjamin Franklin Butler a few years ago removed from the stage one of the most unique and bizarre figures in American public life. A more singular type of character is seldom seen even in this land of originals, New England. "Rare old Ben" he might have been rightly called, for though he had neither the learning, nor the '' mountain stomach and rocky face," of the bricklayer, soldier, actor, duellist, and dramatist, Ben Jonson, yet he was, like him, massive and unshapely in body, and had a similar strong, crabbed sense, acute ob- servation, retentive memory, and, above all, pugnacity. **Ben," as he was always called, except when he was spoken of as a military man, was born in the rocky town of Deerfield, New Hampshire, on Nov. 5, 1 818. His paternal grandfather fought at Quebec, and also during the Revolu- tionary War, and his father at New Orleans 2o6 COLBY STORIES under General Jackson. Bulky as he became in middle life, Ben was a mere '* dagger of lath " — a spare, spiritualized being, who could distinctly feel and reckon his own ribs — when he entered Waterville (now Colby) College in 1834. At graduation he weighed but ninety- eight pounds. He had wished to be educated at West Point, but his widowed mother, a de- vout Baptist, desired that he should be a clergyman. Had her desire been gratified, he would probably have become a kind of theo- logical prize-fighter, an ecclesiastical Heenan or Sullivan, who would have *' Proved his doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks," after the style of that prince of bullies and champion of paradoxical opinions, William Warburton. As Ben entered college a year before I left it, when the number of students was not over a hundred, I knew him well. Never was a youth more emphatically the father of the man. The same daring, fearless, inquisitive disposition, the same pugnacity and fondness for contro- versy, the same love of creating a sensation and focussing all eyes on himself, the same BEN BUTLER IN COLLEGE 207 readiness in espousing, and dexterity in advo- cating, the wrong or unpopular side of a ques- tion, characterized him then as in his riper Hfe. Into the debates of ''The Literary Fra- ternity," the college society of which he was a very active and conspicuous member, he was continually introducing novel or out-of-the-way topics or questions, and surprising his asso- ciates by the subtlety and ingenuity with which he maintained the most palpable paradoxes. One of these topics, \* remember, was '' Mes- mer and his Claims," which Ben championed a Voiitrance. Among the college rules in those days was one requiring from the students attendance on Sundays on public worship. On a certain Lord's Day one of the college professors preached in the Baptist church (where the faculty and students worshiped) a sermon maintaining that only the elect would be saved in the world to come ; that probably this num- ber would not comprise more than one in a hundred persons professing to be Christians, and that even the heathen would be adjudged less guilty than men in Christian lands who had sat under the preaching of the gospel, and 2o8 COLBY STORIES yet had not obeyed its injunctions. As Ben listened to these startHng statements, a feHcit- ous use of them flashed on his mind, and next day he sent to the college faculty a petition that he might be excused thenceforth from attendance on public worship. He urged that the village church had some six hundred wor- shipers, nine of whom were his revered presi- dent, professors, and tutors. If only one in a hundred of these worshipers could be saved, was it not absolutely certain that three members even of the college faculty would be damned ? Could he himself, then, a humble student, and inclined to laxity in his morals, hope by any possibility to be saved? Worse than that, would not his guilt and condemnation be aggravated by every church service he at- tended? He prayed, therefore, most earnestly, to be excused altogether from attendance. This characteristic paper, replete with mock gravity, was elaborated and copied with great care ; but the only reply to it was a summons to its precocious author to stand up in chapel and be reprimanded before the faculty and stu- dents for irreverence. When in his Senior year Butler's class was BEN BUTLER IN COLLEGE 209 studying the "Evidences of Christianity" under the leadership of President Pattison, that theo- logian was greatly surprised by the acuteness, skill in logical fence, and learning exhibited in Ben's skeptical objections and questions. Con- vinced, at last, that these could never have originated in a brain so immature as his pupil's, the president sent for Butler's " chum," and, expressing his suspicions, asked confidentially whether Ben was not cribbing his arguments from some infidel book. The answer verified the inquirer's suspicions ; whereupon the presi- dent incontinently took the first stage-coach for Boston (a three days' journey then), bought at Burnham's ''Antique Bokestore" a copy of the book which was his pupil's secret arsenal, viz., Taylor's "Diegesis of the New Testament," studied it all the way home in the stage-coach, and after a week's absence reappeared in the class-room, where he anticipated all of Ben's shrewd questions and objections, and replied to them triumphantly as soon as they were stated. These facts I have narrated, not from hearsay, but as they were communicated to me some twenty years after their occurrence by Presi- dent Pattison himself. 15 2 TO COLBY STORIES Of Ben's less intellectual escapades in college — which I think were very few — I know of only one. Once, during his undergraduate days, the tongue of the college bell disappeared, and its dread summons to the pillow-hugging stu- dent was not heard for a week. Some fifteen years afterward, Ben's college room-mate, whom I found keeping a drug store in Springfield, Mass., told me that the rogue had shown it to him one day, while every hiding place but the right one was searched, hidden under a huge boulder on the shore of the Kennebec river, which bounds the college campus on the east. BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN A Farce — In Two Acts Scene : — Waterville, Maine. Characters : Ben Butler, student at Waterville College; time, 1838. Senior, > Friends of Mr. Bluecoat, > Police- Junior, S Butler; Mr. Burleigh, \ men. Act the First Scene I. — Main street; sidewalk in front of Rice\s Grocery Store. \_Enter Ben Butler and two Jr tends. ^ Ben {looking at new sign before the store entrance^. — Great Jehoshaphat ! boys, just feast your eyes on yonder sign. Say, I admire old Rice's enterprise, but must say I deplore his lack of good judgment in putting so much money into a business card. Senior. — By the way, it occurs to me that that sign would look mighty well in my room. 212 COLBY STORIES I have just space for it over my copy of the Constitution. junior. — Sorry to disappoint you, but the fact of the matter is, the next function of that sign shall be to adorn the wall of my own domi- cile. I can see it now preaching the doctrine of '* Honesty the best policy," hanging serenely between two charming portraits of Jenny Lind and Thomas Jefferson. Ben. — Now, my dear, devoted friend, it is your imagination that paints that picture and when you have seen another year of college you will know that imagination, though a fas- cinating painter, is not a reliable one. And you, my sympathetic Senior, may as well hope to own Fort Halifax as to ever possess old Rice's sign ; for the very Constitution of which you speak forms a basis for laws which are very explicit in dealing with ownership of un- claimed property. Now, I was the first to spy yonder sign, and if you would know some- thing of the future which awaits it, listen ! To- night, when friend Rice has counted his day's receipts and hied him homeward, when shadows guard the streets and all Ticonic sleeps, a stealthy form will glide softly up to this very BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 2I3 Spot, and as stealthily return to the place whence it came, and the wisest of the night owls will wing back to their silent thickets and say to one another that Benjamin Franklin Butler has added one more sign to his already copious collection. Senior. — Your language reminds me of that used in your late petition to the faculty, asking to be excused from attendance at prayers. Junior. — Yes, and if Ben can gain posses- sion of the sign as easily as he demonstrated to the faculty that their Calvinistic notions are behind the times for an up-to-date theolog like himself, I shall yield my claim to the much wanted placard at once. Senior, — And I gladly acquiesce, — but say, let's run down to the river for a swim. Ben. — Wait a minute; do you know you should never go into the water after supper ! Senior and ytmior (/;/ chorus). — Why not? Ben. — Well, you won't probably find it there, that's all. {^Exeunt all.~\ \_Snter merchant and zuhistles to policeman across the street. '\ 214 COLBY STORIES \_E71ter ■policeman^ Mr. Bluecoat.'] Bluecoat. — Good afternoon, Mr. Rice. Rice. — Well, it comes pretty blamed near being anything but a good afternoon for me, that's what it does. Bhtecoat. — Burglars blown your till, or something wrong in politics? Rice. — Neither one. You see it's this way. Sales have been good for the last fortnight, they have, and I said to myself, said I, I ought to be willing to put a little portion of my profits into a brand new sign, one that'll beat anything on the street. And so I had one painted, I did ; not very large, but mighty pretty and mighty showy, and now to have to lose it, it comes mighty hard, it does. Bluecoat. — It seems to me your sign is still hanging safe and sound. Rice. — Yes, yes, it's hanging sound enough, and that's the reason it is n't safe. You see, the carpenter who put it up put it up to stay; so you see I can't take it inside over night. Bluecoat. — So you mean to say your sign is n't safe outdoors in the night. Surely, you do n't expect the frosts to affect those delicately colored letters. BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 215 Rice. — No, but some young chaps just passed along here and stopped to view the painting, they did, and if I ain't mistaken there was mischief in their eyes. And it came over me all at once, it did, that my sign was too attractive. I reckon some way or other that my sign is as good as stolen, unless I hire a man to watch it. Bhiecoat. — Ah ! a bright thought strikes me. There have been numerous complaints made lately by merchants who have lost signs, and several clues have led us to suspect students up at the college. But we have never been able to catch any one at the act. Now, Mr. Rice, with your permission, I will come down and conceal myself inside your store this evening and watch your sign. Perhaps something will develop. Will you give your permission, Mr. Rice? Rice. — ^Yes, siree. You have not only my permission but my prayers also. I shall depend upon you to be on hand to-night when I lock up, I shall. \^Foiir hours later Mr. Bhiecoat enters and goes within store, Mr. Rice locks store. Exit Mr . Rice . ] 2l6 COLBY STORIES [ Thi'ee hours later ^ enter Ben Butler softly. ~\ \_JLooks inside store and sees Bluecoat sit- ting in chair aslcep.'\ Aha! Mr. Policeman, excuse me if I turn my back on you. [^Pro- duces a screwdriver from his -pocket and begins work on sign.^ You see, I am not absolutely sure whether you are asleep or not. If you are not, then I don't care for you to see my face ; if you are, why, you might wake up, so I will work quickly. To tell the truth, I sup- pose I would run away if you said so. Any- way, — I am merely waiting for a sign. [Re- moves last screzv and takes down sign. Turns and faces wiudozv just as -policeman awakes and looks up. Exit Ben with sign.'\ [Bluecoat fumbles at key-hole for some time but fnally opens door and hastily glances up the strcet.~\ Confound the plaguy lock! I've lost thief, sign, and all. But I recognized you, you rascal, and I'll get satisfaction to-mor- row. Ben Butler, your goose is cooked ! [Ciirtai7i.'\ BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 217 ACT II Room 18, Chaplain Hall, Waterville College. [Rather meagerly furnished room ; open fireplace on one side ; on wall are several signs with such inscriptions as " Royal Baking Powder," " Sanford's Ginger," "Dress- making," ♦« Keep Off," etc. A mouse sits quietly on the table crunching a leaf from Milton's " Paradise Lost." Steps are heard outside ; mouse slips into a hole in the corner.] \_JEnter Ben Butler^ Senio?'^ and 'Junior. '\ Senior. — And so you will not yield on the flag question? Ben. — Never ! Merely because the Whigs have succeeded in barely electing a governor, every Whig in college thinks he must make himself out a fool by shouting and frantically waving his arms like a maniac. If the college Whigs represented sufficient money, it might be well for them to purchase an automatic dummy which might be made to keep its hat in the air all the time. Thus they might have a sort of continual celebration without any espe- cial effort on their own part. I have noticed that a Whig is happiest when doing nothing and talking much. yunior. — But the flags were private — 2l8 COLBY S7VRIES Ben. — Oh, bosh ! Private nothing. I did n't approve of the flags being flown for such a pur- pose, so I hauled them down ; being sighted and pursued by the Whig Vigilance Committee, I ran to the river bank, swam the Kennebec, leaving my political ill-wishers on this side. Once across, all was well. The precious ban- ners are in a good place, safe from hostile hands, and they will never help to celebrate a Whig victory by floating over the campus of any college where I am a student. Just paste that in your hat, and you will be able to give at least one good point to any inquiring Whig you may chance to meet. Senior. — Great Scott ! Ben, you are getting to be a hotter Democrat than Andrew Jackson himself. I suppose you will keep the flags to decorate your desk when you get appointed justice of the peace in some one-horse hamlet? Ben. — No. Whenever the great and glorious faculty shall see fit to set me free, I shall — Jimioi' (^looking out window^. — Hook it! boys. Here come two police up the walk ; I wonder what I have done ! Ben (^jiiniflngfro7n his seat). — Well, I'll tell you what you 've done ; you 've got me to BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 1\^ talking politics till I Ve neglpcted proper pre- cautions for my much cherished sign. I have a feeling that these knights of the law have de- signs upon No. i8. {Locking the door.) Senior. — What are you going to do ? Ben. — Keep quiet, and see if the new-comers intend to disturb the quiet of our private parlor. \^A knock outside. J^iietncss reigns within. Ben and Senior converse in whispers.'] Ben. — Very polite, to say the least. \_Another knock.] Ben. — No use, my friend, nobody at home. \_Still another rap.] Ben. — ''Anon, anon ! I pray you, remember the porter ! Bluecoat {outside). — Open up, Butler; I have to see you. Senior. — Remember, Ben, he is an officer of the law. Ben. — Oh, I do n't question his authority, but have some doubt about his jurisdiction. Bluecoat {outside). — This has gone far enough. Open the door, or we will break it in. Ben. — Gee ! the plot thickens. Senior. — You know Ticonderoga fell ! 220 COLBY STORIES Ben. — This is no history exam. ; rather, a strategy conference. Senior. — I was just wondering whether there might not be some analogy between Ticon- deroga and your door, but — Bluecoat (^outside). — Ten seconds more, and we come through ! Ben — Boys, a great idea ! Put those signs on the fire, and be quick. \_The boys obey quietly and quickly, Ben commences to pray. '\ O Lord, we are thankful for these past few minutes of silent prayer. Inspiring and helpful indeed are the cool, calm, thoughtful moments thus spent in silent communion with a Power whose dictates transcend all earthly commands. Bluecoat {listening outside). — Great guns! they are holding a prayer-meeting. The law is on our own shoulders if we make any distur- bance. Ben {continuing). — We are thankful that we are privileged to become educated in a country of free thought; we are thankful that our college is one where we may hold religious services at all times and in all places ; and wilt BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 221 thou give long life to that inspiring and benefi- cent law which provides that lowly, humble students be left free, undisturbed, and unmo- lested to carry on their devotional services in such manner as to be most conducive to their physical as well as to their spiritual welfare. (/« whispe?'.) I say, boys, can't you make that fire burn faster? (^Boys add kindling; signs blaze up briskly. Ben takes courage and continues.) VVe are thankful that we know how to pray not only importunely but opportunely ; that we know not only what to pray for but when to pray. (/// whisper.) Great blazes ! punch up that fire ; I can 't pray all night. (Contifiuing.) We are thankful for this glorious country in which we live ; wilt thou be with those who govern it; wilt thou be with those in charge of our state and our county and our own beloved town; bless our town officers and give them strength ; bless the noble and courageous men on our police force ; give them the fullest possible measure of success consistent with their ability. {In zvhis- per.) Burn those splinters and scatter the ashes a bit. {Continuing.) Wilt thou bring success to our merchants ; especially to our 222 COLBY STORIES grocers, whose interests are so closely identified with our own living; may they not be over- confident of wealth nor mistake increase of bus- iness for a sign of prosperity, for the sign may turn out one of adversity. Senior (in whisper). — There, the signs are burned ; now cut it short, lest our prayer-meet- ing lose its charm. Ben {continuing) . — O Lord, in these days of exactness and unequivocation there are those who would misinterpret our motives and deeds and pounce upon us on the slightest provoca- tion. Teach us to apply the scriptures to this new condition and to say to them, "Depart thence, thou wicked and perverse generation ; ye who seek for a sign, but no sign shall be given you." We ask and offer all this in the light of the fact that our doubts and fears have been subjected to the fire that consumeth full fast and well, and that in the ashes of the conflagration we see the peace and joy that becometh honest men. Amen. \_Pause of few minutes^ then light knock is heard at the door.'] Ben. — Come in. ( Unlocks and of ens door.) \_Enter Bliiecoat and Burleigh.] BEN BUTLER AND THE SIGN 223 Bluecoat. — Mr. Butler, you are charged with the larceny of a sign, and I have here a war- rant to search your room. Be7i. — Well, I '11 warrant you do n't search a great deal until I see the complexion of your document. Bluecoat (^ producing warrant^ . — Be quick ! my time is precious. Ben. — I see; that's characteristic of your profession. {Reads document very deliber- ately). Well, that has a certain semblance of authority ; I guess if you proceed to examine my effects, there won't be any serious draw- backs. But, say, if you happen to run across that sign, do n't forget to call my attention to it; I am curious to know how it looks. \_Senior and yuntor exeunt, smiling com- ■prehensively. Police begin search^ with ex- clamations of mingled anger and contempt. Ten minutes later they stop work^ with labors unrewarded.^ Bluecoat. — I am forced to say, Mr. Butler, that a careful search of your room ha's failed to bring to light the stolen article. Courtesy de- mands us, as public officers, to express our re- grets at having to cause you undue trouble. 224 COLBY STORIES Good day ! \_Exeunt^ thinking that they would rather lose their -positions than siifer again the hufuiliation of being outwitted by a college boy. As they disappear down the walk^ Ben seats himself at the table to pre- pare a theme on The Probable Effect on the Eighteenth Century had Ccesar never crossed the Rubicon. '\ THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT Ben Butler lay back in his easy chair and watched the cloud of blue smoke circle up to the ceiling. He was thinking, and thinking seri- ously. "Oh, mighty!" he exclaimed aloud, "what a fool a cultivated fool is ! Yes, come in." A hard knock sounded on his door. At the summons from within, a round-faced, happy-go-lucky fellow, twenty years of age or upwards, kicked open the door and swaggered in. " Well, — " he looked over at Ben who stood gazing out the window, apparently unmindful that he had summoned in a " chum in North." " Well, I say, why do n't you say how d'ye do to a gentleman?" " Just show me one." retorted Ben, then con- tinued, " sit down, man, sit down. Jim tell you to happen around? ' ** Sure," rejoined Jordan, surveying the room i6 226 COLBY S TORIES and its occupant critically. '* Now what the old boy is up? In the toils again, eh?" " Now I '11 tell you," began Ben, ** I 'm in about the worst fix a man can be in and still continue to keep his identity. Now that I 'm in I want to get out. That's all natural enough, isn't it? Well, to come to the point; in order to get out we 've got to have another blowout. My whole life depends upon it." *' A blowout!" exclaimed Jordan in amaze- ment. ''Yes, I think my life would (fd?-pend upon it also. Why, are you crazy, man? Didn't we have one last week? Didn't I blow out the last cent I had? Did n't we both agree not to have another until the end of this term?" ''El Jordan, remember this, we're to have a time to-morrow night in this room, at half-past seven ; you are to be here, likewise Mark and Jim and John." The unconquerable Ben brought his fist hard down upon the little square table before him. "But," he continued after a pause, "it isn't going to be a real jovial feast, only just fixed up for the occasion, you know." " I can stand all the blows and buffets of this world," rejoined El, " but I can't stand guff. Imagine yourself having an unreal drunk ! Ah ! THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 227 my friend, there 's too much reaHty in you for that." " I ask you to be serious, El. Will you?" El lengthened out his face, rolled his eyes about, crossed his arms, in all the dejectedness of an unsuccessful suitor. " You can take this as a joke if you wish, but if you ever want to rid yourself of a girl, you '11 readily see that it is no joke, after all." " Whew-w-w," whistled Jordan, aroused to the true situation. " So you 've really tired of Louisa? Well! well! well!" " Apparently. Louisa Green is Louisa Green, or was the last day I saw her. Ben Butler is Ben Butler, no matter what he came near being. Her dad is a gritty old radicalist and I doff my hat to no man meaner. I could ship Louisa easy enough, engagement or no engagement, but — " Butler was not a man to be blocked ; no fetters could shackle him, — " but the crabbed old sculpin dares to oppose me." He paced the room for a moment, growling like a lion balked of his prey. El watched him with appar- ent interest, for this was one of the times when, as Jordan said, " Ben's hair rose as bristles, and his fingers cracked like claws." 228 COLBY STORIES Ben stopped before El's chair, and smiling complacently, said, ** Never yet have I been caught where I could n't extricate myself. My way is clear. Bah! old sculpin Green!" *' Winds change," suggested Jordan. '*A few days ago you were standing up here in this very room crying like a peanut-vender, * Behold my future father-in-law; the man of men who be- lieves in no tobacco, no rum : now look at me ! Gentlemen, you have now seen the two poles of ' this earth ! ' Now it 's another song, ' the gritty old radicalist, the crabbed old sculpin.' Woe ! woe ! Verily ! verily ! Consistency thou art — " *' Look here," snapped Ben, '' are you to be in my room to-morrow night at half-past seven to join in freeing me from thraldom?" "Nothing to drink, eh?" *' Your face not welcome here now will be very welcome at the time I have specified. That's all I wanted, so out with you !" And El, the slave, slipped out the door into the hall- way. Butler heard him as he leaped up the stairs to his room sing a two-line song that savored of Jordan, coupled with extempore work. This was it: THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 12^ " Oh, Ben Butler of the tribe of Benjamin, Ye cause every sucker of us all to sin." Butler laughed. "'Truth . . . needs no flowers of speech,' " he flung after him. Ben put on his coat and gloves, picked up his cane from the corner, and presently came out of his room and stood upon the steps of old North College, a very respectable and innocent look- ing fellow indeed. He stood there sometime, pounding his cane against the walls of the brick building, looking out over the campus. Two Sophs strolled past and saluted him, ** Going calling, Ben?" He felt a bit vexed at being interrupted. **A cane and gloves prophesy a call, likely?" he answered evasively. The Sophs laughed, mumbled something Ben could not understand, and walked on, while Ben resumed his whistling where he had left off. The lights from the dormitory windows shone out over the stretch of green. The small elms and maples cast their shadows on the tall uncut grass beneath them. Ben sauntered out across the lawn. He was still thinking, this time aloud. " If I go call on her to-night, stay long enough to invite the old man up to call on me to-mor- row night, then get the boys promptly around 230 COLBY STORIES and give the old crab a scare that he wont soon forget, he '11 come to terms, break the engage- ment, no doubt of it, then I '11 — use judgment next time. Well," he struck the cane impa- tiently against his trouser leg, looked back at his dark room in the corner of old North Col- lege, quickly turned in the direction of the town, and, as he sauntered off through the trees, fin- ished a broken sentence, — '* here goes !" Readers who can recall anything of the life and character of the distinguished Benjamin F. Butler, will remember him as a man of indom- itable courage, stubbornness, and dexterity. These same traits that so characterized him in his later life were the ruling powers of his col- lege days. He would not go back, right or wrong. Enamoured of a pretty country girl he had gained the consent of her parents and had be- come engaged. Now he had tired of her, and cast about him for a means of freeing himself. Her father was a white-haired old fellow of some sixty years, a radical temperance man, a despiser of tobacco, and a deadly foe to any form of gambling. It goes without saying, that in order to win the affections of the fair daugh- THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 23 1 ter, especially the good will of the irritable old man, this hasty college youth had been playing a shrewd game. So well had he succeeded, however, that the father had come to look upon him as a model youth, far above the pipe that tempts and the bowl that lures. It was six o'clock by the marble timepiece that ticked loudly on Ben's mantle, when Jim, Mark, El, and John pounded vigorously on the door and were admitted. The interior presented an appearance quite in contrast with the generally well arranged col- lege room. The big oakwood table had been dragged into the centre of the room and four straightbacked chairs circled the board. At each of the four sides a tall black bottle with glass had been placed, whilp in the centre of the table there was a massive tobacco box with its contents protruding beneath the cover; assorted pipes were strewn over the table surface ; over in one corner of the room books, hats, papers, coats, boxes, and what-not were piled ; large colored pictures of George Washington and other notables dangled from the ceiling; the right hand corner of the room near the smould- ering open fire contained pillows and bed- 232 COLBY STORIES spreads, — in fact, everything within that room seemed tipsy. It was as if a mighty wind had swept through the feasting den of the devil him- self. A strange smell of New England rum, musk, and tobacco pervaded the atmosphere. The boys walked about, held their noses and made sport of one another in their vain attempts to fully enjoy the situation. Ben was still mas- ter of the occasion. He suggested changes here and there that would add a new appear- ance to the already crazy abode, lighted a lamp that threw a mournful and sickly gleam over this newly found Hades, then peeked out the side of the window-shade. " Gee ! boys. ' Hail ! the conquering hero comes ! ' Now, Ben Butler, play well your part ! " So saying he pulled off his coat, threw off a shoulder strap, laid bare his bosom, dangled his collar at the back of his neck, kicked one shoe into the corner, just as a cau- tious walk sounded on the stone steps outside. Ben threw himself upon the pillows and prac- tised a few *'hics." '' He-ic ! he-ic ! " He sounded about perfection. The other boys took their places at the table and proceeded to become intensely interested in a card-game. THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 233 A footfall sounded softly in the hallway; the cane rung gratingly on the dusty wood floor; then another footfall. A pause. Silence. Ben, changed his position that he might get a better view of the door, — and thought of Louisa Green. Rap ! tap ! tap ! The curtain had arisen ; the program was now on. " Hal-loo ! " thundered Ben, "■ who 's, hic- er-hic ! that thic-there, eh? " " Mr. Joshua N. Green, sir. Is Mr. Benja- min F. Butler within? " " Guess, hie ! he is, all right. Josh, he-ic ! boys. Josh'n I, boys, he-ic ! Let him, hie! in, boys. Josh, come in, hie! " Mark turned the light lower and opened the door. Clouds of blue tobacco smoke swept through the door and into the face of the old man. Joshua gasped slightly, and put his hand to his eyes. " Come in," urged Mark, taking him cor- dially by the arm. " Ben *s inside here ; wants to see you, — need of you." Then Joshua N. Green was ushered in. 234 COLBY STORIES The lamp wick was turned slowly up by Jim and the room assumed its former appearance of tipsiness. Ben pulled the spread closer about his face and pushed his head further into the feather pillow. Joshua stood for a moment where Mark had left him, gazing strangely from the table where the boys were busily tossing cards and tipping glasses, to the couch where the pride of Louisa hiccuped at proper intervals and murmured lavish greetings upon the vis- itor ; then his eyes took a wild survey of the entire room, at the pictures which dangled from the ceiling above him, at the rubbish cor- ner, at the table ; at last his two drooping eyes fell upon the apparently prostrate form of Ben Butler. ** Be-sith-ed ! " ordered Ben, feebly motioning Green towards a chair in the opposite corner. *' Be sith-ed ! I 'm down, hie ! all right. Eh? " The old man, nonplussed, dropped weakly into the chair that one of the boys pushed towards him. There he sat, his mouth closed tight, one hand gripping the side of his chair, the other grasping firmly his cane as if for sup- port — and gazed straight into vacancy. -Ha! Ha! Hie! Hie! He-ic ! ! Wake up, THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 235 Josh! I say. What d' ye see, — snakes?" Ben clawed the air wildly for a moment, and yelled like a true maniac, " Take 'em away — hie ! Take 'em away ! urgh ! " Butler quieted him- self, then continued, "Give 'im a drink, boys, hie ! Cocktail, ginger-hie !-root, 'n pep'mint, you know, hie ! Jus' cheer 'im up, you know, hie ! Don' be bashful, 't all." Then he pointed to the pictures on the ceiling, " My 'lustrious ancestors, hie ! Josh. Bow to 'em, hie ! " Mr. Green turned his eyes slowly towards the speaker. The boys at the table had been very quiet till Ben had finished and the role had had its full applause. A tragi-comedy was now to be enacted. Butler had planned to have the first scene convince the old man beyond all pos- sible doubt that Louisa's suitor was actually drunk; scene the second was intended to frighten the old fellow out and home. Mark rose from his chair, leaned over the table towards Jim and yelled fiendishly, " Put that card down, and now ! You cheat ! You half-drunken bubble ! Put it down, I say ! " " Mind your own affairs, will you? " returned Jim angrily, " I will put it back when I please, — not before." 236 COLBY STORIES '' You will, will you? We'll see." So speak- ing, he made a wild dive for the cards in Jim's hand, sprawling the length of the table, and knocking every glass, bottle, box, and card into a broken heap upon the floor. Jim rose as quickly and knocked Mark upon Jordan, who, thereupon awake to the situation, proceeded to do up Mark and John. For a few minutes pandemonium reigned supreme. Every article in the room was tipped over, and Ben was dragged from his couch out into the arena where the boys held a typical Irish wake-feast. Ben did not lose sight of the old man. As the quarrel began the old fellow shifted positions slightly, and turned his eyes from Butler to the boys at the table. As the disturbance increased and his position behind the chair was threat- ened, he moved hastily towards the door. When he had got a firm grasp on the knob he raised his cane and shook it threateningly at Butler. Then he opened the door and backed out. The noise within ceased lest it attract a crowd without. '' Cheer up, hie ! Josh. Be neigh'bly. Good- by, Josh ; good-by, hie ! hie ! he-ic ! " And the door closed with a bang. THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT 237 Ben was on his feet in- an instant, the lock in the door was turned, and in five minutes' time the room presented its old-time appearance. Four boys sat around a study-table, reading and laughing at intervals, while the abominable smell of rum, musk and tobacco crept out of three open windows. The following morning Mark, who had come up early from the post-office, handed Ben a letter. Butler tore off the end, smiling com- placently the while, and read the letter within. Then he threw it over to Mark, saying : " ' Oh, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won ! ' " Mark read aloud : Watervii.le, Maine, 1844. To Be7ijami7t F. Butler : Sir: Have found you out. Mistake in date, was it? I hereafter forbid you entering my house and having any further acquaintance with my daughter. The engagement, unhappily made, is broken for all time. Joshua N. Green. P. S. Read Rom. 6: 23. 238 COLBY STORIES Whether governor of the old Bay State or major-general in the Civil War, — yes, or win- ner of hearts of the lassies of his early col- lege days, — Ben Butler stands peerless to-day. THE END D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS, Di S. Mathematics. English. Science. Economics. History. Sociology. French. German. Spanish. Italian. BOSTON. no Boylston Street. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. LONDON. Text Books of Wf M M the American Book Co. RECEIVED Two Grand Prizes and Three Medals at the PARIS EXPOSITION of 1900 For Superior Text Books in Elementary Kducation, Grand Prize. Secondary Kducation, Grand Prize. Industrial and Commercial Education, Gold Medal. Agricultural Education, Silver Medal, Higher Education, Silver Medal. 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CLOTH— $1.50 Postpaid— 400 PAGES, The Latin words in the Latin order just as Caesar wrote them : with the exact literal Emilish equivalent of each Latin word directly under xX. ^interlined): and with a seco d, elegant translation in the margin: also with Footnotes in which e^^ery wot d is completely farsed, and all construciions explained, with References \^o the leadiner Latin grammars. Each page com- plete—Latin text, interlinear literal transla- tion, marginal flowing translation, parsing- all at a glance wtAout turn ng a lea// Completely Scanned and Parsed Acneid, I. Ready August, 1900. HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers. 4-5-6-I2-I3-I4 Cooper Institute, N. Y. City. Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store. Translations Literal, soc. Interlinear, $1,50. 147 vols. Dictionaries German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, $2.00, and $1.00. Completely Parsed Caesar, Book I. Wdi^on each page, interlinear translation, literal translation, and every word completely parsed . $ 1 . 50. Completely Scanned and Parsed Ae- ncid, Book I. %i.^o. Ready August, \qoQ. ' HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers, 4-5-6-12-13-14 Cooper Institute, N.Y. City, Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store. A WELCOME GIFT IN ANY HOME SONGS OF ALL THE COLLEGES Everyone likes a college song, and this book is an ideal gift to place on the piano for one's friends to enjoy, even though one sings not at all himself CLOTH, IN TASTEFX'L DESIGX FOR CHRISTMAS OR ^IRTHDAT AH the NEW Bonn's - $1 50 postpaid' All the old wmga AT ALL BOOK STORES and MUSIC DEALERS or sent on approval by the Publishers HINDS & NOBLE, 4-14 Cooper Institute. New York City Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store SILVER, BURDETT & COM- PANY'S NEW BOOKS THE HEfl5T OF THE flflGIEflT WOOD $^.50 By Charles G. D. Roberts One of the most fascinating novels of recent days . . . refreshingly pure in its atmosphere.— ^ojr/o« Herald. 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