Tales of B^wdoin Some Gathered Fragments and Fancies of Undergraduate Life in the Past and Present TOLD BY BOWDOIN MEN Collected and Published by JOHN CIvAIR MINOT, '96 DONAI/D FRANCIS SNOW, '01 ILLUSTRATED AUGUSTA, MAINE PRESS OF KENNEBEC JOURNAL I9OI Copyright, 1901 BY John Clair Minot Donald Francis Snow TO TH^ Ml^MORY OlP ElvIJAH KELI^OGGj A LOYAL AND RKVDRKD SON OF BOWDOIN^ WHO ce:i,e;bratf,d his alma mati:r in story^ honored her by a lilpe of practical piety, and won the hearts of her boys, his brethren, this volume is gratefully inscribed. M4475i PRErATORY NOTE TO those in whose hearts Bowdoin College holds a place the publication of this volume requires little excuse or explanation. To others its existence can be but a matter of small concern. We give it to its readers in the confident hope that no Bowdoin man of any time can read its pages without finding much to interest him, to stir the memories of his own undergraduate days and to bind him closer to his Alma Mater. Many of the contributions are truthful remi- niscences; some are stories based upon actual happenings, and a few are woven by the shuttle-play of the imagination around scenes familiar and dear to us all. Some are long and some are short ; some serious and others in lighter vein. But all are tales of Bowdoin, with something of the college color and something of the college atmosphere which can only be fully appreciated by those who have known those halls and campus paths and who have heard the whispering of the pines. It is not to be claimed that this book is complete or exhaustive. Many and many a theme of great possibilities is not touched upon in its pages and many a Bowdoin story- teller is as worthy a place in such a work as are any of the thirty whose contributions herein appear. It may be that this volume is but a beginning, and that other collections of Bowdoin tales will be published, finding a place in the library of every Bowdoin man and giving pride and pleasure to every Bowdoin heart. TALES OP BOWDOIN The collection of these stories and sketches and their publication have been to us a source of much enjoyment. Encouragement has met us on every hand and the most sympathetic assistance uniformly has been ^ven us. We take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation of the generous interest taken in the work by those whose con- tributions to its pages have made the volume what it is. Only their loyal cooperation made its appearance possible. And we wish to express our gratitude to the great body of alumni and undergraduates and the many friends whose cordial support made the undertaking a success. We wish particularly to acknowledge our obligation to Roy Leon Marston, '99, who drew the cover design which adds so materially to the attractiveness of the volume. John Clair Minot, '96, Augusta, Me. Donald Francis Snow, '01, Bangor, Me. June I, 1901. CONTENTS PAGE Chums at Bowpoin i Edward A. Rand, '57 The Borrowing of Pres. Cheney's Bust 19 A Phi Chi of '67 A Tale of Two Freshmen 29 Henry Smith Chapman, '91 St. Simeon Stylites 55 Kenneth C. M. Sills, '01 When the Self-Sender Walked Home 67 C. A. Stephens, '69 Told Again 81 Arlo Bates, '76 The Hazing of Stumpy Blair 95 Fred Raymond Marsh, '99 The May Training loi Thoimas B. Reed, '60 Lost : Love's Labor iii Wehb Donnell, '85 In the President's Room 127 Henry S. Webster, '67 The Story of a Bowdoin Story-Teller 139 IVilmot B. Mitchell, '90 The Education of Jacob Shaw 163 Franklin C. Robinson, '7Z A Smoke Talk in No. 7 189 Clarence B. Burleigh, '87 How Triangle Won 207 Thomas LittleHeld Marble, '98 TALES OF BOWDOIN PAGE At the Altar of Tradition 217 George Brinton Chandler, '90 Indian Pudding 229 John Alexander Pierce, '01 A History and tpie Reasons for it 2^7 Edzvard C. Plummer, '87 The Old Delta 249 Albert V/. Tolman, "88 Bowdoin Under Fire 261 Charles A. Curtis, '61 An Inquisition of 1835 275 James Plaisted Webber, '00 Random Recollections of 1871-5 281 Christopher H. Wells, '75 John Ferris, Graduate 297 Edgar O. Achorn, '81 Diogenes 307 Henry L. Chapman, '66 The Rival Fullbacks 317 Henry A. Wing, '80 Bowdoin's First Great Boat-Race 331 D. A. Robinson, '73 A College Girl's Belated Ideal 347 Frank Warren Hawthorne, '74 One Night in June 369 John Clair Minot, '96 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Central Path Frontispiece. Phi Chi, '73 20 The Campus on a Winter Morning 38 Memorial Hall 57 The Summer Foliage 96 The Great American Traveler 128 Elijah Kellogg 157 The' Searles Science Building 171 The Interior of the Chapel 198 In the Fall of 1888 221 The Old Delta 252 Massachusetts Hall 277 The Abode of Diogenes 309 An End Play on the Whittier Field 320 A Class Race on the Androscoggin 337 The Walker Art Building 372 INTRODUCnON BOWDOIN College has been preeminent, not as a writer of books ; not even as a trainer of scholars ; but as the mother and maker of men : men of personality and power and public leadership. The secret of this marvellous pro- ductivity is not to be discovered in laboratory or library ; it is not printed in the Catalogue, or published in the Presi- dent's Report ; it was never formulated in a faculty vote, or betrayed to the listener by the whispering pines. The story of student life must tell it if it is ever told at all. The college, therefore, welcomes the present volume as a revela- tion of the spirit which here has been at work to make her sons the men they have become. That spirit is the spirit of freedom. We have had two distinct theories of college life: one that of Presidents McKeen, Appleton, Allen and Harris, and the great Professors Packard, Smyth, Newman, Cleave- land and Upham, which treated students as boys under parental discipline. This theory was never an entire suc- cess, according to the standards and expectations of its advocates. The seven other devils, worse than the first, were always forthcoming to occupy the chambers which were swept and garnished by "the Executive Government." Yet, these founders of our academic tradition builded bet- ter than they knew; for in the grotesque aspect of police- men, patrolling the campus by day and chasing miscreants by night ; and in the more dubious role of detectives scent- TAI,ES OF BOWDOIN ing out deviltry in Sodom and Gomorrah, as the ends of Winthrop Hall used to be called; sifting the evidence in solemn conclave at Parker Cleaveland's study; and meting out formal admonitions and protracted rustications to the culprits; these grave professors were lending to mischief just that dash of danger which served to keep the love of it alive. President Woods, whose administration was contempo- raneous with the latter stages of this boisterous boyhood of the college, was wise enough to appreciate the worth of this then deprecated side of student life. In his mild and charit- able eyes, robbed hen-roosts, translated live stock, greased blackboards and tormented tutors, were indeed things to be perfunctorily deplored; but they were not deemed speci- mens of total depravity, or cases of unpardonable sin : nor was he as insistent upon meting out a just recompense of reward to the culprits, as his more strenuous colleagues thought he ought to be. This mingling of austerity on the part of the faculty which made mischief of this sort worth doing, with extreme leniency on the part of the President, which insured immunity from serious penalty, made the college from 1839 to 1866 probably the best place there ever was in the world for boys to be boys, and to indulge that crude and lawless self assertion which was the only avail- able approach which the colleges of that day afforded to manly courage and ordered independence. With such a stimulus, what wonder that here were reared Hawthorne, Longfellow, Abbott, Pierce, Cheaver, Stowe, Prentiss, Ham- lin, Bartol, Smith, Hale, Evans, Andrew, Abbott, Frye, Fuller, Howard, Chamberlain, Smyth, Webb. Reed, Hub- bard and Putnam. Elijah Kellogg was the consummate flower of such a regime ; and "Phi Chi" gives it appropriate immortality in song. INTRODUCTION In later years, the improved laboratory facilities and increasing use of the library ; the introduction of the elec- tive system, and the advent of athletics; have given the students a free life of their own. Hence the sphere of arti- ficial freedom which they formerly carved out for them- selves, and which all save the genial Woods so deeply deplored, is no longer an educational and spiritual necessity to them. The students to-day are as free as they ever were ; but it is a freedom in the life of the college, rather than against it. Resistance is as necessary to the development of character, as friction to the motion of a railway train; but the student now finds his resistance in the generous rivalry of fraternities; in the difficulties of self-chosen and congenial studies ; and the prowess of athletic teams from other institutions. Faculty and students now sing "Phi Chi" together, with a common reverence for the boyhood of the college, and a common consciousness that, for the most part, childish things are put away. To be sure, the faculty still occasion- ally is obliged to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober ; from passing student caprice to the permanent student aims and ideals. Yet, even in the rare cases where serious dis- cipline is necessary, the student's class-mates or fraternity friends are consulted ; and almost invariably their honest judgment either modifies the faculty action, or else acqui- esces in the faculty decision. Students have become more mature and manly as a greater sphere of freedom has been placed within their reach; and the professors, instead of exercising lordship over their private affairs, are rather, as St. Paul says, "helpers of their joy." These stories happily bind together the old life and the new by the common bonds of youthful enthusiasm, hearty ." TALKS OF BOWDOIN good fellowship, and true academic freedom, running through them all. As the graduates of former years here refresh their mem- ory of what the college did for them, I am sure they will offer anew the tribute of Henley's "Matri Dilectissimae ••The stars shine as of old. The unchanging River, Bent on his errand of immortal law, Works his appointed way To the immemorial sea. And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly homer- That she in us yet works and shines, Lives and fulfils herself, Unending as the river and the stars. "Dearest, live on In such an immortality As we, thy sons, Born of thy body and nursed At those wild, faithful breasts. Can give— of generous thoughts. And honorable words, and deeds That make men half in love with fate ! Live on, O bi-ave and true, In us, thy children." a^^^^s^^'^c^^^.^ TALES or BOWDOIN CHUMS AT BOWDOIN Edward A. Rand, '57 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN Chapte:r I. — In Coi.i.e:ge WHAT a marvel was that night! It was a February evening when Goodwin Smith, at the close of a win- ter's school, reached the college yard again. The snow was deep. One dead mass of white was before him. Down upon it, the moon that seemed to be more than at the full, poured a flood of silver. A "dead mass," did I say? Where the moonlight fell, it kindled death into life. Upon that silvery whiteness, all the trees had left the impress of their forms as if in a wonderful rivalry of effort to get the most distinct shadow possible. Not a twig but left its black print upon the snow. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees to confuse the fine tracery of these shadows. Over- head, the stars had swung out their torches for their cus- tomary procession, though not so vivid as on moonless nights. ''There is Orion!" said Goodwin. Yes, the hunter was out with his dogs, while timid Lepus was trying to shrink away in the vivid moonlight. One almost expected to hear a blast from the hunter's horn, and would Sirius bark in faithful response, and Procyon bay in the distance? "There is Regulus !" said Goodwin. This brilliant gem that for centuries had been upon the handle of Leo's silver sickle, was still faithfully ornamenting it. Not far away, the white bees that Pliny watched, were clustered in Praesepe, refusing to let go their ancient hold upon the ancient hive. A I tai,e:s of bowdoin Below this wonderful beauty, rose out of the snow in prosaic stiffness the old college buildings, Massachusetts Hall, Winthrop Hall, Maine Hall, Appleton Hall, so many in their very name declaring that they were of a beloved Massachusetts origin and so closely akin to Harvard. In form, they were sugar-boxes, but whether their contents were saccharine, time alone could show. Box succeeded box, structures that were monotonous masses of length, breadth and height, but what a breaking of the stiff, prosy line there was in the upward cHmbing roof, the upspringing, soaring towers of the new King Chfcpel, that noble expression of Christian aspiration, that strong symbol of a faith that has foundations. "I must go there and stand on the Chapel steps !" thought Goodwin. The slender, beshawled figure tugged along a big, old- fashioned carpet bag that would bump against his slender legs. He puffed by the motionless black shadows on the white snow, each seeming to say, "Look this way!" No, he wanted to see something else. He stood on the Chapel steps and looked up. Orion was still out in the silent, silver chase. Leo curved his gemmed sickle, and around the hive in Cancer clustered the white-winged bees. Between those starrv heights and the snow, was the flow of glorious moonlight. The soul of the student was thrilled. He shivered in the cold but he could not leave the spot. He did not forp-et that behind him was the Chapel of granite. He had never seen such a structure before his student life at Bowdoin. He had lately read Ruskin's ''Seven Lamps of Architecture," and was never tired of an attempt to interpret the symbolism of this Chapel of stone, whose towers pierced the infinite blue and whose foundations went down to the Immutable. 2 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN Some of the windows were pieces of brilliant shading. He had been accustomed to the small squares of colorless glass in the old New England meeting houses, and their only duty was to stand as receivers and let the glare of the sunshine through. These panes of rich staining, to his sensi- tive imagination, not only received but flamed into scrolls of fiery prophecy, or poetry, and they always had a message. While not remarkable as pieces of art-work, they marked him. His friend Paiseley Gore, the Sophomore, found him one day in the college library facing a window of warm, rich color, and he was saying over a bit of Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes :" "And diamonclecl with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As on the tiger-motli's deep-damasked wings." "You little booby!" said Paiseley the practical. "They won't bring you bread." Goodwin tried to say these lines that night out on the Chapel steps, his teeth chattering away, but the "t-t-tiger- moths" tripped him up. Some one passed him, and a second student came up to the first and called out, "Say, Tom, have you seen Goodwin Smith? He expected to arrive about this time and I have been hunting him up, this hour." The big carpet bag on the Chapel steps stirred quickly and the Freshman followed it. "Here I am, Paiseley!" "There, there! So you be! Goody^ how are ye?" The next moment, Goodwin felt gratefully the folds of an immense shawl going about him. In those days, shawls were included in men's furnishing goods. Every student wore a shawl, generally of a light blue or gray shade. The effect was peculiar when they flocked after prayers out of the Chapel, their shawls fluttering in the wind. Had the 3 TAI,i;S Olf BOWDOIN shawls been red, it would have seemed as if a lot of flam- ingoes with flapping wings had been let loose into the college yard. If Paiseley's shawl had been red that night, it could not have been warmer. "Let me take that bag ! There ! Let me have it — mind ! I'm so glad to see you !" Big Paiseley gave him a bear hug. "I've been out twenty times looking for you." "I — am ever so glad to see you. I — just wanted to get the eitect on those steps — effect of the moonlight — " "Oh, fiddlesticks ! Sentiment ! You'll die of it. It will freeze you. Now you come to my room." They vsat awhile before the open fire in one of those hospitable Franklin stoves of a previous generation. "I'll just thaw you out first, young man. I got your letters all right. You liked your school." "Oh, yes." "And the place where you boarded?" "The Fellows', Deacon John Fellows? Oh, yes. They were very kind to me, as to you when there last winter." Paiseley wanted to ask about the deacon's daughter, Mattie. His heart — this was the heart of Paiseley, not the deacon — was a heart that was a locket carrying the image of the deacon's daughter, a beautiful girl. He never had confessed it to Goodwin. It v/as a locket that never had seen the daylight. He did want to say one word about the girl. He hesitated. He began. He stammered as if in the cold he also stood on the Chapel steps. "Did M — M — Mat- tie — " He stopped. He began again and as he began, a warm, guilty blush overspread his features. "Did M— Mattie go to— to— school ?" 4 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN His ears were also burning. The locket was now open before the returned schoolmaster and Paiseley knew it. "Oh, yes!" said Goodwin, and he too stammered. "And she was a g-g-good scholar. I — I had a kind of f-fancy she might like — ker — you !" Goodwin was now blushing. The two guilty men lifted their eyes and for a moment faced one another. "What a botch I've made of it!" thought Goodwin. "Paiseley loves that girl. How red he is !" "He is dead in love with that girl," thought Paiseley, eying the Freshman's heat. "Well, I won't interfere." Paiseley was glad to rise, glad to drop the whole tribe of "Fellerses," as people in that town called them, and he said to Goodwin, "Now we will have a change. First, I'll lock up." He went to the door and carefully sprung the lock. Then he drew a big screen before the door. Thin indeed was the screen, but it looked thick as the Chinese wall sketched upon it, and the world seemed far away as the twentieth century from Old Cathay. He went to the windows, and let the heavy folds of the red curtains cover the old-fashioned panes. He went to the wood-closet. Ah, what old time treasures were in it! "Goodwin," called out Paiseley, "I have a splendid bed of red oak coals already there, and now will you have some rock maple — sound to the core and heavy — or birch covered with Californy gold?" "It's a cold night. Bring out both kinds." "There," said Paiseley, "I like to see it burn." "Yes, the rock maple has white wings of flame and the yellow birch wings of old gold, say a little tawny.'" "Sentiment!" 5 TALi:S OF BOWDOIN "And it talks, an open wood fire does. The maple purrs softly like a cat, and the red oak sobs and weeps like Niobe." "Sentiment agin! You mean 'tis wet and it sizzles. Now we'll have something practical. Have vou been to supper ?" "N-no. I've got some c-c-crackers." Goodwin was one who sometimes for economy's sake "boarded himself." A cracker looked more cheerful than a landlady's bill, or a club demand. "Young man, if you say crackers again, I'll crack you. See here! A little legerdemain! What will you have, chicken for two? That means two chickens. Presto!" He lifted a table cloth frorn a tin kitchen before the fire. "There, I got my landlady to fix these for me, tender and sweet, you know, and I've been trying to keep them warm^ — just roasted — and I thought you never would come — " "Paiseley, the Magnificent, but — Paiseley! Did you abstract these from a Bunganock roost?" "No, sir ! We call that stealing at home, and it ought to be called stealing in college. I believe in one code of obli- gations for home and college, one code for man and woman, one code for Sophomores and Freshmen, ^.A so we will waive all class distinctions and eat together. And another thing, young man, I want you to stay in Gomorrah to-night and be my guest." "Oh, I must go to my room. You know my fire is built, as you kindly said you would build it." "I — I — know I did, and I went round to Sodom and looked into your room and it did look so cold — " He might have added "so poor and bare and homesick." Goodwin was poor, and he had not reached the level of Montaigne's philosophy so as to appreciate any advantage 6 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN from indigence. Life with him was Huxley's "struggle for existence." It was evident in the scant furnishings of that room. In comparison, how full of luxurious comfort was Paiseley's room in the other end of the college, Gomorrah. Paiseley was the son of a wealthy farmer and his furniture had cost enough to equip half a dozen rooms like Good- win's. Besides this, Freshman housekeeping is an experi- ment. It never can equal the ease and comfort of the Sophomore's furnishings that show a stage of completeness always accompanying prolonged good housekeeping. But Paiseley was speaking again and in reply to Good- win's plea that he had no Livy with him and must go to his room to study that classic and the time of recitation would be that barbarism, the hour before breakfast. "See here, young man ! Thoughtful as ever, I brought your Livy over here. So you can get your lesson here. Then in the morning, an agreeable surprise will be furnished Uncle Tommy.* There will be a recitation from his prom- ising pupil, Goodwin Smith — " "Nonsense!" > "No interrupting rem.arks, young man ! All out of place here ! Let me smother that tongue with more chicken. There! Now you keep quiet and be comfortable. You will have a good night's rest and be up in time for prayers before recitation. Old Dif will wake us." "You have him now?" "Yes, or he has me. He came in, this morning. He built my fire and bowed his stovepipe hat to it as if wor- shiping some Persian divinity. I was awake and saw him. Thinking I was asleep, he came to wake me up, and tapped *The beloved Prof. Thos. C. Uphara. t Diogenes, the nick-name of Curtis, the gray haired hermit who served the students. TALES O^ BOWDOIN on my bedpost with a bunch of keys and g"ot off a lot of doggerel about a command from Neptune and his mermaids to wake me up. I yawned and said I would throw my boots at his stovepipe if he did not leave, which he did. Now see how well everything will turn out if you stay here." It was so good to be taken care of, to be warm, to have a hearty supper, to go to rest in so luxurious a bed as Paiseley's. Goodwin could see in the snug bedroom where the oak coals hung over the furniture the drapery of their Avarm, crimson glow. He heard the wind mildly purr and mew like a cat anxious to get in, and the noise drowsily diverted him and coaxed him down, down, down Slumber's stairs into the chambers of forgetfulness. After a while, the crimson drapery vanished from the furniture. The hot coals sobered to ashes and went out. In the yard, though, the light went on. The white moon showered its sparkling pearls on the white snow. Orion kept up the chase after Lepus all the while, and Praesepe's bees hung poised and motionless on their white wings. The winter night was so glorious in the old college yard. It was such a silent glory unless interrupted bv the vigorous singing " 'Tis the way we have at Old Bowdoin" by a party of Sophomores from a secret society meeting, or the lacka- daisical music of "Annie Laurie" from an old time Senior just going into society and at an early hour strolling home alone from a church sociable. Chapter II. — Out oe College. The cloud burst at last. As a threat it had been lying upon the horizon of American life for long years. It might be only a threat but it was not a thin mist today, to be blown away tomorrow ; it lived on. It was not always of the same 8 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN size. It might alarmingly tower one year and then would subside, but it disappeared never. "The irrepressible con- flict" was coming nearer. In i860, the cloud mounted the sky again, black with threat. "War between the North and the South is coming," said the watcher of the heavens. The cloud darkened all the sky at last, and the red bolts of war tore down through its folds and struck in every direction. Few were the homes North and South that in some way did not feel the jar of the temnest. In many households it Vv^as more than a jar. It was a shattering of the family life. Bowdoin's vsons with heroic manliness went to stand by the colors of Union and Freedom, imperiled in the fight. How little did some I used to see in the old happy college paths, imagine that there would ever be opened a path to a Memorial Hall and their consecration would be inscribed on any bronze tablets there! Among my classmates, did Edward Thurston Chapman in the quiet of his honorable student-seclusion hear the thud of that distant gunboat explosion on the James River, fatal as if sullen Stromboli had suddenly lifted its ashy furnace-door? Could John Barrett Hubbard, so manly and undaunted, have possibly caught the flash of those roaring guns at Port Hudson before which his consecration and courage would be swept away like the harvest straw before the October gust? And there was "Bob" Spearing from New Orleans. Doubtless he followed his conscience and he stood in the strife on the side of the South. When he saw the sun of college winter days crimson the morning snow, did he once think that his young blood would redden the snovv's of Fredericksburg? I turn the page here and close the chapter of personal reminiscence. It was the summer of 1863. Gettysburg was not far away, but nobody saw the tragedy. Least of all, did the 9 TAI,^S 01? BOWDOIN anticipation of it come to the farmers who looked com- placently at the corn fields of that town that would soon be torn by War's reckless plow driven in every direction. Peo- ple only knew there were movements of armies but those that listened in Pennsylvania caught not as yet the sound of a hostile footfall. It was that summer of 1863 that an officer in our army was going along a street of one of our large cities. It was a chilling morning and his rank was concealed by his army cape. He was not a person of graceful carriage, but he had a stout, sturdy build and a resolute air that com- manded respect. This was apart from his uniform that always compels attention. "What's the matter?" he said when he had passed a big brick building labeled "hospital." There was a group at a corner, looking down upon an object on the sidewalk. "Oh, what's the matter with the man?" asked the officer. "He's drunk," said a burly fellow whose red face sug- gested that he ought to know from experience. The officer pushed aside the crowd, bowed and exclaimed, "Heavens, this is Goody ! why, you poor fellow !" He lifted the head tenderly as if a mother had found a child, and then folding him close to his breast, stroked gently the white forehead and brushed aside the tresses of black hair from a face of classic beauty. "He's drunk," said a shabby but wiry fellow. "Him and me," and he nodded tow^ard the burly man, "him and me are going to take him to the station. It is the thing to do for him." "No, you don't!" growled the officer. "Drunk! He abhorred liquor in college. He never touched it, and he 10 CHUMS> AT BOWDOIN hasn't touched it since. I know all about him. This is a fever-stroke, overwork or something." "What are you goin' to do 'bout it ?" said the burly man. "Leave him be!" "You touch him, if you dare," said the officer. He looked around. "I wish I had a squad of soldiers here." "You needn't think because you are an hosafer, you can boss us. Leave him be, I say." The burly man held a dirty fist insultingly near the offi- cer's face. "Is there somebody here — " He looked around again. "I'm not a soldier, only a woman, but I b'Heve in standin' by the flag. I'll help ye." It was a woman. Her air was that of patriotism going to the battle-front, as if she would say, "V/hich one of these shall I take?" "You just hold on to himr he replied, relinquishing his burden to the woman. "Poor feller !" she murmured. "I know ye. Who'd-er thought it? There, there, keep still!" She tenderly hushed the sick man, who had begun to moan. "I'll be a mother to ye ! There, there ! Hush-sh-sh I Make b'lieve ye're down in dear old Maine among friends." The two men had laid hands upon the officer. He was getting ready for a grapple that would tax his powers. The sight of Goodwin Smith had awakened out of sleep old college memories. He saw the ropes and the rings suspended in the primitive gymnasium amid the old mur- muring pines where he could outs wing and out jump every other student. He thought of the "hold ins" when in the Sophomore arch he had tossed back every heavy Freshman XI TAI,^S O^ BOWDOIN that had dared assault it. The thrill of the old muscular excit(:ment swept through him. He laid aside his cape. "You needn't think you can draft us for the war!" said one of the objectors. "The war has no place for imps like you !" said the offi- cer, and gripping each brute by the collar he led them both to the curbstone, and flung them as if carrion out into the street. They could only mutter and stare at him in aston- ishment. Then he went back, took up Goodwin Smith and beckoning to the woman, went toward the hospital steps. "You belong in here?" he said to the woman, noticing some peculiarity of dress. She nodded her head. Together, they went up the steps. "You don't know me," she said. "You came from Bruns- wick and taught school at Crawford Centre down in Maine, and Goodwin Smith taught after you, and you boarded at Deacon Fdlerses'. You forgotten Mattie?" Forgotten! Her face had been glowing like a sweet evening star among his remembrances, but evening stars are not accessible. He had never married, but he had hoped that Goodwin and Mattie would be sensible enough to take that step. Out of the seed of separation, marriages do not grow. The two had cherished an interest in each other at one time, but they had not met for years, and no one could say whether under memory's gray ashes there might be any spark of mutual interest alive. Paiseley Gore did not tell the woman whether he remem- bered or had forgotten Mattie, but as they entered the super- intendent's office, he said, "See here! You are not 'Ann'? Bless me !" The calling of her name pleased her. "I am Ann Stevens, the hired woman at the Fellerses' I" 12 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN But the superintendent was waiting^ for a communication from Capt. Paiseley Gore, having rung- a bell for "bearers" as soon as he had caught sight of the officer and the man in his arms. Capt. Gore bowed. "This man, sir, I want you to look after. He's one of God's great princes, an old coUep-e chum. Take the best care of him and I'll foot the bill." "Oh, that will be all right." "But I want extra care of him. He has been using him- self up, studying for the ministry, working in the slums, teaching to pay his way — an old trick of a college student — and he has broken down. I happaied to be on a furlough and was going through the city and found him. My fur- lough is up tomorrow and I must get back to my regiment. You see Lee's army has broken loose and I must get to our army, but I will write you. If anything should happen to me — I have remembered him in my will. Don't forget that he is one of God's great heroes though a little fellow. I knew him in college, and a fellow that knows another fellow in college, feels tender — " "I won't forget," said the superintendent, smiling. "I've been there." "You see, he wanted to be a soldier and he couldn't pass the examination, but really he is a great man. God, when He measures big souls, doesn't go by feet and inches." "You're right," said the superintendent. A few minutes later, Ann Stevens was alone in her room. She went to the looking glass, a way she had when she wanted to tell a secret and leave it in a safe place. "Now, Ann!" she exclaimed, contemplating a rather homely but very sensible face, homeliness and good sense often being wedded in this life. She called again, "See here!" The Ann in the looking glass nodded to the Ann before it, as if 13 TAI^E^S O^ BOWDOIN to say, "Go ahead. You can trust me." "I want to tell you what is goin' on. The superintendent says I may git the nuss for the patient. Who's a better one than the gal in Maine I worked for and that I have followed to this place because she wanted to do some good for her country, hoping they would put soldiers here? That's all! Don't tell ! We'll see how it comes out." In a little while there was a woman standing over a patient's bed in a quiet room, a woman in the garb of a nurse. She bent low her sweet face, out of which shone the hope and courage of youth. "Atin says I know him," murmured Mattie, and then her eyes grew bigger and bigger, as if some fuller wave of light, of discovery, of resolution, were sweeping into her soul. She said nothing. She made no outcry, though here was one who as the teacher of the little village school, had made a change in her life. He had left an emptiness in her soul, a hunger that had never yet been satisfied. So hungry, and he was in this very room ! He was the patient that she, as the hospital nurse, must tend ! Hark, he was saying some- thing! "I hear the old pines talking." He opened wide his eyes. "They're talking. Once at Brunswick, when I went into the old cemetery back of the college, I thought I caught the sound, the roar of the sea. It was all around me. No, it was only the wind talking up in the tops of the pines. Lovely !" "Yes, yes, it's lovely," said the nurse. "Now I will try to make a noise like that and you go to sleep. I want you to be very quiet." He smiled and closed his eyes. That wandering mind, though, was not at rest yet. He spoke again: "Say, are you my sister?" 14 CHUMS AT BOWDOIN "I must humor him," she said, and replied, "Yes, yes! Now I want you to go to sleep." "Are you my wife?" "He will forget this. He's out of his head," she thought, and replied, "Yes, I am your wife. Now ^o to sleep and I will make the wind in the pines." That always hushed him, the thought of the sound that seemed to come up from the stretching shores of Harpswell Neck and old Bunganock, and breathing its music across miles of sandy plain and reaching the big stretches of pine^ growth back of the colleges, started up all the harpers and players on organs in the treetops ! What a soft, luxurious dream of melody in gentle June days, and in the winter storm what vigor, as if Neptune's band had just come to town and were playing back of the colleges ! One day, a convalescent was sitting on a balcony and the sweet-faced nurse v*^as beside him. He asked, "Have you heard from Paiseley Gore yet ?" "He — I'll tell you the news some time. He went to his regiment, you know. It was Gettysburg." "You need not tell me. He is very near me. He came to me in a dream and a beautiful smile was upon his face, and I said, Taiseley, what a look of life you have, so bright.' *Yes,' he said, 'they could not hurt me.' It's a beautiful thought that death is not less but more life, and that this fuller life is about us, God caring for us in the old tender way, but caring for us too throueh those — you know what I mean — I was thinking of Paiseley." His head drooped and his lips quivered. "I wouldn't say anything more now, for you're weak. You have many dreams, don't you? You had one about the wind in the pines, and — " 15 TAL^S OF BOWDOIN "Yes, and one day I — I must tell it — I dreamed you said you were my wife." Her's was the drooping head now. "You said it?" "Yes— but— " "Are you weak and so you can't think of it ? You won't take it back?" "N-no." THE BORROWING OF PRESIDENT CHENEY'S BUST A Phi Chi op '&y THE BORROWING OF PRESIDENT CHENEY'S BUST AT the time I entered Bowdoin, near the middle of the 6o's, the leading Greek-letter society there was, in some respects, the Phi Chi. This society, let me say for the reader who may not be familiar with collegfe organizations and nom.enclature, should not be confounded with the Phi Beta Kappa, for notwithstanding the similarity in their names, the two societies had some points of difference. In general the Phi Beta Kappas affected scholarship, or book learning, while the Phi Chis were the more aggressive, and inclined to achievements that required and developed greater originality, self-reliance and executive ability. It justified, too, its right to a Greek name rather more, it seems to me, than any other of the Greek-letter societies then at Bowdoin ; for besides having its headquarters in the attic* of Winthrop Hall, its members strenuously endeavored to/ live up to some of the practices of the ancient Spartans, if history tells the truth about them, acceding with those notable exemplars to the dogma that there are things not approved, perhaps, by theorists, which it is nevertheless justifiable to do, provided one doesn't get caught. I am not defending the doctrine, but merely recording the fact. * A friend of mine who is a profound Greek scholar from having devoted his whole life to the study of that language, informs me that the word attic is derived from Attica, and so means pertaining to Attica or Athens. He has written a lengthy monograph on this matter, which he intends to give to the public as soon as he can find a publisher who will publish it at his own risk. My friend expects to get a Ph. D. for this. 19 tai,e:s of bowdoin Stated accurately, Phi Chi life was a year of experimenta- tion with certain ethical theories; a year devoted to testing and learning morals by the laboratory method as it were. I had better perhaps say here for the information of "yag-gers," ''oudens," and older graduates, that Phi Chi was a Sophomore society founded by the illustrious class of '66, which, to use the metaphorical language of a eulogist of the day, ''placed its standard from the very beginning high up on a lofty eminence," (see unpublished speeches of Wilson of ^6y) ; whiclv being interpreted, means that its founders started the society off at a rattling pace. But it can be truthfully stated, I think, that the standard was not lowered, or the pace was not slackened, whichever, metaphor is pre- ferred, by '6y, into whose keeping it of course passed next. Yet the pranks performed by the Phi Chis of '67 were with one exception, for which a few hot heads were to blame, reasonably innocent. One of them, for example, was what I have called "the borrowing of President Cheney's bust." It was well known to several m.embers of the class of '6y that President Cheney of the then nascent college at Lewis- ton, had a fine bust of himself, a present, it was said, from one of his classes. That he should have a strong affection for the bust, therefore, seemed reasonable and right, but it was reported that he idolized it. Now if Phi Chi ever believed that she saw the index finger of dutv unmistakably pointing out the way, it would be when an opportunity was presented to remove from the land a cause for idolatry. But there were other motives that prompted to the deed I have undertaken to narrate, and one was the feeling that the bust of an eminent and intellectual man of high char- acter, with its continual inspiration to noble thoughts and honorable deeds, would be a desirable ornament for the 20 c« ac c c < c TH^ BORROWING O? PREJSIDENT CHEINEY^S BUST headquarters of the society. These quarters were not with- out souvenirs, but they had nothing in the bust line, and fed by the knowledge that this lack could be remedied, the desire to remedy it grew steadily till at leng^th three mem- bers of the society, who may be designated as Alpha the Sly, Beta, his lieutenant, and Gamma, an assistant, volunteered to form a party to procure the coveted prize. The expedition set out from Brunswick in a carriage at early candle-light. The night was dark and cloudy, and later it began to rain, dampening everything but the ardor of the adventurers. Lewiston was reached about the "wee short hour ayont the twal," and the youthful Bates College was found fast asleep. Leaving the team at a discreet dis- tance in care of Gamma, Alpha the Sly and his lieutenant manoeuvred their v^ay to the college buildings. By cutting out a pane of glass, an entrance was effected and in a space of time that was not needlessly prolonged, the bust, care- fully wrapped to keep it from injury, was on its way to the carriage. As soon as it was safely bestowed therein, the expedition faced for home in a pouring rain. When a mile or two of the return journev had been cov- ered, Alpha the Sly discovered that his pocket handkerchief was missing. The last he could remember of it was that he had it out when the pane of glass was cutting. It had his initials on it, and must be recovered quocumque dis- pendio temporis. So back they turned and found the lost article under the window by which entrance had been effected. Notwithstanding this delay, the adventurers were able by a little forcing to reach Brunswick and land the bust safely in the society's headquarters, in ample time for morn- ing chapel. That evening there was a grand convocation of Phi Chi. The bust was on exhibition, of course, and was duly 21 TALl^S 0^ BOWDOIN admired; the story of the expedition was related in full detail, and enthusiastically cheered. There was also the usual amount of atrocious punning, such as "that bates all," *'it is too bad to rob Bates College of all her Cheney-ware," and "I wonder how long it will take President Cheney to get over his bust this time." Finally all o^athered around the bust and joined in singing "Do they miss me at home, do they miss me?" after which they retired to their rooms to prepare themselves for their early morriinsf recitation in Greek. At all subsequent meetings of Phi Chi durmg the year the bust was on exhibition with other trophies, but in the mtervals, it was thought best to conceal it. There were various devices for doing this, but sometimes it was hidden in a large pile of feathers. How those feathers came there I never knew, but should surmise that for a long time after Winthrop Hall was built, all the chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese eaten by the college faculty, must have been taken up there to be plucked. As soon as the loss of the bust was discovered, President Cheney, it was reported, began vigorous efforts to recover it. His suspicions first very naturally fell on his own Soph- omores. He called them together and with tears in his eyes, charged them with the crime, and threatened to expel the whole lot of them unless the bust was returned. They on their part, with tears in their eyes, protested their inno- cence, and so, though he didn't half believe them, he for- gave them, we were told. He then came to Bowdoin and reported his loss to Presi- dent Woods, with the request that diligent search and inquiry be made to ascertain whether the lost had not found its way thither. President Woods, deeply sympathetic, though he was unable to believe that his Sophomores would 22 THE) BORROWING OF PR^SID^NT CHENEY'S BUST do such a deed, made the investigation as requested, but without avail. He was furthermore able to prove an alibi for Bowdoin on the ground that on the evening before and the morning after the bust was taken, every member of the class of '67 was present at chapel except one who was proven, however, to have spent the entire night in his bed at his home in Bath. It was reported that President Cheney made the same request at Waterville and Dartmouth and, indeed, at all the New England colleges, and theological seminaries, and other institutions where he thought that by any possibility the bust might turn up, but the search of course was fruit- less. But meanwhile the Sophomore year of 'd^j began to draw to its close, when Phi Chi with all its opportunities and responsibilities must be transferred to '68. I will restrain myself from all sentimentality over this farewell to prank and frolic, and I only allude to it, to say that as the day for it approached, the question, what to do with the bust, became a matter of considerable deliberation. It was not thought best to leave it to the Phi Chis of '68, partly for fear they would not take as reverent care of it as it deserved, but chiefly because there appeared to be no secure way of concealing it. In the annual change and repairing that took place in the summer vacation, it would be safe in no stu- dent's room unless he staid to watch it, and as for the attic of Winthrop Hall, — well, there was no certainty that the President, or Prof. Packard, or even Prof. Upham might not take it into his head to climb up there, since there would be no students around to catch them at it. They were not considered by Phi Chi as trustworthy. But even if they refrained, it was more than probable that the college carpen- 23 TAI,^S OF BOWDOIN ter would come prowling around. He had found things up there before, and might try it again. A good many suggestions were made as to the disposal of the bust, but none of them seemed worthy. It may be asked why it was not sent back to President Cheney. Well, I can best explain why by relating the story of the Kentucky colonel who reported to his friends one morning that a won- derful feat of legerdemain had been performed at his club the evening before, by a guest from Vermont, '*We put a glass of water in his hand," explained the colonel, "and covered him over with a blanket; when at the end of two or three minutes we took the blanket off, the glass was empty, but we couldn't find a sign of water on his clothing, or on the blanket, or anywhere about. Now, what did he do with it ?" At last some one suggested that perhaps he drank it. "By George !" exclaimed the colonel slapping his thigh, "none of us ever thought of that." But at last a plan was hit upon that met with general approval ; it v^^as to send the bust to Barnum, who was then fitting up his second museum in New York city, his first having been burned a short time previously. The bust was accordingly packed carefully in a strong box to keep it from all injury, and properly marked with its destination and "to be handled with care." As it was seen that it would hardly do to ship the package by express from Brunswick, it was taken to Portland by private conveyance and sent from there, the expressage to be paid by the receiver. Then for a time all knowledge of the bust was lost. Whether indeed it reached its destination in safety could only be guessed, because for obvious reasons no receipt had been asked for. It did, however, as was afterwards learned, reach Barnum's safely, but as none of his people knew whom it represented, 24 the: borrowing o^ pr^sidejnt chejney's bust or who had sent it, it was placed on a shelf among other curiosities. It came about perchance a few years later that a son of President Cheney found himself in New York with a little leisure on his hands, and decided to "take in Barnum's." As he strayed from ward to ward, looking at the various curios and phenomena, behold the lost bust of his father, marked "Sophocles," and claiming- to have been made from a death mask of that worthy by an eminent artist, and obtained by the "Great Showman" at a cost of $25,000. Young Cheney, as you may surmise, lost no time in reporting the discovery to his father, and also in bringing the matter to the attention of Barnum. As the bust was neither a freak nor a fraud, Barnum was willing to part with it, and thus at length the lost found its way back into the possession of its owner; and I may add in conclusion, that none were more pleased over the final outcome than the ex-members of Phi Chi of the class of '67. A TALE OF TWO FRESHMEN Henry Smith Chapman, '91 H TALE or TWO PRCSHHCN WHEN Dexter Morgan first appeared on the campus, there was much felicitation in athletic circles. Johnny Moore, the captain of the foot-ball team had seen him at the station, and remarked to a companion, with an enthusiasm rarely displayed by a public character weighed down by such momentous responsibilities, that there was one Fresh- man a* least who seemed to have been put together with special reference to the game of foot-ball. Kip White, moreover, who held a similar position of authority in the track-team, observing the stranger from the window of his room, where he lounged in the lazy autumn sunshine, was moved to declare him the most hopeful raw material he had seen since he first wore running-breeches. "He looks as if he could do anything from the hundred yards to the hammer-throw, and do 'em all equally well," was the flattering sum of his critical judgment. The young Freshman certainly offered very unusual physical recommendations. His frame was at once sturdy and supple, his breadth of chest and length of limb were equally admirable, while a certain grace and pliability of movement showed the perfect balance of his strength. A well-featured fellow he was, too, with a straightforward eye, and a mouth which clearly bespoke firmness and will power. When it was learned that beside all this, he was the son of Col. Morgan whom everyone knew as one of the ablest law- 29 tai,e:s o^ bowdoin yers in New York, and therefore in the country ; a faithful alumnus, moreover, and a trustee of the college, it needed no occult power of divination to fortell his early eminence in his class. But somehow things failed to turn out according to expectation, and in proportion as Dexter's rise in the esti- mation of his college-mates had been swift, so was his fall headlong. The first shock was administered to Johnny Moore who hurried around to Morgan's room in South Maine as soon as he could find a few moments to spare from his arduous duties with the awkward squad on Whittier Field. He was cordial almost to the point of condescension, but Morga^ who might better have appreciated the captain's friendly intentions, if he had ever seen the haughty manner in which he ordered other Freshmen into canvas jackets and moleskins, froze him with distant politeness. He was very glad to be honored by a call from Mr. Moore; the courtesy was appreciated, but he was sorry it wouldn't be possible for him to oblige Mr. Moore by join- ing the foot-ball squad. He didn't care to play. Johnny was not used to this sort of talk from a Freshman, and still less prepared for the air of cool self-possession with which it was accompanied. He stared incredulously at Dexter, and asked him if he didn't know the eame, "because if you don't," he added, patronizing once more, "you ought to, with such a build as yours." Mr. Morgan, it appeared, had had some experience with the game in preparatory school, but didn't care to pursue it further. No, his parents had no objection that he knew of, to the game, but he thought he would better keep out of it, and he imperturbably bowed the astonished captain out at the door. Johnny did not surrender so easily, however, for he could not think with patience of so much rare strength 30 A taivE; 0^ TWO frkshme:n and agility going, as it were, to waste, but though he bom- barded the inexplicable boy with arguments until he fairly lost his own temper, he failed to move the quiet and polite determination with which Dexter held him off. Of course the big Freshman fell irretrievably in the opin- ion of most, when this state of affairs became known. He followed it up by declining with the same air of indifference, the invitation to organize his own class team, and even remained away from the class-meetings whereat the new- comers became better acquainted with one another, and dis- cussed the plan of campaign to be directed against the arrogant Sophomores. As a crowning piece of indiscretion, he snubbed the upper-classmen who came to dangle fraternity badges before him. His own father had belonged to a society long since defunct so far as Bowdoin was concerned, and he was there- fore "fair game." Half a dozen invitations to fraternity chapter-houses and dining-clubs were extended to him; almost any society would have pledged him willingly, but he was shy. Every invitation was declined with cool courtesy, and he made it no secret that he did not propose to become a fraternity man. Thus from being in a fair wav to become a college hero, Dexter Morgan became first a college mystery and then an object of general suspicion and reproach. He never failed to be polite, and could not fairly be charged with freshness or sullenness. He merely held everyone at arm's length and neither had nor wanted intimates. He roomed alone and was never known to call on any of his classmates. In the class-room he did well enough and when he was not study- ing or reading he was most likely to be ranging alone over the country about Brunswick, gaining by long hard walks the exercise his vigorous body required. It was not unusual 31 TALI^S O^ BOWDOIN for him to cover fifteen miles in an afternoon, and before many weeks had passed there was hardly a picturesque fringe of the rugged shore of the bay, or a sparkling reach of the broad river which he did not know as well as if he had lived in the old town all his life. His class-mate Charley Marryat was the only one who seemed able to establish any relations whatever with him. Charley did not come to college that fall until late in Octo- ber, — there was some trouble or other with his eyes, — and by the time he arrived every room in the dormitories was taken. But he brought with him a letter from his father, an obscure minister in some little town up the State, but who had been a class-mate and friend of the great Col. Morgan. His letter was addressed to Dexter Morgan, who when he had read it hastened to ask its anxious bearer to share his rooms with him, an offer which was gratefully accepted. Perhaps Charley's appearance had as much to do with the matter as the contents of the letter, for Dexter was a soft- hearted fellow in spite of his dignity, and no one could look at Charley without feeling a little sorry for him. He was a frail, almost puny little fellow, with pale straw-colored hair and large china-blue eyes. With this ensemble went an appropriately timid, appealing manner, which was not exactly sapless either. It simply called your attention to his extreme youth and delicate health, and without com- plaining about them at all, nevertheless urged you to do whatever you could to make things easier for him. So Charley moved an old second-hand desk, a couple of chairs and some other necessaries into Morgan's room, which was already furnished about to its limit with the nicest things that good taste could select and abundant money could buy. He also erected a shrine to his big room- 32 A TALE OP TWO FRESHMEN mate in the recesses of his heart and worshipped him there as few men have the fortune to be worshipped by one of their kind. It was not strang-e that this should be so, for Dexter had every advantage which the other lacked, and combined with them a kindliness and gentleness of manner toward his new friend which would alone have won Charley's susceptible heart. Their's was the attraction of opposite natures, v/hich, when it really manifests itself, is more powerfully magnetic than any other. It was a welcome change for Dexter, to have someone with whom he must live in relations of the closest intimacy. He was neither reserved nor sulky by nature, and though by his deliberate choice he had cut himself off from the companionship of his college-mates, he had already begun to find the life of a solitary decidedly irksome. But though Charley, in his affection and admiration for his new friend, set himself at once both to find out the cause of his unaccountable behavior and to induce him to alter it, he made little headway. Dexter was willing to be as cheerful and companionable as possible with him, but he was not to be allured from his lofty attitude toward everyone else. It was not merely a disappointment, but a grief to Charley that this was so. He could not bear that his room-mate should be anything else than the leader he was bom to be, the conspicuous figure first of his class, and then of the whole college. It worried him to hear Dexter called stiff, and proud, and conceited and priggish, when he knew what a charming fellow he could be when he chose, and it hurt him that Dexter would not give him his confidence and explain conduct so incomprehensible. But through it all he was loyal and against the all but unanimous verdict of practical ostracism which the college democracy passed B 33 TALES OF BOWDOIN against his friend, his shrill voice was raised in unending protest. The snow came late that winter, and all through Decem- ber Dexter Morgan found it possible to take the long, hard walks from which he drew so much solace. Now and then the faithful Charley, if he felt more energetic than common, accompanied him, though both pace and distance had to be modified to suit his strength. One bright Saturday, near the close of the term, the two boys made a joint expedition to the old shipyard on the road to Harpswell. The yard, once as busy as any along the New England coast, in the days of wood and canvas, when the Yankee clipper-ships were mistresses of the sea, was deserted now, though the last vessel had left the stocks only a few years before. The road which led in from the four-barred gate, over the hill and under the pine trees to the water side, was overgrown with grass, the shops and sheds were rotting in idleness, the ground where once great ships had proudly risen was littered with decaying timbers, and the odds and ends of iron and rope which the workmen had not thought it worth while to take away. On the slope of the hill overlooking these ruins of a once great industry, and giving prospect of the waters of the Cove, and the rocky shores and evergreen heights of Prince's Point opposite them, the boys sat down to drink in the picturesque beauty of the scene. The tide — fortunately — was full, and the steel-blue water sparkled frostily in the bright sunlight, with the cold brilliance of a northern sea in winter. "Br-r-r! It makes my teeth chatter to look at it," said Dexter, burlesquing a shiver as he spoke. "Doesn't it look icy. Kid?" Charley agreed absently. He was nerving himself to speak more openly to his friend than he had yet dared, and 34 A tale: of two i^reshmen hardly knew to what he was assenting. At last he found his courage and spoke: "Dexter, will yovi mind it, if I ask you to tell me why you wouldn't try for the team this fall ? You know as well as I do that you could have made it, and what's more you knew they needed you. They wouldn't have lost the Amherst game and come so confoundedly near dropping to Bates, with you at tackle in place of that mark, Weeks." Dexter did not answer at once, and Charley watched him anxiously. "There isn't any reason which would have kept you out of the game if you had been in my place, is there, Kid?'' he said at length. "Of course there isn't. I wouldn't see Bowdoin put out anything but the best in any line, if it lay with me to help it," replied Marryat, flushing indignantly. "Ah! that's the difference, you see," said Morgan. "I haven't gotten to feel that way yet. I doubt if I ever do. We don't look at things the same way, Kid." Charley regarded him hopelessly. "You don't need to tell me that," he said. "What I want you to do is to tell me your point of view. You understand mine well enough, but I can't make yours out. The fellows say you are — well, I won't say what — but I know better. There's something back of it all, and 1 wish you'd tell me what it is. Why wouldn't you join any of the fraternities either? Oh, you see I'm going to have it out with you now I've begun. You'll feel better for telling me, anyway, old man. It's worth while giving your confidence to somebody." There was another pause when Charley stopped speaking, as though the other were considering whether it was best, after all, to be equally frank. But in reality Dexter was glad of the chance to speak what was in his mind. His 35 TALES OP BOWDOIN hesitation was more the effect of his fear that if he spoke he would inevitably fall in the esrtiimation of the only friend he had in college — he who had always had so many friends and admirers. "You won't think any the more of me if I tell you," he said finally ; "but I'll do it all the same. The fact is I never wanted to come here anyway. All my friends in New York and most of the fellows I knew at school have ^one to Yale, and I wanted to go with them. Father insisted on my coming to Bowdoin. I came, of course, but I've never pre- tended to be glad I came. What's the use? If I could make the Yale team now, it would be worth while, but I don't care the snap of my finger for foot-ball here. What does it amount to anyway ? There's no name to be made in games with a lot of small college teams — no one hears of you up here. And I've no call to work myself half to death for a college I didn't want to go to, and don't want to stay in. I can see you're looking sour. Kid, but I'm telling you my point of view. You don't like it, but you asked for it." "I'm not looking sour. Dexter, and I'm ever so much obliged to you for speaking. It's hard for me to under- stand, you know, for I've been brought up all my life to look forward to coming to Bowdoin, till I've come to think it about the best luck a man can have, to be here. I didn't realize how you felt. I never heard you speak of Yale." "No, you haven't. Why should I? It wouldn't help things to growl over them in public." "I'm sorry, old man." Charley's voice was very sympa- thetic; he had a genius for sympathy. "I wish you could get around to my point of view — or else I wish we could change ours about. You could do so much for the college if you had mine, and I couldn't do any less for it if I had yours." 36 A TALK OF TWO FRESHMEN Dexter's answer was gruff in tone, but kindly in under- tone. "Shut up, Kid!" he said. "Don't talk nonsense. You will do more for anything you're fond of than I could with all my muscle. You've got things that count for more than all the athletic records a man can make. You've got brains for one thing, and common sense, and a bit of honest sentiment, and, by George, .1 think sometimes I haven't a particle of any of them. But I'm made the way I'm made,' as the old darkey said, and 'it look like it'll take a mighty outpourin' of grace to save me.' " Charley smiled merrily. "No one can say you're not modest as to your own merits," he said. "You'll come around in time, old man. You've been disappointed, but you'll find the old college a pretty good place after all. Your father loves it, and so does mine, and what is good enough for them can't be much beneath their sons." "I'm an obstinate brute though, Charley," returned Dex- ter, "and when I'm started in one direction, it's awfully hard to make me change my course. So far I've done the best I could to spoil my course here, and I guess I've made a pretty thorough job of it. The fellows have me sized up pretty well — and mind you, I don't say I'm sorry either. I can rub along all right if it's my luck to stay, and if I can induce the Colonel to relent next year, why, I shan't regret having stuck it out the way I began. There's one thing I won't do, and that is — pretend. I didn't want to come here, and I don't want to stay." "I shan't give you up, though," returned Charley, rising to his feet. "You're just the sort of fellow who will be at home at Bowdoin, when you're ready to look at things more reasonably, and all you've got to do is to be your real self to bring the whole push around to you, whenever you'd rather have them friends than enemies. You're on the 37 TALES OF BOWDOIN wrong track now, and down at the bottom of your heart vou know it. You're getting to Hke the old college, in spite of yourself, and you do not mean half you say. By spring you won't mean any of it and then you'll stop saying it. There's some missionary work to be done with you, my boy, and I'm appointed to do it. Now let's go home. It's cold sitting here." II The winter passed at last, as all Maine winters do if one only has patience with them, and Charley was still at his missionary work. Dexter yielded slowly, indeed at times it seemed that he had not yielded at all. and fits of dis- couragement often depressed the spirits of his ardent little friend. He did come to know some of his class-mates better, however. They came to see Charley, and Dexter, who was only a big boy, in spite of his stubbornness, could not help laughing and joking with them, and so getting to like them. But though he made in this way a few personal friends, who one by one came to admire him almost as much as Charley did, he stood as much aloof from the col- lege at large as ever, and displayed no sort of interest in any of the student activities of the institution. His long walks had at length to be given up, for the snow made them more laborious than enjoyable, and Dexter's abundant energy next turned itself upon gymnasium work. He spent no less than two hours a day in the building performing with enthusiasm what most of the college endured as drudgery, and finishing his daily employment of every appliance on the floor with a run of several miles around the gallery-track. At which sight the track-men groaned, for it was evident that this contrary, inexplicable 38 A TALE 01' TWO FRESHMEN Freshman was by long odds the best distance man in col- lege — and he would not consent to train. When the first chill days of Spring came round, the roads being still so deep in slush and mud that tramping was out of the question, the cinder-track on Whittier field offered good footing and fresher air than was to be found under the gymnasium roof. So it was there he took his exercise, a stiff three-mile run at the close of every afternoon — rain or shine. And at sight of his swinging, tireless pace the track-men gnashed their teeth afresh and declared that the sulky Freshman ought to be hazed till he knew his place and saw his duty. Perhaps he should have been, but no one cared to undertake the task. Charley Marryat's methods were more likely to prove effective with Dexter Morgan's kind of stubbornness. Charley was really producing his effect ; for Dexter was already heartily ashamed of his peevishness. He found the fellows he knew companionable and manly, and those who cut him on the street (of whom there were a few) had, as he admitted to himself, what he should consider ample justi- fication. He was sometimes surprised that he had not been sent to Coventry long ago by the united action of the fel- lows. Little by little, too, he began to recognize the atmos- phere of the college, and to like it, and to understand why his father loved it, and why his classmates loved it too. The spirit of the place, as well as the admonitions of Charley Marryat, was beginning to work within him, and though he knew himself to be outside the hearty and whole- some life of the college, he felt that he was being drawn into it even against his will, as a strong swimmer is drawn into the vortex of a whirlpool. Gradually, through Charley, his circle of acquaintances was widening. Gradually he was getting to know the fellows he met, better, and as the 39 TALES OF BOWDOIN barrier of suspicion and reserve between them was broken down, he found in them fresh sources of contap^ion from which the infectious Bowdoin spirit might be caught. All this he would hardly admit even to himself, but when he found himself unconsciously humming "Phi Chi" as he rubbed down in the gymnasium after his daily run, he could not deny that he was failing to maintain his pose of indiffer- ence with entire success. Of course he still wanted to go to Yale — there was no doubt about that, but he was beginning to understand how he might be very happy, at Bowdoin — if he had started in right, and how he might in time grow really fond of the college. He was in one of these "melting" moods, when Kip White, already introduced to the reader, appeared at his room to make a last appeal in behalf of the track team. Kip was a tall, rangy youth, with hair which blazed aggres- sively, and eyes which snapped when they did not twinkle. "The Worcester meet is only three weeks off, Morgan," he began pathetically, "and Vx^e've got a team which will give a good account of itself from top to bottom. Jack Stillings is good for a place in the dashes — perhaps for a win. Stump Grattan and myself will attend to the hurdles and the long jump. There's Forster and Bemis in the weights, Berny Sweeney in the pole vault, and Phip Douglass and Skinner Jones in the middle distance. But we haven't a single good long distance man. I don't know what else you can do, but I know you can run the mile and the two-mile in pretty near record time. I held a watch on you the other day, from behind the stand — you won't mind, will you? — and with you to hold up our end there, we'll have the best- rounded team the college has ever had. If you won't we'll have to depend on Dietrich, and he can't get even a third, 40 A TALE 01^ TWO FRESHMEN unless everybody else sprains an ankle goin^ the first lap. What do you say ?" Dexter was very near to saying **Yes" at once. It seemed; a lucky chance that he should have so apt an opportunity ta purge himself of sullenness and indifference without having to make the first advances himself. But a stubborn spirit still possessed him. He would not give in too easily. ''You give my running more credit than it deserves," he said. ''I only run for exercise." ''Whatever you run for, you can beat any man in college at a distance," asserted Kip. "I think you're sure of points at Worcester, too. At any rate you ought to try, for the sake of the college." Dexter smiled a little bitterly, but he only said : "I haven't been training properly, you know. I was smoking when you knocked on the door, and I haven't followed training rules of diet by a good deal." "There's time enough for that yet," argued Kip. "Your condition is near perfect anyhow, and a couple of weeks' good training will put you right on edge. And even with- out strict training you can run. I've seen you." While the two were talking Charley Marryat had been listening nervously, his eyes fixed on his room-mate. Now he broke in eagerly : '"Say you'll do it, Dex ! It's a chance I'd give a farm for ! Do it like a good fellow, won't you ?" Dexter did not answer at once, and when he did he spoke hesitatingly. "I can't answer tonight. White," he said. I really don't want to, you know. It means work and bother and the end doesn't count for much with me, I'll admit. But perhaps I shall com.e around to it." White's, eyes snapped Avamingly, for the Freshman's coolness annoyed him. 41 TALES OF BOWDOIN "The boys all said you wouldn't do it," he said, getting up. "But I told them 3^ou would if it was put before you right. You think it over. It means more to you, as I look at it, than it does to the team." It wasn't a fortunate thing to say, for it pricked Dexter's obstinacy awake again. He said nothing but, "All right, I'll think it over ;" but to himself he grumbled, "If he thinks he can work me that way, he's mistaken. ' If I do run, it won't be because I want him and his crowd to jolly me along. I can get along all right without them, I guess." As White left the room Charley got up and followed him into the hall. "Kip," he said, "when the entries go in — you enter Mor- gan for the mi)e and the two-mile. Never mind what he says beforehand. It won't do any harm, and I think I can get him to run, if you'll let me manage it." "All right. I'll enter him," replied the track-captain. **But he might as well understand that if he stays out of this, there'll be no notice taken of him in the future. He can do the college a good turn now, and if he won't, why, we don't have to get down on our knees to any self-important, con- ceited prig of a Freshman, whether he's the son of Colonel Morgan of New York or of the President of the United States !" Kip spoke with some asperity, and he did not realize that his voice, somewhat shrill by nature, rose in pitch as he spoke. The door was closed, to be sure, but his final words pierced it. Not wholly intellig:ible when they reached Dexter's ears, they still conveyed their sense and froze his uncertain purpose into determination. He would see Kip White elsewhere before he'd run for his team. He had cooled of? by morning, but the decision he had reached had become inflexible in the process. Charley 42 A tale: of two freshmen found it harder than ever to move him, thougfh he could not discover why it was so. '*Dex, old man," he said finally, as near losing: his patience as it was possible for him to come, "I don't like to put it on this ground, but I wish you'd do it for me. You know how much I want to do something for the old collegfe, now, while I'm here. Perhaps because it's the thing I can do least of all I feel especially so about athletics. Of course there's nothing I can possibly do myself, but if I could per- suade you to run at Worcester, it would lead to so much else, and I should feel that I had done a real service, both to you and to the college. Why won't you, old rnan ?" "Well, well, Kid, perhaps I will," responded Dexter snappishly. "You'll nag me to it, if there's no otTier way, I suppose." At which unkind remark, poor Charley, who had the sensitive man's fear of making himself a bore, flushed and was silent. It was only a few days after this that Charley came in from recitation to find his room-mate hastilv throwing his things into an open suit-case. He looked pale and anxious, and his smile as he looked up was a haggard affair. "Your good counsel is all for naught. Kid," he said, nodding toward an opened telegram lying on the center table. "The Worcester meet will have to go on without me this spring. The Colonel's sick — something sudden and serious, they tell me and perhaps I shan't ever come back again." He spoke with laborious self-command, but there were tears in his eyes. He loved his father dearlv and just now he was thinking how little he had done to make the last few months happy for him. Charley, with a sympathy subtle beyond his years, understood him, and silently pressed his hand. Almost without words, they parted at the station; 43 tale:s of bowdoin but they had never been so close to one another as they were then. The college heard of Dexter's departure without emotion. The track-men lamented the final disappointment of the hopes they had entertained of him, but otherwise no one seemed much concerned about him. There were a few per- functory words of regret and that was all. Never before had Charley realized how completely his friend's conduct had alienated the ready sympathy of all except himself. Ill The day of the Worcester meet that year was as nearly perfect as a day in May can be — which means a good deal. The pretty oval was flooded in sunshine, and the fresh, cool green of grass and trees formed a rich setting for a 'scene of life and color which glovv^ed and shifted in fascinating com- plexity. The stand was full to overflowing and the bright spring gowns and blossoming hats of the oretty girls who had flocked to watch and applaud their brothers and friends — or more than friends — gave it the various hues of a huge but incoherent kaleidescope. A romantic glamour surrounds those great athletic meets of antiquity — the Olympic games. But after all, what tame affairs they must have been, since no women were allowed to witness them ! Whether the ancient records are beaten now-a-days or not, no one can say, and no one much cares. But what a pity the old Greek champions could not have had the supreme pleasure of winning their victories in the very sight of the girls for whose good opinion they cared as much, no doubt, as do their modern successors ! 44 A TALE OF TWO FRESHMEN Among the soberer groups of dark-clothed youths who thronged the track and field, shone an occasional white-clad athlete, while on every hand, in knots and flags and streamers, waved and floated the colors of the rival colleges ; the dark green of Dartmouth, the rich purples of Amherst and of Williams, the sober brown of the Rhode Island college, the steel gray and cardinal of Tech, the gleaming v/hite of Bowdoin. One young fellow who sat far back in the stand, an inconspicuous knot of white in his buttonhole, watched it all with a strange blending of enjoyment and unhappiness. It was Dexter Morgan, who, on his way back to Brunswick, found himself entirely unable to resist the temptation to leave his train at Worcester and follow the crowds out from the city to the oval. It was perhaps the instinct of the born athlete, who never willingly misses a public contest in the sports he loves, though there was at bottom another reason, too, a newborn interest in his own college and its team. He had found his father very ill, but not, as he had feared, dying. He had waited until the doctors declared him well on the road to recovery and had a few serious talks with him as he sat by the bedside. What passed between them Dexter never told. Whatever it was, it was the final influence in the process of effecting a good and permanent amendment in his disposition. Now as he sat by himself in the stand, he wished heartily that he might be down there with the rest, wearing his "Bowdoin" proudly across his bosom, and ready to do what he could for the honor of his college. The snap of the referee's pistol as the hundred-yard trials began, broke in upon his revery, and he found himself suddenly upon his feet, watching long- legged Jack Stillings romp away from his field, and shout- 45 TALES OF BOWDOIN ing lustily as he breasted the tape five yards in the lead. A few moments later he was cheering Kip White, whose ruddy shock of hair rose and fell as hurdle after hurdle was cleared, and finally, though hard pushed in the flat by a big Williams runner, flashed by the judges in first place. '* Skinner'' Jones he saw draw a second in the quarter-mile, and Stump Grattan in spite of his short legs attained a simi- lar distinction in the low hurdles. Over in the field he could see Bemis and Forster hurling the discus with encouraging strenuousness, while the staccato yell of a small but earnest band of Bowdoin rooters further down the stand set his blood to tingling with the thrill of the occasion. He could not sit still, and paced up and down at the back of the stand, eager to join the other wearers of the white, but not sufficiently sure of the reception which would be accorded him to make the venture. On every hand he could hear surpnsed comments on the strength of the team the Maine college had sent out and confident predictions that the race would lie between Bowdoin, Dartmouth and Brown. Then he had to watch the mile run drag its slow length along, the single Bowdoin entry, poor old Dietrich, falling further and further behind at every stride. "Oh, why don't you run! run! you lobster!" he growled to himself. "Put your head back and climb! Confound him ! he's stopping! My soul, what an exhibition !" and he clenched his fists in fierce indignation. He heard a man wearing the green laugh sarcastically. "They don't train 'stayers' up in Maine," he was saying to a pretty girl who sat beside him. "They'll never beat us out without a point or two in the distance events. Look at Symmes spurt! There's five more points for old Da-di-di-Dartmouth ! Wow !" 46 A TALE OF TWO FRESHMEN Suddenly as he listened, irritated unreasonably by the man's enthusiasm, Dexter was struck by a bold idea. To think was generally to act with him, and a few moments later he was pushing his wa}^ across the track and through the crowd to Kip White's side. The captain was watching the pole vaulting, and coaching Berny Sweeney, who was struggling for third place with two other unfortunates, red in the face with the violence of his efforts at levitation. Dexter touched him on the arm. "Hullo, Morgan," was White's cool greeting. "Where are you from?" Dexter did not think the obvious answer needed to be made. He plunged at once into more important matters. "What's the outlook?" he inquired. White looked at him with some surprise. "Well, we've got a fighting chance," he said. "We've gfot seventeen points sure, and a few more to come. — Now, Berny, don't try to jump it. 1 his is no high jump. Keep cool and push like hell with your arms. Don't get rattled. You've got that Amherst man winded now. You can last him out. Every point counts, you know." Then turning again to Morgan he went on : "You saw 'em run old Dutchy off his feet, I suppose? Well, we haven't anything else up our sleeve. Bemis will collect a point or perhaps three in the shot, and Berny here will get a third, I think, but I can't figure out more than twenty-three anyhow. Dartmouth will do twenty-five anyway, arrd so will Brown — perhaps more. We're still in the ring, but I guess about third will have to do us." "Have you got some running clothes at the dressing rooms that I could wear?" asked Dexter quietly. "We'll have to be quick about it, I suppose ; the two-mile will be on before very long." 47 TALES OF BOWDOIN White wheeled sharply and looked the Freshman straight in the face. "Morgan," he said, "if you pull us out of this, we'll never forget it." When the entries for the two-mile run lined up before the stand, the afternoon sun was hanging low, but the excitement of the day was at its height. Bowdoin had twenty-two points, Dartmouth and Brown each twenty- three. Nothing else except the high jumping remained unfinished, and that, as it happened, could not seriously affect the standing of the leaders. The two-mile run must decide the result, and the event was held to lie between Symmes who had gallantly won the one-mile for Dart- mouth, and W^allis of Brown. The new runner in Bow- doin's colors attracted the attention of expert observers by his splendid build, but he was only an inexperienced Freshman and could not be expected to do better than third. Bowdoin's supporters, already hoarse with vocif- •erous endeavors, were moreover stricken dumb with sur- prise at the sight of Morgan the irreconcilable, actually there on the track, ready to run for his college. While they debated whether or not their organs of vision were to be relied on, the pistol cracked and the race beg^an without a single cheer for their representative. Only In his ear resounded White's whispered words: "Go in and win, old man. You can do it. We won't forget this." For seven of the eight laps the race as usual lacked every element of dramatic effectiveness. The pace-makers capered out in front and ran themselves into exhaustion without disturbing the serenity of the real contestants ; the young Freshman from Bowdoin, was not as they had hoped, even momentarily flighty. He stuck doggedly to Wallis's heels, for he felt that this was the man to watch. Symmes 48 A TALK O? TWO FRESHMEN had already run a bruising race, and was not fresh. As the gong rang at the commencement of the final lap the pent-up excitement broke loose in cheers and yells, and among them Dexter heard a snappy "B-o-w-d-o-i-n," and then in a clam- orous shout his own name. — "Morgan !" His pulse quick- ened instinctively. And now Symmes and Wallis moved out away from the other rumiers who had laboriously kept within a dozen yards or so of them — but close behind them, not to be dis- lodged, was Morgan. He was surprised to find how easily he ran : the training he had had was so irreg^ular and insuffi- cient that he had feared a collapse. But he was not in the slightest distress. He had been running greater distances than two miles all the winter and all the spring, and was well within himself. Symmes was spurting now, trying in vain to draw away from his two pursuing shadows. Dexter could see his elbows laboring with the stimulated pace. But the gap did not widen. On the contrary Wallis and Morgan closed up steadily. Symmes had shot his bolt. His spurt had been made too early, and he lacked the stamina to pro- long it. Dexter wondered dimly as he ran what the man whose contemptuous laughter at poor Dietrich's expense had so exasperated him, thought about "stayers" now. Round the back stretch they went, the confused shouts of the crowd remote in a seemingly infinite distance. Now they were passing Symmes, who was done for, but strug- gled gamely on, and Wallis in turn was trying by a burst of speed to shake off his only dangerous competitor. It was not to be done. Dexter was breathing hard, his head, over- charged with blood, spun dizzily, his legs seemed moving in erratic defiance of his will, but he had not lost an inch. Round the turn into the home stretch thev swung — they two, — with the championship hanging on the issue. c 49 TALES O? BOWDOIN Dexter had run more than one hard race in his school- days, but never such a race as this. The sprint had been continuous for nearly a quarter of a mile and with his irregular training he felt the strain badly. His lungs seemed bursting; it hurt to draw each panting breath. Things blurred before him, his blood hammered thunder- ously in his ears. He felt that he was exhausted, that he must give up, and yet so long as that other bobbing automa- ton a yard in front of him kept on running, so must he. Suddenly, as if by some trick, he found himself side by side with Wallis, who had swerved toward the rail. Again a few strides, and he could only see his rival out of the tail of his eye. He could not understand at first. It seemed too much to believe that the other had weakened, that he himself was actually winning. Before he could settle the thing in his puzzled brain, he was aware of a dim blur of shouting people on either side of the track, and straight ahead among a group who faced him he saw a tall youth with bright red hair who leaped up and down, and waved his arms in the air. Then across his chest he felt the soft, yielding pressure of the tape, and stumbling blindly on, he lay at last closely enfolded in Kip White's embrace, while around them danced a score of demented young gentlemen, who howled without intermission a refrain which seemed to consist of a selected portion of the alphabet, varied by something which sounded very much like his own name. It was an ag^reeable occa- sion, he felt, though he would have appreciated it more if he had not been so tired. "Kip," he said between long breaths, as they led him, still the. center of the bounding group, to the dressing room, "IVe been several sorts of a fool this winter. Do you think the fellows will forget it, and give me a fresh start ?" 50 A TAI.^ 0? TWO ]?RESHMKN "Don't you worry, Colonel," replied White, knighting him, as it were, upon the field of victory, with the intimate name he was to bear among his college fellowship ; " YouVe earned the right to be any kind of a fool you like." IV On Monday evening, a great bonfire roared gloriously before King Chapel, its flickering blaze throwing the mas- sive granite front and the graceful twin spires in golden relief against the sombre darkness of the sky. Upon the steps of the historic building stood the victorious team, self- conscious and embarrassed by their conspicuous position, while all the college sang and danced and shouted in their honor. Moreover, that the tribute of noise might never slacken, a band hired for the occasion executed martial music with more spirit than harmony, in the background. Least demonstrative, yet perhaps most joyful of all, was Charley Man-yat, who had been going about in a daze of incredulous bliss since the news of Morgan's share in the great result had come. The limit of his capacity for sheer ecstasy of happiness was reached when his idolized friend was called on for a speech amidst the frenzied acclamations of the fellows, who but a few days before would have had but the coldest of nods for him had they met on street or campus. Dexter was pale with excitement and fatigue, but his fine presence and dignified manner, inheritances from his distin- guished father, made him in spite of his youth and embar- rassment, a genuinely commanding figure. "I have done nothing to call for this honor." he said when the cheers at last had died away. "You all know how fool- 51 TAI.SS 0]? BOWDOIN ishly I have behaved since I came to collegfe. I'm glad if I have been able to do anything which may help to repair the mistakes I have made, and testify to my present love for old Bowdoin. Henceforth, if it lies in me, I am going to be as good a Bowdoin man as any of you. Some of the boys have complimented me by saying the race I was fortunate enough to win brought the championship to Bowdoin. If it did. I want to tell you that it's not me vou have to thank, but the man who showed me what the college was, and what I owed to it. If it hadn't been for him. there wouldn't have been any Bowdoin man in the two-mile event, and per- haps, therefore, there wouldn't have been anv championship to celebrate tonight. You all know who I mean, I think, — Charley Marryat." There was another roaring cheer, for Morgan and Mar- ryat together this time, and here through the crowd came a band of dishevelled Freshmen bearing on unsteady shoul- ders, Charley's feebly struggling form. Up to the steps they staggered, and there in the midst of the heroes of the day they deposited him — a blushing, boyish little figure, who could not yet make out what it was all about. But Dexter Morgan's big, friendly hand reached out of the con- fusing half-darkness and drew him close, while amidst the tumult of the shouting men and the blaring- band he heard Dexter's voice in his ear: "There, Kid, are you satisfied now? Don't ever let me hear you say you can't do anything for the college, for you've brought the championship to Bowdoin." ST. SIMEON STYLITES Kenneth C. M. Sills, 'oi ST. SIMEON STYUTES ^^7T LL ready, fellows ! Remember I'll say one, two, three, r\ forward! Start on the left. Left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Keep in step, Si! Hat on straight, Tom! All ready. One! Two! HuUoa, where's St. Simeon?" And the marshal looked about searchingly. The long line of Juniors, capped and gowned, patiently marked time. Half way down on the right there was a vacancy. Two or three minutes later St. Simeon came in and took his place seriously ; but as he was always serious his fixed stare passed by unnoticed. Jack Bryant, the mar- shal, signalled to the orchestra on Memorial stage, raised his white and green decked baton. "Left! Right! Left! Right! One, two three, forward!" and the line went slowly thudding up the aisle. Memorial Hall had its usual Ivy Day crowd — the expect- ant mothers, the passive fathers, the pretty sisters. And of course each proud Junior on his way to the stage hoped to see his own friends. As the slowly-marching class reached the center of the hall, one maiden whispered loudly to another: "That's St. Simeon there, isn't it?" The man designated nearly blushed ; for he had never been prominent in any way during his college course. He had never been pointed out in his life. For three years so quietly, so much to himself had he lived that when the class got to studying Tennyson in English Lit, someone had dubbed him "St. 55 TALi;S Olf BOWDOIN Simeon Stylites," and the hastily bestowed nickname had stuck. The girl who knew him was uncommonly pretty — else what were the use of this tale?- — slight and tall with dark hair and brown eyes, and a big picture hat. She wore a simple white frock. She must be the cousin of Ted Briggs, Kathleen North, whom St. Simeon was booked to take to the dance that evening. It seemed a pleasant prospect but St. Simeon gave just the slightest semblance of a sigh as the line passed on. At the stage it separated and wound its slow way up over the steps and sat down as one man. Soon the Ivy Orator was holding forth. His words sounded sing-song: for it was hard to see the relation of the Philippines to a Bowdoin Ivy Day. St. Simeon began to ponder over other things. Only half an hour ago he was hunting his room over for his cap — he was always looking for his cap. Then long after the starting time he bounded down the End stairs. There was need of hurrying. Just as he was running down the stone steps the Western Union messenger boy rode up on his wheel. "Telegram for any one?" "Yes, Gordon Fox." "Hulloa ! That's for me. Probably an Ivy. message from dad. He knew I was to have a part today." And St. Simeon tore the yellow envelope open jaggedly. The cable- gram was dated from Rome that morning and read : "Dr. Fox tliecl of fever here Thursday. Burial Friday. T. H. JOHNSTON, U. S. Consul.'^ St. Simeon quickly signed the messenger's book, then staggered back. His father — gone — and way, way off in Rome. His father who had always seemed so young to him, — who was looking forward to his son's doing well on 56 ST. SIMEON STYUTES this very Ivy Day, — who knew what it all meant, for he was a Bowdoin man himself. Everything seemed terribly black to the poor boy. He opened his gown and crumpled the yellov/ paper into his pocket. He stood there on the steps thinking for a moment or two, Tt would not be plucky to give up his part now. Yet it was not clear that he could get through. He walked towards Memorial very slowly. A squirrel by the side of the path looked up curiously. The little fellow was trundling a big nut; and, as St. Simeon passed, he covered it with a huge leaf and scampered blithely away. The next instant St. Simeon somehow or other found his mind made up. Try to forget that missive he must, and go on with his response. His father would not have willed him to falter. He hurried on and joined the line just as Ted Briggs was starting after him. As he saw Ted he determined to say nothing to any of his friends on that day for fear of marring their pleasure. The orator was drawing on to the end of his part. In his peroration he spoke of a soldier's pluck. St. Simeon braced himself involuntarily. The poem which followed was a dreary affair; the exercises seemed predestined to failure. The president, a close friend of St. Simeon's, looked wor- ried. As the poet went on with gushing lines about Spring Summer and Autumn and Winter, St. Simeon's thoughts again strayed. He looked down at the pretty girl in the audience with the big hat and the brown eyes. Almost a week before Ivy, Ned Briggs had come to St, Simeon for help. He was overwhelmed with two girls who had both unexpectedly accepted ; and St. Simeon must take one. He had chosen Miss North whom he had seen for a few moments at a Junior assembly. How eagerly he had looked forward to Ivy Hop it was now idle to think. 57 TALES OF BOWDOIN When the poet had finished the orchestra played some movement that sounded much Hke a dirg^e. St. Simeon pulled at his watch ; as he did so he felt the crumpled tele- gram. He wondered if his father had been buried yet, if perhaps his body was that very hour being borne down the aisle of the English church at Rome. People asked why such solemn music was chosen for Ivy Day; but to St. Simeon it seemed very natural. The president got up to give the customary class history and then to make the Ivy presentations. The first two responses fell absolutely flat. The exercises were evidently a failure. St. Simeon trembled. It was his turn now. The president introduced him rather wittily, as "Mr. Gordon Fox, the world renowned, tower-dwelling saint of the class." St. Simeon thought of getting through quickly,; but he threw his whole self into the speech. His wit and quaint cynicism made folks wonder if Bowdoin had ever heard a more brilliant response in all her Ivy days. Some Seniors gasped when the quiet St. Simeon was given a part; they gasped more as he spoke on. His thrusts at his fellow classmen made them "wood" more than thrice; his gentle and humorous raillery won over the audience. He was the saving remnant of the afternoon. When he got through, the people in the crowded hall almost cheered him. He saw Kathleen North clapping mightily. Then he sat down. The whirlwind of applause seemed strange to him. It was not right, he thought. He wished his father were here instead of in Europe with a sick patient. Suddenly a picture stood out before his eyes. There was a bare room with staring white-washed walls, a little shrine in one corner, and in the center a bier with a heavy pall. A man of brown robe anl cowl came in and knelt down crossing himself mechanically. He withdrew 58 ST. sime:on stylites instantly ; and St. Simeon again saw the hats and colors and dresses of the Ivy crowd. He began to think deeply. Away off in the distance he heard the Popular Man accepting the wooden spoon. There was some reference to "our St. Simeon ;" and the audience broke out into applause again. A professor whose class had started Ivy Day said to a young girl by his side, "I never heard of anything like that before." The orchestra struck up another march and the class went out two by two, slowly, rhythmically. St. Simeon's face was flushed; but he still seemed very serious. Everyone glanced at him now ; Kathleen smiled up brigfhtly. It was hard for St. Simeon not to feel his triumph bitter and hollow. When the ivy was planted and the ode sung, the class and every one else hurried over to the Chapel. St. Simeon walked quietly with a couple of friends who warmly hailed him. One class-mate who had had a response ran across the campus, tooting a horn merrily, his gown streaming behind him. When the Juniors reached the gallery above the Chapel the bell had stopped ringing and the service had begun. Most of the Juniors looked on impressed. St. Simeon noticed one crouch down and take a drink. He himself felt faint and sick at heart. The Seniors formed their locked-step ranks and marched out slowly. Soon the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" arose. Gordon wondered if they had Seniors' Last Chapel when his father was in col- lege. The next moment he was repeating the graceful lines of a young graduate : Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Though some stand low and some stand high, Though some be rich and some be poor And some be early doomed to die? 59 TALES O^ BOWDOIN To some "will fall the victor's crown, The honors and the joys of life, But some in sorrow must sink down And perish in the world's great strife. A Junior or two had already started down the Library steps. St. Simeon slipped away, ran quickly to the End, and laid aside his gown. He went out past the Gym to the pines by the Whittier Field. He was at last by himself. Throwing himself down on the ground he sobbed as if his heart would break. He just realized that he w^as all, all alone in the world. He thought he heard someone coming and crept in under some bushes and lay there thinking. His father had ever been a brother to him — a big generous brother — and now he was dead and gone. He would never know of his son's success that afternoon, never say those few words of praise that w^ould mean, oh so much ! Just then St. Simeon became aware of footsteps rustling over the pine needles, and of a girl's voice. * 'Didn't Gordon Fox do splendidly this afternoon? I'm going with him to the dance to-night you know. He's a great friend of Ted's." Her companion gave a grudging sort of a reply and the two passed on. Gordon wondered what he should do about to-night ; he must not let Ted know, and mar his fun. He left the question undecided and walked down town. Everyone was at supper. He bought an evening paper with a long account of Ivy Day; it spoke much of Gordon Fox, the son of the well-known physician. This was the very paper he had counted on mailing to his father. His sorrow was very bitter now ; he almost cursed Fate. On his way up Maine street a town girl stopped to tell him how well he had done. He thanked her formally and hurried on. He went into the room thinking there might be another cablegram. Instead he found a note from Ted. 60 ST. sime:on stylites "We've all gone down to the Inn. Couldn't find you so took Jordan in your place. Be sure to turn up at the dance with Miss North's order. E. J. B." It just occurred to Gordon that he had made out the Hst of Miss North's partners and that it was nearly time for her to have it. He heard a Freshman go whistling his way to his room on the top floor. St. Simeon called him back. "If I'm late at the dance, give this to Ted, will you ? It's Miss North's order." He of the Freshman class gave a long gaze of astonishment. "Are you crazy, Saint ? Late for a dance with Kathleen North. Why I'd fifty times rather be con- ditioned in Buck." And the desperate little fellow hurried on. St. Simeon sat down in his desk-chair and lit his pipe. He looked over the evening paper — not a line about his father. All the words became blurred and the praise of his own response was intolerable. He got up and went into the next room. "Time to get ready for the dance, isn't it, old man? Don't you forget you promised me one with Miss North, will you ?" And Gates stropped his razor ner- vously. St. Simeon made some daft reply and went out of the End. It was about half past eight and a warm night. Gordon started to walk through the Longfellow Woods. The air was very soft and crickets innumerable were chirping. He found a log in the woods and sat down smoking. Although he had always been much by himself he never knew before how soothing solitude is. He wondered if at Rome things were as beautiful. It was so still there in the woods that he walked about until midnight. As he passed Memorial on his return he heard a waltz clearly. It was his favorite "Donauweibchen." He wondered what Kathleen North 6i TAI,KS OF BOWDOIN thought of him and if Jordan were absolutely filling his place. Then he walked back to the End. He still felt that he must be alone ; and for fear of Ted's finding him he went into a Freshman's room whose door his key fitted. Towards three o'clock he began to hear fellows coming in from the dance. He looked out the window just in time to see Jordan and Ted pass by. "Where in the world was old St. Simeon ?" said Ted. "He must be sick." "Ciuess not," said Jordan. "You know he's struck on a little girl up at Lewiston, probably he's up there. My, but he's the fool. Kathleen North can dance, bov. I tell you, and — " The two went in and their door slammed. St. Simeon still looked out over the pines; he was a quiet thoughtful boy ; and, as he gazed at the great stars, he kept asking himself what and where his father was. He pon- dered on the mystery until it was almost dawn. Four fel- lows, slightly clad, straggled out to play tennis ; two were young alumni, two Seniors. They laid down the stakes and a queer match followed. Tim Taylor, rather drunk, strad- dled the nei-pole, acting as umpire. St. Simeon watched their antics for awhile ; then heard them discuss the belle of the ball ; three of the five voted for Kathleen North. The alumni won the set, 6-2 ; and the players and umpire left the court to swallow the prize. The sun was rising now. St. Simeon looked up the cam- pus towards the Chapel. A peculiar light mist hung about the trees midway from the ground ; just a faint streak of fog. St Simeon went out again for the air seemed to soothe him as a quiet physician. A chickadee or two gave the long drawn note preceded by a short one, a haunting melancholy cry. Soon all the birds began their matins. Gordon felt happier. He wondered if his father had been laid to rest in that beautiful Protestant burial ground at Rome that he had 62 ST. SIMEON STYLITES read about where were the graves of Keats and Shelley ; a place he remembered "to make one fall in love with death." The thought gave him some comfort. He started on a long walk through fields and woods. Soon he met a boy driving a herd of cows to the morning's milking. The kine looked at him pityingly from their big, beautiful eyes. There was a sweet smell from their overflowing udders. The boy greeted him and gave him a drink of fresh, foaming milk. It was the first little streak of light in a verv dark and dull and lowering horizon. St. Simeon was beginning to see that if he must live out the rest of his life without the help of one who had done everything for him, even milk-boys and squirrels and woods and fields were dear companions. His father had talked to him often of a love for God's out- of-doors. He remembered much being said of Nature when the class was studying Wordsworth and Burns. Now he began to see a little of the much that it all meant. Before he knew it, he was back near the campus ; and the bell was ringing for morning chapel. He turned in from Maine street thoughtlessly and found himself face to face with Ted and Kathleen and the whole party. Ted was ahead with his other girl and Kathleen turned around to speak to St. Simeon. She held out her hand cordially. "Good morning, Mr. Fox. Where were you last night, you deserter?'' St. Simeon still looked serious and care-worn. "If you'll take a short walk with me, I'll tell you all about it," he said. "Ted's too interested to care about me now, but if you want to — " And the two walked through Longfellow Woods; and there he told her everything. "I am so sorry^ so very sorry" she said ; and St. Simeon knew that Kathleen North was a girl who meant each one of her words. 63 WHEN THE SELF-SENDER WALKED HOME C. A. Stephens, '69 WHEN THE SELE-SENDER WALKED HOME Up to 1880 fully thirty per cent, of all Bowdoin men were "self-senders" — a term that needed no explanation when I was there, late in the sixties. At the opening of the college year, in September, when the Sophomores and upper classmen were inspecting the new Freshmen, with a view to taking them into the societies, etc., a common question concerning each was, "Who sends him?" — ^the answer being usually, "His folks," or "Sends himself." There was, it is true, an intermediate caste or grade, in part assisted by parents, or friends ; but the self- senders, pure and simple, were about thirty per cent. How this runs since 1880 I am not well informed, but believe the per cent, to be less, as it naturally would be, with the increase of wealth in the country. The subject is not wholly pertinent to my present homely narrative, and is introduced merely as a prelude to declaring my own caste there ; I was a self-sender, and at times a wildly distressed one. In truth, the under-graduate whose bills are honored by the paterfamilias and who has only to attend to athletics and the curriculum, has and can have, no idea of the exigent mental attitude of the self-sender ; he is quite another being. Eminent educators have held, I believe, that more than compensating advantages come to the student who has his own way to make, in the habits of thrift and self-reliance thus fostered; but I have never yet met a bona fide self- sender who would fully endorse this view, much less one who would voluntarily subject himself to such a discipline. 67 TALES 0^ BOWDOIN But it is a fine topic for the self-made man and others to expatiate on to the young, thirty years later, when they have all become prosperous, and after a good dinner. It requires about that amount of perspective to be really enjoyable. My own idta is that the uncertainty, worrv, fret, fear, envy and other ignoble emotions that periodicallv agitate the self -sender's mind, rather more than offset any good that accrues to him from his scrimping and self-reliance. But cases and temperaments differ, no doubt. Some boys have better heads for managing these things ; some bear the pres- sure of debt with equanimity and a calm confidence in the future. One of my college-mates, I remember, was always smiling, always happy, always whistling and carrolling like a bob-o'-iink, though he owed everybody from two old aunties at home, to "Gripus" at the college book store; — and he who could owe "Gripus" and yet be happy, must needs have been panoplied with more than Horatian armor of triple brass. But the men of later years don't know "Gripus": we did. In my own case, the joys of college life were frequently devastated by financial crashes which I had not the skill or the sagacity to forestall and stave ofif ; or rather. I did stave them oif too long, and held on till the bottom fell clean out. One such overtook me near the end of the Fall term of^the Sophomore year. All my small monetary expedients had gone wrong. An incautious expenditure in furnishing my room (No. 2, Appleton Hall) began the trouble. Bad luck with two or three ventures for gain, followed on. I had been agent for an inexpensive sewing machine during the Summer vacation ; a light machine, operated by a crank ; I carried the sample about the country, in a valise. In Sep- tember, I intrusted my sample and three other machines to a sub-agent who was to sell them on a commission. But 68 whe:n the sei^^-sender wai^ked home now — in November — I learned that he had sold the three machines and decamped with the proceeds, and had left my sample machine and valise at Yarmouth railway station. A small speculation, too, in stove-wood and dried apple, at the home farm up in Oxford county, which I had deemed a sure thing, had come to naught from the accidental burning of the building in which it was stored. In brief, my whole menage had collapsed. I was bank- rupt. Even my steward and fellow student of the boarding- club was after me, with suspicion on his brow. Him I satisfied by leaving my Sophomore books with "Gripus," on an advance of six dollars. My last dollar was then in ; and naught remained but to foot it home via Yarmouth, to reclaim the "sample" sewing machine — my only available asset. Ah, what a bleak morning that was ! Bitterly cold with the ground hard frozen, and beginning to spit snow. Yet even the hard, whitening earth and cold gray heavens were less bleak than my financial sky. After a last vain effort to mortgage my half of the room furniture to my chum who was a crafty financier, I crossed the campus — not then adorned by the Art Building and Memorial Hall — to Gen. Chamberlain's cottage. The Gen- eral was then the college President pro tem ; and my object in calling was to obtain his permission to withdraw before term closed and seek the sanctuary of home. Thus the hard-run fox as a last resort seeks refuge in the burrow of cub-hood. I had the promise of the district school, in the home neighborhood; and the parental farm-house was at least good for a few weeks board, till new schemes could be hatched. Briefly I recounted my condition to the General's keenly appreciative ear, and having heard it, he made not the least 69 TALES OF BOWDOIN objection to my immediate departure. He agreed with me, nem con, that home was the best place for me. With laugh- ter, but a cordial hand-shake, he wished me a pleasant walk up the country and regretted the state of the weather ! Dear, kind old Professor Packard had noted that I was in trouble the day before, and had made it in his way to join me as I left the recitation room. Encouraged too far by his sympathy, I told him how I stood. But when he had grasped the full significance of my revelations, even his warm heart was chilled. In all his experience of indigent Sophomores, he had never met one so utterly devoid of resources. He acknowledged with regret that he knew not what to advise me. I have a vague faith still that "Billy," (Prof. William Smythe author of the Algebras and Calculus and who, col- lege tradition says once ciphered himself up at midnight from the bottom of the college well into which he had inadvertently fallen) might have figured it out for me, in terms of x. y. and z., if only I could have taken refuge in one of his equations ; but the old arithmetician was ill in bed that week, being now very infirm, and so missed the chance of a lifetime to perform one final, famous feat in those abstruse mathematics which he loved so well and long. Could he have rescued me that morning — and I have always half believed he could — not far below George Washington himself ought he now to be sitting in Miss Helen Gould's new Hall of Fame. But no help came to me, either from the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Revealed Religion, or Mathematics; and but- toning up my old overcoat, I set off along the railroad track to face the snowstorm and walk to Yarmouth, thirteen miles, there get my abandoned sample sewing machine, and then walk home, forty-seven miles from Yarmouth, sixty in all. 70 WHEN THE SEl/^-SENDER WAI^KED HOME It soon became hard walking on the ties, for snow was now falling fast; but I reached Yarmouth by noon and recovering my property, on which, luckily for me, there was no storage charge, I sat down in the station to eat a meager bit in the way of a lunch which, mindful of emergencies, I had privately conveyed to my pocket from the club break- fast table. Then for an hour or two I attempted to do a little sewing machine business in Yarmouth village. I hoped to sell my sample machine and thus be able to take the evening train home. But it wasn't a good day, for it ; the women cut my story short, snappishly; an ''agent" of any sort was persona non grata that bleak afternoon. Later, I tried to dispose of the machine in several stores and at a hardware shop — quite in vain. No one would even look at it ; there did not seem to be a smile, nor a bit of geniality that day, in the whole place. I had staked a good deal of time on hopes of selling my sample machine in Yarmouth ; and now, at two of the shogt winter afternoon, found myself face to face with the neces- sity of reaching home that night, for I had money neither for food, nor lodging. For three or four miles I plodded along the railroad, then as the snow was deepening on the track, I diverged to a highway off to the left of the line. Here by good chance, as I at first thought, I was immediately overtaken by a man alone in a large pung, driving a fat, strong horse. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and blue-drab cloak, and he proved to be a Shaker Elder, returning from Portland to the Shaker village at New Gloucester. "Will thee ride, friend?" he asked, with grave kindness. ''Thank thee, I will," said I, and immediately conceived rosy hopes of accompanying him home, spending the night with the Shakers, and even selling them my sewing machine. 71 tai,e:s of bowdoin I had heard that these good people do not charge wayfarers for a night's lodging and food. Accordingly, I set myself to beguile the way and amnse the Elder with lively conver- sation. But I must have overdone it, I think. For some reason which I never quite understood, the Elder suddenly froze to me. Possibly it was from learning: that I was a college student. He waxed grim and became as mum as an oyster. I tried him further with two humorous stories ; but he never cracked a smile to them ; and soon after, com- ing where the road to the Shaker village diverged from the main road, he pulled up for me to get out. Thereupon I asked him point blank to let me go home with him, over-night. But "Here is where our roads sep- arate, friend," was all the answer he vouchsafed me. By this time it was dark; and being both hungry and cold, I applied recklessly, at the first house I came to, for lodging and supper, and then at the next house and the D^xt ; but the people were all inhospitably inclined. There were eight inches of snow by this time, the footing getting more difficult every hour; and I resolved to apply at every house till some one took me in. The next human habitation, however, was fully half a mile farther on. It stood back from the road, and I could see neither tracks about it, nor light within ; but I plodded to the door and knocked, There was no response, but I heard a cat mewing dolefully inside. It was a small, low house, with a shed and a little stable adjoining. I knocked again and yet again, without result ; but still the cat mewed on, piteously. Finally I tried the door. It stuck at the top but was not locked. I pushed it open and shouted, "Hullo ! Anybody at home?" All dark and still ; but T heard the patter of the cat's feet. I stepped in. It seemed not very cold inside, but the air 72 WH^N THE) SI:I.?-SE:nDE:r walked home was dank and had an odor of household laxity, or senility. I had a match and struck it. The outer door opened into a low room nearly bare of furniture, with soiled, green- figured paper on the walls. There was a fire-place and ashes, but no spark of fire. A little blue tin match safe stood on the mantel shelf, also an iron candle-stick with an mch or two of tallow candle. In the match safe were four or five matches and stubs of matches. When I had lighted the candle, the cat came and rubbed against my legs. There were three doors opening out of the front room, one to the chamber stairs and one into a little kitchen in the rear. The third I could not open; it appeared to be stuck fast in its casement, or else buttoned or propped on the other side. I knocked at it and called out again, then came to the conclusion that the house was one from which the inmates had recently moved and taken most of the furni- ture. The appearance of the kitchen also confirmed this- surmise. It contained little save a rusted, much cracked cooking stove, choked with ashes. In one corner stood an empty flour barrel, having a large, white cloth spread over the top of it and a gummy, warped old cake-board on top of that. In the shed leading to the stable were chips, litter and a few sticks of wood. After several failures, I kindled a fire in the stove and warmed myself a little; for my feet were wet and it was chilling, bleak weather. Snow drove against the windows ; and altogether the night was so bad that I determined to remain there till morning, if not ordered away by the pro- prietor. But hunger was nearly as imperative with me as cold, and after getting the old stove warmed up, I searched the premises again for food stuff, going down cellar — where there was not so much as a frozen potato — also to the shed and stable, and up stairs to the low open chamber. The 73 TAI,ES OF BOWDOIN only edible that could be discovered anywhere was a little husk trace with five small dry ears of sweet corn, hung on a nail in a rafter of the chamber roof. Thus it had escaped the mice, though the small rodents appeared to have been making frantic efforts to reach it. Appropriating the corn trace, I went back to the kitchen and began parching the kernels for my supper; and I left the poor cat — a little, lean Maltese tabby, with eyes the largest part of her — shut up in the chamber, to look for the mice. The cat had been tagging my every step, getting under foot, ever after I had entered the house. Dried sweet-corn kernels, when toasted, swell up to full size and are not very difficult of mastication. My hunger prompted me to roast and eat every kernel of the five ears ; and afterwards I thawed a handful of snow in a tin basin by way of a solvent. Altogether it was as frug^al a meal as even a self-sender has ever made, I fancy. Fatigue, after my long, hard day, exposed to the cold wind and snow, soon asserted itself. There was one old basket-bottomed chair in the front room. Placing this in the warm.est corner, I filled the stove with the last of the wood, then took off my damp boots, opened the old oven door and thrust in my feet. Afterwards, drawing my over- coat about me, I leaned back with my head agfainst the wall, to take things easy till morning. Very soon I was asleep, but voices which sounded like those of boys or youngsters, waked me not long: after ; I also heard sleigh bells. A sleigh in passing appeared to have stopped near the house ; I heard the occuoants talking low and snickering. Suddenly four or five tremendous blows, as if from an ax or club, were struck on the clapboards of the house near the door, and a voice shouted, "Wake up, Granny ! Wake up !" 74 WHKN- the: SICLF-SENDER WALKED HOME For the moment I imagined that the rogues had peeped in at the uncurtained back window of the kitchen and by the faint gleam from the stove had taken me for an old grand- sir, sitting there with my feet in the oven. R-esently sev- eral missiles, stones it is likely, from the stone-wall near the road, were thrown on the roof and rolled off with a great clatter ; and 1 could still hear the scamps sniggering. By way of a counter demonstration, I caught up the big white cloth from the flour barrel, and wrapping it around myself, head and ears, stalked to the outer door which I threw wide open, and uttered a horrible groan ! What with the snow on the ground and a moon under the storm clouds, there was sufficient light to render objects dimly visible. Two of the rogues were standing in the yard near the wall ; and I think that they actually took me for something spook- ish. One of them uttered an odd sort of exclamation. They beat a retreat to their sleigh and drove off. It was still snowing and so cold that I made haste back to my warm stove oven and chair. I was apprehensive lest the young roisterers might raise a party and return, bent on investigating the supernatural. My dread of that, however, did not prevent me from soon falling asleep again, my head propped in the angle of the wall, on the chair back, and my feet in the oven as before. I waked several times, I remember, but my final nap must have been a long one. There was broad davlip"ht when I roused last. Indeed, it was much later than I supposed, being nine or ten o'clock I am sure. The skv was still clouded ; but the storm had ceased. The stove and kitchen were cold as a tomb. I pulled myself together, washed my face in snow at the front door, tidied up and made ready to sally forth from this harbor of refuge. But I was gaunt from hunger and made yet another search for something 75 TAI^KS OF BOWDOIN with which to stay the sense of inner emptiness. I found a squash in the stable and had thoughts of attempting to bake it in the stove, having first cut it into sHces. While canVassing this expedient, however, T heard a noise in the front room and hastily looking in, saw the door — the one I had found fastened — shaking, as if some one were removing a bar or a prop on the other side. Even while I stared, it opened and there issued forth a very tall and wild- looking old female in a long yellow bed-gown ; and it is no exaggeration to say, that the skin of her face and hands was quite as yellow as the flannel of the gown ! But her hair was as white as an Albino's and fullv as voluminous. Indeed, there was a most uncamiy quantity of it. It frowsed out and hung down her shoulders and in front over her arms, quite to her waist. She had an old tin teapot in her hand and came directly toward the kitchen door where I stood, rooted and dumb with wonder as to how this could be! What was stranger, I saw that she did not seem to see me, though apparently looking straight at me. Her eyes appeared to have a mottled gray crust on them, which I now presume to have been cataracts. On she came and I backed back into the kitchen, then spoke. **Is this your house, marm?" I exclaimed, not knowing what else to say. But she paid no heed and came on, I backing away till I was directly between her and the little window. Then she stopped short, having caught sight of something against the light. Turning her head and strange white hair down and to one side, she peeped and peered at me, like a hen in the dark, out of the corners of her nearly sightless eyes. "I see ye!" she then cackled out. "I kin see ye there. Who be ye? Be ye Sallv Dennett's man, or be ye Bijah Libbey?"' 76 WHEN THE SELE-SENDER WALKED HOME "No, marm, Vm a stranger," I said. "I thought this house was empty. I came in on account of the storm." "Whart?" she bleated. "Be ye Bijah?" I repeated that I was a stranger. "What-a-art ?" she cried, taking a step nearer me. It was plain now that she was deaf also, as well as blind — deaf as a post. "Whart? Whart be ye a-sayin'?" she cried again, and put out one of those awful skinny, yellow hands to feel me over. Ah well, I was young then and had had no breakfast and not much supper; partly for that reason, perhaps, my stomach gave a sudden turn. Snatching up my valise, I bolted out of that house, gained the highwav and deep as the snow was, ran for as much as half a mile — till I felt better. It was an old beldame granny who lived there alone. She had been abed in that room all night, while I was ranging over her house and parching her trace of sweet corn ! The poor, deaf, blind old creature had heard nothing of my invasion. It was too scandalous even for a Sopho- more ; and I never dared tell any of the fellows about it. My only consolation and hold on self-respect, lay in the thought that I had discomfited the louts who had stopped there at midnight to torment her ; but it is doubtful if she heard even the stones on the roof. Plodding on drearily enough for an hour or more, my luck took a turn for the better. A woman driving a white horse in a pung, set full of stone pots, overtook me ; a large, fleshy, comfortable-looking, middle-aged woman with three big brown hair moles on her lip and cheek. I suppose I cast a longing look at the vacant seat and warm buffalo 77 TALKS O^ BOWDOIN robe; for she pulled up after passing, looked around and presently asked me if I would like to ride. I did not keep her waiting while I considered whether I had another engagement, for my feet were already wet again. Remembering my ill success with the Shaker Elder, I determined to go easy in conversation and did not talk much. Besides I was cold and faint. But conversation did not flag; this woman was herself a talker; and before we had gone a mile I had learned that she had been to the •Village" that morning; that she had sold a hundred and twenty pounds of butter; that butter was twenty-six cents a pound and eggs twenty cents a dozen ; and that her hens were laying well; also that she had told "George," her husband, that he was welcome to all the farm crops came to, if she could have the butter and eggs. But mox angitis recreatus. Having gained breath and Avarmth under her comforting buffalo skin. I took thought and putting my best foot forward, turned the conversation on sewing machines — not then so hackneyed a theme for an agent's eloquence as now. Unsuspecting woman ! She little imagined how des- perate a man she had been warming back to hope and guile under that cozy robe. In twenty minutes I had sold her my sample machine, for seventeen dollars, delivered the goods and got my money ! By good luck, too, her homeward route took me within a mile of the Empire Road railway station, which I reached in time to take the afternoon train home. Once more on my native heath, I settled to pedagogy for ten weeks, and meantime sold eight sewing machines. So that in March I was able to rejoin my class, in funds again for the rest of the year. 78 TOLD AGAIN Arlo Bates, '76 TOLD AGAIN EVERY alumnus knows the old traditional anecdotes of Bowdoin, but who was ever tired of hearing them repeated ? Told over by one class after another and by one generation to the next, they keep a perennial interest by being part of the magic time of college life; and so I may be forgiven for reporting a talk in which all the stories were confessedly old. The room was what Percy, who was accustomed to jeer at his friend's fondness for luxury, called "a Kensington- stitch bower." Philip Vaughn had innumerable lady friends, whose lives, judging from their fruits, must be devoted chiefly to embroidering tidies, tobacco-pouches, hangings and rugs for the adornment of the bachelor's bower; until floor and wall bloomed out in wildly arranged cat-o'-nine-tails, pre-Raphaelite sun-flowers, and innumer- able other aesthetic devices, constructed upon the conven- tional plan of making them as impossible as was within the limits of female ingenuity to compass. Tonight Percy and Phil were seated in those strikingly sprawly attitudes dear to the masculine soul, puffing at fragrant pipes, and staring at the open fire, whose glow brought out with great effect the glories of the Kensington- stitch tokens. The talk somehow turned upon old times at Bowdoin, drifting on into anecdote and reminiscence, as such chats are very apt to do. ^ 8i TAI^ES OF BOWDOIN "You remember,*' Percy asked, ''the time Prof. W. took the Senior class over into the Topsham woods botanizing, and the boys hired a hand-organ man to follow ? He struck up Mulligan Guards just as the Professor had begun a learned discussion on a rare something or other." "How the Prof, laughed," retorted Phil. "But I think the funniest time was the cuspidors. You were out then, weren't you ? Prof. C. got vexed at some of the boys' spit- ting, and remarked that if it was necessary for them to expectorate, he desired that they would bring cuspidors with them; and I'll be hanged if every man Jack didn't get a spittoon and carry it into recitation next morning! The way we banged them about those tiered seats in Adams Hall was a caution to peaceful citizens!" "What jolly old days those were," Percy sighed regret- fully. "Do you remember how often old Senex used to say, 'I'm having the best time of my life, but I shall never have to regret that I didn't know it as I went along.' That was a bit of philosophy I always admired." "What a separate world a college is," Phil said. "It wouldn't seem to me very funny anywhere else to hang an old circular saw out of my window and pound it with a junk bottle, but as part of my college life I laugh whenever I think of it. There is a different way of looking at every- thing inside the college campus, and I always have a secret sympathy for student tricks, no matter how much it is proper to disapprove of them from an outside standpoint." "Dr. C. told me a story the other day," Percy observed, trimming his pipe, "that pleased me a good deal. Dr. C. roomed on the southwest corner of Maine Hall, and had a very sunny place. Gray, who was just across the entry, came in one day with a lot of pears not quite ripe, and asked to leave them in C.'s windows to ripen. A few mornings 82 TOLD AGAIN after, Professor Packard called on C. to ask something- about a library book. After he had done his errand the old gentleman walked up to the window and began to examine the fruit. 'Very fine pears,' he said, *it is a variety rare about here, too.' 'They look first rate,' Doc. answered, 'though I've not tasted them yet.' 'You'll find them very good, I assure you,' Father Packard observed blandly, as he moved toward the door. 'Very good indeed. I took great pains with that graft! Good day.' And poor C. never had a chance to explain that he wasn't the man who purloined them !" "Pretty good!" laughed Phil. "It wouldn't have made any difference, though, if he had denied comnlicity, I sup- pose. Circumstantial evidence is too much for most any of us. There is a fine story of Prex. Woods, that a clergy- man in Maine told me. You know the President's sym- pathies were notoriously with the South in the war, and the boys were not slow to comment on it. One morning when Prex. came in to prayers he was astonished — or at least I fancy he must have been — to find every man Jack of the fellows in his place, and all as quiet as stone griffins. He took his chair as usual, and he must have felt a cold chill run down his back from the way in which everybody looked at him." "He'd feel that," interrupted Percy, "from the Chapel. It is always colder than the tombs." "He was no sooner seated," resumed the other, "than his eye caught a great sign stretched across the front of the organ-loft on the opposite end of the Chapel, with the words 'Pray for the country^ in letters a yard high. He read the Scripture as usual, and then started in on the prayer amid an awful stillness such as never was experienced at college prayers before or since. He got along to the phrases TAI^ES OF BOWDOIN with which he was accustomed to close, and not a word about the country. Then there was a sort of dull murmur among the boys. Nobody made any noise in particular, you know, but there was a kind of stir. The president didn't dare hold out any longer, for the pressure of that body of boys, with all the moral sentiment of the country behind them, was too tremendous for even his will ; he gave in and prayed for the country with the utmost fervor!" "He must have been sincere!" Percy commented. "There's a Bowdoin hazing story which always pleased me immensely. One day a knot of fellows in the room of X., a gallant Sophomore, were discussing hazingf. *I tell you,' X. said, with emphasis, 'the Freshies like the fun as well as we do. It's part of college life. Why, I'd be ducked myself for ten cents !' 'Here's your ten cents,' returned E., a brawny Junior— you must have seen him. Phil, he was in '(iy — he was famous for his will and his muscle. 'Now I propose to duck you !' Remonstrance was vain, and as E. was big enough to annihilate X. had he chosen, there was nothing for the unhappy Soph, but to submit, obtaining only the privilege of being allowed to don old clothes. Thus equipped, X. took his seat outside his room door, surrounded by a circle of grinning friends, and E. procured a pail of water. Do you know, instead of making one grand dash of the ducking, and letting X. off with that, that merciless E., who had certain old scores to settle, pro- ceeded to dribble the cold water over his victim by the dipperful. Now he would playfully trickle a small stream down the sufferer's back, then dash a pint full in his face; again a little cascade would pour UPon the Sophomore's head, or an icy streamlet meander down his manly bosom. E. pitilessly held X. to his agreement, and. as, he threw the last drop of water into his eves, poor X.. drenched and 84' TOLD AGAIN redrenched, sprang away with a string of oaths so hot they might have dried him ; but it was never noticed that he was anxious to discuss hazing again. By George! I'd have liked to see the performance." "These things are no end funny," Phil said, poking the fire. "I don't know whether they are so to folks outside the ring, but the whole college feeling comes up to me with them. Don't you remember the day we '76 boys were reciting in International Law to Prof. Caziarc, and old H. distinguished himself so? Unluckily, this wasn't one of the days when H. was prepared, and, as he neglected to read ahead in the class, his answers were of the wildest. 'How long,' asked the Professor, *does a ship remain liable to seizure after violating a blockade?' H. gazed at the ceiling, rubbing his chin and changing legs in his inimitable way, but no happy evasion occurred to him. A fellow behind him was prompting in frantic whispers, and at length suc- ceeded in attracting H.'s attention. Old H. was so intent on the ceiling, though, that to do this the prompter had to speak so loudly as to be heard over the whole room. Of course everybody laughed in concert, but no line softened in the grave countenance of H. Taking in the situation in a twipkling, he drawled out, with perfect composure: *I am told that it is six months !' How the boys applauded !" "There's a good recitation story they tell of Prof. Chad- bourn," Percy said, taking up the ball in his turn, "though the truth I don't vouch for. They say that he began a recitation in Natural History by asking the first man in the class if he'd ever seen a porpoise. 'No, sir,' was the answer, as prompt as you please. 'The next,' says the Prof., and the next said '1^0,' too. And so they went down the class, Chadbourn of course forgetting all about what the question was, before he got half through the row. 'Very 85 TALES OF BOWDOIN well, gentlemen/ he remarked in his most magisterial man- ner, as the last man added his negative to the rest, 'you may take this lesson again tomorrow and I hope to find you better prepared!' Another story of him is that he asked once if anybody in the class had ever seen a frog in the water. The boys all said no till it came to G.. who remarked that he had seen a frog in the water. 'Good.' the Prof, said, *I am glad there is one man here who is an observer. Now will you tell us, Mr. G., under what circumstances you saw the frog in the water and what he was doing.' 'Oh,' answered G. brightly, 'I put him in, and he was trying to get out !' " "Then there was S., in '75," went on Vaughn. "Prof. Carmichael was talking of the difficulty of determining the direction from which a sound comes. 'For instance,' he said to S., who was reciting, 'if you are in the depot and hear a whistle you cannot tell whether it is the Bath train coming from one direction or the Lewiston train from the other.' 'Oh, yes, I can,' S. answered. 'I can always tell the direction by the sound, for the Lewiston train whistles twice !' And you remember P.'s answering the question as to the kind of weather in which we have thunder-showers, by saying, 'In stormy weather'?" "Some of the Bowdoin boys did a couple of droll things the year after we graduated," Phil said. "The eternal war between Fresh, and Soph, was raging with great violence, and there was no end of sharp-shooting on both sides. I fancy the Freshies v/ere the smarter from the two stories I heard. One night they were laying out for a 'peanut- drunk' — is there anything funnier in college nomenclature than calling a gorge on that arid fruit a 'drunk' ? — and they were told that the Sophs, had found it out and meant to stop it. They went on with their plan, though, and to the 86 TOLD AGAIN usual bushel or so of peanuts they added a can of cider. Of course when their enemies interrupted the innocent fes- tivities, they bore away peanuts and cider, upon which they feasted in high glee. Fancy the feelings of those wicked and wretched Sophs, when, on draining the can of its last glass of cider, five drowned mice dropped into the glass!" "By Jove! That was tremendous!" cried Percy. "I wonder a Freshman was left alive to tell the tale!" "I fancy they weren't very cheeky for a day or two," returned the other. "But their second trick was worse yet. The Sophs, became possessed of a pair of plump chickens." " 'Became possessed' is a good phrase," interrupted Percy. "I've become possessed of chickens on the Harps- well road myself! 'Convey,' the wise call it. Go ahead." "I knew I was touching you in a tender spot," continued the narrator. "Having the chickens, they took them down town to that disreputable Tim Ponson, who used to cook your fowls for you, to have them roasted. Certain choice spirits — both on two legs and in black bottles — were brought together for the feast, which Tim had promised should be ready by nine o'clock in the evening. But a few audacious Freshmen, Billy M. and Tom Winter among them, in some unexplained way got hold of a knowledg-e of the Sopho- moric plans, and at half-past eight presented themselves at Ponson's door. 'Hallo, Tim,' says Winter briskly, 'are those chickens ready?' Tim looked a little astonished, but Billy broke in and explained that S., who had delivered the birds to the cook, had sent after them. 'Hurry up,' Winter went on. 'The fellers have got dreadful tired of waiting now.* So old Tim bestowed the chickens, smoking hot, in a basket. 'Will yer take the plates and the taters, too?' he asked. But having secured the chickens the boys were not inclined to wait, so they told him to follow with the other 87 TALES OF BOWDOIN things, and off they scud with their booty. Saucy knaves ! Perhaps the Freshmen did not have a howl over those birds ! And perhaps the Sophs were pleased at the trick! But wasn't it clever?" "Capital ! I only know one thing which would have been better, and that was the thing some of the '75 boys didn't do to Prof, Z. You know what a little, wizened, dried-up man he was, and how cordially everybody disliked him. The one year he v/as at Bowdoin he made more enemies than he could unmake in a lifetime. Well. X. and Y., '75 boys, got mto the Church on the Hill one Saturday night, when Prof. Z. was to preach on Sunday. They planned to cut a trap-door behind the pulpit, with a spring to be worked by a cord going under the carpet to the students' seats. They meant to pull the door out from under him about the time he got started in the long prayer, and let him down out of sight ! Unfortunately, the sexton came in, and they had to give the thing up !" "Unfortunately! you say?" Phil said, laughing. "That shows where your sympathies are!" "They are always v/ith the boys in private," Percy retorted. "In public I have to disapprove of anything of this sort as improper; indeed, as extremely improper!" The two friends laughed, and smoked for a few minutes in genial silence. Then Percy went on again, for when once college days are recalled there is not soon an end to the flood of reminiscence. "I met Dr. B. the other day," he said, "and he told me some droll stories about Professor Cleveland. I dare say they are not more than half true, but even that is a very good portion of verity for this wicked world. Professor Cleveland, it seems, was excessively afraid of lightning. TOLD AGAIN His researches into natural phenomena g-ave him such an impression of the immense power of the electric force as almost to overcome his courage. The story goes that he had in his cellar an insulated stool, upon which he was accustomed to sit cross-legged like a Turk during every thunder-storm. Once a strong-minded female who was vis- iting his house felt called upon to remonstrate with him upon his fears. So she made her way down cellar, and began to upbraid him for his timidity. He made no reply, only he drew his legs a little more closely under him as a terrific peal of thunder shook the house, and his visitor became more and more voluble. 'I'm ashamed of you,* she snapped out at last, 'any fool knows enough not to be scared by a thunder-shower !' 'Yes,' the old gentleman returned, drily, 'there are only a few of us who know enough to be frightened.' " "A great moral truth," Phil commented. "Isn't there some sort of a yarn about Professor Cleveland and an elec- tric battery?" "Yes; they say he was showing his bie battery to the class, one day, when he remarked : 'Gentlemen, quiet as this instrument seems, there is energy enough stored up here to cause the instant death of a man. One touch of the finger to that knob would instantly kill an able-bodied man.' Then, turning to his assistant, the Professor beamed benevo- lently upon him through his spectacles, absent-mindedly and cheerfully saying, 'Mr. Dunning, touch the knob.' " "The best story of Cleveland I ever heard," Phil said,, "was of a rebuke he gave to a noisy class. It was about the time of Brooks' villainous assault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber, and of course the country was full of talk about that scandal. Professor Cleveland was late to 89 TAI^SS OF BOVVDOIN lecture one day, and as the class got into a very riotous state while waiting for him, he had some ado to quell it when he came in. He was a good deal nettled and administered a most scathing rebuke, ending with the words, delivered in so impressive a manner that more than one of his hearers speak of it to this day: 'Gentlemen, in future let such brawls be confined to Congress, and do not disgrace with them these halls consecrated to science and culture.' " ''No doubt!" his friend laughed. "But there's another story of Professor Cleveland that comes to my mind in this connection, chiefly because no earthly, connection exists between the two. It seems that he went to church but once on Sunday, it being vaguely suspected that the remainder of his day was spent in unholy toil in his laboratory. A committee of the Faculty was at last sent to remonstrate with the old gentleman, and in the most delicate and politic way they laid the case before him, dwelling upon the evil influence of his course, the injury to him and to the cause of religion, ending with a declaration that there could be no good reason why the Professor should not attend church. 'Gentlemen,' the culprit said, drawing himself up in the haughtiest manner, 'Professor Cleveland goes to church but once on Sunday, and that is reason enough.* And the com- mittee retired in confusion." "There's a delightful quality of self-poise shown in that story," observed Percy. "Another phase of the feeling was shown by our friend Fall. A military instructor at Bow- doin was very fond of using military terms, and the boys naturally guyed him for it. One day he said to Fall, who was cutting up in recitation, 'Fall, you may go to your quarters.' 'Sir,' answered Fall, saucily but serenely, 'I haven't any quarters to go to.' 'No quarters?' demanded the instructor, 'what do you mean?' 'I'm expecting a 90 TOLD AGAIN remittance every day,' Fall said coolly, 'but now I haven't any quar — ' 'Sir,' interrupted the other, 'leave the section room instantly !' " "Impertinent whelp !" Phil said, "Jamie Charles was on the whole the coolest specimen we had in our class. I shall never forget the malicious impudence with which he fum- bled and fussed with a loose leaf of his German book, at last dropping it and then cramming it into his pocket with an affectation of the greatest confusion, so that Professor M. had no choice but to call him up and ask for that transla- tion, only to find that he'd been gulled." "The time that Professor M. had his revenge," Percy returned, "was when Jamie, with a big fish hook and the greatest patience, angled for the Professor's shutters from the attic window. It took him half the afternoon, and just as he was hauling up the last blind, the Professor, who was supposed to be down town, put his head out of the window, and mildly but firmly insisted upon Charles putting the shutters back; in which pleasant but laborious occupation my young Sophomore spent the rest of the afternoon, not without some jeering on the part of the boys." "Do you remember," asked Phil, "the fuss we had with Mr. X., whose ministrations at the Church on the Hill used to bore the boys so ? He was the man that said in a sermon that the temperance crusade had been so effective as to lower the price of whiskey several cents on the gallon." "I remember that day," Percy put in. "We all applauded and got summoned the next morning for disturbance in church." "The best joke v/as about the proposed removal of the students from the church. The fuss I spoke of came from Brother X. going to a ministers' meeting or a conference or something else, and berating the college as a nest of infi- TAI,ES OF BOWDOIN del ity because he had not been appointed Professor of Moral Science. So it was proposed that the students should be taken to the college Chapel for service and the church left to itself. While the matter was being discussed in Faculty meeting — or as the story goes — Professor Z. suggested that another of the Faculty, who is a clergyman, should first preach a farewell sermon to the people of the Church on the Hill. And what do you think was to be the text?" "I give it up," Percy said. *'It is too near morning to guess conundrums, and especially scriptural ones." "It was to have close reference to their staying behind with X.; It was to be 'Tarry thou here with the ass while I and the lads go up yonder to worship !' " THE HAZING OF STUMPY BLAIR Fre;d Raymond Marsh, '99 THE HAZING OP STUMPY BLAIR <^C TUMPY" Blair was a Freshman, not so much because O it was his first year in college, though as every one will admit, that was reason enough, but because of a certain circumstantial evidence that characterized all his actions. For instance, he seemed instinctively to keep his "weather eye," as it were, open on the balmiest of Autumn days. He v*^as constant in his attendance at gymnasium in all his spare hours, and had been heard to express great pleasure at the prospect of a class in Indian clubs for the Freshmen during the Winter term. It was even rumored that he sat up till the early hours of morning, burning the electric fluid that feebly oozed through his sixteen candle-power light and preparing his Mathematics for the coming day. Of course only Freshmen do all these things and it follows that "Stumpy" Blair was unmistakably a Freshman. But "Stumpy" Blair had many excellent qualities to offset the misfortune of his class standing. He was a good- hearted fellow, could play the piano to perfection, and was immensely popular in the college. He was also as large physically as he was inexhaustible in his unruffled good nature. He was nearly six feet tall, broad shouldered, straight as an arrow, and that is why everybody in Bowdoin called him "Stumpy" Blair. It is an unwritten law that every Freshman owes the college a living, in the sense of lending a mild excitement to the dull routine of study by the mistakes he naturally 95 TALES OF BOWDOIN makes in his new surroundings. This law "Stumpy" Blair persistently and even arrogantly disregarded. He declared that he enjoyed nothing better than tobacco smoke when a dozen red-eyed upoer classmen left his room after a social call one evening. He was even caught one night before retiring in the very act of taking his hair brushes from between the sheets of his bed, where they had been surrep- titiously placed by unknown persons. Any well-brought-up Freshman would have crept to bed and set up a yell of astonishment as the stiff bristles raked his shins, just for the benefit of those who might have been listening near. But "Stumpy" Blair was not that kind. He was by far too precocious. He could not understand that there is an infancy in college life as well as in real life, as well as in business life. He desired to assume the dignity and prerogative of a Senior while yet a child. Of course the result was a curious combination. His case took an original form and it demanded original treatment. There are some, to be sure, who would denounce the fact that there was need of any treatment at all. unless it should be with others outside the Freshman class. However that may be, those who have been in college themselves, or better still have taught in the district schools, cannot class pure mischief as a missing link in the human character. When a number of healthy animals are put together there are sure to be pranks and mischief, generally if not always untainted by any malice in the colleges of the present time. This, however, is not a defence of what happened; it is merely the reason why something had to be done in the case of "Stumpy" Blair. A solemn meeting of which no records were kept, was held by a number of upper classmen whose names are not recorded in the Jury's Book of Illustrious Dead and who 96 THE HAZING OF STUMPY BLAIR felt on their shoulders the responsibility of upholding the unwritten law. Several days after this meeting: "Stumpy" Blair felt, rather than smelled, a powerful odor on entering- his room after his Math, recitation. The place was a veri- table Inferno with the taint of rotten eggs. In Physics we are taught that ether is considered to be an impalpable and all-pervading jelly through which the particles of ordinary matter move freely. It was such a substance that "Stumpy" Blair seemed to encounter as he entered his room, though it affected his sense of smell and taste alike. It was certainly original treatment. Of course the news of "Stumpy" Blair's discovery was soon known and he had no dearth of sympathizers — outside ^ his door. Various expedients were suggested. One fellow was so cruel as to suggest that "Stumpy" count his chickens after they were hatched. The common belief, which "Stumpy" Blair himself held, was that a rat, or rather a colony of rats, had died somewhere in the room, and hence the odor. How to find the rats was the problem. "Stumpy" Blair was determined they should be found and his friends encouraged him in his efforts. First he made a careful survey of the premises to see if he could locate the place, but the odor was as strone by the window as by the closet door ; it was an "all-pervading" odor — the stench of decay. Resolved to find the pest, "Stumpy" Blair took each piece of furniture, carefully examined it and car- ried it out in the hall. The room was bare but the smell was still present. Undaunted, he finally took down the pictures and there, hanging to the cord of one, he found a small, uncorked vial. The vial was about half full of an innocent looking fluid. The label read: "H^ S. Keep tightly corked," with a death's head underneath. F 97 TALES OF BOWDOIN "Stumpy'' Blair drew a sigh of relief as he examined it closely. He fitted a cork tightly in the vial, immersed it in a bottle of his strongest cologne and labelled it ''Freshman Year." Several days later President Hyde received an anonymous letter with the polite request that Chemistry be placed on the elective course for Freshmen. That was the end of the hazing of **Stumpy" Blair. THE MAY TRAINING Thomas B. Reed, '6o THE MAY TRaiNH^iC '" IN the archives of Bowdoin College, — meaning by archives, in this case, the garret of Maine Hall, — was long to be seen an old and faded flag. On a ground of white, was a bristling swine, done in dubious brown. Astride this fierce animal, holding on by the ears, was a full-uni- formed military officer. Above his head was the awful inscription, "Bowdoin's First Heat." Thereby hangs a tale. Deeming that the history of Maine would be incomplete without the recital, we venture at our peril to take up this story of demi-gods and heroes. As early as 1820, the students were annually warned to "appear armed and equipped as the law directs." Accord- ingly, being incorporated into the town company, they occasionally improved the good nature of the inhabitants by choosing under their astonished noses, students as chief officers. Besides this, they indulged, sav excellent old ladies with suitable unction, in other "highly unbecoming and indecorous tricks." It is credible also, judging what is past by what is present, that there was no lack of practical jokes. At last, it being rather too much for the towns- people to endure, the Legislature passed a bill exempting students from military duty. Then did peace, like the dews of evening, settle once more upon Brunswick. Its citizens rejoiced in warlike dignities. They became Corporals and Lieutenants and Captains, and were happy. Unconscious lOI tale:s of bowdoin innocence! Little they knew the future and the bellying cloud of disaster above. But the military spirit was on the increase throughout the State. Valorous individuals talked of slaughter, and of glory won on tented field. "Our people must becon