Chapter IV: Part 4

"Of course it is n't--idiot!" Duggie declared indignantly. "Fleetwood can't do the whole thing himself; he can't turn a lot of shy kids into a pen and say, 'Now talk and get to know one another.' So he asks other people to help him. Once in a while he asks me. To-night there were two of us."

"Two Little Evas--two Uncle Toms--two side-splitting Topsies," Berri giggled.

"Heaven knows I can talk about other things than football," Duggie went on, "but I like to talk about it, and they do, too--so why shouldn't we? And when they have enough of me they get to talking with some one else--some one in their own class, very likely--or maybe to two or three. Then they come back again next week, and after a few times they find that they 've made a lot of acquaintances, and perhaps some friends. And there you are! Their whole four years is probably changed for them and made infinitely more worth while, merely because Fleetwood takes the trouble to round them up and make them feel that somebody really wants them. It's perfectly natural that you should think his Wednesdays funny and boresome; you always had dozens of rooms to go to from the first day you came here, and some one in every room who was glad to see you when you went. But I tell you it isn't that way with everybody, and you 're not the kind that Fleetwood tries to get at."

"Why did he invite me, then?" Berri asked.

"Upon my soul, I don't know," Duggie declared sarcastically, "but I 'd be willing to bet that if I see him first he won't invite you again," he laughed.

Then Berri admitted that Fleetwood's idea was well enough in theory, but doubted if it really worked.

"That tall spook I jollied this evening for a while was exceedingly nice; but I sha'n't dash off and call on him to-morrow. I don't suppose I'll ever see him again," Berri said.

"No, probably not," Duggie assented, "but it's altogether likely that after time has healed the wound left by your indifference, he may find consolation in the companionship of some one else. You may not be able to grasp the fact, Berri, but it is a fact that 'there are others.'" It was in the midst of this that he began to get ready for bed.

"Why don't you open a salon yourself if you think they 're such 'life-sweeteners'?" Berri called after him when he went into his own room.

"When I come to the Law School next year, I'm going to," Duggie shouted back, "but _you 'll_ never see the inside of it; I 'll tell you that right now."

I did n't join in the discussion at all, for I got to thinking how lucky I had been from the first. Mamma overheard an old woman on a piazza say that she made the "young men" change their shoes when it was "snow-in'"--and that was all there was to it. That chance remark led to my living in the same house with Duggie and Berri; and what a difference it has made! Without Berri I never in the world should have known such a lot of people in so short a time; and without Duggie--well, I think I understand what my adviser meant when he said he was glad I knew Duggie.

There has been one Advocate meeting since my election and I thought it was great. All the editors meet in the Advocate President's room on Tuesday evening to hear the Secretary read the manuscripts that have been sent in or collected from the English courses during the week. It took them a long time to settle down to business; in fact no one seemed to want to hear the manuscripts at all--although I secretly thought this would be very interesting--and several fellows made remarks and tried to interrupt (the poetry especially) all the time the Secretary was reading. But he read on in a businesslike voice and never paid any attention to them except once, when he grabbed a college catalogue from the table, and without looking away from the page shied it at a fellow who was repeating the verses the Secretary was trying to read--only repeating them all wrong and making them sound ridiculous. In the case of most of the contributions the fellows began to vote "no" before they had read them half through; but several of them were hard to decide on, and the board had a lively time making up its mind. After the reading we sat around the fire and had beer and crackers and cheese while (as several of the manuscripts expressed it) "the storm howled without."

A few afternoons ago the Secretary (he has such a queer name--it's Duncan Duncan), came to my room to see how much I had done on a story I was writing. It was a little after six o'clock when he got up to go, and as he was on his way to dinner at Memorial he asked me to dine with him. I had never been to Memorial at meal time and was glad of the chance to go. It's a very interesting experience, although I think I prefer the comparative peacefulness of Mrs. Brown's as a usual thing.

We were joined in the Yard by a friend of Duncan's who sits at the same table. Duncan is a thoughtful, rather dreamy kind of person (he writes a lot of poetry for the Advocate), and on the way over he told me how much he enjoyed living at Memorial--that he never got tired of looking up at the stained-glass windows and the severe portraits.

"Even with the crowd and clatter there 's always something inspiring about its length and height," he said. "It has a calmness and dignity that quite transcend the fact of people's eating there. It's so academic."

"It's so cheap," the other fellow amended; but Duncan did n't mind him and became almost sentimental on the subject.

Well, I felt sorry for Duncan. We had hardly begun on our turkey and cranberry sauce when two of the colored waiters got into the most dreadful fight and rushed at each other with drawn forks. All the men jumped up on their chairs and waved their napkins and yelled: "Down in front--down in front!" and "Trun him out!" As the newspapers say of the Chamber of Deputies, "A scene of indescribable confusion ensued." It was several minutes before the combatants were hustled off to the kitchen and we could go on with our dinner. Then a party appeared in the visitors' gallery--a middle-aged man, two women, and some girls. One of the girls was decidedly pretty and attracted everybody's attention the moment she leaned over the rail. The man, however, was what caused the demonstration in the first place. He didn't take his hat off, which Duncan says always makes trouble. I don't think anybody really cares one way or the other, but it furnishes an excuse for noise. A murmur of disapproval travelled across the room and grew louder and louder until the man with a genial air of "Ah--these boys have recognized me," came to the front of the gallery and bowed. He took off his hat, which produced a burst of applause from below, and then put it on again, which changed the clapping of hands to ominous groans. The poor thing looked mystified and embarrassed, and I don't know how it would have ended if the pretty girl hadn't just at that instant been inspired to pluck a big rose from her belt and toss it over the rail. It fell with a thud in the middle of our table and twenty-four eager hands shot out to seize it. I grabbed instinctively with the others, and with the others I 'm exceedingly ashamed of what happened. The tablecloth and all the dishes were swept off, and in the scrimmage that followed the table was overturned. I have a terrifying, hideous recollection of everybody in the world kneeling on my chest and of something warm and wet on my face and neck. Then Duncan was saying,--

"It's all right, old man--lie perfectly still; you 've cut yourself a little, but it doesn't amount to anything. Only don't exert yourself." He looked so scared and white that I began to be frightened myself and tried to get up. But he and some of the other fellows very gently restrained me, saying that I was all right in the peculiar, hurried fashion that, more than anything else, convinces you that you're all wrong. Duncan's friend and another fellow were mumbling somewhere near me; I caught these fragments of their conversation: "It _must_ be an artery--eight or ten minutes if it is n't attended to--Doctor Banning and Doctor Merrick--telephoned--don't talk so loud--he might hear."

Then I lay quite still and closed my eyes and tried to think.

*VIII*

Looked at in one way, it was a humiliating thing to have happen; but on the other hand, after it was all over, I was able to derive considerable satisfaction from the fact that I had n't lost my presence of mind. The remarks I overheard as I lay on the floor of Memorial were anything but reassuring. I realized that in the scrimmage for the rose I had been submerged in china, glass, and cutlery,--that some of these things had severed one of my arteries and that the worst might happen. Of course I was very much frightened at first, and it was then that I tried to get up; but after they restrained me, I sank back and began to think of poor mamma. I was on the point of asking for writing materials, but on remembering that an accident of this kind was always attended by a sort of dreamy weakness, I became--actually--so languid that I recall telling myself that it would be of no use--I would n't have strength with which to write, even if a pen were thrust into my hand. So I went on thinking about mamma until suddenly a man with a pointed beard (I have since learned he was a medical student who happened to be dining with some friends at Memorial) dropped on one knee beside me and with rapid, skilful fingers began to open my shirt. Then he stopped very abruptly, and with the most disgusted expression I ever saw, turned toward the light and examined his fingers. After which he got up, brushed the dust from his knee, and said in a loud, peevish voice,--

"Tell that child to get up and go home and wash the cranberry-sauce off his face and neck and put on clean clothes," which I did as quickly as possible without even waiting to say good-bye to Duncan.

They don't call me "Tommy Trusting" any more. It became "Cranberry" for a day or two, then it was shortened to "Cranny," and now it's "Granny"--"Granny Wood." Berri says that it has a ring of finality to it, and that I 'll never be known by any other name.

Since the great game (I don't believe I 've touched upon the great game), the college seems to have settled down once more to an every-day sort of existence, with the Christmas holidays looming up now and then in letters from home. (As I was going out this morning, the postman met me at the gate and gave me four letters with the Perugia postmark. It 's funny how my feelings toward that poor man vary. When he hands me letters from home, I think he 's one of the nicest-looking persons I ever saw, but when he doles out a lot of bills, he seems to have a hard, cynical expression that I hate. I meet him at The Holly Tree occasionally, where he goes to snatch a nourishing breakfast of coffee and lemon-pie.)

I have n't alluded to the great game for several reasons--the chief one being that (as Berri says when people explain why they didn't pass certain exams), "I dislike post-mortems." I suppose it might have been, in various ways, a more distressing event than it actually was. The seats, for instance, might have collapsed and killed all the spectators; there might have been a railway collision on the way down; there might have been an earthquake or a tidal-wave. That none of these things happened is, of course, cause for congratulation--if not for bonfires and red lights on Holmes' Field. It is always well, I suppose, to have something definite to rejoice over. The long trip in the train back to Boston after the game, with every one hoarse and tired out and cross and depressed, was-- But I had determined not to mention it at all.

Poor Duggie! I know it nearly killed him. He has tried to refer to it philosophically and calmly in my room once or twice since then; but he never gets very far. He knows what he wants to say and ought to say, but he 's so intimate with Berri and me that I don't think he altogether trusts himself to say it. I imagine he finds it easier to talk to comparative strangers. I was afraid at first that Berri was going to find in the subject a sort of inexhaustible opportunity for the exercise of his genius for making people uncomfortable; but instead of that, I 've never known him to be so nice. For the first time he has allowed himself to show some of the admiration for Duggie that, all along, I 've felt sure he really has, and Duggie appreciates his delicacy--although in one way it grates on him almost as much, I think, as if Berri were just as he always is.

The other day mamma said in one of her letters, "I often wonder how you spend your days; just what you do from the time you go out to breakfast until you go to bed at--I hesitate to think _what_ o'clock." So when I answered her letter I tried to put in everything I did that day, and here it is:--

8.30 A.M.--Woke up in the midst of a terrible dream in which a burglar was pressing a revolver to my temple, and found that beast, Saga, standing by my bed with his cold, moist nose against my cheek. I threw shoes at him until he ran away yelping, which hurt Berri's feelings and made him very disagreeable to Duggie and me about the bathtub. He said we ought to let him have his bath first, as it took him so much longer!

9.15. Breakfast at The Holly Tree. Berri came with me, as he said he disliked last chapters, and it was Mrs. Brown's day for concluding her great serial story entitled "Corned Beef." At The Holly Tree we found Mr. Fleetwood, who hid coquettishly behind a newspaper when he saw us coming and exclaimed,--

"Go away,--go away, you unreverend, clever boy. You--you!" he added, shaking his finger at Berri. "I don't mind the other one--the little one," he went on when we had hung up our coats and hats and went over to his table; "but you have 'a tongue with a tang.' I sha'n't ask you again to my Wednesday Evenings." Of course this was perfect fruit for Berri, who sat down at once and implored Fleetwood with tears in his eyes to tell him what he had done, and begged him not to blight his (Berri's) career at the outset by denying him admission to the Wednesday Evenings. He vowed that he felt ever so much "older" and "broader" and "thoughtfuller," and all sorts of things that he never in the world will feel, just for going that once. But Fleetwood pretended not to listen to him, and went on reading the paper, interrupting Berri every now and then with: "Viper--viper!" or "Serpent--serpent!" I think he really likes Berri immensely, but is shrewd enough to know that he never can get at him by being serious. We had a very jolly breakfast, and Berri left declaring that he would n't rest until he had induced some famous man to step on his feet.

"Then I 'll be a lion myself and I sha'n't go to your Wednesday Evenings, no matter how much you ask me," he said. At which Fleetwood held his head with one hand and waved toward the door with the other, moaning,--

"Go away,--go away, both of you! You 've caused me to drink four cups of tea without knowing what I was doing. I think you want to drive me mad."

10.30. Neither of us had a lecture until eleven o'clock, and we were looking at some new books in a window on the Square when Hemington appeared. He touched us on the shoulders in a confidential kind of way, and then, looking furtively at the people who were waiting near by for a car, lowered his voice mysteriously, and asked us to go with him to his room.

"I have something over there that I don't mind letting you in on," he said. "Only you must n't of course speak of it; it might get us into a good deal of trouble with the government."

This sounded rather exciting, so we hurried to Hemington's room without talking much on the way over, as Hemington did n't communicate anything further and we, of course, could n't help wondering what he was going to show us. When we got into his study, he gave a peculiar rap on his bedroom door and out came a strange-looking little person,--short and plump, with black, curly hair and big black eyes and a sallow, almost dusky skin. A bright red handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck gave him a picturesque, a tropical air, that, considering we were in Hemington's prosaic study in Stoughton Hall, thrilled us from the first.

"This is Amadeo," said Hemington. (Hemi is taking Spanish I., and I think he enjoyed as much as anything pronouncing the name in a deep, rich, careless sort of way; he hauled it in every other second.) "It's all right, Amadeo," he went on, for although Amadeo smiled a most beautiful smile full of very regular and dazzling teeth, he turned to Hemington with a look intended to express inquiry and misgiving. "You can trust these men; they are your friends."

At this Amadeo flashed his teeth again and kissed Berri's hands. Berri looked exceedingly shocked, and I craftily put mine in my pocket.

"He 's a deserter," Hemington explained; for Berri began to rub his knuckles with a handkerchief, Amadeo looked hurt, and there was a moment of embarrassment all round. "He escaped from a merchantman that got in a few days ago from ----" (As I don't take Spanish I., it's impossible for me to give the luscious name of the island that Amadeo's boat had come from. It sounded something like Santa Bawthawthawthoth.) "The skipper was a brute--a regular old timer, and Amadeo could n't stand it any longer. He and a pal swam ashore with all their worldly possessions on their backs done up in tarpaulins (they were fired at six times when they were in the water), and his possessions" (here Hemington lowered his voice and Amadeo glanced sharply at the door) "consisted of three or four hundred of the best cigars you ever smoked in your life. He got them at Santa Bawthawthawthoth, and as he has n't a cent, of course he wants to sell them. He asks about a fourth as much as you have to pay for a perfectly wretched cigar at any place in town. They naturally did n't go through the custom house, and that's why you have to keep it all so quiet."

Amadeo went into Hemington's bedroom and returned with an oil-skin bundle that looked like those round, flat cheeses you see under cages of green wire in grocery stores. He untied it (glancing apprehensively at the door from time to time, and once clasping it to his breast when he heard a step in the hall outside), and disclosed the smuggled treasure. I have n't begun to smoke yet, but Berri and Hemington each took a cigar, and after puffing away for several seconds, Berri said his was simply delicious. It certainly smelled very good, and I was very sorry I had to run away in a few minutes to my eleven o'clock lecture, for Amadeo began to tell of some of his experiences on the merchantman, and they were pretty fierce. Berri cut his lecture, and I should have, if I were n't on probation. One of the penalties of probation is that you can't cut without an excuse that holds water at every pore.

11-12 M. Listened to a lecture--with experiments--on physics. The experiments did n't turn out well, and the instructor seemed much annoyed. I don't think he has the right idea. My experiments in the laboratory always give beautiful results. I find out first of all from the book what Nature is expected to do; and then I see that she does it. I 'm one of the most successful little experimenters in the class.

12 M. Ran back to Hemington's room. Amadeo had gone, but Berri and Hemington had bought all the cigars. Berri had learned a lot of Spanish in my absence, and could say "Amadeo" and "Santa Bawthawthawthoth" with almost as fluent a hot-mush effect as Hemington could. He packed his share of the cigars in Hemi's dress-suit case, and we took them over to our house.

1 P.M. Went to luncheon at Mrs. Brown's, and tried to borrow a shirt from everybody at the table, but without success. Duncan Duncan asked me to a tea in his rooms this afternoon to meet his mother and sisters and some girls from town. I promised to go, but Miss Shedd, my washerwoman, slipped on the ice and hurt herself and has n't been able to do my clothes for more than two weeks, and I discovered this morning that there were no more shirts in my drawer. Berri or Duggie would lend me one, but Berri unfortunately hasn't any, either, as Miss Shedd does his washing too, and of course anything of Duggie's on me is ridiculous. I wore a suit of his pajamas one night when I had a cold, as they 're thicker than mine, and the shoulders hung down around my elbows. Well, nobody would lend me a shirt--for no reason in the world except that they realized I simply had to have one and thought it would be amusing not to.

While we were at luncheon, Berri and Hemington gave every one two or three cigars, and Berri said knowingly: "I wish you fellows would try these and tell me what you think of them. I happened to get hold of them in a rather odd way; I can't tell you how exactly--at least not for a few days. They 're not the usual thing you buy at a store. They come from Santa Bawthawthawthoth."

We went on talking and forgot all about the cigars, until Berri, who is very sensitive to any kind of scent or odor, suddenly looked up and said,--

"What a perfectly excruciating smell! It's like overshoes on a hot register, only much worse. What on earth is it?" At this the rest of us at the table began to sniff the air, and I confess it was pretty bad. Bertie Stockbridge had finished his luncheon while we were still eating, and had taken his chair over to the window, where he was reading something for a half-past one recitation and smoking one of Amadeo's cigars. He was too absorbed in his book to hear the rest of us, but all at once he looked up with a very pained expression and exclaimed,--

"What a beastly cigar! I was reading and did n't notice how queer it was; it 's made me very sick." Then of course we all discovered at once where the hot rubbery fumes came from,--all but Berri and Hemington, that is to say; they refused to believe it. So everybody began to light cigars, and in a minute or two the room was simply unendurable. Stockbridge said they were like the trick cigars you see advertised sometimes; the kind that "explode with a red light,--killing the smoker and amusing the spectators." We dissected several of them; they seemed to contain a little of everything except tobacco. The fellows insisted on knowing all the details of the colossal sell, and although Berri and Hemington felt awfully cheap about their part in it, they finally told. Duggie says an Amadeo or a Manuele or a Luigi or an Anselmo appears in Cambridge every year at about this time, and invariably returns to Santa Bawthawthawthoth laden with Freshman gold.

1.25 P.M. Rushed home; got a shirt and took it to a Chinese laundry just off Mt. Auburn Street and implored the proprietor to wash it and have it ready for me by five o'clock. He seemed to think me somewhat insane, and said in a soothing, fatherly kind of way,--

"You come back day aftle to-mollel." Then I explained the situation and told him I would give him anything he asked if he would do me this favor. He made strange Oriental sounds, at which sleepy, gibbering things tumbled out of a shelf behind a green calico curtain, and from a black hole in the partition at the end of the shelf there began a tremendous grunting and snuffling, pierced by squeaks of rage and anguish. Then five Chinamen swarmed about my shirt, gesticulating murderously, and uttering raucous cries like impossible birds. I wanted to stay and see how it all turned out; but the bell had rung for my half-past one o'clock, and I hurried away.

The Oriental temperament is an impassive, deliberative, sphinx-like, inscrutable thing.

1.40-2.30 P.M. This hour I spent in class listening to a lecture on narration. I enjoyed it very much, and the hour went by so quickly that when the instructor dismissed us, I thought he had made a mistake. He gave us short scenes from various famous books in illustration of his points; and ended, as usual, by reading a lot of daily themes written by the class. Two of them were mine. He said they were good, but pointed out how they could have been better. One of his suggestions I agree with perfectly, but I think he 's all off in regard to the other. I 'll talk it over with him at his next consultation hour. Some of the fellows thought the whole thing perfect drool; but I confess it interested me very much. I never feel like cutting this course, somehow.

2.30. Went to my room with the intention of reading history until it was time to go for my shirt, and--if it was done up--get ready for the tea. I had read only part of a chapter when some fellows, passing by, yelled at my windows. I had made up my mind, when I began to read, not to answer any one, as it 's impossible to accomplish anything if you do. But of course I forgot and yelled back, and in a minute three fellows clattered up the stairs and I realized that they were good for the rest of the afternoon.

It's a queer thing about going to see people here. I don't think that any one ever goes with the intention of staying any length of time, or even of sitting down; you merely drop in as you 're passing by and happen to think of it. You would n't believe it if somebody told you you were destined to stay for several hours. But that's what usually happens. Another queer thing is that very few fellows admit that they 're studying when you come in, unless of course it's in the midst of the exams. If you find a man at a desk with a note-book and several large open volumes spread out before him, and you say to him, "Don't mind me--go on with your grinding," nine times out of ten he'll answer, "Oh, I wasn't grinding; I was just glancing over these notes." The tenth man fixes you with a determined eye and replies: "You get out of here, or take a book and go into a corner and shut up."

3.45. We all took a walk up Brattle Street past the Longfellow house as far as James Russell Lowell's place and back. It's a great old street, even with the leaves all gone--which makes ordinary places so dreary. Duggie pointed out the most famous houses to me one day and told me who had lived in them. I tried to do it this afternoon, but the fellows said they did n't care.

5. Got my shirt at the Chinaman's. It looked all right, but it was still damp in spots--wet, in fact. I went prepared to pay almost any price after all the excitement I had caused; but the proprietor was surprisingly moderate in his demands. I gave him something more than he asked, but he would n't take it until I accepted some poisonous-looking dried berries done up in a piece of oiled paper. He seemed to have grasped the idea of a tea, for he kept saying over and over again with a delighted smile: "You go see girl--you go see girl."

5.20. Went to Duncan's tea and "saw girl"--lots of them. They were very nice, and pretended they were dreadfully excited at being in a college room. They asked all sorts of silly questions, and the fellows replied with even sillier answers. Duncan had taken them to see the museums and the glass flowers and Memorial and the Gym, and had done the honors of Cambridge generally.

6.30. Went to dinner at Mrs. Brown's, but as I had just come from Duncan's, where I had drunk two cups of tea (I don't know why, as I hate it) and had eaten several kinds of little cakes, I had no appetite whatever. Somebody had put a chocolate cigar on Berri's and Hemington's plate,--the kind that has a piece of gilt paper glued to the large end. Berri and Hemington had to stand a good deal of guying during dinner, but were consoled by the fact that Amadeo's pal had worked precisely the same game on some other men we know slightly at the very moment that Amadeo himself was doing us.

7.15. Went to my room and made a big fire, as I had a curious kind of chill, although the house was warm and it was n't cold outside. I had just decided to stay at home and read, when I came across an Advocate postal card on my desk, and remembered that there was a meeting of the board in the Secretary's room at eight o'clock.

8.11. Listened to manuscripts and voted on them, and then sat around and talked afterwards. It's rather embarrassing sometimes when a story happens to be by one of the editors and isn't good. This evening we had a long, terribly sentimental passage from the life of a member of the board. We all knew who had written it, and although it was ever so much worse than the tale that had just been read (which had been most unmercifully jumped on), the criticisms were painfully cautious and generously sprinkled with the praise that damns. Of course it isn't always this way when the editors submit things; they 're often made more fun of than anybody else. But this man for some reason is n't the kind with whom that sort of thing goes down. He has been known to refer to writing for the Advocate as "My Art."

One thing that happened during the evening made a good deal of fun. The advertisers have kicked about our not having the leaves of the paper cut. They say that the subscribers cut the leaves of the reading matter only, and never get a chance to see the advertisements at all. We think it is ever so much nicer not to have it done by machinery, for when the subscribers do it themselves with a paper-cutter, the effect on the thick paper is very rough and artistic. Well, we discussed this for a long time, until some one exclaimed: "I don't see why we shouldn't have it done by hand. It would take a little longer, but the expense would n't amount to much, and in that way we could have our rough edges and appease the advertisers at the same time." So after some more talk it was voted on and carried unanimously. Then the President got up, and turning to a solemn person who had been very much in favor of the motion, said:

"It has been moved and carried that the leaves of the Advocate be cut henceforth by Hand. Mr. Hand, you will kindly see that the work is done on time; I think there are only eight or nine hundred copies printed this year."

11. On the way home from the Advocate meeting I saw the most gorgeous northern lights I ever imagined,--great shafts of deep pink that shot up from the horizon and all joined at the middle of the sky like a glorious umbrella. I ran upstairs to get Duggie and Berri, but neither of them was in; so, as I simply had to have some one to marvel with, I called Mrs. Chester. She and another old crone--Mis' Buckson--were having a cup of tea in the kitchen, and did n't seem particularly enthusiastic over my invitation to come out and see the display, but they finally bundled up in shawls and followed me to the piazza. We stood there a minute or two looking up in silence, and I thought at first that they were as much impressed as I was. Finally, however, Mrs. Chester gave a little society cough and remarked,--

"It's real chilly, aren't it?" and Mis' Buckson, drawing her shawl more tightly about her bent shoulders, jerked her chin in an omnipotent, blase kind of fashion towards the heavens, and croaked,--

"That there's a sign o' war." Then they both limped back to the house.

11.30. Made a big blaze in the fireplace, as I was cold again and did n't feel well at all. I sat down to write to mamma, and was just finishing when Duggie came in on his way to bed. He 's not in training now and can stay up as long as he pleases. He asked me how often I wrote to mamma, and I told him that I had written twice a week at first because there was so much to tell, but that now since things had settled down and I did n't have so much to say, I write about once a week. He answered that there was just as much to say now as there ever was, and told me to write twice a week or he 'd know the reason why.

Then I went to bed and had a chill. And that's how a whole day was spent from half-past eight in the morning until half-past twelve at night.

The next morning I woke up with a very bad sore throat and a stiff neck and pains all over. Duggie and Berri made me send for a doctor, and signed off for me at the office. I can't imagine how I caught cold, unless, perhaps, it was from wearing that wet shirt.

*IX*

I was very sick for about three days, and just sick for three or four days more. When Berri signed off for me at the office, the college doctor bustled around to my room at noon to see what was the matter. His motives in doing this are somewhat mixed, I believe. He has not only the health but the veracity of the undergraduate very much at heart. If you are laid up, of course he has to know about it; and if you are n't well enough to attend lectures but manage with a heroic effort to go skating,--well, he likes to know about that too.

"Of course you haven't measles," Duggie said when he came in a few minutes after Dr. Tush had gone, "but equally, of course, he said you had,--did n't he?"

"Yes, he did," I answered dismally; for he had told me this at considerable length, and I remembered that measles a good many years before had almost been the end of me.

"Well, _that_'s a relief," Duggie went on cheerfully. "You may have all sorts of things, but it's a cinch that you have n't measles. Tush is a conservative old soul; he always gambles on measles, and of course every now and then he wins. It pleases him immensely. He usually celebrates his success by writing a paper on 'The University's Health,' and getting it printed in the Graduates' Magazine."

When the other doctor--the real one--came, he found that I was threatened with pneumonia.

Oh, I had a perfectly miserable time of it at first. The feeling dreadfully all over and not being able to breathe was bad enough, but I think the far-away-from-homeness and the worrying about mamma were worse. I was afraid all the time that she would hear (although I could n't imagine how that would be possible), and then in the middle of the night I lay awake hoping and praying that she _would_ hear and leave for Cambridge by the next train. I don't suppose I realized just then how wonderfully good Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester were to me. Duggie and Berri took turns in sitting up all night and putting flannel soaked in hot mustard-water on my chest (ugh! how I loathe the smell of mustard), and when they had to go to lectures during the day,--I think, as a matter of fact, they cut a great many of them,--Mrs. Chester would come in and hem endless dish-cloths by the window. Berri says that he ceased to worry about me from the time I looked over at Mrs. Chester after about half an hour's silence and exclaimed,--

"Sew some more with the crisscross pattern; I 'm tired of those dingy white ones."

As I began to get better, I appreciated how much trouble I 'd given them all and tried to thank them; but Berri said,--

"Why, your illness has been a perfect god-send to me. I 've done more grinding lately between midnight and six in the morning than I ever thought would be possible. I 've caught up with almost everything." And Duggie stopped me with,--

"But if it had n't been Berri and I, it would have been someone else--which we're very glad it was n't."

Old Mrs. Chester is a jewel. I didn't pay much attention to her at first, but was just glad to know she was in the room. Later, however, when I began to want to get up and she devoted the whole of her marvellous art to keeping me amused, I appreciated her. She is wonderful. I was going to assert that she inspires the kind of affection one can't help feeling for a person who is all heart and no intelligence; but that, somehow, misses the mark. She has intelligence--lots of it--only it's different. And before my recovery was complete I began to wonder if it wasn't the only kind that is, after all, worth while. For it's the kind with which books and newspapers and "going a journey" and other mechanical aids have nothing to do. (Perhaps I should concede something to the influence of foreign travel, as there was a very memorable expedition "to Goshen in New York State" some time in the early sixties.) Mrs. Chester's intelligence gushes undefiled from the rock, and then flows along in a limpid, ungrammatical stream that soothes at first and then enslaves. Her gift for narrative of the detailed, photographic, New England variety positively out-Wilkins Mary, and I am to-day, perhaps, the greatest living male authority on what Berri calls _la cronique scandaleuse_ of Cambridge. One of her studies in the life of the town forty years ago (it was a sort of epic trilogy that lasted all morning and afternoon and part of the evening with intermissions for luncheon and dinner) I mean to write some time for the Advocate. It all leads up to the New Year's Eve on which "old Mrs. Burlap passed away," but it includes several new and startling theories as to the real cause of the Civil War, an impartial account of the war itself, a magnificent tribute to the late General Butler, a description of Mrs. Chester's wedding,--the gifts and floral tributes displayed on that occasion together with a dreamy surmise as to their probable cost,--a brief history of religion from the point of view of one who is at times assailed by doubt,--but who doesn't make a practice of "rushin' around town tellin' folks who'd only be too glad to have it to say" (this last I assumed to be a thrust at Mis' Buckson),--a spirited word picture of the festivities that took place when Cambridge celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as a city, and at the end a brilliant comparison between Cambridge and "Goshen in New York State." There was, I believe, some mention of the passing away of old Mrs. Burlap on New Year's Eve, but of this I am not sure.

One thing I discovered that rather astonished me in this part of the world (a locality that Berri in one of his themes called "a cold hot-bed of erudition"), and that is--Mrs. Chester doesn't know how to read. I never would have found it out but for an embarrassing little miscalculation on her part, in the method by which until then she had delightfully concealed the fact. More than once while I was sick, she sat by the lamp apparently enjoying the evening paper that Duggie subscribes to, and I had n't the slightest suspicion that she was probably holding it upside down, even when I would ask her what the news was and she would reply,--

"Oh, shaw--these papers! They 're every one of 'em alike. They don't seem to be any news to 'em. I don't see why you young gentlemen waste your good money a-buyin' 'em."

Often on the way upstairs she takes the letters that the postman leaves between the banisters in the little hall below, and manages to distribute them with more or less accuracy.

"I 've got somethin' for you, and it 's from your mother too, you naughty little man, you," is her usual way of handing me a communication from mamma. I did n't realise until the other day that, as mamma's letters always came in the same kind of gray-blue envelopes, it doesn't take a chirographic expert to tell whom they are from. Nor did I recall that, when Mrs. Chester appears with a whole handful of things, she invariably stops short in the middle of the room and artlessly exclaims,--

"Well, now, if that does n't beat all! Here I 've climbed up them steep stairs again and forgotten my specs. Who 's gettin' all these letters anyhow?"

A few mornings ago, however,--when they let me sit up for the first time,--Mrs. Chester appeared with two letters. One of them was unmistakably gray-blue, but the other was white and oblong and non-committal. She paused at the door as if about to examine the address, and then suddenly,--

"If I ain't the most careless woman in the world," she said. "I 've gone and brought up the letters again, and forgotten--" But just at this point we both became aware that her steel-rimmed spectacles were dangling in her other hand. They not only dangled, but they seemed to me a moment later to dangle almost spitefully; for Mrs. Chester's worn cheeks became very pink. She looked at the spectacles and at the white envelope and at me. Then she said with a sort of wistful lightness,--

"Maybe you can make it out; your eyes are younger than mine. I never seen such a letter; it's so--so--it's so flung together like."

"It is--isn't it?" I agreed hastily, as I stretched out my hand, to receive a letter from papa with the address in type-writing.

Just as I thought would happen, mamma heard I was sick and was, of course, very much worried. Dick Benton--who has never come near me, and whom I 've only seen twice on the street since College opened--mentioned the fact of my illness in a letter home. (I suppose he did it in a despairing effort to make his sentences reach the middle of page two.) Of course Mrs. Benton had to throw a shawl around her meddling old back and waddle across the street to our house, to find out the latest news; and as there had n't been any news, mamma's letter to me expressed a "state of mind." But I fixed her (and incidentally Dick Benton) with a telegram.

By the way, I really must speak to mamma about her recent letters to me. Mildred has been away from home, and as mamma writes very regularly to both of us, she often refers to things she remembers having written to somebody, but without pausing to consider how maddening they are when the somebody doesn't happen to be myself. From her last, for instance, I gleaned these interesting items without having the vaguest idea what they belong to:--

"Your father and I have just got back from the funeral. I suppose, when one arrives at such a great age, death is a relief. But it is always solemn.

"Is n't it nice about the Tilestons? I don't know when--in a purely impersonal way--I 've been so pleased. They 've struggled so long and so bravely and now it seems as if their ship had come in at last. Of course, I should n't care to spend so much time in South America myself, (Guatemala _is_ in South America, is n't it?) but they all seem delighted at the prospect."

Now would n't that jar you?

My acquaintances generally found out that I was sick about the time that Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester discharged me, so to speak, as well. I could n't go out, and the doctor made me stay in bed longer than was really necessary, as the bottom of the furnace fell to pieces one morning and it was impossible to heat the house for several days. But I felt pretty well. By that time, as I say, there was all at once a ripple of interest among my friends over the fact that I was sick. They were awfully kind, and came to my room from early in the morning--right after breakfast--until late at night, when they would drop in on their way back from the theatre. My desk was a perfect news-stand of illustrated magazines and funny papers, and I had left in my book-case, probably, the queerest collection of novels that was ever assembled outside of a city hospital. Duggie had a fit over them, and as he read out the titles one evening, he kept exclaiming, "What, oh, what are the children coming to!" The only volume that was n't fiction was a thing called "The Statesman's Year Book," and was brought by a queer sort of chap who is very much interested in sociology. I know him pretty well; so after I thanked him, I could n't help saying,--

"What on earth did you lug this thing up here for?--it looks like an almanac." To which he replied,--

"Well, it's darned interesting, I can tell you. Until I got it I never knew, for instance, how many quarts of alcohol per head were consumed annually in Finland."

Although Duggie did n't say anything, I don't think he was particularly pleased at the fellows dropping in so often and staying so long. They played cards a lot, and smoked all the time until you could hardly see across the room; and sometimes when night came I felt rather tired and my eyes and throat hurt a good deal. But I confess I liked it, even if Duggie and Mrs. Chester did n't.

Only one change of any importance took place while I was laid up: Berri's Icelandic dog--Saga--has been removed from our midst. I was aware that an unusual spirit of peace and order reigned in the house as soon as I began to be about once more, but I attributed it vaguely to the chastening influence of my illness. However, one morning, when on my way to a lecture I remembered that I had noticed my best hat lying on a chair in my study as I came away, and ran back to save it from being eaten, it occurred to me that I had n't seen Saga for days. So, while Berri and I were strolling home from luncheon, I asked him what had happened.

"He 's gone--gone, poor old darling!" said Berri; "I hate to speak of it."

"He was n't stolen or run over or anything, was he?" I asked sympathetically; for now that Saga was no longer an hourly source of anxiety and conflict, I felt reasonably safe in expressing some regret. "Did he run away?"

"No, he did n't leave me," Berri answered sadly; "I gave him up. You see--I found out that there is a law against bringing them into the State; they always go mad as soon as the warm weather comes. So I gave him to one of the little Cabot girls on her birthday. She was awfully pleased."

I am rather worried over something that I got into lately without stopping to think how much it might involve. Berri and that tall spook, named Ranny, that he met at Fleetwood's Wednesday Evening, struck up quite an intimacy not long ago, although I can't for the life of me see how they managed it. He isn't a Freshman, as we thought, but a Sophomore. Berri was waiting in a bookstore in town one day to go to a matinee with a fellow who did n't turn up; and while he was standing there, Ranny came in and began to drive the clerks insane over some Greek and Sanscrit books he had ordered weeks before and that no one had ever heard of. Berri looked on for a while, and, as his friend did n't come and it was getting late and he--Berri--did n't like to waste the extra ticket, he invited Ranny to go with him. Well, they not only went to the matinee, they dined in town together and went again to another show in the evening. Between the acts Ranny explained to him just wherein the wit of "The Girl from Oskosh" differed from the comedies of Aristophanes, and Berri says that before they parted he had learned all about the Greek drama from A to Izzard. Since then Ranny has been to our house several times, and although Berri likes him, he usually finds after about an hour that he isn't equal to the intellectual strain; so he lures Ranny into my room and then gracefully fades away.

Now I like Ranny too. He has, in his ponderous, bespectacled way, an enthusiasm for several bespectacled, ponderous subjects that is simply irresistible. One of them is Egyptology and the study of hieroglyphics. Of course I don't know anything about this, any more than Berri knew about the Greek drama,--not as much even; for he did, at least, pretend to play a pagan instrument of some kind in a play they gave at school once, while a Frenchman behind the scenes toodled away on a flute. But when Ranny gets to talking about dynasties and cartouches and draws fascinating little pictures of gods and goddesses named Ma and Pa, and explains how the whole business was deciphered by means of a piece of stone somebody picked up in the mud one day,--a regular old Sherlock Holmes, he must have been,--you simply can't help being carried away and wishing you could discover something on your own account. He talked so much about it and made it all seem so real and important that one day when he exclaimed,--

"And the mystery is that the University ignores this subject--ignores it!" I really felt that the Faculty was treating us rather shabbily and that we were n't, somehow, getting our money's worth. We talked the matter over very seriously, and decided at last that it could n't be stinginess on the part of the Corporation,--for why should it allow courses in higher mathematics and philosophy and Italian literature, to which only three or four fellows went, if it wanted to save the pennies? It was more likely just ignorance of the importance of hieroglyphics, and the growing demand for a thorough course of it.

"We probably could get a course all right if we showed them how some of us feel about it," Ranny mused. "There's a chap in Latin 47 who'd join, I think--you've seen that middle-aged man with the long sandy beard, have n't you? He tries almost everything."

The person Ranny referred to did n't seem very promising to me. We sleep next each other in a history course. He never wears a necktie, and the last time I saw him there were a lot of dead maple leaves tangled up in his beard. No one seems to know why he is here.