Chapter VIII: Part 8

With a big voice he began to hint, mysteriously, that it would be wise for me to clear out. I showed him that I held a clear title and right to sojourn there till Christmas, if I chose to, as the bishop's wife had paid for the site till that time, and had then transferred the use of the location to me. I showed him her letter ... with the Tallahassee postmark.

His only answer was, that he knew nothing about that ... that Barton wanted the place, and, that if I wouldn't vacate peaceably--and he looked me in the eyes like some great, calm animal.

Though my heart was pounding painfully, against, it seemed, the very roof of my mouth, I compelled my eyes not to waver, but to look fiercely into his....

"Are you going to start packing?"

"No, I am not going to start packing."

"I can break your neck with one twist," and he illustrated that feat with a turn of one large hand in the air.

He came slowly in, head down, as if to pick me up and throw me down.

I waited till he was close, then gave him an upward rip with all my might, a blow on the forehead that made the blood flow, and staggered him with consternation. To keep myself still at white heat, I showered blows on him. To my surprise, he fell back.

"Wait--wait," he protested in a small voice, "I--I was just fooling."

* * * * *

After Vinton left, my blood still pouring through my veins in a triumphant glow, I sat on the ground by the side of my tent-floor and composed a poem....

That afternoon Barton's office boy was sent to me, as an emissary of peace.

"The boss wants to see you in his office."

"Tell your boss that my office is down here. If he wants to see me he can come here."

The boy scurried away. I was now looked upon as a desperate man.

* * * * *

And I was happy. I sang at the top of my voice, an old ballad about Captain John Smith, so that Barton could hear it through the open window of his office....

"And the little papooses dig holes in the sand ...
_Vive le Capitaine John!_..."

I leaped into the lake, without even my gee-string on, and swam far out, singing....

* * * * *

Late that evening, Barton came to my tent ... very gently and sweetly ... he no longer called me John or Johnnie ... I was now Mr. Gregory. He asked me, if he rented the plot back from me, would I go in peace? I replied, no, I meant to stay there till the middle of September, when the fall term opened at Mt. Hebron.

Then he asked me, would I just join forces with him,--since we must put the movement above personalities....

We had a long talk about life and "Nature" ideals. The man showed all his soul, all his struggles, to me. And I saw his real greatness and was moved greatly. And I informed him I would antagonise him no longer, that, though I would not give up the desirable site, otherwise, I would help him all I could.

Then he said he would be glad to have me stay, and we shook hands warmly, the moisture of feeling shining in our eyes.

* * * * *

As the time for my return to school drew near, I was in fine physical condition, better than ever before in my life. I was still somewhat thin, but now it could be called slenderness, not thinness. And I was surprised at the laughing, healthy, sun-browned look of my face.

I felt a confidence in myself I had never known before....

* * * * *

I had a flirtation with a pretty, freckle-faced girl. She worked in Barton's "factory," and she used to come down to my tent where I sat reading, with only my trunks on,--during the noon hour,--and ask me to read poetry aloud to her. And I read Shelley. She would draw shyly closer to me, sending me into a visible tremour that made me ashamed of myself.

At times, as we read, her fair, fine hair would brush my cheek and send a shiver of fire through me. But I still knew nothing about women. I never even offered to kiss her.

But when she was away from me, at night specially, I would go into long, luxurious, amorous imaginations over her and the possession of her, and I would dream of loving her, and of having a little cottage and children....

But words and elegant, burning phrases are never enough for a woman.

In a week I noticed her going by on the arm of a mill-hand.

* * * * *

And, broke again, I wrote to my grandmother that I must have fifty dollars to get back to school on. And, somehow, she scraped it together and sent it to me. My first impulse was to be ashamed of myself and start to return it. Then I kept it. For, after all, it was for poetry's sake.

* * * * *

On the train to Hebron, as I walked up the car to my seat, health shining in my smooth, clear face and skin, the women and girls gave me approving, friendly glances, and I was happy.

A summer of control from unhealthy habits had done this for me, a summer of life, naked, in the open air, plus exercise. I had learned a great lesson. To Barton I owe it that I am still alive, vigorously alive, not crawlingly ... but I suffered several slumps before I attained and held my present physique. For the world and life afford complications not found in "Perfection City."

* * * * *

The school hill lay before my eyes again. From it spread on all sides the wonderful Connecticut valley. Up and down the paths to the dining hall, the buildings in which classes were held, the Chapel crowning the topmost crest, wandered groups of boys in their absurd, postage-stamp caps, their peg-top trousers, their wide, floppy raglan coats.

I was a senior now. At first my change in bodily build and bettered health rendered me hardly recognisable to my friends.

The very first day I reached Hebron again I was out on the wide, oval field, lacing around the track. In a month would come the big track-meet and I was determined this time, to win enough points to earn me my "H."

* * * * *

Principal Stanton sent for me, the second day after my arrival.

"I wanted to have a long talk with you before you got settled, Gregory."

His steely, blue eyes gleamed through his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

"Sit down."

And we had a talk lasting over an hour ... about religion mainly. He was surprised to learn that I knew a lot about the early Church fathers, had read Newman, and understood the Oxford controversy ... had read many of the early English divines....

"Gregory," he cried, putting his hand on my knee, "what a power for God you would be, if you would only give over your eccentricities and become a Christian ... a chap with your magnetism--in spite of your folly!--"

He impressed on me the fact, that, now I was a senior, more would be expected of me ... that the younger boys would look up to me, as they did to all seniors, and I must be more careful of my deportment before them ... my general conduct....

He asked me what I intended making of myself.

"A poet!" I exclaimed.

He spread his hands outward with a gesture of despair.

"Of course, one can write poetry if necessary ... but what career are you choosing?"

"The writing of poetry."

"But, my dear Gregory, one can't make a living by that ... and one must live."

"Why must one live?" I replied fervently, "did Christ ever say 'One must live'?"

"Gregory, you are impossible," laughed Stanton heartily, "but we're all rather fond of you ... and we want you to behave, and try to graduate. Though we can't tell just what you might do in after-life ... whether you'll turn out a credit to the School or not."

"Professor Stanton, I have a favour to ask of you before I go," I asked, standing.

"Yes?" and he raised his eyebrows.

"I want to know if I can have that room alone, over the platform, in Recitation Hall."

"You'll have to ask Professor Dunn about that ... he has charge of room-transfers ... but why can't you room as the other students do?... I don't know whether it is good for you, to let you live by yourself ... you're already different enough from the other boys ... what you need is more human companionship, Gregory, not less."

"I want to do a lot of writing. I want to be alone to think. I plan to read Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament all through, again, this winter." ... This was a sop to his religious sentiment. I related how I had first read the New Testament in the Greek, while on a cattle-boat, in the China Seas....

"Gregory, you're quite mad ... but you're a smooth one, too!" his eyes gleamed, amused, behind his glasses....

"And I want to write a lot of poems drawn from the parables of the New Testament"--though, not till that minute had such an idea entered my head....

When I was admitted to the study of Professor Dunn and sat down waiting for him among his antique busts and rows of Latin books, I had formulated further plans to procure what I desired....

He came in, heavily dignified, like a dark, stocky Roman, grotesque in modern dress, lacking the toga.

I told him of my New Testament idea ... and added to it, as an afterthought, that I also wanted to prosecute a special study of the lyrics of Horace. Though he explained to me that Horace belonged to the college curriculum, his heart expanded. Horace was his favourite poet--which, of course, I knew....

I got my room.

I borrowed a wheelbarrow from the barn, and wheeled my trunk down to Recitation Hall, singing.

* * * * *

What a hypocrite I had been! But I had obtained what I sought--a room alone. But now I must, in truth, study the Greek Testament and Horace....

I figured out that if I enrolled for several extra Bible courses the Faculty would be easier on me with my other studies, and let me cut some of them out entirely.

To make myself even more "solid," I gave out that I had been persuaded to Christianity so strongly, of a sudden, that I contemplated studying for the ministry. I even wrote my grandmother that this was what I intended to do. And her simple, pious letter in return, prayerful with thanks to God for my conversion so signal--in secret cut me to the heart....

But it gave me a temporary pleasure, now, to be looked upon as "safe." To be openly welcomed at prayer-meetings ... I acted, how I acted, the ardent convert ... and how frightened I was, at myself, to find that, at times, I believed that I believed!...

My former back-sliding was forgiven me.

And the passage of Tennyson about "one honest doubt" being more than half the creeds, was quoted in my favour.

* * * * *

Field-day!...

* * * * *

I entered for the two-mile, to be run off in the morning ... for the half-mile, the first thing in the afternoon ... the mile, which was to be the last event, excepting the hammer-throw. My class, in a body, had urged me to enter for all the "events" I could ... when the delegation came, I welcomed them, with gratified self-importance, to my solitary room. I invited them in, and they sat about ... on my single chair ... my bed ... the floor....

"You see, Gregory, if you win two of these races, we'll get the banner that goes to the class that makes the greatest number of points ... you must do it for us ... we have never yet won the banner, and this is our last chance."

They left, solemnly shaking my hand, as over a matter of vast importance....

Hurrying into my track suit, I went out to the Oval. It was three days before the meet.

Dunn was there, with several others, measuring out distances and chalking lanes.

With all the delicate joy of an aesthete I took my slim, spiked running shoes. I patted them with affection as I pushed my feet into them. I removed the corks from the shining spikes....

I struck out with long, low-running, greyhound strides ... around and around ... the wind streamed by me....

I knew I was being watched admiringly. I could see it out of the tail of my eyes. So I threw forward in a final sprint, that brought me up, my eyes stinging with the salt of sweat, my legs aching ... my chest heaving....

"Good boy," complimented Dunn, coming up to me, and patting me on the back ... Gregory, I'm _for_ you. I'm so glad you've come out a clean, fine, clear-cut Christian."

* * * * *

For the two-mile, the half, and the mile, each--a single athlete was training, his heart set on the record. It seemed impossible that I should win all three races. Yet I did.

I was all nerves and sinews for the two-mile. The night before I had lain awake. I could not sleep so I read a poor translation of the odes of Pindar. But behind the bad verbiage of the translator, I fed on the shining spirit of the poetry. With Pindar's music in me, I was ready for the two-mile.

* * * * *

Tensely we leaned forward, at the scratch. I had my plan of campaign evolved. I would leap to the fore, at the crack of the pistol, set a terrific pace, sprint the first quarter, and then settle into my long, steady stride, and trust to my good lung power ... for I had paid special attention to my lung-development, at "Perfection City."

I felt a melting fire of nervousness running through my body, a weakness.

I bowed my face in my hands and prayed ... both to Christ and to Apollo ... in deadly seriousness ... perhaps all the gods really were....

The gun cracked. Off I leapt, in the lead ... in the first lap the field fell behind.

"Steady, Gregory, steady!" advised Dunn, in a low voice, as I flashed into the second....

I thought I had distanced everybody ... but it chilled me to hear the soft swish, swish of another runner ... glancing rapidly behind, I saw a swarthy lad, a fellow with a mop of wiry, black hair, whom we called "The Hick" (for he had never been anywhere but on a farm)--going stride for stride, right in my steps, just avoiding my heels....

Run as I might, I couldn't shake him off....

Every time I swept by, the crowd would set up a shout ... but now they were encouraging "The hick" more than me. This made me furious, hurt my egotism. My lungs were burning with effort ... I threw out into a longer stride. I glanced back again. Still the chap was lumbering along ... but easily, so easily ... almost without an effort....

"Good God, am I going to be beaten?" I sensed a terrific sprinting-power in the following, chunky body of my antagonist.

There were only two more laps ... the rest of the field were a lap and a half behind, fighting for third place amongst themselves ... jeered at by the instinctive cruelty of the onlookers....

My ears perceived a cessation of the following swish, the tread. Simultaneously I heard a great shout go up. I dared not look back, however, to see what was happening--I threw myself forward at that shout, fearing the worst, and ran myself blind....

* * * * *

"Take it easy, you have it!"

"Shut up! he's after the record."

* * * * *

The shrill screaming of the girls who had come over, in a white, linen-starched wagon load, from Fairfield, gave me my last spurt. Expecting every moment to hear my antagonist grind past me, on the cinders, I sped up the home-stretch.

The air was swimming in a gold mist. I felt arms under mine, and I was carried off to the senior tent, by my class-mates....

Yet I am convinced that I would have been beaten, if my rival had not had the string that held his trunks up, break. He had sunk down on the track, when they had fallen, not to show his nakedness ... and, pulling them up, and holding them, amid great laughter, he had still won second ribbon.

* * * * *

I won the second race--the half-mile, without the humour of such a fateful intervention. It was my winning of the first that won me the second. I had just equalled the two-mile record, in the first....

I ran that half, blindly, like a mad man. I was drunk with joy over my popularity ... for when I had gone into the big dining room for lunch, all the boys had shouted and cheered and roared, and pounded the dishes with their knives.

* * * * *

"Now, Gregory, you've just got to take the mile away from Learoyd ... he's a junior ... you've just _got_ to!... besides, if you don't ... there's Flammer has lost the broad jump ... and we won't win the class banner after all."

Learoyd was a smallish, golden-faced, downy-headed boy ... almost an albino.... I had seen him run ... he ran low to the ground, in flashes, like some sort of shore-bird.

* * * * *

In the class-tent, alone. Dunn had driven my class out, where they had been massaging and kneading my legs ... which trembled and tottered under me, from the excessive use they had already undergone.

I sat down and put my head between my knees, and groaned. Then I straightened out my right leg and rubbed it, because a cramp was knotting it.

"Hello, Gregory!"

The tent-flap opened. The athletic director poked his head in.

"Come on, Gregory, we're waiting for you."

"Wait a minute, Smythe ... I want to pray," I replied simply. Reverently he withdrew ... impressed ... awed....

I flung myself on my face.

"Look here, God, I'll really believe in you, if you give me this last race ... it will be a miracle, God, if you do this for me, and I will believe in your Bible, despite my common sense ... despite history ... despite Huxley and Voltaire," then, going as far as I could--"yes, and despite Shelley ... dear God, dear Christ, please do what I have asked."

My hand struck on a bottle of witch hazel as I rose. Impulsively, I drank off half the contents. It sent a warmth through me. I straightened up, invigorated.

"Come on, Gregory ... what's the matter?" it was Dunn, protesting, "we'll have to run off the mile without you, if you don't come."

"I'm ready ... I'm coming."

* * * * *

All that I had in my head, when the pistol cracked, was to _run!_ ... all I felt about me was only a pair of mad legs.

I licked out, neither seeing nor caring ... almost feeling my way along the rim of the track with my toes, as I ran--as if I had racing eyes in them. There was a continuous roar that rose and fell like the sea. But I neither saw nor heeded. I just ran and ran.

On the home-stretch a fellow came breast to breast with me. It was Learoyd ... running low like a swallow skimming the ground. But it didn't worry me. I was calm, just floating along, it seemed to me.

I saw Dunn throwing his camera into the air, in the forefront of the seething crowd. He was crying for me to come on. The camera fell in a smashed heap, unregarded.

Barely, with my chest flung out, I took the tape ... trailing off ... I ran half a lap more, with my class leaping grotesquely and shouting, streaming across field after me--before I had my senses back again, and realised that the race was over.

"Did I win? Did I win? Did I win?" I asked again and again.

"Yes, you won!"

I was being carried about on their shoulders.

"A little more, and we'd have to take you over to the hospital," commented Smythe, as he looked at me, while I lay prone on my back, resting, under shelter of the tent.

"Who--who used up all this witch-hazel?" he asked of the rubbers....

I hid my face in the grass, pretending to groan from the strain I had just undergone. Instead, I was smothering a laugh at myself ... at the school ... at all things....

"God and witch-hazel," I wanted to shout hysterically, "hurrah for God and witch-hazel."

Then I rose shakily to my feet, and, flinging myself loose from those who offered to help me, I ran at a good clip, in my sneakers, dangling my running shoes affectionately--to my solitary room ... with a bearing that boasted, "why, I could run all those three races over again, one right after the other, right now ... no, I'm not tired ... not the least bit tired!"

That night, in the crowded dining hall, the ovation for me was tremendous.

"I'll smash life just like those races," I boasted, in my heart.

But my triumph and eminence were not to last long.

To be looked up to at Mt. Hebron you had to lead a distasteful, colourless life of hypocrisy and piety such as I have seldom seen anywhere before. Under cover of their primitive Christianity I never found more pettiness. First, you prayed and hymn-sung yourself into favour, and then indulged in sanctimonious intrigue to keep yourself where you had arrived.

I could not stand my half self-hypnotised hypocrisy any longer. A spirit of mischief and horseplay awoke in me. I perpetrated a hundred misdemeanours, most of them unpunishable elsewhere, but of serious import in schools and barracks, where discipline is to be maintained. I stayed out of bounds late at night ... I cut classes continually. I visited Fairfield ... and a factory town further south, where I lounged about the streets all day, talking with people.

Professor Stanton, not to my surprise, sent for me again.

Yet I was amazed at what he knew about me, amazed, too, to discover the extent of the school's complicated system of pious espionage that checked up the least move of every student.

Stanton brought out a sheet of paper with dates and facts of my misbehaviour that could not be controverted....

"So we will have to ask you to withdraw from the school, unless you right-about-face ... otherwise, we have had enough of you ... in fact, if it had not been for your great promise--your talents!--"

I waved the compliment aside rather wearily.

"I think that if this school has had enough of me, I have had about enough of the school."

I expressed, in plain terms, my opinion of their espionage system.

"Your omnipotent God must be hard put to it when He has to rely on the help of such sneakiness to keep His Book (and I couldn't help laughing at the literary turn I gave to my denunciation) before the public!"

Stanton's eyes flamed behind their glasses.

"Gregory, I shall have to ask you to leave the Hill as soon as you can get your things together," he shouted.

"--which can hardly be soon enough for me," I replied.

"Come, my boy," continued Stanton, as if ashamed at himself for his outburst, and putting his hand on my shoulder, "you're a good sort of boy, after all ... you have so much in you, so much energy and power ... why don't you put it to right uses?... after your father has made such sacrifices for you, I hate to see you run off to a ravelled edge like this.

"Even yet, if you'll only promise to behave and preserve a proper dignity in the presence of the other students--even yet we would be glad to have you stay and graduate ... and we might be able to procure you a scholarship at Harvard or Princeton or Yale or Brown. Lang says you put yourself into the spirit of Homer like an old Greek, always doing more work than the requirements,--and Dunn says, that you show him things in Vergil that he never saw before."

Moved, I shook my head sadly. I hated myself for liking these people.

"If you mean that I should be like other people ... I just can't ... it's neither pose nor affectation." (He had intimated that some of the professors alleged that as the core of the trouble.) "I guess I don't belong here ... yes, it would be better for me to go away!"

* * * * *

That night, unobserved, I stole into the chapel that stood on the Crest of the hill, against the infinite stars.

I spent nearly all the night in the chapel, alone. The place was full of things. I felt there all the gods that ever were worshipped ... and all the great spirits of mankind. And I perceived fully how silly, weak, grotesque, and vain I was; and yet, how big and wonderful, it would be to swim counter, as I meant, to the huge, swollen, successful currents of the commercial, bourgeois practicality of present-day America.

* * * * *

I pinned up a sign on the bulletin board in the hall, in rhyme, announcing, that, that afternoon, at four o'clock, John Gregory would hold an auction of his books of poetry.

* * * * *

My room was crowded with amused students. I mounted the table, like an auctioneer, while they sat on my cot and on the floor, and crowded the door.

At first the boys jeered and pushed. But when I started selling my copy of Byron and telling about his life, they fell into a quiet, and listened. After I had made that talk, they clapped me. Byron went for a dollar, fetching the largest price. I sold my Shelley, my Blake, my Herrick, my Marvell, my Milton ... all....

My Keats I could not bring myself to sell. I kept that like a treasure. What I could not sell I gave away.

My entire capital was ten dollars ... one suit of clothes ... a change of underwear ... two shirts. I discarded my trunk and crammed what little I owned into my battered suitcase.

That night, the story of my dismissal from school having travelled about from mouth to mouth, and the tale of my poets' auction--the boys cheered me, as I came into the dining hall--cheered me partly affectionately, partly derisively.

* * * * *

In the morning mail I received a letter from the New York _Independent_, a weekly literary magazine. Dr. Ward, the editor, informed me that I possessed genuine poetic promise, and he was taking two of the poems I had recently submitted to him, for publication in his magazine.

* * * * *

Like the vagrant I was, I considered myself indefinitely fixed, with that ten dollars. I went to Boston ... hung about the library and the waterfront ... stayed in cheap lodging houses for a few days--and found myself on the tramp again.

* * * * *

I freighted it to New York, where I landed, grimy and full of coal-dust. And I sought out my uncle who lived in the Bronx.

I appeared, opportunely, around supper time. I asked him if he was not glad to see me. He grimaced a yes, but wished that I would stop tramping about and fit in, in life, somewhere.... He observed that my shirt was filthy and that I must take a bath immediately and put on a clean one of his.

In Boston I had ditched everything but the clothes I wore ... and my suit was wrecked with hard usage.

"Get work at anything," advised my Uncle Jim, "and save up till you can rig yourself out new. You'll never accomplish anything looking the way you do. Your editor at the _Independent_ will not be impressed and think it romantic, if you go to see him the way you are ... ragged poets are out of date."

* * * * *

At "Perfection City" I had made the acquaintance of a boy, whom, curiously enough, I have left out of that part of the narrative that has to deal with the Nature Colony. He was a millionaire's son: his father, a friend of Barton's, had sent him out to "Perfection City" with a tutor. His name was Milton Saunders. He was a fine, generous lad, but open as the weather to every influence ... especially to any which was not for his good.

One morning I saw him actually remove his own shoes and give them to a passing tramp who needed them worse than he.

"That's nothing, dad's money will be sufficient to buy me a new pair," he explained, going back to his tent, in his bare feet, his socks in his hand--to put on his sneakers while he hastened to the shoe store in Andersonville.

* * * * *

Milton had urged me to be sure to come and see him if I chanced to be in New York.

I now called him on the telephone and was cordially invited to visit him, and that, immediately.

The servants eyed me suspiciously and sent me up by the tradesmen's elevator. Milton flew into a fury over it. His friend was his friend, no matter how he was dressed--he wanted them to remember that, in the future!

He brought out a bottle of wine, had a fine luncheon set before me. I went for the food, but pushed the wine aside. He drank the bottle himself. I was still, for my part, clinging to shreds of what I had learned at "Perfection City." ...

He rushed me to his tailor. I had told him of my first poems' being accepted.

"Of course, you must be better dressed when you go to see the editor."

The tailor looked me over, in whimsical astonishment. He vowed that he could not have a suit ready for me by ten the next morning, as Milton was ordering.

"Then you have a suit here for me about ready."

"It is ready now."

"Alter it immediately to fit Mr. Gregory ... we're about the same height."

The tailor said _that_ could be done.

For the rest of the day Milton and I peregrinated from one saloon back-room to another ... in each of which the boy seemed to be well known. He drank liquor while I imbibed soft drinks ... the result was better for him than for me. I soon had the stomach-ache, while he only seemed a little over-exhilarated.

At his door-step he shoved a ten dollar bill into my hand. I demurred, but accepted it.

"I'd hand you more," he apologised, "but the Old Man never lets me have any more than just so much at a time ... says I waste it anyhow ... but I manage to do a lot of charging," he chuckled.

"Have you a place to stay to-night?"

"Yes ... I have an uncle who lives uptown."

* * * * *

When I showed up at my uncle's, that night, I showed him my new rig-out, and explained to him how I came into possession of it. But he did not accept my explanation. Instead, he shook his head in mournful dubiousness ... indicating that he doubted my story, and insinuating that I had not come by my suit honestly; as well as by the new dress suitcase Saunders had presented me with, and the shirts and underclothing.

"God knows where you'll end up, Johnny."

After supper Uncle Jim grew restive again, and he came out frankly with the declaration that he did not want me to stay overnight in the house, but to pack on out to Haberford to my father ... or, since I must stay in town to see my editor (again that faint, dubious smile), I might stay the night at a Mills Hotel ... since my rich friend had given me money, too ... besides my aunt was not so very strong and I put a strain on her.

* * * * *

At the Mills Hotel I was perched in a cell-like corner room, high up. The room smelt antiseptic. Nearby, Broadway roared and spread in wavering blazons of theatric gold. I looked down upon it, dreaming of my future fame, my great poetic and literary career ... my plays that would some day be announced down there, in great shining sign-letters.

* * * * *

The sound of an employee's beating with a heavy stick, from door to iron door, to wake up all the Mills Hotel patrons, bestirred me at an early hour.

* * * * *

I meditated my next move, and now resolved on another try at community life.... The Eos Artwork Studios, founded in the little New York State town of Eos, by the celebrated eccentric author and lecturer, Roderick Spalton.

I was in such impatience to reach Eos that I did not cross over to Haberford, to drop in on my father. I feared also that my leaving school the second time, "under a cloud," would not win me an enthusiastic welcome from him.

* * * * *

By nightfall I was well on my way to Eos, sitting in an empty box-car. I had with me my new clothes--which I wore--and my suitcase, a foolish way to tramp. But I thought I might as well appear before Roderick Spalton with a little more "presence" than usual. For I intended spending some time in his community.

Characteristically, I had gone to the office of the _Independent_, had not found the editor in, that morning, and had chafed at the idea of waiting till the afternoon, when I might have had a fruitful talk with a man who was interested in the one real thing in my life--my poetry.

* * * * *

I reached Rochester safely. It was on the stretch to Buffalo that I paid dearly for being well-dressed and carrying a suitcase ... as I lay asleep on the floor of the box-car I was set upon by three tramps, who pinioned my arms and legs before I was even fully awake. I was forced to strip off my clothes, after wrestling and fighting as hard as I could. I floated off into the stars from a blow on the head....

When I came to, I was trembling violently both with cold and from the nervous shock. My assailants had made off with my suitcase ... I was in nothing but my B.V.D.'s and shirt. Even my Keats had been stolen. But beside me I found the ragged, cast-off suit of one of the tramps ... and my razor, which had dropped out of my coat pocket, while the tramp had changed clothes, and not been noticed. Gingerly, I put on the ragged suit....

* * * * *

I stood in front of the Eos Artwork Studios.

I saw a boy coming down the path from one of the buildings.

"Would you tell me please where I can find the Master?" I asked, reverently.

The boy gave me a long stare.

"Oh, you mean Mr. Spalton?"

"Yes."

"That's him ... there ... choppin' wood."

There was a young man and an older one, both chopping wood, in the back of a building, but in fairly open view.

I walked to where they worked with both inward and outward trepidation, for, to me, Spalton was one of the world's great men.

Just as I reached the spot, the younger of the two threw down his axe.

"So long, Dad! now I'll go into the shop and tend to those letters."

I stood in the presence of the great Roderick Spalton himself, the man who, in his _Brief Visits to the Homes of Famous Folk_, had written more meatily and wisely than any American author since Emerson ... the man whose magazine called _The Dawn_, had rendered him an object of almost religious veneration and worship to thousands of Americans whose spirits reached for something more than the mere piling of dollars one on the other....

I stood before him, visibly overwhelmed. It was evident that my silent hero-worship was sweet to him. He bespoke me gently and courteously.

"So you want to become an Eoite?"

"Yes," I whispered, bending my gaze humbly before his.

"And what is your name, my dear boy."

"John Gregory, Master!"

"What have you brought with you? where is your baggage?"

"I--I lost my baggage ... all I have with me is a-a r-razor."

He leaned his head back and laughed joyously. His lambent brown eyes glowed with humour. I liked the man.

"Yes, we'll give you a job--Razorre!" he assured me, calling me by the nickname which clung to me during my stay....

"Take that axe and show me what you can do."

I caught up the axe and fell to with enthusiasm. The gospel of the dignity and worth of labour that he preached thrilled in me. It was the first time I ever enjoyed working....

As we worked the Master talked ... talked with me as if he had known me for years--as if I, too, were Somebody.

There was nothing he did not discuss, in memorable phrase and trenchant, clever epigram. For he saw that I believed in him, worshipped whole-heartedly at his shrine of genius, and he gave me, in return, of his best. For the first time I saw what human language is for. I thought of Goethe at Weimar ... Wilde's clever conversation in London....

Never since did I see the real man, Spalton, as I saw him then, the man he might always have been, if he had had an old-world environment, instead of the environment of modern, commercial America--the spirit of which finally claimed him, as he grew more successful....

Modern, commercial America--where we proudly make a boast of lack of culture, and where artistic and aesthetic feeling, if freely expressed, makes one's hearers more likely than not, at once uneasy and restive.

* * * * *

That night, at supper, I caught my first glimpse of the Eoites in a body. The contrast between them and my school-folk was agreeably different. I found among them an atmosphere of good-natured greeting and raillery, that sped from table to table. And when Spalton strode in, with his bold, swinging gait (it seemed that he had just returned from a lecture in a distant city early that afternoon), there was cheering and clapping.

Guests and workers joined together in the same dining hall, with no distinctive division.... I sat next to Spalton's table, and a warm glow of pleasure swept through me when he sent me a pleasant nod.

"Hello, Razorre," he had greeted me; then he had turned to the group at his table and told them about me, I could see by their glances--but in a pleasant way.

* * * * *

The next morning I was at work in the bindery, smearing glue on the backs of unbound books. My wage was three dollars a week and "found," as they say in the West. Not much, but what did it matter? There was a fine library of the world's classics, including all the liberal and revolutionary books that I had heard about, but which I could never obtain at the libraries ... and there were, as associates and companions, many people, who, if extremely eccentric, were, nevertheless, alive and alert and interested in all the beautiful things Genius has created in Art and Song....

Derelicts, freaks, "nuts" ... with poses that outnumbered the silver eyes in the peacock's tail in multitude ... and yet there was to be found in them a sincerity, a fineness, and a genuine feeling for humanity that "regular" folks never achieve--perhaps because of their very "regularness."

* * * * *

Here, at last, I had found another environment where I could "let loose" to the limit ... which I began to do....

In the first place, there was the matter of clothes. I believed that men and women should go as nearly naked as possible ... clothing for warmth only ... and, as one grew in strength and health through nude contact with living sun and air and water, the body would gradually attain the power to keep itself warm from the health and strength that was in it.

So, in the middle of severe winter that now had fallen on us, I went about in sandals, without socks. I wore no undershirt, and no coat ... and went with my shirt open at the neck. I wore no hat....

Spalton himself often went coatless--in warm weather. His main sartorial eccentricity was the wearing of a broad-brimmed hat. And whenever he bought a new Stetson, he cut holes in the top and jumped on it, to make it look more interesting and less shop-new ... of course everybody in the community wore soft shirts and flowing ties.

We addressed each other by first names and nicknames. Spalton went under the appellation of "John." One day a wealthy visitor had driven up. Spalton was out chopping wood.

"Come here, John, and hold my horses."

Spalton dropped the axe and obeyed.

Afterward he had been dismissed with a fifty cent tip.

He told the story on himself, and the name "John" stuck.

* * * * *

Working in the bindery, I began to find out things about the community of Eos that were not as ideal as might be ... most of the illumination of the books was done by girls, even by children after school hours. The outlines of the letters and objects to be hand-illumined were printed in with the text, the girls and children merely coloured them between the lines.

In each department, hidden behind gorgeous, flowing curtains, were time-clocks, on which employees rang up when they came to work, and when they left. Also, each worker was supposed to receive dividends--which dividends consisted in pairs of mittens and thick woolen socks distributed by the foremen at Christmas time ... or maybe an extra dollar in pay, that week.

"Two dollars a week less than a fellow would draw at any other place that ran the same sort of business," grumbled a young bookbinder who was by way of being a poet, "and a pair of woolen mittens or socks, or an extra dollar, once a year, as dividends!"

However, I think that the artworkers had finer lodgings and board than most workers could have supplied for themselves ... and the married couples lived in nicer houses ... and they heard the best music, had the best books to read, lived truly in the presence of the greatest art and thought of the world ... and heard speak in the chapel, from time to time, all the distinguished men of the country ... who came, sooner or later, to visit Spalton and am? community....

What though the wages were not so big, what though you rang up the time of arrival at work and the time of departure from it, on hidden time-clocks, what though every piece of statuary, every picture, every stick of furniture, had, on the bottom of it, its price label, or, depending from it, its tag that told the price at which it might be bought!...

* * * * *

Spalton had begun his active career as a business man, had swung out from that, his fertile mind glimpsing what worlds of thought and imagination lay beyond it!

But now Big Business was calling him back again, using him for its purposes.

Oftener and oftener magnificently written articles by him began to appear in his remarkable little magazine, _The Dawn_. And the Ingersoll of Dollar Watch fame crowded out the Ingersoll of brave agnosticism ... and when he wrote now of artists and writers, it was their thrifty habits, their business traits, that he lauded.

"A great man can be practical and businesslike, in fact the greatest of them always are," he defended. "There was Voltaire, the successful watchmaker at Ferney ... and there was Shakespeare, who, after his success in London, returned to Avon and practically bought up the whole town ... he even ran a butcher shop there, you know."

* * * * *

"The people expect startling things ... and, as the winds of genius blow where they list--when they refuse to blow in the direction required, divine is the art of buncombe," he jested.

I suppose this applied to his musician-prodigy, a girl of eight, who worked, in the afternoons, in the bindery. And when a visiting party swept through that department, it was part of her job to rise as if under the impulse of inspiration, leave her work, and go to a nearby piano and play ... the implication being that the piano was placed there for the use of the workers when melody surged within them....

But she was the only one who played. And she never played except when she was tipped the wink. And it was only one thing--a something of Rubenstein's ... which she had practised and practised and practised to perfection; and _that_ rendered, with haughty head like a little sibyl, she would go back to her work-bench. And if urged to play more, she would answer, lifting her great, velvet eyes in a dreamy gaze, "no, no more to-day. The inspiration has gone." And, awed, the visitors would depart.

* * * * *

Back of the bindery stood the blacksmith shop, where MacKittrick, the historian-blacksmith, plied the bellows and smote the anvil.

MacKittrick took a liking to me. For one day we began talking about ancient history, and he perceived that I had a little knowledge of it, and a feeling for the colour and motion of its long-ago life.

"I want you to come and work for me," he urged, "my work is mostly pretty," he apologised, with blacksmith sturdiness, "--not making horseshoes, but cutting out delicate things, ornamental iron work for aesthetic purposes, and all that ... all you'll have to do will be to swing the hammer gently, while I direct the blows and cut put the dainty filigree the "Master" sells to folk, afterward, as art."

"Well, isn't it art?" I asked.

"I suppose it is. But I like the strong work of blacksmithing best. You see, I was born to be a great historian. But destiny has made me a blacksmith," he continued irrelevantly ... "do come out and work for me. I'm hungry for an intelligent helper who can talk history with me while we work."

My transfer was effected. And I was immediately glad of it. "Mac," as we called him, was a fine, solid man ... and he did know history. He knew it as a lover knows his mistress. He was right. He should have been a great historical writer--great historian he _was_!

For two glorious months I was with him. And during those two months, I learned more about the touch and texture of the historic life of man than three times as many years in college could have taught me.

"Mac" talked of Caesar as if only yesterday he had shaken hands with him in the Forum ... and he was shocked over his murder as if it had happened right after....

"Ah, that was a bad day for Rome and the future of the world, when those mad fellows struck him down there like a pig!" he cried.

And Mary, Queen of Scots, was "a sweet, soft body of a white thing that should have been content with being in love, and never tried to rule!"

* * * * *

"Can you cook?" asked Spalton of me one day, just as Barton had done at "Perfection City."

"No," I replied honestly, thinking back to that experience.

"Fine!" was the unexpected rejoinder, "I'm going to send you put to the camp to cook for my lumber-jacks for a few weeks."

"But I said I couldn't cook."

"You know how to turn an egg in the pan? you know enough not to let ham and bacon burn?... you know water won't scorch, no matter how long it stands over the fire?...

"You'll make an excellent cook for lumber-jacks ... so long as it's something to eat that's stuck under their noses, they don't give a damn!... they're always hungry enough to eat anything ... and can digest anything....

"Get ready! I'm sending you out on one of the waggons by noon."

* * * * *

Perched on the high seat of the waggon by the side of the driver! The latter was bundled up to the chin ... wore a fur cap that came down over the ears ... was felt-booted against the cold ... wore heavy gloves.

It was so cold that the breath of the horses went straight up into the air like thick, white wool. As we rode by, the passing farmers that were driving into town almost fell off their seats, startled, and staring at me. For there I perched ... coatless and hatless ... sockless feet in sandals ... my shirt flung open, a la Byron, at the neck.

It is true that the mind can do anything. I _thought_ myself into being composed and comfortable. I did not mind, truly I did not mind it.

The driver had protested, but only once, laconically:

"Whar's y'r coat an' hat?"

"I never wear any," I explained, beginning a propagandistic harangue on the non-essentiality of clothes....

He cut in with the final pronouncement:

"Damn fool, you'll git pneumony."

Then he fell into obdurate, contemptuous silence.

* * * * *

The snow was deep about our living shanty and cook-shack in one, but hard-frozen enough to bear a man's weight without snow-shoes. Over the crust had fallen a powdery, white, new snow, about four inches deep.

Every morning, after the "boys" had eaten their breakfast and left for the woods, I went through my exercises, stripped, out in the open ... a half hour of it, finished by a roll in the snow, that set me tingling all over.

One morning I made up my mind to startle the "boys" by running, mother-naked, in a circle, whooping, about them, where they were sawing up fallen trees and felling others.

It was a half mile to where they worked.

For more bizarre effect, I clapped on a straw hat which I found in the rafters--a relic of the preceding summer....

* * * * *

"Gosh a'mighty, what's this a-comin!"...

Everybody stopped working. Two neighbour farmers, who had come over for a bit of gossip, stooped, their hands on their knees, bowed with astonishment, as if they had beheld an apparition.

One of the "boys" told me the two held silence for a long time--till I was entirely out of sight again, and after.

Then one exclaimed, "air they any more luny fellers like thet, back at them Artwork shops?"

The incident gave birth to the legend of a crazy man under Spalton's care, whose chief insanity was running naked through snowdrifts.

Spalton had three sons. Roderick was the eldest: named after his father. Level-headed and businesslike, he followed his father's vagaries because he saw the commercial possibilities in them ... though he did so more as a practical man with a sense of humour than as a man who was on the make. Spalton, who knew men thoroughly and quickly appraised their individual natures, had installed Roderick in the managing end of things,--there with the aid of an older head--one Alfoxden, of whom Spalton made too much of a boast, telling everyone he had rescued him from a life of crime; Alfoxden, when younger, forged a check and had served his term for it. Coming out into the world again, no one would trust him because of that one mistake, Spalton, at this juncture, took him in and gave him a new chance--but--as I said unkindly, in my mind, and publicly, he made capital of his generous action.

But Alfoxden was a soul of rare quality. He never seemed to resent "John's" action. He was too much of a gentleman and too grateful for the real help Spalton had extended to him.

Alfoxden was a slight, Mephistophelian man ... with bushy, red eyebrows. And he was totally bald, except for the upper part of his neck, which was fiery with red hair. He had a large knowledge of the Rabelaisan in literature ... had in his possession several rather wild effusions of Mark Twain in the original copy, and a whole MSS. volume of Field's smutty casual verse....

* * * * *