Ann Arbor Tales Part 1

Ann Arbor Tales.

by Karl Edwin Harriman.

THE MAKING OF A MAN

Florence affected low candle-lights, glowing through softly tinted shades, of pale-green, blue, old-rose, pink; for such low lights set each coiled tress of her golden hair a-dancing--and Florence knew this.

The hangings in the little round room where she received her guests were deeper than the shades, and the tapestry of the semi-circular window-seat was red. It was in the arc of this that Florence was wont to sit--the star amidst her satellites.

It was one's privilege to smoke in the little room, and somehow the odor of the burned tobacco did not get into the draperies; nor filter through the _portieres_ into the hall beyond; and the air of the _boudoir_ was always cool and fresh and sweet.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--every night--and Sunday most of all--there were loungers on that window-seat, their faces half in shadow. It was hard at such times to take one's eyes off Florence, sitting in the arc, the soft light of old-rose moving across her cheek, creeping around her white throat, leaping in her twisted hair, quivering in her blue, soft eyes.

When she smiled, one thought in verse--if one were that sort--or, perhaps, muttered, "Gad!" shiveringly under the breath.

Well may you--or I--shake our heads now and smile, albeit a bit sadly; but then it was different. We have learned much, too much perhaps, and the once keen edge of joy is dulled. But then we were young. Youth was our inheritance and we spent it, flung it away, you say, as we knelt before the Shrine of Beauty set up in a little round room where low lights glimmered among deep shaded draperies.

We realized that it was a serious matter--a deadly serious matter; just as did a score or more of our fellows on the campus in whose hearts, as well, flared the flame of the fine young love that we were feeling in our own.

For you--and I--loved Florence.

Dear little room! Dearest, dearest Florence! Many are the men who never learned; in whose hearts your image is enshrined to-night. And few are they who ever learned and really knew you, dear.

Some few thought they did and called you a "College Widow," because they could remember a certain tall, dark-browed senior who danced ten times with you at the Jay Hop of '87. Others were convinced through them; but these were mostly freshmen upon whom you had not sought to work your magic. How far wrong they were! Yet even you, Florence, I am thinking, were wont, at least in blue moments, to take yourself at the scant valuation these few saw fit to place upon you.

But in the end you, even, saw and understood.

I am glad, my dear, that I may tell the story. And if those who read it here shall call it fiction, you, and Jim, and I, at least, shall know it for the truth.

And then, when I have done, and you have put aside the book, to hide your eyes from him who holds you fonder far than you can know, remember, dear, the glory of it and be glad.

I

It was June.

The rain had been plentiful and the green things of earth rioted joyously in their silent life. In the trees were many birds that sang all day long, and in the night the moon was pale and the shadows were ghostly and the air was sweet with roses that hung in pink profusion from the trellis.

The gra.s.s was soft beneath the quick, light tread of the lads; and the laughter of the summer-time was in the eyes of all the maids.

Many the gay straw-rides to the Lake; frequent and long the walks through leafy lanes, down which the footfalls echoed; sweet the vigils on the broad stone steps distributed about the campus with so much regard for youthful lovers.

Too warm for dancing; too languorous for study, that June was made only for swains and sweethearts.

At least Jack Houston thought as much, and casting an eye about the town it chanced to fall upon fair Florence. Older than he by half-a-dozen years--older still in the experience of her art--her blue eyes captured him, the sheen of her soft hair, coiled high upon her head, dazzled him; and the night of the day they met he forgot--quite forgot--that half-a-dozen boon companions awaited him in a dingy, hot room down-town, among whom he was to have been the ruling spirit--a party of vain misguided youths of his own cla.s.s, any one of whom he could drink under the table at a sitting, and nearly all of whom he had.

The next night, however, he was of the party and led the roistering and drank longer, harder than the rest, until--in the little hours of the new day--sodden, unsteady, he found his way to his room, where he flung himself heavily upon his bed to sleep until the noonday sun mercifully cast a beam across his heavy eyes and wakened him.

This life he had led for two years and now his face had lines; his eyes lacked l.u.s.tre; his hand trembled when he rolled his cigarettes, but his brain was keener, his intelligence subtler, than ever. The wick of his mental lamp was submerged in alcohol and the light it gave seemed brighter for it. There were those who shook their heads when his name was mentioned; while others only laughed and called it the way of youth unrestrained.

There was only one who seemed to see the end--Crowley--Houston's room-mate, nearest pal--as unlike him as white is unlike black, and therefore, perhaps, more fondly loving. It was because he loved him as he did that Crowley saw--saw the end as clearly as he saw the printed page before his eyes, and shuddered at the sight. He saw a brilliant mind dethroned; a splendid body ruined; a father killed with grief--and seeing, thus, he was glad that Houston's mother had pa.s.sed away while he was yet a little, brown-eyed, red-cheeked boy.

His misgivings heavy upon his heart, he spoke of them to Florence. At first, her eyes glinted a cold harsh light, but as he talked on and on, fervently, pa.s.sionately, that light went out, and another came that burned brighter, as he cried:

"Oh, can't something be done? _Something?_"

They walked on a way in silence, and then she said, quietly, as was her manner, always: "Do you think I could help?"

He seized her hand and she looked up into his eyes, smiling.

"Oh, if you could!" he cried; and then: "Would you try?" But before she could answer he flung down her hand saying: "But no, you couldn't; what was I thinking of!"

They were walking by the river to the east, where, on the right, the hill rose sheer--a tangle of vivid green--from the heart of which a spring leapt and tinkled over smooth, white pebbles, to lose itself again in the earth below, bubbling noisily.

At his expression, or, more at the tone he employed in its utterance, she shrank from him, and then, regardless of her steps, sped half-way up the hill, beside the spring course. There she flung herself upon a mossy plot, face down.

Crowley called to her from the road, but she did not answer; he went to her, and stooping touched her shoulder. Her whole body, p.r.o.ne before him, quivered. She was crying.

He talked to her a long time, there in the woodland, silence about them save for the calls of the birds.

She turned her wet eyes upon his face.

"Oh, to think every one doubts me!" she murmured. "You laughed at me when I asked you if I could help--you think I'm only a toy-like girl--a sort of great cat to be fondled always."

She seized a stick, broke it impetuously across her knee and rose before him.

"I will help!" she cried, "I will--and you'll see what I'll do!"

Afterward--long afterward--he remembered her, as she was that moment--her golden hair tumbling upon her shoulders; her eyes blazing, her glorious figure erect, her white hands clenched at her sides.

So it was Crowley--Jim Crowley the penitent, yet the sceptical--who brought them together, just as it was Crowley who waited, who counted the days, who watched.

II

From the walk he saw them on the tennis courts one evening a week later.

Un.o.bserved he watched their movements; the girl's lithe, graceful; Houston's, strong, manly. He was serving and Crowley noted the swift sweep of his white arm, bare almost to the shoulder, and was thrilled.

Florence had slipped the links in her sleeves and rolled her cuffs back to dimpled elbows and her forearms were brown from much golf.

Crowley approached the players after a moment and they joined him at the end of the net. The flush on the girl's face gave her beauty a radiance that he could not recall ever having noticed before. Usually Florence was marbly calm. Houston was warm, glowing.

"Gad, you're a fine pair; I've been watching you," Crowley blurted.

The girl shot him one swift glance, then her lips parted over her strong, white, even teeth, as she laughed.

"Aren't we?" she cried gaily--"just splendid----" And made a playful lunge at him with the raquet.

"Venus and Adonis playing tennis, eh?" Crowley said.