David Malcolm Part 9

There never was any discussion in our family as to where I should take my collegiate training. Had there been, Mr. Pound would speedily have quelled it. McGraw was the one college of which I knew anything. The little that I could learn of others was through the sporting pages of my father's Philadelphia paper, and here the name of Mr. Pound's alma mater was strangely missing. But he drew a real picture of it for me; gave me a concrete conception which I could not form from records of touch-downs and runs and three-baggers to left field. Sometimes in the study I would rise to points of information on Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, but I was promptly declared out of order. Mr. Pound admitted that these universities were larger than McGraw, and acknowledged that in some special lines of education they might be in advance of McGraw; yet, withal, had he a son he would intrust him only to the care of Doctor John Francis Todd. As an educator and builder of character Doctor Todd had no equal in the country. Mr. Pound could prove this.

He pointed to his old friend Adam Silliman, who graduated at Princeton and was to-day a struggling coal merchant in Pleasantville, and drank.

With him he contrasted Sylvester Bradley, who got his degree at McGraw in exactly the same year, '73, and had been three times moderator of the Pennsylvania Synod. Of such comparisons between McGraw men who had succeeded and other university men who had failed Mr. Pound had so many at his fingers' ends as to be absolutely overwhelming. So before I had seen McGraw I was a McGraw man to the core, and my mentor, with a subtlety astonishing for him, missed no opportunity to increase my devotion. He even taught me the college yell in one of his lighter moments, and I, in turn, taught it to James that it might ring out with more volume from the barn-bridge of an evening.

You may think that I was to be disillusioned. That could not be. When first I saw McGraw she was a giantess to my eyes. The time was to come when I was to see her in a new light, to judge her from a new perspective, to realize the incongruity between her aspiration and accomplishment, to smile at her solemn adherence to academic ritual; and yet to realize that in her littleness and poverty she gave me what was good and all that was in her power. I may regret that I did not delve deeper into the mysteries of those foot-ball scores and discover, through them, the greater seats of learning. Perhaps I might have known then that not all their sons became coal-merchants and drank, and I might have gone much farther on that September day when first I set out into the world beyond the mountains. But for all that I cannot imagine the four years which I spent at that tiny college taken from my life. For all the four years that might have been I would not exchange them.

That September day? It is a tall white mile-stone on my way. I can look back and see its every detail. On its eve James and I sat for the last time on the barn-bridge and he sang of Annie Laurie and Nellie Gray. And when we heard my mother calling me, we stood together and gave the college yell.

"I s'pose, Davy," he said, as we were moving toward the house, "folks will think I'm a little peculiar, but I'm going to give that cheer every night, just for old times' sake--for your sake, Davy."

Our elders have a fashion of making like inopportune remarks when we are struggling to keep our hearts high. It seemed as though they were trying to break my spirit. My mother's white silence, my father's long prayer, James feverishly coming and going on that last morning--little things like these almost made me abandon my great plans. But pride sustained me--that same pride which sends men into battle for foolish causes. I wanted to hurry the fall of the blow. I even protested against my parents and Mr. Pound driving with me to the railroad, and they did not understand. I had to meet their last embraces under the eyes of the motley crowd who had come to the station to see the train, and under such conditions I dared not show emotion. Again they did not understand and were a little hurt by my coldness. I sprang up the car steps jauntily. To show my independence I stood by the smoker door and waved a smiling farewell to the silent, wondering three. I did not wait there, as they waited, looking after me, but turned, tossed my new bag into a rack, threw myself into a seat, and crossed my legs with the nonchalance of one who left home every day.

The river travelled with me out of the valley. I looked from the car window and saw it at my side, and together we went away. I was silent, wondering at the shadow which seemed to overcast the earth. The little river was bright in the noonday sun--a cheery fellow-traveller through the green land. I leaned from the car window in the suddenly born hope that I might see the three still figures, back there in the hot glare of the station. But the river had turned, and I saw not the roofs of Pleasantville dozing in the sun like the very dogs, nor the court-house tower and the tall steeples that pierced her shade, but a high wall of mountains. We seemed to be driving straight for their heart. The river's mood was mine. It shrank from that forbidding wall and the mysteries beyond; it swept in a wide curve into pleasant lowlands. And now I looked across it northward, to other mountains--to _my_ mountains, to the friendly heights that watched over _my_ valley.

Closing my eyes I saw it as on that morning when Penelope and I rode in terror from the woods. I looked across it as it lay in the broad day, under the kindly eye of G.o.d, across the rolling green, checkered with the white of blossoming orchards and the brown of the fallow, past the village spires and up the long slope to the roof among the giant oaks.

You've had enough, the river seemed to say; and, turning, it charged boldly into the other mountain's heart. I went with it, but my face was pressed against the pane, that those who travelled with me might not see.

CHAPTER VIII

Harlansburg, with practical sense, shields itself from northern winds by a high hill, spreading over the barren southern slope. Trade clings to the river-front, in a compact ma.s.s around the square, and from there the town rises, scattering as it climbs, and the higher it goes the larger are the houses and the more imposing, suggesting a contest in which the stronger have overtopped their weaker brethren. But the university, I suspect, was never surfeited with practical sense, else she would not have settled on the very crest of the hill, to shiver the winter through in icy winds and in the summer to bake in tropic heat.

There was, indeed, a delightful lack of responsibility about the university. She had something of Micawber's nature, and was so inured to adversity that she would have been ill at ease in a position less imposing, even though less exposed. She might shiver, but she would dominate the town. She was hopefully waiting for something to turn up, and for such a purpose was well placed, for the railroad threaded the narrow valley below, and at any moment some multi-millionaire might see her from the car window, take pity and endow her. This impression of worth in honorable tatters, of virtue appealing for aid, is made on me to-day when the train swings around the jutting hill and I behold the roof of "Old Main" rising from the trees, and the s.m.u.tted white dome of the observatory. But that afternoon when I first saw my alma mater, I was quite overwhelmed by her magnificence. Before that I had known McGraw only by an ancient wood-cut of Mr. Pound's, which showed a long building, supremely bare, set among military trees; with a barouche in the foreground in which was a woman holding a parasol; with wooden-looking gentlemen in beaver hats pointing canes at the windows as though they were studying the beauties of imagined tracery. The military trees had grown, and through the gaps in the foliage as I drew nearer I made out the detail of the most imposing structure I had ever seen. Not St. Peter's, nor the Colosseum, nor the Temple of the Sun have awakened in me the same thrill of admiration that shot through my veins when "Old Main" stretched its bare brick walls before me to incomprehensible distances, and rising carried my eyes to the sky itself, where the Gothic wood-work of the tower pierced it.

In the name, "Old Main," there is a suggestion of a score of collegiate Gothic quadrangles cl.u.s.tering about their common mother, but these existed only in the dreams of Doctor Todd, and the most tangible expression they found was in a blue-print which was hung in a conspicuous place in his study and presented his scheme of placing the different schools in that hoped-for day when the multimillionaire untied the strings of his money-bags.

"Our founder, Stephen McGraw," Doctor Todd was fond of explaining, "gave us the nucleus of a great educational inst.i.tution. Our task is to build on his foundation. It is true that in fifty years not a new stone has been laid, but that must not discourage us. We shall go on hoping and working."

Dear old Doctor Todd! He still works on and hopes. He has had bitter disappointments, but they have never beaten him down. Had Stephen McGraw left his money and not his name to the university, the doctor's task would have been easier, for it is not the way of men to beautify another's monument. Once, I remember, a Western capitalist was persuaded to make a great gift to McGraw. He made it with conditions, and for a while our hopes blazed high and with exceeding fury. The collegiate Gothic quadrangles were within our reach, as near to us as the grapes to Tantalus. A half-million dollars was promised us if we raised a like sum within a year. Doctor Todd tried to effect a compromise by accepting two hundred thousand dollars outright, but the philanthropist did not believe in making beggars of inst.i.tutions by surfeiting them with charity. So we cheered him right heartily and went to work to gather our share. I remember it all very well because I sang in the glee-club concert which we gave in the opera house to help the fund, and because our cla.s.sroom work was very light, as the president and half of the faculty were canva.s.sing the State for aid.

We worked desperately--faculty, alumni, and students. Even Mr. Pound gave ten dollars from his meagre salary, and the Reverend Sylvester Bradley, three times moderator of the synod, a round hundred. With only a month in which to make up a deficit of four hundred thousand dollars, we did not abandon hope. Every morning in chapel the doctor prayed earnestly for a rain of manna or a visitation of ravens, which we knew to be his adroit way of covering a more mercenary pet.i.tion.

But heaven never opened, and a check never fluttered to earth from the only source from which it could be expected. The year ended and our would-be benefactor gave his money outright to Harvard or Yale, I forget which, for a swimming tank or a gymnasium.

Some day McGraw may get the coveted money. I know that were it in my power the collegiate Gothic quadrangles would rise on the lines of Doctor Todd's faded blue-print. I should build Todd Hall and McGraw Library, but not one brick would I add to "Old Main." There would be the only condition of my gift of millions. They might suggest oriel windows to relieve the bare facade, b.u.t.tresses to break the flatness of the wall and pinnacles to beautify the roof, but I would have "Old Main" always as I saw it on that September afternoon, when I had climbed the hill, paused, set down my bag and stood with arms akimbo while I scanned the amazing length and height of the splendid pile. My heart at each remove from home had become a heavier weight until I seemed to carry within me a solid leaden load. Now it lightened mysteriously. Face to face with a new life that had its symbol in this n.o.ble breadth of wall, the cords which held me to the old snapped.

That very morning seemed the part of another age, and yesterday was spent in another world. I was wide awake at last. The cheer which Mr.

Pound had taught me was on my lips, and I should have given it as a paean of thanksgiving had I not been embarra.s.sed by the scrutiny of a group of young men who loitered on the steps before me. So I picked up my bag, a feather-weight to my new energy, and went boldly on.

My impression of the splendor of college life was heightened by the first acquaintance I made in my new environment. This was Boller of '89, and today Boller of '89 holds in my mind as a true pattern of the man of the world. His was the same stuff of which was made "the perfect courtier." The difference lay solely in the degree of finish, and justly considered, true value lies in the material, not in the gloss. Boller, polished by the society of Harlansburg, appeared to my eyes quite the most delightful person I had ever met. It was the perfection of his clothes and the graciousness of his manner that awed me and won my admiration. In those days wide trousers were the fashion, and Boller was, above all, fashion's ardent devotee. His, I think, exceeded by four inches the widest in the college. Recalling him as he came forth from the group on the steps to greet me, I think of him as potted in his trousers, like a plant, so slender rose his body from his draped legs. His patent-leather shoes were almost hidden, and from his broad base he seemed to converge into a gray derby of the kind we called "the smoky city," the latest thing from Pittsburgh. Looking at him, so wonderfully garbed, I became conscious of my own rusticity, so old-fashioned did the styles of Pleasantville appear beside the resplendent garments of my new friend. I was sure that he must notice it. If he did, he gave no sign.

"I'm Boller of '89," he said, grasping my hand cordially. "What's your name?"

"Malcolm, sir--David Malcolm," I answered.

Boller clapped an arm across my shoulders in friendly fashion. "You're three days late, Malcolm, but better late than never. I suppose you were hesitating between McGraw and Harvard."

"Oh, no!" I faltered, not fathoming his pleasantry. "I had to wait until the tailor finished my new suit. It should have been done last Monday, but----"

Something in Boller's eyes checked me. He was regarding me from head to foot so gravely that I divined that I might have joined the crew of the Ark in my new clothes, judged by their cut.

"You have come here to study agriculture, I presume," he remarked most pleasantly.

So subtle a reference to my bucolic appearance was lost on my innocent mind. He seemed quite serious and as he was mistaken I wanted to set him right. I was proud of my laudable ambition. Proclaiming it had brought me only commendation, and I proclaimed it now.

"I'm going to be a minister," I said, drawing myself up a little.

"Indeed--a minister--how interesting!" returned Boller, raising his eyebrows.

Now had he laughed at me, had he called his fellows from the step to mob me, in the glory of my martyrdom I should have held fast to my purpose; or had he flattered me like Miss Spinner or Mr. Smiley, my vanity would have carried me on my chosen path. His middle course was disconcerting. He treated my ambition as though it were quite a natural one and just about as interesting as to follow dentistry or plumbing.

"I'm going to be a missionary," I said in a louder tone, hoping to arouse in him either antagonism or adulation.

"Curious," he returned. "Very curious. Why I am thinking of taking up the same line myself. It makes a man so interesting to the girls.

I've a cousin who is a minister, and last year he received seventeen pairs of knit slippers from the young ladies of his congregation.

That's going some--eh, Malcolm?"

What a different picture from my cherished one of cork hats and express rifles! The suggestion was horribly insidious. To be interesting to women _en ma.s.se_ was to my manly view exceedingly unmanly; to labor for reward in knit slippers the depth of degradation. I was about to declare to Boller that I was not going to be his kind of a clergyman when I stopped to ask myself if I had ever known any other kind, if my own ideal were not as unattainable as to be another Ivanhoe or Captain Cook. Mr. Pound rose before me, his feet incased in the loving handiwork of Miss Spinner. From him my mind shot wide afield to the Reverend Doctor b.u.mpus, fresh from the dark continent, thanking our congregation for the barrel of clothing sent to his eleven children in far-off Zululand. Thoughts like these were as arrows in the heart of my n.o.ble purpose.

"I haven't absolutely made up my mind," I said suddenly.

But Boller refused to accept such a qualification. He had me firmly by the arm and brought me face to face with the loungers on the step.

"Gentlemen," he said, "allow me to present to you the Reverend Doctor David Malcolm!"

And the loungers on the step saluted me as gravely as if I had been that friend of Mr. Pound's, the Reverend Sylvester Bradley, thrice moderator of the synod.

It was thus that I became the Reverend David Malcolm, and this was all the authority I ever had for so honorable a cognomen. So it was that by the insidious raillery of a moment, Boller shook the foundations laid by Mr. Pound in five years of labor, and it was not long before the whole structure of his building tumbled into ruins. My first violent protest against a nickname which seemed to me to savor of sacrilege served only to fasten it to me more securely. Resigning myself to it, I came to regard it lightly, and the longer I bore it in jest the less I desired to earn it in honor. It was a far cry from Mr.

Pound to Boller of '89, but I doffed the vestment and donned the motley that September day, for Boller became my mentor and in all things my model. I was flattered by his condescending treatment. Before a week had pa.s.sed my engrossing ambition was to wear trousers as wide as his and to crown myself with a "smoky city" derby. Having accomplished this ambition by going into debt, I realized a greater, and pinned to the lapel of my gayly checked coat, the pearl and diamond-studded pin of Gamma Theta Epsilon. That, of course, was Boller's fraternity, and I think he could have persuaded me to join whatever he asked, so wholly was I captured by his kindness.

In the study of Doctor Todd to which he led me, in the presence of the great man, he did not venture any airy presentation. Boller of '89 inside of the study door was quite a different person from the Boller without it. The bold manner fled. He was suppressed, obsequious; even his clothes seemed to shrink and grow humbly dun. We entered so quietly that the doctor, bending over his desk, did not hear us, and we had to cough apologetically to apprise him of our presence.

"David Malcolm, sir--a new freshman," Boller said.

The doctor rose. I saw a little man with a very large head covered with hair which shot in all directions in scholarly abandon. His neck seemed much too thin to carry such a weight, but that, I think, was the effect of a collar much too large, and a white tie so long that its ends trailed down over an expanse of crumpled shirt. The doctor's black clothes looked dusty; the doctor himself looked dusty, yet the smile with which he greeted me was as warm as the sunshine breaking through the mist.

"This is splendid," he cried, shaking my hand fervently. "Mr. Malcolm, you are welcome. You make the thirty-ninth new man this year--a record in our history. McGraw is growing. Have I not predicted, Mr. Boller, that McGraw would grow?"

To this Boller very readily a.s.sented, and the doctor, rubbing his hands with delight at his vindication, placed a chair for me at his side and began talking rapidly, not of me, nor of my plans, but of the university. He did mention incidentally that he had heard of me through his dear friend, Mr. Pound--a man of whom the university was proud--yet, though I was sure Mr. Pound had spoken well of me, he made no mention of it. I was of interest to him simply because by my coming I had broken the records of McGraw's freshman cla.s.s. Last year it numbered thirty-eight; this year, thirty-nine. Through me the university had taken another stately step onward. He showed me the blue-print and explained it in detail. He spoke so earnestly that in a moment he had abandoned the subjunctive mood, and was describing the buildings as though they actually existed--here the new dormitory, there the chemical laboratory, the gymnasium, the chapel. So potent was his imagination that when I was dismissed and stood again on the steps, I found myself sweeping the campus in search of the beautiful structures which he had pictured for me. Not finding them, I was prey to disappointment, so small did the McGraw that was appear beside the McGraw that should be. I began to suspect that those other universities upon which Mr. Pound looked with such contempt might resemble the creation of Doctor Todd's imagination, that there might be more behind those foot-ball scores than my old mentor had cared to disclose. Distrust of him was rising in me, but I was not allowed to remain long pondering over these things, for Boller had been waiting for me and I was quickly in his possession.

Had the murmurs of rebellion risen to a point where I was planning to abandon McGraw, my new friend must have blocked me. He regarded me as his property. He installed me in the bare little room which for four years was to be my home. He took me to his own quarters and there gave me such a glimpse of my new life as to make me forget my momentary disillusionment. While he dressed, arrayed himself more impressively than ever in evening clothes, I divided my eyes between him and the pictures on the wall. Here Boller, in foot-ball clothes, sat on a fence, wonderfully dashing, with a foot-ball under his arm; there he was in base-ball toggery, erect with bat lifted, ready to strike; here holding a baton, a conspicuous figure in a group of young men, looking exceedingly conscious and uncomfortable in evening clothes--the glee club, he explained, taken on their last tour of the State. And while he dressed, he painted such a glowing picture of life at McGraw as to make it of little moment to me now whether or not Doctor Todd's dream ever came true. That I should grow to Boller's size and fashion was all I asked.

As I watched him soaping and brushing his hair, struggling a half hour with his tie and setting that hair all awry again, soaping and brushing once more and at last emerging flawless from the conflict, my own self-confidence ebbed away and the sense of my own rusticity and awkwardness oppressed me. I was to go with him to the first important social event of the year, the reception to the new students, and seeing how my friend arrayed himself for it, I wanted to crawl away to my own room and hide there. But he would not let me. He laughed at my excuses. To be sure my clothes were not the best form, but it was not to be expected that a man new to university life should be--here Boller surveyed himself in the gla.s.s and I understood the implication. So I polished my shoes, wetted and soaped my own hair to rival his and went with him. Had he been leading me into battle I could not have been colder with fright. Had he not had a fast hold on my arm I am sure that when I came face to face with the formidable array of faculty and faculty wives waiting to receive me, I should have beaten a precipitate retreat. I had never before been received; I had never before been a guest at any formal social function, and it was appalling to have to charge this battery of solemn eyes. But there was no escape. Boller pushed me into the hands of Doctor Todd, who gave another hearty handshake to the thirty-ninth and presented him to Mrs. Todd. She a.s.sured me that it was a great pleasure to meet me, a statement entirely at variance with the severity of her countenance and the promptness with which she pa.s.sed me on to Professor Ruffle, who combined the chair of modern languages with the business management of the college. He with a dexterous twist consigned me to his good lady, and thus I pa.s.sed from hand to hand down the dreaded line.

The ordeal was over. I had had my baptism of social fire. Fear left me, but not embarra.s.sment. I forgot that thirty-eight other young men were being received and were undergoing numberless bewildering introductions. It seemed that the whole college was there simply to meet me, and I returned its greeting in a daze. If I lost Boller in the press, I felt the need of his supporting arm and peered longingly among the jostling crowd to find him. He was continually going and coming, but he never forgot me for any time. He was wonderfully kind about informing as to whom it was worth my while to be agreeable. . . .

Don't trouble with Brown; be pleasant to Jones, but look out for Robinson, the fellow with a Kappa Iota Omega pin. He had hardly warned me against Robinson, before that young man was addressing me with great cheerfulness. I saw nothing whatever repulsive about him; but to Boller I was evidently in danger.

"There's a young lady here who is dying to meet you," he whispered in my ear as he drew me from the sinister clutches.

Oh, subtle flattery! This was the first time I had ever had a young lady dying to meet me. Of course I understood that Boller had spoken figuratively, and yet I did not question that the young lady had seen me, and I was vain enough to hold it not at all unlikely that something in my appearance had interested her. Had not vanity overcome my embarra.s.sment, curiosity would have done so. I wanted to see what she was like who had been so affected by the sight of me. And when I did see her, when I stood before her on shifting feet, I would have given the world to be somewhere else, yet, by a curious contradiction, nothing could have dragged me from the spot, so fair was she to look on.

"Miss Todd--Mr. Malcolm," said Boller of '89. Then he mopped his brow with a purple silk handkerchief and added that it was very warm. I said that it was very warm, and Miss Todd smiled quite the loveliest smile that I had ever seen.