Stanford Stories Part 22

Only one room, and that generally the center of disturbance, "sported the oak." Jimmie Mason sat in the knockery, with a book c.o.c.ked up in front of him, and made a pretense of studying, but his thoughts wandered. Finally he threw his work aside altogether, and looked at the little patches of starlight visible between the branches of the tree outside. It was so plain, the thing he ought to do, in justice to himself, that he had thought the dream of the other thing a fancy that had pa.s.sed and had been put away with the notions of his prep-days. And yet he had found no peace in his new decision. His plans for next year, his work in cla.s.s, his new success with certain ventures which after two years of the hardest, closest pinching, had put within his reach the means to gratify a few little whims, to indulge in a few things his poverty had hitherto forbidden him--a few common things the men around him enjoyed, and the lack of which he had ever concealed even from himself--all these were made footless by the ache in the bottom of his soul. And, as he sat and pondered on it, a hard, dull resentment which he had hitherto kept down by sheer will power rose above his other thoughts and claimed admission as a reality. His father had no right to do this thing to him. He was an old man; his chance was past, given up for a few barrels, more or less, of distilled spirits. It was for this that the something inside was asking him to forfeit the chance he had made for himself. The University was his home. His father had done nothing toward this. The laundry agency had provided a living, and the broad democracy of the college had done the rest for him. He was one of the "prominent men" now, a somebody, as he had never been and never could be in the travesty of home that had been his father's giving. Upon his life here rested the possibilities of the future toward which he looked dreamingly sometimes when his notes were written up, and the laundry accounts checked. a.s.suredly, his father had no claim on this; to admit it would be an injustice to himself, to his ambition, and to his work. And yet this face which had come between him and his book the first night the fight had been on must haunt him always in the hour when his tide was turning.

A thump on the window which opened on the front piazza recalled him from his reverie. A dozen feet were shuffling on the stones outside, and a ruddy face glowed over the sash.

"Go away, Pellams. Got to plug," said Jimmie, hastily resuming his book.

"Relate your predicaments to a constable," said Pellams. "There's going to be a Thirsting Bee at the----"

"Can't go. Got to work on my thesis."

"Relate _that_ to your Uncle Adderclaws. Tumble out, now."

Jimmie only shook his head. There was a conference outside in whispers; then the gang withdrew with suspicious alacrity. Two minutes later, the lock grated with the cautious insertion of a key, and the mob rushed in; Jimmie had forgotten the pa.s.skey, for whose possession Pellams had held up the j.a.p.

"Ah, say, get out of here, you fellows. I'm digging."

"I know it. And you're going to stop. Gentlemen adventurers"--here Pellams mounted a chair--"James Mason, our small but thirsty friend, has sourball. Now, I ask you, gentlemen, what is the universal cure for his affliction?"

"Beer!" The unanimity of the response would have done credit to a Roman mob.

"Quite right ye are, my merry retainers. And will ye, in loving kindness to him, apply that remedy?"

"We will! We will!"

"Well said, me liegemen. Jimmie, move along!" and Pellams fell to strolling around the room and criticizing its collection of stolen signs with the air of one who has discharged his business and stands at ease.

The rest threw themselves on the man with sourball and were for tearing off his outer garments and forcing on his sweater, but Lyman by some occult means of his own got the boy aside. One never knew how Frank managed the gang; it was always that way; his methods never obtruded themselves, all one saw was results.

"I wouldn't if I were you," said he; "they won't understand it, and it doesn't do you any good--this sort of thing. Better jolly up."

The Soph.o.m.ore did not speak; he only shook his head.

"I know what you're holding back for," went on the other; "but going down there isn't the same sort of thing; really, it isn't."

Jimmie started a little, inside, as he realized for the first time the base of his aversion to dragging himself out on the trip. He turned, half-mechanically, and began tugging at his collar. That Phantom should never come between him and one single thing he wanted to do. It might embitter it all, but it could never prevent him from the outward act. He threw his tie over a chair and took off his coat with unnecessary emphasis in the movement. Ten minutes later he was treading the primrose path of dalliance with an arm around "Nosey" Marion.

There was a cool breeze off the bay, bringing the scent of salt water along with the odor of spruce-trees. A voice from the upper regions of the Hall called out to the cavalcade, crawling through the half-darkness along the road:

"He-ea, you! Bring some back for me!"

A dozen windows slammed open at that, and twenty throats took up the noise. Pellams was for answering, but Lyman discreetly checked him.

Presently they swung out into the traveled road, until the noises of the Hall were only a composite buzz. The squad was lounging in twos and three, talking athletics or humming under the breath march-songs from the Orpheum. "Peg" Langdon stopped at the white gate, and took off his hat to the cool air.

"This road down is the best thing about Mayfield!"

"Drop the Sequoia!" cried Pellams. "Here, you fellows, hold him! We'll have that in a rondeau or something, next week, if you don't hobble the muse!"

The editor laughed. It is better to be joked about your own special forte than not to have it mentioned, so he was not displeased.

"That's what the bard gets," said he, "for secreting the noxious fluid known as the 'Sequoia' verse. But you can't stop the secretion. Some day, I am going to write a Ballad of the Road to Mayfield--just to be original."

"And you'll kill the traffic."

"Chain the poet!"

"If you don't choke him, he'll get reminiscent."

These from half-a-dozen voices at once.

"Certainly I shall!" declared Langdon. "A reminiscent mood is the proper one for the road to Mayfield--just as you have to have an argumentative one on the road back."

"Did you ever notice," observed d.i.c.k, "that every Mayfield time has a sort of motif? You have a central idea, and you expand on it, like writing paragraphs for English Eight."

"It's up to you, Mr. Langdon. Give us a motif and we'll do the expanding," said Marion, shying a pebble at a gate where there was a dog he knew.

"How would Jimmie's sore-head do?"

Pellams took it up at once. "Death to the sore-head! _A bas_ Mason!" And then, being safely away from the Hall, he caught up the old nonsense air that has split student throats this century long,

"To drive dull care away!"

And Jimmie, a chum beating him on either side to exorcise the demon, was singing as l.u.s.tily as the best of them when they swung through the town of buried ambitions and into the shrine of Bacchus.

"Gentlemen, remember the motif!" cried Pellams, when they had made their way through the barroom loafers, playing with dingy cards at the dingier tables. The expedition was safely stowed in the back room around the rough table with its carved patch-work of initials, Greek letters, and nicknames, significant or obsolete, according to a man's perspective.

Pellams a.s.sumed instant control.

"We will now turn our attention to the serious business of the evening.

Get your places. Hands on your bottles! Open--_corks_! And away we go."

The party drank in silence.

"Do you begin to improve, James? There is a trace of a smile in the left-hand corner of the patient's mouth. Ruffle up his hair and give him another while we have him going!"

Someone started a song, and they had another drink to punctuate the pause between verses. A ruddier shade was creeping towards the roots of Pellams' hair; Lyman, who smiled but seldom, was grinning across the table at a Soph.o.m.ore trying to flip cracker crumbs into his mouth.

"This is a tryout," said Pellams. "The first man that balks at his beer will drink raspberry chasers for a month. Hey! look at 'Nosey' Marion trying to shirk!"

Sure enough, Marion, who tried to keep up a reputation for capacity with a naturally slim endowment, was slyly pouring his last potion into an empty beer-case behind him. They fell upon the offender forthwith, whipped him into the ranks again, and resumed their seats, laughing and panting.

"And now that our erring brother is punished and forgiven--that's as good a phrase as I ever saw--punished and forgiven--stick that in the Sequoia, Pegasus"--Pellams rambled on, "we've got to have the motif. I move from the chair that the guest of the evening gives us 'My Old Kentucky Home!' Punish your gla.s.s and tune up, Jimmie!"

The cry went on until Jimmie had to respond. He began with the intention of singing it quite carelessly, because there was much in his soul that night that he dared not show before them all; but Jimmie had the gift of song in his heart as in his voice, and he threw himself into the music before the first stanza was half done. Only once before had he sung the song as he did to-night; it was at last Commencement, when he sang it for the Seniors going out on their adventures, and when he was done they had all been still and quiet like men who have seen ghosts--as perhaps they had, that night, the phantoms of men and times haunting certain low, arched buildings they were to see no more.

"Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

Jimmie's tender baritone floated up from the table wistfully sweet, and shaken a little with feeling, for the trouble of the week just past was sweeping into it. Lyman, listening, knew of what place the boy was singing, and mentally noted that he had better be thoughtful of the youngster during the rest of the term.

The fellows were quiet for a moment after they had droned out the chorus, each one putting his own meaning into that sweet old song of farewell, and then, to break the charm, a small voice with a Spanish roll in it, piped "Tamales!" at the crack in the door.

"Hey!--Lupe!--make him sing!"