Tramping on Life Part 79

This was the incident that decided me to enroll again as regular student, and to fold my tent, leave my solitary island, and return to town ... where I sought out Frank Randall, and he again offered me the room I had given up. And he gave me work as his bookkeeper, several hours of the day ... which work I undertook to perform in return for my room. In addition he gave me two dollars a week extra.

One afternoon soon after my enrollment, I met Ally Merton coming down hill.

"Well, here I am, as I said I'd be," said he.

He was, as usual, dressed to perfection--not a minute ahead of the style, not a minute behind ... gentle-voiced and deferential, learning to be everywhere without being noticed anywhere.

"I see you're still eccentric in dress ... sandals ... shirt open at the neck ... denim too ... cheap brown socks ... corduroys...."

"Yes, but look," I jested in reply, "I wear a tie ... and the ends pull exactly even. That's the one thing you taught me about correct dressing that I'll never forget."

"If I could only persuade you, Johnnie, of the importance of little things, of putting one's best foot forward ... of personal appearance ... why create an initial prejudice in the minds of people you meet, that you'll afterward have to waste valuable time in trying to remove?"

"Where are you putting up, Ally?"

"At the Phi Nus" (the bunch that went in the most for style and society) "I'm a Phi Nu, keep in touch with me, Johnnie."

"Keep in touch with me," was Merton's stock phrase....

"Mr. Mackworth asked me particularly to look you up, and 'take care of'

you ... you made a hit with him ... but he's very much concerned about you--thinks you're too wild and erratic."

The tinshop was a noisy place, as I have said before. It was as uproarious as a boiler factory. All day long there was hammering, banging, and pounding below ... but I was growing used to it ... as you do to everything which must be.

Keeping Randall's books occupied a couple of hours each morning or afternoon, whenever I chose. All the rest of the day I had free....

I had almost come to the conclusion that the girl I had seen in the moonlight had been an apparition conjured up by my own imagination, when I glimpsed her, one afternoon, walking toward Hewitt Hall, where the art cla.s.ses held session, in the upper rooms. I followed the girl, a long way behind. I saw her go in through the door to a cla.s.s where already a group of students sat about with easels, painting from a girl-model ...

fully clothed ... for painting from the nude was not allowed. They had threshed that proposition out long before, Professor Grant explained to me, once,--and the faculty had decided, in solemn conclave, that the farmers throughout the state were not yet prepared for that step....

I sought Grant's friendship. He had studied in the Julian Academy at Paris, in his youth. He invited me to his house for tea, often; where I met many of his students, but never, as I had hoped, the girl of the moonlight....

But by careful and guarded inquiry I found out who she was ... a girl from the central portion of the state, named Vanna Andrews.

When Grant asked me to pose for his cla.s.s, sandals, open shirt, corduroys, and all ... I agreed ... almost too eagerly ... he would pay me twenty-five cents an hour.

My first day Vanna was not there. On the second, she came ... late ...

her tiny, white face, crowned with its dark head of hair ... "a star in a jet-black cloud," I phrased, to myself. She sailed straight in like a ship.

When she had settled herself,--beginning to draw, she appraised me coolly, impartially, for a moment ... took my dimensions for her paper, pencil held at arm's length....

Slowly, though I fought it back, a red wave of confusion surged over my face and neck. I turned as red as ochre. I grew warm with perspiration of embarra.s.sment. I gazed fixedly out through the window....

"You're getting out of position," warned Professor Grant.

Vanna still observed me with steadfast, large, blue eyes. She started her sketch with a few, first, swift lines.

"Excuse me," I rose, "I feel rather ill." I posed, "I've been up all night drinking strong coffee and writing poems," I continued, my voice rising in insincere, noisy falsetto.

"Step down a minute and rest, then, Mr. Gregory," advised Professor Grant, puzzled, a grimace of distaste on his face.

"Isn't he silly," I overheard a girl student whisper to a loud-dressed boy, whose easiness of manner with the female students I hated and envied him for....

I resumed my pose. I blushed no more. I endured the cool, level, impersonal glances of the girl I had fallen in love with....

"The model's a little wooden, don't you think, professor?" she observed, to tease me, perhaps. She could not help but sense the cause of my agitation. But then she was used to creating a stir among men. Her beauty perturbed almost the entire male student body.

I noticed that her particular chum was a very homely girl. I straightway found charms in this girl that no one had ever found before. And Alice and I became friends. And, while posing, I came before the time, because she, I discovered, was always beforehand, touching up her work.

Alice was a stupid, clumsy girl, but she adored Vanna and liked nothing better than to talk about her chum and room-mate. She took care of Vanna as one would take care of a helpless baby.

"Vanna is a genius, if there ever was one ... she doesn't know her hands from her feet in practical affairs ... but she's wonderful ... all the boys," and Alice sighed with as much envy as her nature would allow--"all the boys are just crazy about her ... but she isn't in love with any of them!"

My heart gave a great bound of hope at these last words.

"Professor Grant's students--about two-thirds of them--have enrolled in his cla.s.ses, because she's there."

And then I went cold with jealousy and with despair ... one so popular could never _see_ me ... if it were only later, when my fame as a poet had come!

"Vanna has to be waited on hand and foot. I don't mind though,"

continued Alice, "I hang up her clothes for her ... make her bed ...

sweep and dust our rooms ... it makes me happy to wait on anything so beautiful!" and the face of the homely girl glowed with joy....

I was poor and miserable. I bent my head forward, forgetful of my determination to walk erect and proud, with a pride I did not possess.

Langworth was coming behind me. He slapped me on the back. I whirled, full of resentment. But changed the look to a smile when I perceived who it was....

"Why, Johnnie, what's the matter? you're walking like an old man. Brace up. Is anything wrong?"

"No, I was just thinking."

The first cold blasts of winter howled down upon us. No snow yet, but winds that rushed about the buildings on the hill, full of icy rain, and with a pushing strength like the shoulders of invisible giants out of the fourth dimension ... we men kept on the sidewalks when we could ...

but the winds blew the girls off into the half-hardened mud, and, at times, were so violent, that the girls could not extricate themselves, but they stood still, waiting for help, their skirts whirling up into their very faces.

It was what the boys called "a sight for sore eyes."