RAMSEY MILHOLLAND

by Booth Tarkington

To the Memory of Billy Miller (William Henry Harrison Miller II) 1908 -1918 Little Patriot, Good Citizen Friend of Mankind

Chapter I

 When Johnnie comes marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll give him a hearty welcome then, Hurrah! Hurrah! The men with the cheers, the boys with shouts, The ladies they will all turn out, And we'll all feel gay, when Johnnie comes marching home again!

The old man and the little boy, his grandson, sat together in the shadeof the big walnut tree in the front yard, watching the "DecorationDay Parade, " as it passed up the long street; and when the last of theveterans was out of sight the grandfather murmured the words of the tunethat came drifting back from the now distant band at the head of theprocession. 

"Yes, we'll all feel gay when Johnnie comes marching home again, " hefinished, with a musing chuckle. 

"Did you, Grandpa?" the boy asked. 

"Did I what?"

"Did you all feel gay when the army got home?"

"It didn't get home all at once, precisely, " the grandfather explained. "When the war was over I suppose we felt relieved, more than anythingelse. "

"You didn't feel so gay when the war _was_, though, I guess!" the boyventured. 

"I guess we didn't. "

"Were you scared, Grandpa? Were you ever scared the Rebels would win?"

"No. We weren't ever afraid of that. "

"Not any at all?"

"No. Not any at all. "

"Well, weren't you ever scared yourself, Grandpa? I mean when you werein a battle. "

"Oh, yes; _then_ I was. " The old man laughed. "Scared plenty!"

"I don't see why, " the boy said promptly. "I wouldn't be scared in abattle. "

"Wouldn't you?"

"'Course not! Grandpa, why don't you march in the Decoration Day Parade?Wouldn't they let you?"

"I'm not able to march any more. Too short of breath and too shaky inthe legs and too blind. "

"I wouldn't care, " said the boy. "I'd be in the parade anyway, if I wasyou. They had some sittin' in carriages, 'way at the tail end; but Iwouldn't like that. If I'd been in your place, Grandpa, and they'd letme be in that parade, I'd been right up by the band. Look, Grandpa!Watch me, Grandpa! This is the way I'd be, Grandpa. "

He rose from the garden bench where they sat, and gave a compleximitation of what had most appealed to him as the grandeurs of theprocession, his prancing legs simulating those of the horse of the grandmarshal, while his upper parts rendered the drums and bugles of theband, as well as the officers and privates of the militia company whichhad been a feature of the parade. The only thing he left out was thedetachment of veterans. 

"Putty-boom! Putty-boom! Putty-boom-boom-boom!" he vociferated, as thedrums--and then as the bugles: "Ta, ta, ra, tara!" He addressed hisrestive legs: "_Whoa_, there, you Whitey! Gee! Haw! Git up!" Then, waving an imaginary sword: "Col-lumn right! Farwud _March!_ Halt! Carry_harms!_" He "carried arms. " "Show-dler _harms!_" He "shouldered arms, "and returned to his seat. 

"That'd be me, Grandpa. That's the way I'd do. " And as the grandfathernodded, seeming to agree, a thought recently dismissed returned to themind of the composite procession and he asked:

"Well, _why_ weren't you ever afraid the Rebels would whip the Unions, Grandpa?"

"Oh, we knew they couldn't. "

"I guess so. " The little boy laughed disdainfully, thinking his questionsatisfactorily answered. "I guess those ole Rebels couldn't whipped aflea! They didn't know how to fight any at all, did they, Grandpa?"

"Oh, yes, they did!"

"What?" The boy was astounded. "Weren't they all just reg'lar olecowards, Grandpa?"

"No, " said the grandfather. "They were pretty fine soldiers. "

"They were? Well, they ran away whenever you began shootin' at 'em, didn't they?"

"Sometimes they did, but most times they didn't. Sometimes they foughtlike wildcats--and sometimes we were the ones that ran away. "

"What for?"

"To keep from getting killed, or maybe to keep from getting captured. "

"But the Rebels were bad men, weren't they, Grandpa?"

"No. "

The boy's forehead, customarily vacant, showed some little verticalshadows, produced by a struggle to think. "Well, but--" he began, slowly. "Listen, Grandpa, listen here!"

"Well?"

"Listen! Well, you said--you said you never got scared the ole Rebelswere goin' to win. "

"They did win pretty often, " said the grandfather. "They won a good manybattles. "

"I mean, you said you never got scared they'd win the war. "

"No, we were never afraid of that. "

"Well, but if they were good men and fought like wildcats, Grandpa, andkep' winning battles and everything, how could that be? How could you_help_ bein' scared they'd win the war?"

The grandfather's feeble eyes twinkled brightly. "Why, we _knew_ theycouldn't, Ramsey. "

At this, the little vertical shadows on Ramsey's forehead became morepronounced, for he had succeeded in thinking. "Well, _they_ didn't knowthey couldn't, did they?" he argued. "They thought they were goin' towin, didn't they?"

"Yes, I guess they did. Up till toward the last, I suppose they probablydid. But you see they were wrong. "

"Well, but--" Ramsey struggled. "Listen! Listen here, Grandpa! Well, anyway, if they never got scared _we'd_ win, and nobody got scared_they'd_ win--well, I don't see--"

"You don't see what?"

But Ramsey found himself unable to continue his concentration; heslumped down upon the small of his back, and his brow relaxed to itsmore comfortable placidity, while his eyes wandered with a new butterflyfluttering over the irises that bordered the iron picket fence at thesouth side of the yard. "Oh, nothin' much, " he murmured. 

"I see. " And his grandfather laughed again. "You mean: If the Rebelsfelt just as sure of winning the war as we did, and kept winning battleswhy shouldn't we ever have had any doubts that we were going to win?That's it, isn't it?"

"I guess so, Grandpa. "

"Well, I think it was mostly because we were certain that we wereright. "

"I see, " said Ramsey. "The Rebels knew they were on the side of theDevil. " But at this, the grandfather's laugh was louder than it had beenbefore, and Ramsey looked hurt. "Well, you can laugh if you want to!" heobjected in an aggrieved voice. "Anyway, the Sunday-school sup'intendenttold us when people knew they were on the Devil's side they always--"

"I dare say, I dare say, " the old man interrupted, a little impatiently. "But in this world mighty few people think they're on the Devil's side, Ramsey. There was a Frenchman once, in olden times; he said people werecrazy because, though they couldn't even make worms, they believed theycould make gods. And so whenever countries or parts of a country getinto a war, each side makes a god and a devil, and says: 'God's on ourside and the Devil's on the other. ' The South thought the Devil was onour side, you see. "

"Well, that kind o' mixes it all up more'n ever. "

"Yes, it seems so; but Abraham Lincoln wasn't mixed up about it. Whensome people told him that God was on our side, he said the importantthing was to find out if we were on God's side. That was the wholequestion, you see; because either side could make up a god, the kind ofa god they liked and wanted; and then they'd believe in him, too, andfight for him--but if he was only a made-up god they'd lose. PresidentLincoln didn't want to have a made-up god on his side; he wanted to findGod Himself and find out what he wanted, and then do it. And that's whatLincoln did. "

"Well, I don't understand much of all _that_!"

"No? Then suppose you look at it this way: The South was fightingfor what it believed to be its rights, but we weren't fighting for ourrights; we were fighting for the right. The South was fighting forwhat it believed to be its right to split the Union and be a country byitself; but we were fighting for 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. ' It wasn't only the Union we fought for; it wasFreedom. The South wanted freedom to leave the Union; but the reason theSouth wanted that freedom to separate from us was because _we_ wantedthe Freedom of Man. _There's_ the reason we had the certain knowledgethat we were going to win the war. How plain and simple it is!"

Ramsey didn't think so. He had begun to feel bored by the conversation, and to undergo the oppression he usually suffered in school; yet he tooka little interest in the inexplicable increase of fervour with which hisgrandfather spoke, and in a shoot of sunshine which somehow got throughthe foliage of the walnut tree and made a bedazzlement of glinting finelines in one spot, about the size of a saucer, upon the old man's headof thick white hair. Half closing his eyes, drowsily, Ramsey played thatthis sunshine spot was a white bird's-next and, and he had a momentaryhalf dream of a glittering little bird that dwelt there and wore a bluesoldier cap on its head. The earnest old voice of the veteran was only asound in the boy's ears. 

"Yes, it's simple and plain enough now, though then we didn't oftenthink of it in exactly this way, but just went on fighting andnever doubted. We knew the struggle and suffering of our fathers andgrandfathers to make a great country here for Freedom, and we knew thatall this wasn't just the whim of a foolish god, willing to waste suchgreat things--we knew that such a country couldn't have been building upjust to be wasted. But, more than that, we knew that armies fightingfor the Freedom of Man _had_ to win, in the long run, over armies thatfought for what they considered their rights. 

"We didn't set out to free the slaves, so far as we knew. Yet our beingagainst slavery was what made the war, and we had the consciousnessthat we were on the side of God's plan, because His plan is clearly theFreedom of Man. Long ago we began to see the hints of His plan--a littlelike the way you can see what's coming in August from what happens inApril, but man has to win his freedom from himself--men in the lighthave to fight against men in the dark of their own shadow. That light isthe answer; we had the light that made us never doubt. Ours was the truelight, and so we--"

"Boom--" The veterans had begun to fire their cannon on the crest ofthe low hill, out at the cemetery; and from a little way down the streetcame the rat-a-tat of a toy drum and sounds of a fife played execrably. A file of children in cocked hats made of newspapers came marchingimportantly up the sidewalk under the maple shade trees; and in advance, upon a velocipede, rode a tin-sworded personage, shrieking incessantcommands but not concerning himself with whether or not any militaryobedience was thereby obtained. Here was a revivifying effect upon youngRamsey; his sluggard eyelids opened electrically; he leaped to his feetand, abandoning his grandfather without preface or apology, sped acrossthe lawn and out of the gate, charging headlong upon the commander ofthe company. 

"You get off that 'locipede, Wesley Bender!" he bellowed. "You gimmethat sword! What rights you got to go bein' captain o' my army, I'd liketo know! Who got up this army, in the first place, I'd like to know! Idid, myself yesterd'y afternoon, and you get back in line or I won't letyou b'long to it at all!"

The pretender succumbed; he instantly dismounted, being out-shouted andoverawed. On foot he took his place in the ranks, while Ramsey becamesternly vociferous. "In-tention, company! Farwud _march_! Col-lumn_right_! Right-showdler _harms_! Halt! Far-wud _march_. Carry harms--"

The Army went trudging away under the continuous but unheed fire oforders, and presently disappeared round a corner, leaving the veteranchuckling feebly under his walnut tree and alone with the empty street. All trace of what he had said seemed to have been wiped from thegrandson's mind; but memory has curious ways. Ramsey had understoodnot a fifth nor a tenth of his grandfather's talk, and already he had"forgotten" all of it--yet not only were there many, many times in theboy's later life when, without ascertainable cause, he would rememberthe sunlight falling upon the old man's white head, to make thatsemblance of a glittering bird's-nest there, but with the picture camerecollections of words and sentences spoken by the grandfather, thoughthe listener, half-drowsily, had heard but the sound of an old, earnest voice--and even the veteran's meaning finally took on a greaterdefiniteness till it became, in the grandson's thoughts, something clearand bright and beautiful that he knew without being just sure where orhow he had learned it. 

Chapter II

Ramsey Milholland sat miserably in school, his conscious beingconsisting principally of a dull hate. Torpor was a little dispersedduring a fifteen-minute interval of "Music, " when he and all the otherpupils in the large room of the "Five B. Grade" sang repeated fractionsof what they enunciated as "The Star Span-guh-hulled Banner"; butafterward he relapsed into the low spirits and animosity natural toanybody during enforced confinement under instruction. No alleviationwas accomplished by an invader's temporary usurpation of the teacher'splatform, a brisk and unsympathetically cheerful young woman mountingthereon to "teach German. "

For a long time mathematics and German had been about equally repulsiveto Ramsey, who found himself daily in the compulsory presence of both;but he was gradually coming to regard German with the greater horror, because, after months of patient mental resistance, he at last began tocomprehend that the German language has sixteen special and particularways of using the German article corresponding to that flexible bit of aword so easily managed English--_the_. What in the world was the use ofhaving sixteen ways of doing a thing that could just as well be done inone? If the Germans had contented themselves with insisting upon sixteenuseless variations for infrequent words, such as _hippopotamus_, forinstance, Ramsey might have thought the affair unreasonable but notnecessarily vicious--it would be easy enough to avoid talking abouta hippopotamus if he ever had to go to Germany. But the fact that theGermans picked out _a_ and _the_ and many other little words in use allthe time, and gave every one of them sixteen forms, and expected RamseyMilholland to learn this dizzying uselessness down to the last crotchetydetail, with "When to employ Which" as a nausea to prepare for thefinal convulsion when one _didn't_ use Which, because it was an"Exception"--there was a fashion of making easy matters hard that wasmerely hellish. 

The teacher was strict but enthusiastic; she told the children, over andover, that German was a beautiful language, and her face always had aglow when she said this. At such times the children looked patient; theysupposed it must be so, because she was an adult and their teacher; andthey believed her with the same manner of believing which those of themwho went to Sunday-school used there when the Sunday-school teacherswere pushed into explanations of various matters set forth in the OldTestament, or gave reckless descriptions of heaven. That is to say, thechildren did not challenge or deny; already they had been driven intohabits of resignation and were passing out of the age when childhood isable to reject adult nonsense. 

Thus, to Ramsey Milholland, the German language seemed to be acollection of perverse inventions for undeserved torment; it was full ofrevolting surprises in the way of genders; vocally it often necessitatedthe employment of noises suggestive of an incompletely masteredknowledge of etiquette; and far inside him there was something faintlybut constantly antagonistic to it--yet, when the teacher declared thatGerman was incomparably the most beautiful language in the world, one ofthe many facets of his mind submissively absorbed the statement as lightto be passed inward; it was part of the lesson to be learned. He did notknow whether the English language was beautiful or not; he never thoughtabout that, and no one ever said anything to him about it. Moreover, though his deeper inward hated "German, " he liked his German teacher, and it was pleasant to look at her when that glow came upon her face. 

Sometimes, too, there were moments of relaxation in her class, whenshe would stop the lesson and tell the children about Germany: what abeautiful, good country it was, so trim and orderly, with such pleasantcustoms, and all the people sensible and energetic and healthy. Therewas "Music" again in the German class, which was another alleviation;though it was the same old "Star Spangled Banner" over again. Ramseywas tired of the song and tired of "My Country 'Tis of Thee"; they werebores, but it was amusing to sing them in German. In German they sounded"sort o' funny, " so he didn't mind this bit of the day's work. 

Half an hour later there arrived his supreme trial of this particularmorning. Arithmetic then being the order of business before the house, he was sent alone to the blackboard, supposedly to make lucid the properreply to a fatal conundrum in decimals, and under the glare and focus ofthe whole room he breathed heavily and itched everywhere; his brain atonce became sheer hash. He consumed as much time as possible in gettingthe terms of the problem stated in chalk; then, affecting to be criticalof his own handiwork, erased what he had done and carefully wrote itagain. After that, he erased half of it, slowly retraced the figures, and stepped back as if to see whether perspective improved theirappearance. Again he lifted the eraser. 

"Ramsey Milholland!"

"Ma'am?"

"Put down that eraser!"

"Yes'm. I just thought--"

Sharply bidden to get forward with his task, he explained in a feeblevoice that he had first to tie a shoe string and stooped to do so, butwas not permitted. Miss Ridgely tried to stimulate him with hints andsuggestion; found him, so far as decimals went, mere protoplasm, and, wondering how so helpless a thing could live, summoned to the boardlittle Dora Yocum, the star of the class, whereupon Ramsey moved towardhis seat. 

"Stand still, Ramsey! You stay right where you are and try to learnsomething from the way Dora does it. "

The class giggled, and Ramsey stood, but learned nothing. Hisconspicuousness was unendurable, because all of his schoolmatesnaturally found more entertainment in watching him than in followingthe performance of the capable Dora. He put his hands in and out of hispockets; was bidden to hold them still, also not to shuffle his feet;and when in a false assumption of ease he would have scratched his headMiss Ridgely's severity increased, so that he was compelled to give overthe attempt. 

Instructed to watch every figure chalked up by the mathematical wonder, his eyes, grown sodden, were unable to remove themselves from the partin her hair at the back of her head, where two little braids began theirseparate careers to end in a couple of blue-and-red checked bits ofribbon, one upon each of her thin shoulder blades. He was conscious thatthe part in Dora's shining brown hair was odious, but he was unconsciousof anything arithmetical. His sensations clogged his intellect; hesuffered from unsought notoriety, and hated Dora Yocum; most of all hehated her busy little shoulder blades. 

He had to be "kept in" after school; and when he was allowed to go homehe averted his eyes as he went by the house where Dora lived. She wasout in the yard, eating a doughnut, and he knew it; but he had passedthe age when it is just as permissible to throw a rock at a girl as at aboy; and stifling his normal inclinations, he walked sturdily on, thoughhe indulged himself so far as to engage in a murmured conversation withone of the familiar spirits dwelling somewhere within him. "Pfa!" saidRamsey to himself--or himself to Ramsey, since it is difficult to saywhich was which. "Pfa! Thinks she's smart, don't she?". .. "Well, I guessshe does, but she ain't!" . .. "I hate her, don't you?". .. "You betyour life I hate her!". .. "Teacher's Pet, that's what _I_ call her!". .. "Well, that's what _I_ call her, too, don't I?" "Well, _I_ do; that'sall she is, anyway--dirty ole Teacher's Pet!"

Chapter III

He had not forgiven her four years later when he entered high schoolin her company, for somehow Ramsey managed to shovel his way throughexaminations and stayed with the class. By this time he had a longaccumulation of reasons for hating her: Dora's persistent and increasingcompetency was not short of flamboyant, and teachers naturally got thehabit of flinging their quickest pupil in the face of their slowest and"dumbest. " Nevertheless, Ramsey was unable to deny that she had becomeless awful lookin' than she used to be. At least, he was honest enoughto make a partial retraction when his friend and classmate, FredMitchell, insisted that an amelioration of Dora's appearance could beactually proven. 

"Well, I'll take it back. I don't claim she's every last bit as awfullookin' as she always has been, " said Ramsey, toward the conclusion ofthe argument. "I'll say this for her, she's awful lookin', but she maynot be as awful lookin' as she was. She don't come to school with theedge of some of her underclo'es showin' below her dress any more, aboutevery other day, and her eyewinkers have got to stickin' out some, andshe may not be so abbasa_loot_ly skinny, but she'll haf to wait a mightylong while before _I_ want to look at her without gettin' sick!"

The implication that Miss Yocum cared to have Ramsey look at her, eitherwith or without gettin' sick, was mere rhetoric, and recognized as suchby the producer of it; she had never given the slightest evidence ofany desire that his gaze be bent upon her. What truth lay underneath hisflourish rested upon the fact that he could not look at her without somesymptoms of the sort he had tersely sketched to his friend; and yet, sopungent is the fascination of self-inflicted misery, he did look at her, during periods of study, often for three or four minutes at a stretch. His expression at such times indeed resembled that of one who has dinedunwisely; but Dora Yocum was always too eagerly busy to notice it. Hewas almost never in her eye, but she was continually in his; moreover, as the banner pupil she was with hourly frequency an exhibit before thewhole class. 

Ramsey found her worst of all when her turn came in "Declamation, "on Friday afternoons. When she ascended the platform, bobbed a littlepreliminary bow and began, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear, "Ramsey included Paul Revere and the Old North Church and the wholeRevolutionary War in his antipathy, since they somehow appeared tobe the property of the Teacher's Pet. For Dora held this post in"Declamation" as well as in everything else; here, as elsewhere, thehateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others; and the teacheralways entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections":Dora seemed to take fire herself when she declared:

 "The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. "

Ramsey himself was in the same section of declaimers, and performednext--a ghastly contrast. He gave a "selection from Shakespeare, "assigned by the teacher; and he began this continuous misfortune bystumbling violently as he ascended the platform, which stimulated ageneral giggle already in being at the mere calling of his name. All ofthe class were bright with happy anticipation, for the miserable Ramseyseldom failed their hopes, particularly in "Declamation. " He faced them, his complexion wan, his expression both baleful and horrified; and hebegan in a loud, hurried voice, from which every hint of intelligencewas excluded:

"Most pottent, grave, and rev--"

The teacher tapped sharply on her desk, and stopped him. "You'veforgotten to bow, " she said. "And don't say 'pottent. ' The word is'potent'. "

Ramsey flopped his head at the rear wall of the room, and began again:

"Most pottent potent gray and revenerd signers my very nobe and approvegood masters that I have tan away this sole man's dutter it is mose truetrue I have marry dur the very headman frun tuv my fending hath thisextent no more rude am I in speech--in speech--rude am I in speech--inspeech--in speech--in speech--"

He had stalled. Perhaps the fatal truth of that phrase, and some senseof its applicability to the occasion had interfered with the mechanismwhich he had set in operation to get rid of the "recitation" for him. At all events, the machine had to run off its job all at once, or itwouldn't run at all. Stopped, it stayed stopped, and backing off grantedno new impetus, though he tried, again and again. "Hath this extentno more rude am I in speech--" He gulped audibly. "Rude rude rude amI--rude am I in speech--in speech--in speech. Rude am I in speech--"

"Yes, " the irritated teacher said, as Ramsey's failing voice continuedhuskily to insist upon this point. "I think you are!" And her nerveswere a little soothed by the shout of laughter from the school--it wasnever difficult for teachers to be witty. "Go sit down, Ramsey, and doit after school. "

His ears roaring, the unfortunate went to his seat, and, among allthe hilarious faces, one stood out--Dora Yocum's. Her laughter wasprecocious; it was that of a confirmed superior, insufferably adult--shewas laughing at him as a grown person laughs at a child. Conspicuouslyand unmistakably, there was something indulgent in her amusement. Hechoked. Here was a little squirt of a high-school girl who would trotup to George Washington himself and show off around him, given theopportunity; and George Washington would probably pat her on the head, or give her a medal--or something. Well, let him! Ramsey didn't care. He didn't care for George Washington, or Paul Revere, or Shakespeare, orany of 'em. They could all go to the dickens with Dora Yocum. They wereall a lot of smarties anyway and he hated the whole stew of 'em!

There was one, however, whom he somehow couldn't manage to hate, eventhough this one officially seemed to be as intimately associated withDora Yocum and superiority as the others were. Ramsey couldn't hateAbraham Lincoln, even when Dora was chosen to deliver the "GettysburgAddress" on the twelfth of February. Vaguely, yet reassuringly, Ramseyfelt that Lincoln had resisted adoption by the intellectuals. Lincolnhad said "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, " andthat didn't mean government by the teacher and the Teacher's Petand Paul Revere and Shakespeare and suchlike; it meant government byeverybody, and therefore Ramsey had as much to do with it as anybodyelse had. This was friendly; and he believed that if Abraham Lincolncould have walked into the schoolroom, Lincoln would have been asfriendly with him as with Dora and the teacher herself. Beyond a doubt, Dora and the teacher _thought_ Lincoln belonged to them and their crowdof exclusives; they seemed to think they owned the whole United States;but Ramsey was sure they were mistaken about Abraham Lincoln. 

He felt that it was just like this little Yocum snippet to assume such athing, and it made him sicker than ever to look at her. 

Then, one day, he noticed that her eye-winkers were stickin' out fartherand farther. 

Chapter IV

His discovery irritated him the more. Next thing, this ole Teacher's Petwould do she'd get to thinkin' she was pretty! If _that_ happened, well, nobody _could_ stand her! The long lashes made her eyes shadowy, and itwas a fact that her shoulder blades ceased to insist upon notoriety; youcouldn't tell where they were at all, any more. Her back seemed to bejust a regular back, not made up of a lot of implements like shoulderblades and things. 

A contemptible thing happened. Wesley Bender was well known to be themost untidy boy in the class and had never shown any remorse for hisreputation or made the slightest effort either to improve or to disputeit. He was content: it failed to lower his standing with his fellowsor to impress them unfavourably. In fact, he was treated as one who hasattained a slight distinction. At least, he owned one superlative, nomatter what its quality, and it lifted him out of the commonplace. Ithelped him to become better known, and boys liked to be seen with him. But one day, there was a rearrangement of the seating in the schoolroom:Wesley Bender was given a desk next in front of Dora Yocum's; and withina week the whole room knew that Wesley had begun voluntarily to wash hisneck--the back of it, anyhow. 

This was at the bottom of the fight between Ramsey Milholland and WesleyBender, and the diplomatic exchanges immediately preceding hostilitieswere charmingly frank and unhyprocitical, although quite as mixed-upand off-the-issue as if they had been prepared by professional foreignoffice men. Ramsey and Fred Mitchell and four other boys waylaid youngBender on the street after school, intending jocosities rather thanviolence, but the victim proved sensitive. "You take your ole hands offo' me!" he said fiercely, as they began to push him about among them. 

"Ole dirty Wes!" they hoarsely bellowed and squawked, in their changingvoices. "Washes his ears!". .. "Washes his _neck!_". .. "Dora Yocum toldhis mama to turn the hose on him!". .. "Yay-ho! Ole dirty Wes tryin to bea duke!"

Wesley broke from them and backed away, swinging his strapped books ina dangerous circle. "You keep off!" he warned them. "I got as much rightto my pers'nal appearance as anybody!"

This richly fed their humour, and they rioted round him, keeping outsidethe swinging books at the end of the strap. "Pers'nal appearance!". .. "Who went and bought it for you, Wes?". .. "Nobody bought it for him. Dora Yocum took and give him one!"

"You leave ladies' names alone!" cried the chivalrous Wesley. "You oughtto know better, on the public street, you--pups!"

Here was a serious affront, at least to Ramsey Milholland's wayof thinking; for Ramsey, also, now proved sensitive. He quoted hisfriends--"Shut up!"--and advanced toward Wesley. "You look here! Who youcallin' 'pups'?"

"Everybody!" Wesley hotly returned. "Everybody that hasn't got anymore decency than to go around mentioning ladies' names on the publicstreets. Everybody that goes around mentioning ladies' names on thepublic streets are pups!"

"They are, are they?" Ramsey as hotly demanded. "Well, you just lookhere a minute; my own father mentions my mother's name on the publicstreets whenever he wants to, and you just try callin' my father a pup, and you won't know what happened to you!"

"What'll _you_ do about it?"

"I'll put a new head on you, " said Ramsey. "That's what I'll do, becauseanybody that calls my father or mother a pup--"

"Oh, shut up! I wasn't talking about your ole father and mother. I saideverybody that mentioned Dora Yocum's name on the public streets wasa pup, and I mean it! Everybody that mentions Dora Yocum's name on thepub--"

"Dora Yocum!" said Ramsey. "I got a perfect right to say it anywhere Iwant to. Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum!--"

"All right, then you're a pup!"

Ramsey charged upon him and received a suffocating blow full in theface, not from Mr. Bender's fist but from the solid bundle of booksat the end of the strap. Ramsey saw eight or ten objectives instantly:there were Wesley Benders standing full length in the air on top ofother Wesley Benders, and more Wesley Benders zigzagged out sidewaysfrom still other Wesley Benders; nevertheless, he found one of these andit proved to be flesh. He engaged it wildly at fisticuffs; poundedit upon the countenance and drove it away. Then he sat down upon thecurbstone, and, with his dizzy eyes shut, leaned forward for the betteraccommodation of his ensanguined nose. 

Wesley had retreated to the other side of the street holding a grimyhandkerchief to the midmost parts of his pallid face. "There, you oledamn pup!" he shouted, in a voice which threatened to sob. "I guess_that'll_ teach you to be careful how you mention Dora Yocum's name onthe public streets!"

At this, Ramsey made a motion as if to rise and pursue, whereupon Wesleyfled, wailing back over his shoulder as he ran, "You wait till I ketchyou out alone on the public streets and I'll--"

His voice was lost in an outburst of hooting from his former friends, who sympathetically surrounded the wounded Ramsey. But in a measure, at least, the chivalrous fugitive had won his point. He was routed andoutdone, yet what survived the day was a rumour, which became a sort oftenuous legend among those interested. There had been a fight over DoraYocum, it appeared, and Ramsey Milholland had attempted to maintainsomething derogatory to the lady, while Wesley defended her as aknightly youth should. The something derogatory was left vague; nobodyattempted to say just what it was, and the effects of the legend dividedthe schoolroom strictly according to gender. 

The boys, unmindful of proper gallantry, supported Ramsey on account ofthe way he had persisted in lickin' the stuffin' out of Wesley Benderafter receiving that preliminary wallop from Wesley's blackjackbundle of books. The girls petted and championed Wesley; they talkedoutrageously of his conqueror, fiercely declaring that he ought to bearrested; and for weeks they maintained a new manner toward him. Theykept their facial expressions hostile, but perhaps this was more for oneanother's benefit than for Ramsey's; and several of them went so far outof their way to find even private opportunities for reproving him thatan alert observer might have suspected them to have been less indignantthan they seemed--but not Ramsey. He thought they all hated him, andsaid he was glad of it. 

Dora was a non-partisan. The little prig was so diligent at her booksshe gave never the slightest sign of comprehending that there had beena fight about her. Having no real cognizance of Messrs. Bender andMilholland except as impediments to the advance of learning, she did noteven look demure. 

Chapter V

With Wesley Bender, Ramsey was again upon fair terms before the winterhad run its course; the two were neighbours and, moreover, were drawntogether by a community of interests which made their reconciliation anecessity. Ramsey played the guitar and Wesley played the mandolin. 

All ill feeling between them died with the first duet of spring, yet thetwinkling they made had no charm to soothe the savage breast of Ramseywhenever the Teacher's Pet came into his thoughts. He daydreamed athousand ways of putting her in her place, but was unable to carryout any of them, and had but a cobwebby satisfaction in imaginingdiscomfitures for her which remained imaginary. With a yearning sopoignant that it hurt, he yearned and yearned to show her what shereally was. "Just once!" he said to Fred Mitchell. "That's all I ask, just once. Just gimme one chance to show that girl what she really is. I guess if I ever get the chance she'll find out what's the matter withher, for _once_ in her life, anyway!" Thus it came to be talked aboutand understood and expected in Ramsey's circle, all male, that DoraYocum's day was coming. The nature of the disaster was left vague, butthere was no doubt in the world that retribution merely awaited itsideal opportunity. "You'll see!" said Ramsey. "The time'll come whenthat ole girl'll wish she'd moved o' this town before she ever gotappointed monitor of _our_ class! Just you wait!"

They waited, but conditions appeared to remain unfavourableindefinitely. Perhaps the great opportunity might have arrived if Ramseyhad been able to achieve a startling importance in any of the "variousdivergent yet parallel lines of school endeavour"--one of the phrases bymeans of which teachers and principal clogged the minds of their unarmedauditors. But though he was far from being the dumb driven beast ofmisfortune that he seemed in the schoolroom, and, in fact, lived adouble life, exhibiting in his out-of-school hours a remarkable exampleof "secondary personality"--a creature fearing nothing and capableof laughter; blue-eyed, fairly robust, and anything but dumb--he wasnevertheless without endowment or attainment great enough to get himdistinction. 

He "tried for" the high-school eleven, and "tried for" the nine, butthe experts were not long in eliminating him from either of thesecompetitions, and he had to content himself with cheering instead ofgetting cheered. He was by no manner of means athlete enough, or enoughof anything else, to put Dora Yocum in her place, and so he and thegreat opportunity were still waiting in May, at the end of the secondyear of high school, when the class, now the "10 A, " reverted to an oldfashion and decided to entertain itself with a woodland picnic. 

They gathered upon the sandy banks of a creek, in the blue shade of big, patchy-barked sycamores, with a dancing sky on top of everything andgold dust atwinkle over the water. Hither the napkin-covered basketswere brought from the wagons and assembled in the shade, where theyappeared as an attractive little meadow of white napery, and gave bothsurprise and pleasure to communities of ants and to other originalsettlers of the neighbourhood. 

From this nucleus or headquarters of the picnic, various expeditionsset forth up and down the creek and through the woods that bordered it. Camera work was constant; spring wild flowers were accumulated by groupsof girls who trooped through the woods with eager eyes searching thethickets; two envied boy fishermen established themselves upon a bankup-stream, with hooks and lines thoughtfully brought with them, andpoles which they fashioned from young saplings. They took mussels fromthe shallows, for bait, and having gone to all this trouble, declinedto share with friends less energetic and provident the perquisites andpleasures secured to themselves. 

Albert Paxton was another person who proved his enterprise. Havingvisited the spot some days before, he had hired for his exclusive usethroughout the duration of the picnic an old rowboat belonging to ashanty squatter; it was the only rowboat within a mile or two and Alberthad his own uses for it. Albert was the class lover and, after firsttaking the three chaperon teachers "out for a row, " an excursionconcluded in about ten minutes, he disembarked them; Sadie Clews steppedinto the boat, a pocket camera in one hand, a tennis racket in theother; and the two spent the rest of the day, except for the luncheoninterval, solemnly drifting along the banks or grounded on a shoal. Nowand then Albert would row a few strokes, and at almost any time when thepopulated shore glanced toward them, Sadie would be seen photographingAlbert, or Albert would be seen photographing Sadie, but the tennisracket remained an enigma. Oarsman and passenger appeared to have noconversation whatever--not once was either seen or heard to address aremark to the other; and they looked as placid as their own upside-downreflections in one of the still pools they slowly floated over. Theywere sixteen, and had been "engaged" more than two years. 

On the borders of the little meadow of baskets there had been depositedtwo black shapes, which remained undisturbed throughout the day, aclosed guitar case and a closed mandolin case, no doubt containing eachits proper instrument. So far as any use of these went they seemed to beof the same leisure class to which Sadie's tennis racket belonged, forwhen one of the teachers suggested music, the musicians proved shy. Wesley Bender said they hadn't learned to play anything much and, besides, he had a couple o' broken strings he didn't know as he couldfix up; and Ramsey said he guessed it seemed kind o' too hot to playmuch. Joining friends, they organized a contest in marksmanship, thetarget being a floating can which they assailed with pebbles; and afterthat they "skipped" flat stones upon the surface of the water, then wentto join a group gathered about Willis Parker and Heinie Krusemeyer. 

No fish had been caught, a lack of luck crossly attributed by thefishermen to the noise made by constant advice on the part of theirattendant gallery. Messrs. Milholland, Bender, and the other rockthrowers came up shouting, and were ill received. 

"For heaven's sakes, " Heinie Krusemeyer demanded, "can't you shut up?Here we just first got the girls to keep their mouths shut a minute andI almost had a big pickerel or something on my hook, and here you gotto up and yell so he chases himself away! Why can't nobody show a littlesense sometimes when they ought to?"

"I should say so!" his comrade exclaimed. "If people would only justtake and think of all the trouble we been to, it seems funny somebodycouldn't let us have half a chance to get a few good fish. What chancethey got to bite with a lot o' _girls_ gabbin' away, and then, just aswe get 'em quieted down, all you men got to come bustin' up here yellin'your heads off. A fish isn't goin' to bite when he can't even hearhimself think! Anybody ought to know that much. "

But the new arrivals hooted. _"Fish!"_ Ramsey vociferated. "I'll beta hundred dollars there hasn't been even a minny in this creek for thelast sixty years!"

"There is, too!" said Heinie, bitterly. "But I wouldn't be surprisedthere wouldn't be no longer if you got to keep up this noise. If you'dshut up just a minute you could see yourself there's fish here. "

In whispers several of the tamed girls at once heartily corroboratedthis statement, whereupon the newcomers ceased to gibe and consented tosilence. Ramsey leaned forth over the edge of the overhanging bank, a dirt precipice five feet above the water, and peered into theindeterminable depths below. The pool had been stirred, partly by theinexpert pokings of the fishermen and partly by small clods and bitsof dirt dislodged from above by the feet of the audience. The water, consequently, was but brownly translucent and revealed its secretsreluctantly; nevertheless certain dim little shapes had been observedto move within it, and were still there. Ramsey failed to see them atfirst. 

"Where's any ole fish?" he inquired, scornfully. 

"Oh, my goodness!" Heinie Krusemeyer moaned. "_Can't_ you shut up?"

"Look!" whispered the girl who stood nearest to Ramsey. She pointed. "There's one. Right down there by Willis's hook. Don't you see him?"

Ramsey was impressed enough to whisper. "Is there? I don't see him. Ican't--"

The girl came closer to him, and, the better to show him, leaned outover the edge of the bank, and, for safety in maintaining her balance, rested her left hand upon his shoulder while she pointed with her right. Thereupon something happened to Ramsey. The touch upon his shoulder wasalmost nothing, and he had never taken the slightest interest in MillaRust (to whom that small warm hand belonged), though she was the classbeauty, and long established in the office. Now, all at once, a peculiarand heretofore entirely unfamiliar sensation suddenly became importantin the upper part of his chest. For a moment he held his breath, aninvoluntary action;--he seemed to be standing in a shower of flowers. 

"Don't you see it, Ramsey?" Milla whispered. "It's a great big one. Why, it must be as long as--as your shoe! Look!"

Ramsey saw nothing but the thick round curl on Milla's shoulder. Millahad a group of curls on each of her shoulders, for she got her modes atthe Movies and had that sort of prettiness: large, gentle, calculatingeyes, and a full, softly modelled face, implacably sweet. Ramsey wasaccustomed to all this charm, and Milla had never before been of moreimportance to him than an equal weight of school furniture--but all atonce some magic had enveloped her. That curl upon the shouldernearest him was shot with dazzling fibres of sunshine. He seemed to betrembling. 

"I don't see it, " he murmured, huskily, afraid that she might remove herhand. "I can't see any fish, Milla. "

She leaned farther out over the bank. "Why, there, goosie!" shewhispered. "Right there. "

"I can't see it. "

She leaned still farther, bending down to point. "Why right th--"

At this moment she removed her hand from his shoulder, thoughunwillingly. She clutched at him, in fact, but without avail. She hadbeen too amiable. 

A loud shriek was uttered by throats abler to vocalize, just then, thanMilla's, for in her great surprise she said nothing whatever--the shriekcame from the other girls as Milla left the crest of the overhangingbank and almost horizontally disappeared into the brown water. Therewas a tumultuous splash, and then of Milla Rust and her well-knownbeautifulness there was nothing visible in the superficial world, norupon the surface of that creek. The vanishment was total. 

"_Save_ her!"

Several girls afterward admitted having used this expression, and littleMiss Floy Williams, the youngest and smallest member of the class, wasunable to deny that she had said, "Oh, God!" Nothing could have beenmore natural, and the matter need not have been brought before her withsuch insistence and frequency, during the two remaining years of herundergraduate career. 

Ramsey was one of those who heard this exclamation, later so famous, and perhaps it was what roused him to heroism. He dived from the bank, headlong, and the strange thought in his mind was "I guess _this_'llshow Dora Yocum!" He should have been thinking of Milla, of course, atsuch a time, particularly after the little enchantment just laid uponhim by Milla's touch and Milla's curls; and he knew well enough thatMiss Yocum was not among the spectators. She was half a mile away, asit happened, gathering "botanical specimens" with one of theteachers--which was her idea of what to do at a picnic!

Ramsey struck the water hard, and in the same instant struck somethingharder. Wesley Bender's bundle of books had given him no such shockas he received now, and if the creek bottom had not been of mud, justthere, the top of his young head might have declined the strain. Halfstunned, choking, spluttering he somehow floundered to his feet; andwhen he could get his eyes a little cleared of water he found himselfwavering face to face with a blurred vision of Milla Rust. She had risenup out of the pod and stood knee deep, like a lovely drenched figure ina fountain. 

Upon the bank above them, Willis Parker was jumping up and down, gesticulating and shouting fiercely. "Now I guess you're satisfied ourfishin' _is_ spoilt! Whyn't you listen me? I _told_ you it wasn't more'nthree feet deep! I and Heinie waded all over this creek gettin' ourbait. You're a pretty sight!"

Of Milla he spoke unwittingly the literal truth. Even with her hair thuswild and sodden, Milla rose from immersion blushing and prettier thanever; and she was prettiest of all when she stretched out her handhelplessly to Ramsey and he led her up out of the waters. They hadplenty of assistance to scramble to the top of the bank, and there Millawas surrounded and borne away with a great clacketing and tumult. Ramseygave his coat into the hands of friends, who twisted the water out ofit for him, while he sat upon the grass in the sun, rubbed his head, andexperimented with his neck to see if it would "work. " The sunshine wasstrong and hot; in half an hour he and his clothes were dry--or at least"dry enough, " as he said, and except for some soreness of head and neck, and the general crumpledness of his apparel, he seemed to be in allways much as usual when shouts and whistlings summoned all the partyto luncheon at the rendezvous. The change that made him different wasinvisible. 

Chapter VI

The change in Ramsey was invisible, and yet something must have beenseen, for everyone appeared to take it for granted that he was tosit next to Milla at the pastoral meal. She herself understood it, evidently, for she drew in her puckered skirts and without any wordsmake a place for him beside her as he driftingly approached her, affecting to whistle and keeping his eyes on the foliage overhead. Hestill looked upward, even in the act of sitting down. 

"Squirrel or something, " he said, feebly, as if in explanation. 

"Where?" Milla asked. 

"Up there on a branch. " He accepted a plate from her (she had providedherself with an extra one), but he did not look at it or her. "I'm notjust exactly sure it's a squirrel, " he said. "Kind of hard to make outexactly what it is. " He continued to keep his eyes aloft, because heimagined that all of the class were looking at him and Milla, and hefelt unable to meet such publicity. It was to him as if the whole UnitedStates had been scandalized to attention by this act of his in goingto sit beside Milla; he gazed upward so long that his eyeballs becamesensitive under the strain. He began to blink. "I can't make out whetherit's a squirrel or just some leaves that kind o' got fixed like one, "he said. "I can't make out yet which it is, but I guess when there's abreeze, if it's a squirrel he'll prob'ly hop around some then, if he'salive or anything. "

It had begun to seem that his eyes must remain fixed in that upwardstare forever; he wanted to bring them down, but could not face theglare of the world. So the fugitive ostrich is said to bury his head inthe sand; he does it, not believing himself thereby hidden but trying tobanish from his own cognizance terrible facts which his unsheltered eyeshave seemed to reveal. So, too, do nervous children seek to bury theireyes under pillows, and nervous statesmen theirs under oratory. Ramsey'sostrichings can happen to anybody. But finally the brightness of the skybetween the leaves settled matters for him; he sneezed, wept, and fora little moment again faced his fellowmen. No one was looking at him;everybody except Milla had other things to do. 

Having sneezed involuntarily, he added a spell of coughing for whichthere was no necessity. "I guess I must be wrong, " he muttered thickly. 

"What about, Ramsey?"

"About it bein' a squirrel. " With infinite timidity he turned his headand encountered a gaze so soft, so hallowed, that it disconcerted him, and he dropped a "drumstick" of fried chicken, well dotted with ants, from his plate. Scarlet he picked it up, but did not eat it. For thefirst time in his life he felt that eating fried chicken held in thefingers was not to be thought of. He replaced the "drumstick" upon hisplate and allowed it to remain there untouched, in spite of a greathunger for it. 

Having looked down, he now found difficulty in looking up, but gazedsteadily at his plate, and into this limited circle of vision cameMilla's delicate and rosy fingers, bearing a gift. "There, " she said ina motherly little voice. "It's a tomato mayonnaise sandwich and I madeit myself. I want you to eat it, Ramsey. "

His own fingers approached tremulousness as he accepted the thicksandwich from her and conveyed it to his mouth. A moment later his soulfilled with horror, for a spurt of mayonnaise dressing had caused acatastrophe the scene of which occupied no inconsiderable area of hisright cheek; which was the cheek toward Milla. He groped wretchedly forhis handkerchief but could not find it; he had lost it. Sudden deathwould have been relief; he was sure that after such grotesquerie Millacould never bear to have anything more to do with him; he was ruined. 

In his anguish he felt a paper napkin pressed gently into his hand; asoft voice said in his ear, "Wipe it off with this, Ramsey. Nobody'snoticing. "

So this incredibly charitable creature was still able to be his friend, even after seeing him mayonnaised! Humbly marvelling, he did as she toldhim, but avoided all further risks. He ate nothing more. 

He sighed his first sigh of inexpressibleness, had a chill or so alongthe spine, and at intervals his brow was bedewed. 

Within his averted eyes there dwelt not the Milla Rust who sat besidehim, but an iridescent, fragile creature who had become angelic. 

He spent the rest of the day dawdling helplessly about her; wherever shewent he was near, as near as possible, but of no deliberate volition ofhis own. Something seemed to tie him to her, and Milla was nothing loth. He seldom looked at her directly, or for longer than an instant, andmore rarely still did he speak to her except as a reply. What fewremarks he ventured upon his own initiative nearly all concerned thelandscape, which he commended repeatedly in a weak voice, as "kind ofpretty, " though once he said he guessed there might be bugs in the barkof a log on which they sat; and he became so immoderately personal as todeclare that if the bugs had to get on anybody he'd rather they got onhim than on Milla. She said that was "just perfectly lovely" of him, asked where he got his sweet nature, and in other ways encouraged him tocontinue the revelation, but Ramsey was unable to get forward with it, though he opened and closed his mouth a great many times in the effortto do so. 

At five o'clock everybody was summoned again to the rendezvous for aceremony preliminary to departure: the class found itself in a largecircle, standing, and sang "The Star Spangled Banner. " Ordinarily, onsuch an open-air and out-of-school occasion, Ramsey would have joinedthe chorus uproariously with the utmost blatancy of which his vocalapparatus was capable; and most of the other boys expressed their humourby drowning out the serious efforts of the girls; but he sang feebly, not much more than humming through his teeth. Standing beside Milla, he was incapable of his former inelegancies and his voice was in asemi-paralyzed condition, like the rest of him. 

Opposite him, across the circle, Dora Yocum stood a little in advance ofthose near her, for of course she led the singing. Her clear and earnestvoice was distinguishable from all others, and though she did notglance toward Ramsey he had a queer feeling that she was assuming moresuperiority than ever, and that she was icily scornful of him and Milla. The old resentment rose--he'd "show" that girl yet, some day!

When the song was over, cheers were given for the class, "the goodole class of Nineteen Fourteen, " the school, the teachers, and for thepicnic, thus officially concluded; and then the picnickers, carryingtheir baskets and faded wild flowers and other souvenirs and burdens, moved toward the big "express wagons" which were to take them back intothe town. Ramsey got his guitar case, and turned to Milla. 

"Well--" he said. 

"Well what, Ramsey?"

"Well--g'bye. "

"Why, no, " said Milla. "Anyways not yet. You can go back in the samewagon with me. It's going to stop at the school and let us out there, and then you could walk home with me if you felt like it. You could comeall the way to our gate with me, I expect, unless you'd be late home foryour supper. "

"Well--well, I'd be perfectly willing, " Ramsey said. "Only I heard weall had to go back in whatever wagon we came out in, and I didn't comein the same wagon with you, so--"

Milla laughed and leaned toward him a little. "I already 'tended tothat, " she said confidentially. "I asked Johnnie Fiske, that came out inmy wagon, to go back in yours, so that makes room for you. "

"Well--then I guess I could do it. " He moved toward the wagon with her. "I expect it don't make much difference one way or the other. "

"And you can carry my basket if you want to, " she said, addingsolicitously, "Unless it's too heavy when you already got your guitarcase to carry, Ramsey. "

This thoughtfulness of hers almost overcame him; she seemed divine. He gulped, and emotion made him even pinker than he had been under themayonnaise. 

"I--I'll be glad to carry the basket, too, " he faltered. "It-it don'tweigh anything much. "

"Well, let's hurry, so's we can get places together. "

Then, as she manoeuvred him through the little crowd about the wagon, with a soft push this way and a gentle pull that, and hurried him up theimprovised steps and found a place where there was room for them to sit, Ramsey had another breathless sensation heretofore unknown to him. He found himself taken under a dovelike protectorship; a wonderful, inexpressible Being seemed to have become his proprietor. 

"Isn't this just perfectly lovely?" she said cozily, close to his ear. 

He swallowed, but found no words, for he had no thoughts; he was only anincoherent tumult. This was his first love. 

"Isn't it, Ramsey?" she urged. The cozy voice had just the hint of areproach. "Don't you think it's just perfectly lovely, Ramsey?"

"Yes'm. "

Chapter VII

The next morning Ramsey came into his father's room while Mr. Milhollandwas shaving, an hour before church time, and it became apparent that theson had someting on his mind, though for a while he said nothing. 

"Did you want anything, Ramsey?"

"Well--"

"Didn't want to borrow my razors?"

"No, sir. "

Mr. Milholland chuckled. "I hardly supposed so, seriously! Shaving isa great nuisance and the longer you keep away from it, the better. Andwhen you do, you let my razors alone, young feller!"

"Yes, sir. " (Mr. Milholland's razors were safe, Ramsey had alreadyachieved one of his own, but he practised the art in secret. ) He passedhis hand thoughtfully over his cheeks, and traces of white powder wereleft upon his fingers, whereupon he wiped his hand surreptitiously, andstood irresolutely waiting. 

"What is it you really want, Ramsey?"

"I guess I don't want anything. "

"Money?"

"No, sir. You gay' me some Friday. "

Mr. Milholland turned from his mirror and looked over the edge of atowel at his son. In the boy's eyes there was such a dumb agony ofinterrogation that the father was a little startled. 

"Why, what is it, Ramsey? Have you--" He paused, frowning and wondering. "You haven't been getting into some mess you want to tell me about, haveyou?"

"No, sir. "

His tone was meek, but a mute distress lurked within it, bringing to thefather's mind disturbing suspicions, and foreshadowings of indignationand of pity. "See here, Ramsey, " he said, "if there's anything you wantto ask me, or to tell me, you'd better out with it and get it over. Now, what is it?"

"Well--it isn't anything. "

"Are you _sure?_"

Ramsey's eyes fell before the severe and piercing gaze of his father. "Yes, sir. "

Mr. Milholland shook his head doubtfully; then, as his son walked slowlyout of the room, he turned to complete his toilet in a somewhat uneasyframe of mind. Ramsey had undoubtedly wanted to say something to him andthe boy's expression had shown that the matter in question was serious, distressing, and, it might be, even critical. 

In fact it was--to Ramsey. Having begun within only the last few hoursto regard haberdashery as of vital importance, and believing his fatherto be possessed of the experience and authority lacking in himself, Ramsey had come to get him to settle a question which had been upsettinghim badly, in his own room, since breakfast. What he want to know was:Whether it was right to wear an extra handkerchief showing out of thecoat breast pocket or not, and, if it was right--ought the handkerchiefto have a coloured border or to be plain white? But he had never beforebrought any such perplexities to his father, and found himself toodiffident to set them forth. 

However, when he left the house, a few minutes later, he boldly showedan inch of purple border above the pocket; then, as he was himself aboutto encounter several old lady pedestrians, he blushed and thrust thehandkerchief down into deep concealment. Having gone a block farther, hepulled it up again; and so continued to operate this badge of fashion, or unfashion, throughout the morning; and suffered a great deal thereby. 

Meantime, his father, rather relieved that Ramsey had not told hissecret, whatever it was, dismissed the episode from his mind and joinedMrs. Milholland at the front door, ready for church. 

"Where's Ramsey?" he asked. 

"He's gone ahead, " she answered, buttoning her gloves as they wentalong. "I heard the door quite a little while ago. Perhaps he went overto walk down with Charlotte and Vance. Did you notice how neat he looksthis morning?"

"Why, no, I didn't; not particularly. Does he?"

"I never saw anything like it before, " said Mrs. Milholland. "He wentdown in the cellar and polished his own shoes. "

"What!"

"For about an hour, I think, " she said, as one remaining calm before amiracle. "And he only has three neckties, but I saw him several times ineach of them. He must have kept changing and changing. I wonder--" Shepaused. 

"I'm glad he's begun to take a little care of his appearance at last. Business men think a good deal about that, these days, when he comes tomake his start in the world. I'll have to take a look at him and givehim a word of praise. I suppose he'll be in the pew when we get there. "

But Ramsey wasn't in the pew; and Charlotte, his sister, and herhusband, who were there, said they hadn't seen anything of him. It wasnot until the members of the family were on their way home after theservices that they caught a glimpse of him. 

They were passing a church a little distance from their own; here thecongregation was just emerging to the open, and among the sedate throngdescending the broad stone steps appeared an accompanied Ramsey--and ared, red Ramsey he was when he beheld his father and mother and sisterand brother-in-law staring up at him from the pavement below. They werekind enough not to come to an absolute halt, but passed slowly on, sothat he was just able to avoid parading up the street in front ofthem. The expressions of his father, mother, and sister were of adumfoundedness painful to bear, while such lurking jocosity as thatapparent all over his brother-in-law no dignified man should eitherexhibit or be called upon to ignore. 

In hoarse whispers, Mrs. Milholland chided her husband for anexclamation he had uttered. "John! On Sunday! You ought to be ashamed. "

"I couldn't help it, " he exclaimed. "Who on earth is his clinging vine?Why, she's got _lavender_ tops on her shoes and--"

"Don't look round!" she warned him sharply. "Don't--"

"Well, what's he doing at a Baptist church? What's he fidgeting at hishandkerchief about? Why can't he walk like people? Does he think it'sobligatory to walk home from church anchored arm-in-arm like Swedes on aSunday Out? Who _is_ this cow-eyed fat girl that's got him, anyhow?"

"Hush! Don't look round again, John. "

"Never fear!" said her husband, having disobeyed. "They've turned off;they're crossing over to Bullard Street. Who is it?"

"I think her name's Rust, " Mrs. Milholland informed him. "I don't knowwhat her father does. She's one of the girls in his class at school. "

"Well, that's just like a boy; pick out some putty-faced flirt to taketo church!"

"Oh, she's quite pretty--in that way!" said his wife, deprecatingly. "Ofcourse that's the danger with public schools. It would be pleasanter ifhe'd taken a fancy to someone whose family belongs to our own circle. "

"'Taken a fancy'!" he echoed, hooting. "Why, he's terrible! He lookedlike a red-gilled goldfish that's flopped itself out of the bowl. Why, he--"

"I _say_ I wish if he felt that he had to take girls anywhere, " saidMrs. Milholland, with the primmest air of speaking to the point--"ifthis sort of thing _must_ begin, I wish he might have selected somenice girl among the daughters of our own friends, like Dora Yocum, forinstance. "

Upon the spot she began to undergo the mortification of a mother who hasexpected her son, just out of infancy, to look about him with the eye ofa critical matron of forty-five. Moreover, she was indiscreet enoughto express her views to Ramsey, a week later, producing thus a scene ofuseless great fury and no little sound. 

"I do think it's in _very_ poor taste to see so much of any one girl, Ramsey, " she said, and, not heeding his protest that he only walked homefrom school with Milla, "about every other day, " and that it didn't seemany crime to him just to go to church with her a couple o' times, Mrs. Milholland went on: "But if you think you really _must_ be danglingaround somebody quite this much--though what in the world you find to_talk_ about with this funny little Milla Rust you poor father says hereally cannot see--and of course it seems very queer to us that you'dbe willing to waste so much time just now when your mind ought to beentirely on your studies, and especially with such an absurd _looking_little thing--

"No, you must listen, Ramsey, and let me speak now. What I meant wasthat we shouldn't be _quite_ so much distressed by your being seen witha girl who dressed in better taste and seemed to have some notion ofrefinement, though of course it's only natural she _wouldn't_, with afather who is just a sort of ward politician, I understand, and a motherwe don't know, and of course shouldn't care to. But, oh, Ramsey! if you_had_ to make yourself so conspicuous why couldn't you be a little _bit_more fastidious? Your father wouldn't have minded nearly so much if ithad been a self-respecting, intellectual girl. We both say that if you_must_ be so ridiculous at your age as to persist in seeing more of onegirl than another, why, oh why, don't you go and see some really nicegirl like Dora Yocum?"

Ramsey was already dangerously distended, as an effect of the earlierpart of her discourse, and the word "fastidious" almost exploded him;but upon the climax, "Dora Yocum, " he blew up with a shattering reportand, leaving fragments of incoherence ricocheting behind him, fledshuddering from the house. 

For the rest of the school term he walked home with Milla everyafternoon and on sundays appeared to have become a resolute Baptist. Itwas supposed (by the interested members of the high-school class) thatRamsey and Milla were "engaged. " Ramsey sometimes rather supposed theywere himself, and the dim idea gave him a sensation partly pleasant, butmostly apprehensive: he was afraid. 

He was afraid that the day was coming when he ought to kiss her. 

Chapter VIII

Vacation, in spite of increased leisure, may bring inconvenience topeople in Ramsey's strange but not uncommon condition. At home hisconstant air was that of a badgered captive plaintively silent underinjustice; and he found it difficult to reply calmly when asked wherehe was going--an inquiry addressed to him, he asserted, every time hetouched his cap, even to hang it up!

The amount of evening walking he did must also have been a trial to hisnerves, on account of fatigue, though the ground covered was not vast. Milla's mother and father were friendly people but saw no reasonto "move out of house and home, " as Mr. Rust said, when Milla had"callers"; and on account of the intimate plan of their small dwellinga visitor's only alternative to spending the evening with Mr. And Mrs. Rust as well as with Milla, was to invite her to "go out walking. "

Evening after evening they walked and walked and walked, usually incompany--at perhaps the distance of half a block--with Albert Paxton andSadie Clews, though Ramsey now and then felt disgraced by having falleninto this class; for sometimes it was apparent that Albert casually hadhis arm about Sadie's waist. This allured Ramsey somewhat, but terrifiedhim more. He didn't know how such matters were managed. 

Usually the quartet had no destination; they just went "out walking"until ten o'clock, when both girls had to be home--and the boys did, too, but never admitted it. On Friday evenings there was a "publicopen-air concert" by a brass band in a small park, and the four werealways there. A political speechmaker occupied the bandstand one night, and they stood for an hour in the midst of the crowd, listening vaguely. 

The orator saddled his politics upon patriotism. "Do you intend to letthis glorious country go to wrack and ruin, oh, my good friends, " hedemanded, "or do you intend to save her? Look forth upon this country ofours, I bid you, oh, my countrymen, and tell me what you see. You seea fair domain of forest, mountain, plain, and fertile valleys, sweepingfrom ocean to ocean. Look from the sturdy rocks of old New England, pledged to posterity by the stern religious hardihood of the PilgrimFathers, across the corn-bearing midland country, that land of milkand honey, won for us by the pluck and endurance of the indomitablepioneers, to where in sunshine roll the smiling Sierras of goldenCalifornia, given to our heritage by the unconquerable energy of thosebrave men and women who braved the tomahawk on the Great Plains, thetempest, of Cape Horn, and the fevers of Panama, to make American soilof El Dorado! America! Oh, my America, how glorious you stand! Countryof Washington and Valley Forge, out of what martyrdoms hast thou arisen!Country of Lincoln in his box at Ford's theatre, his lifeblood stainingto a brighter, holier red the red, white, and blue of the Old Flag!Always and always I see the Old Flag fluttering the more sacredlyencrimsoned in the breeze for the martyrs who have upheld it! Always Isee that Old Flag--"

Milla gave Ramsey's arm, within her own, a little tug. "Come on, " shesaid. "Sade says she don't want to hang around here any longer. It'sawful tiresome. Let's go. "

He consented, placidly. The oration meant nothing to him and stirred noone in the audience. The orator was impassioned; he shouted himself intocoughing fits, gesticulated, grew purple; he was so hot that hiscollar caved in and finally swooned upon his neck in soggy exhaustion, prostrate round his thunderings. Meanwhile, the people listened with anair of patience, yawning here and there, and gradually growing fewer. Itwas the old, old usual thing, made up of phrases that Ramsey had hearddinning away on a thousand such occasions, and other kinds of occasions, until they meant to him no more than so much sound. He was bored, andglad to leave. 

"Kind o' funny, " he said, as they sagged along the street at their usualtortoise gait. 

"What is it, Ramsey?"

"Seems kind o' funny they never have anything to say any one cantake any interest in. Always the same ole whoopety-whoop about GeorgeWashington and Pilgrim Fathers and so on. I bet five dollars beforelong we'd of heard him goin' on about our martyred Presidents, WilliamMcKinley and James A. Garfield and Benjamin Harrison and all so on, andthen some more about the ole Red, White, and Blue. Don't you wish they'd_quit_, sometimes, about the 'Ole Flag'?"

"I dunno, " said Milla. "I wasn't listening any at all. I hate speeches. "

"Well, I could _stand_ 'em, " Ramsey said, more generously, "if they'dever give anybody a little to think about. What's the use alwaysdraggin' in George Warshington and the Ole Flag? And who wants tohear any more ole truck about 'from ole rocky New England to goldenCalifornia, ' and how big and fine the United States is and how it's theland of the Free and all that? Why don't they ever say anything new?That's what I'd like to know. "

Milla laughed, and when he asked why, she told him she'd never heardhim talk so much "at one stretch. " "I guess that speech got you kind ofwound up, " she said. "Let's talk about something different. "

"I just soon, " he agreed. And so they walked on in silence, whichseemed to suit Milla. She hung weightily upon his arm, and they dawdled, drifting from one side of the pavement to the other as they slowlyadvanced. Ablert and Sadie, ahead of them, called "good-night" from acorner, before turning down the side street where Sadie lived; and then, presently, Ramsey and Milla were at the latter's gate. He went in withher, halting at the front steps. 

"Well, g'night, Milla, " he said. "Want to go out walking to-morrownight? Albert and Sadie are. "

"I can't to-morrow night, " she told him with obvious regret. "Isn't itthe worst luck! I got an aunt comin' to visit from Chicago, and she'scrazy about playing 'Five Hundred, ' and Mama and Papa said I haf to stayin to make four to play it. She's liable to be here three or four days, and I guess I got to be around home pretty much all the time she's here. It's the worst luck!"

He was doleful, but ventured to be literary. "Well, what can't be helpedmust be endured. I'll come around when she's gone. "

He moved as if to depart, but she still retained his arm and did notprepare to relinquish it. 

"Well--" he said. 

"Well what, Ramsey?"

"Well--g'night. "

She glanced up at the dark front of the house. "I guess the family'sgone to bed, " she said, absently. 

"I s'pose so. "

"Well, good-night, Ramsey. " She said this but still did not release hisarm, and suddenly, in a fluster, he felt that the time he dreaded hadcome. Somehow, without knowing where, except that it was somewhere uponwhat seemed to be a blurred face too full of obstructing features, hekissed her. 

She turned instantly away in the darkness, her hands over her cheeks;and in a panic Ramsey wondered if he hadn't made a dreadful mistake. 

"S'cuse me!" he said, stumbling toward the gate. "Well, I guess I got tobe gettin' along back home. "

Chapter IX

He woke in the morning to a great self-loathing: he had kissed a girl. Mingled with the loathing was a curious pride in the very fact thatcaused the loathing, but the pride did not last long. He came downstairsmorbid to breakfast, and continued this mood afterward. At noon AlbertPaxton brought him a note which Milla had asked Sadie to ask Albert togive him. 

Dearie: I am just wondering if you thought as much about something sosweet that happened last night as I did you know what. I think it wasthe sweetest thing. I send you one with this note and I hope you willthink it is a sweet one. I would give you a real one if you were herenow and I hope you would think it was sweeter still than the one I putin this note. It is the sweetest thing now you are mine and I am yoursforever kiddo. If you come around about friday eve it will be all right. Aunt Jess will be gone back home by then so come early and we will getSade and Alb and go to the band Concert. Don't forget what I said aboutmy putting something sweet in this note, and I hope you will think it isa sweet one but not as sweet as the _real_ sweet one I would like to--

At this point Ramsey impulsively tore the note into small pieces. Heturned cold as his imagination projected a sketch of his mother inthe act of reading this missive, and of her expression as she read thesentence: "It is the sweetest thing now you are mine and I am yoursforever kiddo. " He wished that Milla hadn't written "kiddo. " She calledhim that, sometimes, but in her warm little voice the word seemed not atall what it did in ink. He wished, too, that she hadn't said she was hisforever. 

Suddenly he was seized with a horror of her. 

Moisture broke out heavily upon him; he felt a definite sickness, and, wishing for death, went forth upon the streets to walk and walk. Hecared not whither, so that his feet took him in any direction away fromMilla, since they were unable to take him away from himself--of whom hehad as great a horror. Her loving face was continually before him, andits sweetness made his flesh creep. Milla had been too sweet. 

When he met or passed people, it seemed to him that perhaps they wereable to recognize upon him somewhere the marks of his low quality. "Softy! Ole sloppy fool!" he muttered, addressing himself. "Slushy olemush!. .. _Spooner!_" And he added, "Yours forever, kiddo!" Convulsionsseemed about to seize him. 

Turning a corner with his head down, he almost charged into Dora Yocum. She was homeward bound from a piano lesson, and carried a rolled leathercase of sheet music--something he couldn't imagine Milla carrying--andin her young girl's dress, which attempted to be nothing else, shelooked as wholesome as cold spring water. Ramsey had always feltthat she despised him and now, all at once, he thought that she wasjustified. Leper that he had become, he was unworthy to be even touchinghis cap to her! And as she nodded and went briskly on, he would havegiven anything to turn and walk a little way with her, for it seemed tohim that this might fumigate his morals. But he lacked the courage, and, besides, he considered himself unfit to be seen walking with her. 

He had a long afternoon of anguishes, these becoming most violent whenhe tried to face the problem of his future course toward Milla. He didnot face it at all, in fact, but merely writhed, and had evolved nothingwhen Friday evening was upon him and Milla waiting for him to take herto the "band concert" with "Alb and Sade. " In his thoughts, by thattime, this harmless young pair shared the contamination of his owncrime, and he regarded them with aversion; however, he made shift toseek a short interview with Albert, just before dinner. 

"I got a pretty rotten headache, and my stomach's upset, too, " he said, drooping upon the Paxton's fence. "I been gettin' worse every minute. You and Sadie go by Milla's, Albert, and tell her if I'm not there byha'-pas'-seven, tell her not to wait for me any longer. "

"How do you mean 'wait'?" Albert inquired. "You don't expect her to comepokin' along with Sadie and me, do you? She'll keep on sittin' there athome just the same, because she wouldn't have anything else to do, ifyou don't come like she expects you to. She hasn't got any way to _stop_waitin'!"

At this, Ramsey moaned, without affectation. "I don't expect I _can_, Albert, " he said. "I'd like to if I could, but the way it looks now, you tell her I wouldn't be much surprised maybe I was startin' in withtyphoid fever or pretty near anything at all. You tell her I'm prettynear as disappointed as she's goin' to be herself, and I'd come if Icould--and I _will_ come if I get a good deal better, or anything--butthe way it's gettin' to look now, I kind o' feel as if I might bebreaking out with something any minute. " He moved away, concluding, feebly: "I guess I better crawl on home, Albert, while I'm still ableto walk some. You tell her the way it looks now I'm liable to be rightsick. "

And the next morning he woke to the chafings of remorse, picturing aMilla somewhat restored in charm waiting hopefully at the gate, evenafter half-past seven, and then, as time passed and the sound of thedistant horns came faintly through the darkness, going sadly to herroom--perhaps weeping there. It was a picture to wring him with shameand pity, but was followed by another which electrified him, for outof school he did not lack imagination. What if Albert had reported hisillness too vividly to Milla? Milla was so fond! What if, in her alarm, she should come here to the house to inquire of his mother about him?What if she told Mrs. Milholland they were "engaged"? The next momentRamsey was projecting a conversation between his mother and Milla inwhich the latter stated that she and Ramsey were soon to be married;that she regarded him as already virtually her husband, and demanded tonurse him. 

In a panic he fled from the house before breakfast, going out by way ofa side door, and he crossed back yards and climbed back fences to reachAlbert Paxton the more swiftly. This creature, a ladies' man almostprofessionally, was found exercising with an electric iron and a pair offlannel trousers in a basement laundry, by way of stirring his appetitefor the morning meal. 

"See here, Albert, " his friend said breathlessly. "I got a favour. Iwant you to go over to Milla's--"

"I'm goin' to finish pressin' these trousers, " Albert interrupted. "ThenI've got my breakfast to eat. "

"Well, you could do this first, " said Ramsey, hurriedly. "It wouldn'thurt you to do me this little favour first. You just slip over and seeMilla for me, if she's up yet, and if she isn't, you better wait aroundthere till she is, because I want you to tell her I'm a whole lot betterthis morning. Tell her I'm pretty near practick'ly all right again, Albert, and I'll prob'ly write her a note or something right soon--or ina week or so, anyhow. You tell her--"

"Well, you act pretty funny!" Albert exclaimed, fumbling in the pocketsof his coat. "Why can't you go on over and tell her yourself?"

"I would, " said Ramsey. "I'd be perfectly willing to go only I got toget back home to breakfast. "

Albert stared. "Well, I got to go upstairs and eat my own breakfast inabout a minute, haven't I? But just as it happens there wouldn't be anyuse your goin' over there, or me, either. "

"Why not?"

"Milla ain't there, " said Albert, still searching the pockets of hiscoat. "When we went by her house last night to tell her about yourheadache and stomach and all, why, her mother told us Milla'd gone up toChicago yesterday afternoon with her aunt, and said she left a note foryou, and she said if you were sick I better take it and give it to you. I was goin' to bring it over to your house after breakfast. " He foundit. "Here!"

Ramsey thanked him feebly, and departed in a state of partialstupefaction, brought on by a glimpse of the instabilities of life. Hehad also, not relief, but a sense of vacancy and loss; for Milla, out ofhis reach, once more became mysteriously lovely. 

Pausing in an alley, he read her note. 

Dearie: Thought I ought to call you up but over the 'phone is just nixfor explanations as Mama and Aunt Jess would hear everything and thoughtI might seem cold to you not saying anything sweet on account of themlistening and you would wonder why I was so cold when telling yougood-by for a wile maybe weeks. It is this way Uncle Purv wired AuntJess he has just taken in a big touring car on a debt and his vacationstarts to-morrow so if they were going to take a trip they better startright way so Aunt Jess invited me. It is going to be a big trip uparound the lakes and I have always wanted to go touring more thananything in the world stopping at hotels and all and Mama said I oughtto it would be so splendid for my health as she thinks I am failing somelately. Now dearie I have to pack and write this in a hurry so you willnot be disappointed when you come by for the B. C. To-night. Do not goget some other girl and take her for I would hate her and nothing inthis world make me false for one second to my kiddo boy. I do not knowjust when home again as the folks think I better stay up there for avisit at Aunt Jess and Uncle Purvs home in Chicago after the trip isover. But I will think of you all the time and you must think of meevery minute and believe your own dearie she will never no not for onesecond be false. So tell Sade and Alb good-by for me and do not befalse to me any more than I would be to you and it will not be long tillnothing more will interrupt our sweet friendship. 

As a measure of domestic prudence, Ramsey tore the note into irreparablefragments, but he did this slowly, and without experiencing any of therevulsion created by Milla's former missive. 

He was melancholy, aggrieved that she should treat him so. 

Chapter X

He never saw her again. She sent him a "picture postal" from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, which his father disengaged from the family mail, one morningat breakfast, and considerately handed to him without audible comment. Upon it was written, _"Oh, you Ramsey!"_ This was the last of Milla. 

Just before school opened, in the autumn, Sadie Clews made somerevelations. "Milla did like you, " said Sadie. "After that time youjumped in the creek to save her she liked you better than any boy intown, and I guess if it wasn't for her cousin Milt up in Chicago shewould of liked you the best anywhere. I guess she did, anyway, becauseshe hadn't seen him for about a year then. 

"Well, that afternoon she went away I was over there and took ineverything that was goin' on, only she made me promise on my word ofhonour I wouldn't even tell Albert. They didn't get any wire from heruncle about the touring car; it was her cousin Milt that jumped on thetrain and came down and fixed it all up for Milla to go on the trip, andeverything. You see, Ramsey, she was turned back a couple of times inschool before she came in our class and I don't exactly know how oldshe is and she don't _look_ old yet, but I'm pretty sure she's at leasteighteen, and she might be over. Her mother kept tellin' her all thetime you were just a kid, and didn't have anything to support her on, and lots of things like that. I didn't think such a great deal of thisMilt's looks, myself, but he's anyway twenty-one years old, and got agood position, and all their family seem to think he's just fine! Itwasn't his father that took in the touring car on debt, like she saidshe was writing to you; it was Milt himself. He started out in businesswhen he was only fifteen years old, and this trip he was gettin' up forhis father and mother and Milla was the first vacation he ever took. Well, of course she wouldn't like my tellin' you, but I can't see theharm of it, now everything's all over. "

"All--all over? You mean Milla's going to be--to be married?"

"She already is, " said Sadie. "They got married at her Aunt Jess andUncle Purv's house, up in Chicago, last Thursday. Yes, sir; that quietlittle Milla's a regular old married woman by this time, I expect, Ramsey!"

When he got over the shock, which was not until the next day, onepredominating feeling remained: it was a gloomy pride--a pride in hisproven maturity. He was old enough, it appeared, to have been the samething as engaged to a person who was now a Married Woman. His mannerthenceforth showed an added trace of seriousness and self-consideration. 

Having recovered his equipoise and something more, he entirely forgotthat moment of humble admiration he had felt for Dora Yocum on the dayof his flattest prostration. When he saw her sitting in the classroom, smiling brightly up at the teacher, the morning of the school's openingin the autumn, all his humility had long since vanished and she appearedto him not otherwise than as the scholar whose complete proficiency hadalways been so irksome to him. 

"Look at her!" he muttered to himself. "Same ole Teacher's Pet!"

Now and then, as the days and seasons passed, and Dora's serene progresscontinued, never checked or even flawed, there stirred within somelingerings of the old determination to "show" her; and he would conjureup a day-dream of Dora in loud lamentation, while he led the laughter ofthe spectators. But gradually his feelings about her came to be merely adull oppression. He was tired of having to look at her (as he stated it)and he thanked the Lord that the time wouldn't be so long now until he'dbe out of that ole school, and then all he'd have to do he'd just takecare never to walk by her house; it was easy enough to use some otherstreet when he had to go down-town. 

"The good ole class of Nineteen-Fourteen is about gone, " he said to FredMitchell, who was still his most intimate friend when they reached thesenior year. "Yes, sir; it's held together a good many years, Fred, butafter June it'll be busted plum up, and I hope nobody starts a move tohave any reunions. There's a good many members of the ole class that Ican stand and there's some I can't, but there's one I just won't! If weever did call a reunion, that ole Yocum girl would start in right awayand run the whole shebang, and that's where I'd resign! You know, Fred, the thing _I_ think is the one biggest benefit of graduating from thisole school? It's never seein' Dora Yocum again. "

This was again his theme as he sat by the same friend's side, in therear row of the class at Commencement, listening to the delivery ofthe Valedictory. "Thinks she's just sooblime, don't she!" he whisperedmorosely. "She wouldn't trade with the President of the United Statesright now. She prob'ly thinks bein' Valedictorian is more important thanCaptain of the State University Eleven. Never mind!" And here his tonebecame huskily jubilant. "Never mind! Just about a half-an-hour moreand that's the last o' _you_, ole girl! Yes, sir, Fred; one thing we canfeel pretty good over: this is where we get through with Dora Yocum!"

Ramsey and Fred had arranged to room together at Greenfield, the seatof the state university, and they made the short journey in company thefollowing September. They arrived hilarious, anticipating pleasurableexcitements in the way of "fraternity" pledgings and initiations, encounters with sophomores, class meetings, and elections; and, also, they were not absolutely without interest in the matter of Girls, forthe state university was co-educational, and it was but natural toexpect in so broad a field, all new to them, a possible vision ofsomething rather thrilling. They whispered cheerfully of all thesethings during the process of matriculation, and signed the registrar'sbook on a fresh page; but when Fred had written his name under Ramsey's, and blotted it, he took the liberty of turning over the leaf to examinesome of the autographs of their future classmates, written on the otherside. Then he uttered an exclamation, more droll than dolorous, thoughit affected to be wholly the latter; for the shock to Fred was by nomeans so painful as it was to his friend. 

Ramsey leaned forward and read the name indicated by Fred's forefinger. 

_Dora Yocum. _

. .. When they got back to their pleasant quarters at Mrs. Meig's, facingthe campus, Ramsey was still unable to talk of anything except thelamentable discovery; nor were his companion's burlesquing efforts toconsole him of great avail, though Fred did become serious enough topoint out that a university was different from a high school. 

"It's not like havin' to use one big room as a headquarters, you know, Ramsey. Everything's all split up, and she might happen not to be in asingle of your classes. "

"You don't know my luck!" the afflicted boy protested. "I wish I'd goneto Harvard, the way my father wanted me to. Why, this is just the worstnuisance I ever struck! You'll see! She'll be in everything there is, just the way she was back home. "

He appeared to be corroborated by the events of the next day, when theyattended the first meeting to organize the new class. The masculineelement predominated, but Dora Yocum was elected vice-president. "Yousee?" Ramsey said. "Didn't I tell you? You see what happens?"

But after that she ceased for a time to intrude upon his life, and headmitted that his harassment was less grave than he had anticipated. There were about five hundred students in the freshman class; he seldomsaw her, and when he did it was not more than a distant glimpse of heron one of the campus paths, her thoughtful head bent over a book asshe hurried to a classroom. This was bearable; and in the flatteringagitations of being sought, and even hunted, by several "fraternities"simultaneously desirous of his becoming a sworn Brother, he almostforgot her. After a hazardous month the roommates fell into the arms ofthe last "frat" to seek them, and having undergone an evening of outragewhich concluded with touching rhetoric and an oath taken at midnight, they proudly wore jewelled symbols on their breasts and were free toturn part of their attention to other affairs, especially the affairs ofthe Eleven. 

However, they were instructed by the older brethren of their Order, whose duty it was to assist in the proper manoeuvring of their youngcareers, that, although support of the 'varsity teams was important, they must neglect neither the spiritual nor the intellectual by-productsof undergraduate doings. Therefore they became members of the collegeY. M. C. A. And of the "Lumen Society. "

According to the charter which it had granted itself, the "LumenSociety" was an "Organization of male and female students"--so"advanced" was this university--"for the development of the powers ofdebate and oratory, intellectual and sociological progress, andthe discussion of all matters relating to philosophy, metaphysics, literature, art, and current events. " A statement so formidable was notwithout a hushing effect upon Messrs. Milholland and Mitchell; they wentto their first "Lumen" meeting in a state of fear and came away littlereassured. 

"I couldn't get up there, " Ramsey declared, "I couldn't stand up therebefore all that crowd and make a speech, or debate in a debate, to savemy soul and gizzard! Why, I'd just keel right over and haf to be carriedout. "

"Well, the way I understand it, " said Fred, "we can't get out of it. The seniors in the 'frat' said we had to join, and they said we couldn'tresign, either, after we had joined. They said we just had to go throughit, and after a while we'd get used to it and not mind it much. "

"_I_ will!" Ramsey insisted. "I couldn't any more stand up there on myfeet and get to spoutin' about sociology and the radical metempsychorusof the metaphysical bazoozum than I could fly a flyin' machine. Why, I--"

"Oh, that wasn't anything, " Fred interrupted. "The only one that talkedlike that, he was that Blickens; he's a tutor, or something, and reallya member of the faculty. Most o' the others just kind of blah-blahhedaround, and what any of 'em tried to get off their chests hardlyamounted to terribly much. "

"I don't care. I couldn't do it at _all!_"

"Well, the way it looks to me, " Fred observed, "we simply _got_ to! Fromwhat they tell me, the freshmen got to do more than anybody. Every otherFriday night, it's all freshmen and nothin' else. You get a postal cardon Monday morning in your mail, and it says 'Assignment' on it, andthen it's got written underneath what you haf to do the next Fridaynight--oration or debate, or maybe just read from some old book orsomething. I guess we got to stand up there and _try_, anyway. "

"All right, " said Ramsey. "If they want me to commit suicide they cansend me one o' their ole 'Assignments. ' I won't need to commit suicide, though, I guess. All I'll do, I'll just fall over in a fit, and stay init. "

And, in truth, when he received his first "Assignment, " one Mondaymorning, a month later, he seemed in a fair way to fulfil his prophecy. The attention of his roommate, who sat at a window of their study, wasattracted by sounds of strangulation. 

"What on earth's the matter, Ramsey?"

"Look! Look at _this!_"

Fred took the card and examined it with an amazement gradually merginginto a pleasure altogether too perceptible:

ASSIGNMENT

TWELVE-MINUTE DEBATE, CLASS OF 1918. _Subject, Resolved:_ That Germanyis both legally and morally justified in her invasion of Belgium. 

(Debaters are notified that each will be held strictly to the followingschedule: Affirmative, 4 min. , first. Negative, 4 min. , first. Affirm, 2min. , second. Neg. , 2 min. , second. )

Affirmative Negative R. MILHOLLAND, '18 D. YOCUM, '18

Concluding his reading, which was oral, the volatile Mitchell made useof his voice in a manner of heathenish boisterousness, and presentlyreclined upon a lounge to laugh the better. His stricken comrade, meanwhile, recovered so far as to pace the floor. "I'm goin' to pack upand light out for home!" he declared, over and over. And even oftenerhe read and reread the card to make sure of the actuality of that fatalcoincidence, "D. Yocum, '18. "

Chapter XI

"If I _could_ do it, " he vociferated, "if I _could_ stand up there anddebate one o' their darn ole debates in the first place--if I had thegall to even try it, why, my gosh! you don't suppose I'm goin' to getup there and argue with _that girl_, do you? That's a hot way to getan education: stand up there and argue with a girl before a couple o'hundred people! My _gosh!_"

"You got to!" his prostrate companion cackled, weakly. "You can't getout of it. You're a goner, ole Buddy!"

"I'll be sick. I'll be sick as a dog! I'll be sick as the sickest dogthat ever--"

"No use, ole man. The frat seniors'll be on the job. They'll knowwhether you're sick or not, and they'll have you there, right on thespot to the minute!"

The prediction was accurate. The too fatherly "frat seniors" did allthat Fred said they would, and more. For the honour of the "frat, " theycoached the desperate Ramsey in the technic of Lumen debate, told himmany more things to say than could be said in six minutes, and producedhim, despairing, ghastly, and bedewed, in the large hall of the LumenSociety at eight o'clock on Friday evening. 

Four other "twelve-minute debates" preceded his and the sound of these, in Ramsey's ears, was the sound of Gabriel practising on his horn inthe early morning of Judgment Day. The members of the society sat, threerows deep, along the walls of the room, leaving a clear oblong of greencarpet in the centre, where were two small desks, twenty feet apart, therostrums of the debaters. Upon a platform at the head of the room satdreadful seniors, the officers of the society, and, upon benches nearthe platform, the debaters of the evening were aligned. One of thefraternal seniors sat with sweltering Ramsey; and the latter, as histime relentlessly came nearer, made a last miserable squirm. 

"Look here, Brother Colburn, I got to get out o' here. "

"No, you don't, young fellow. "

"Yes, I do!" Ramsey whispered, passionately. "Honest, I do. Honest, Brother Colburn, I got to get a drink of water. I _got_ to!"

"No. You can't. "

"Honest, Colburn, I _got_--"

"Hush!"

Ramsey grunted feebly, and cast his dilating eyes along the rows offaces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (hethought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, aglare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round hiswaist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, aboutevery fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression ofhis countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in hisconsciousness. Over and over he whispered gaspingly to himself theopening words of the sentence with which Colburn had advised him tobegin his argument. And as the moment of supreme agony drew close, thiswhispering became continuous: "In making my first appearance beforethis honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in making my firstappearance before this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say inmaking my first appearance before this honor'ble mem--"

. .. It had come. The chairman announced the subject of the fourthfreshman twelve-minute debate; and Dora Yocum, hitherto unperceivedby Ramsey, rose and went forward to one of the small desks in the openspace, where she stood composedly, a slim, pretty figure in white. Members in Ramsey's neighbourhood were aware of a brief and hushedcommotion, and of Colburn's fierce whisper, "You can't! You get upthere!" And the blanched Ramsey came forth and placed himself at theother desk. 

He stood before the silent populace of that morgue, and it seemed to himthat his features had forgotten that he was supposed to be their ownerand in control of them; he felt that they were slipping all over hisface, regardless of his wishes. His head, as a whole, was subject toan agitation not before known by him; it desired to move rustily ineccentric ways of its own devising; his legs alternately limbered andstraightened under no direction but their own; and his hands clutchedeach other fiercely behind his back; he was not one cohesive person, evidently, but an assembled collection of parts which had relapsed eachinto its own individuality. In spite of them, he somehow contrived thesemblance of a bow toward the chairman and the semblance of anothertoward Dora, of whom he was but hazily conscious. Then he opened hismouth, and, not knowing how he had started his voice going, heard it asif from a distance. 

"In making my first appearance before this honor'ble membership I feelrestrained to say--" He stopped short, and thenceforward shook visibly. After a long pause, he managed to repeat his opening, stopped again, swallowed many times, produced a handkerchief and wiped his face, an actof necessity--then had an inspiration. 

"The subject assigned to me, " he said, "is resolved that Germany ismor'ly and legally justified in Belgians--Belgiums! This subject wasassigned to me to be the subject of this debate. " He interrupted himselfto gasp piteously; found breathing difficult, but faltered again: "Thissubject is the subject. It is the subject that was assigned to me ona postal card. " Then, for a moment or so, he had a miraculous spurt ofconfidence, and continued rather rapidly: "I feel constrained to saythat the country of Belgian--Belgium, I mean--this country has beenconstrained by the--invaded I mean--invaded by the imperial GermanImpire and my subject in this debate is whether it ought to or not, mybeing the infernative--affirmative, I mean--that I got to prove thatGermany is mor'ly and legally justified. I wish to state that--"

He paused again, lengthily, then struggled on. "I have been requestedto state that the German Imp--Empire--that it certainly isn't rightfor those Dutch--Germans, I mean--they haven't got any more business inBelgium than I have myself, but I--I feel constrained to say that I hadto accept whatever side of this debate I got on the postal card, and soI am constrained to take the side of the Dutch. I mean the Germans. TheDutch are sometimes called--I mean the Germans are sometimes called theDutch in this country, but they aren't Dutch, though sometimes calledDutch in this country. Well, and so--so, well, the war began last Augustor about then, anyway, and the German army invaded the Belgian army. After they got there, the invasion began. First, they came around thereand then they commenced invading. Well, what I feel constrained--"

He came to the longest of all his pauses here, and the awful gravity ofthe audience almost suffocated him. "Well, " he concluded, "it don't lookright to me. "

"Four minutes!" the chairman announced, for Ramsey's pauses had wornaway a great deal more of this terrible interval than had his eloquence. "Opening statement for the negative: Miss D. Yocum. Four minutes. "

As Dora began to speak, Ramsey experienced a little relief, but onlya little--about the same amount of relief as that felt by a bridegroomwhen it is the bride's turn to "respond, " not really relief at all, butmerely the slight relaxation of a continuing strain. The audience nowlooked at Ramsey no more than people look at a bridegroom, but he failedto perceive any substantial mitigation of his frightful conspicuousness. He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth hiscase for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closelyto Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minuteclosing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his owncondition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he hadto keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hopethat their frenzy might escape general attention. 

He realized that Dora was speaking rapidly and confidently, and thatsomewhere in his ill-assembled parts lurked a familiar bit of him thatobjected to her even more than usual; but she had used half of her time, at least, before he was able to gather any coherent meaning from whatshe was saying. Even then he caught only a fragment, here and there, and for the rest--so far as Ramsey was concerned--she might as well havebeen reciting the Swedish alphabet. 

In spite of the rather startling feebleness of her opponent's statement, Dora went at her task as earnestly as if it were to confute some monsterof casuistry. "Thus, having demonstrated that _all_ war is wrong, " shesaid, approaching her conclusion, "it is scarcely necessary to point outthat whatever the actual circumstances of the invasion, and whatever thestatus of the case in international law, or by reason of treaty, or theGerman oath to respect the neutrality of Belgium, which of course wasgrossly and dishonorably violated--all this, I say, ladies and gentlemenof the Lumen Society, all this is beside the point of morals. Since, asI have shown, _all_ war is wrong, the case may be simplified as follows:All war is morally wrong. _Quod erat demonstrandum_. Germany invadedBelgium. Invasion is war. Germany, therefore, did moral wrong. Uponthe legal side, as I began by pointing out, Germany confessed in theReichstag the violation of law. Therefore, Germany was justified in theinvasion neither morally nor legally; but was both morally and legallywrong and evil. Ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, I await therefutation of my opponent!"

Her opponent appeared to be having enough trouble with his legs, withouttaking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But themarvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with suchnicety that the chairman announced "Four minutes, " almost upon theinstant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more tothe upholder of the affirmative. "Refutation and conclusion by theaffirmative, " said the chairman. "Mr. R. Milholland. Two minutes. "

Therewith, Ramsey coughed as long as he could cough, and when he feltthat no more should be done in this way, he wiped his face--again an actof necessity--and quaveringly began:

"Gentlemen and ladies, or ladies and gentlemen, in making the refutationof my opponent, I feel that--I feel that hardly anything more ought tobe said. "

He paused, looked helplessly at his uncontrollable legs, and resumed:"I am supposed to make the reputa--the refutation of my opponent, and Ifeel that I ought to say quite a good deal more. In the first place, Ifeel that the invasion has taken place. I am supposed--anyhow I got apostal card that I am supposed to be here to-night. Well, in talkingover this matter with a couple of seniors, they told me I was supposedto claim this invasion was mor'ly and legally all right. Well--" Here, by some chance, the recollection of a word of Dora's flickered into hischaotic mind, and he had a brighter moment. "My opponent said she provedall war is wrong--or something like that, anyhow. She said she proved itwas wrong to fight, no matter what. Well, if she wasn't a girl, anybodythat wanted to get her into a fight could prob'ly do it. " He did notadd that he would like to be the person to make the experiment (if Doraweren't a girl), nor did the thought enter his mind until an hour or solater. "Well, " he added, "I suppose there is little more to be said. "

He was so right, in regard to his own performance, at least, that, thereupon drying up utterly, he proceeded to stand, a speechlessfigure in the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eternity lastingforty-five seconds. He made a racking effort, and at the end of thisepoch found words again. "In making my argument in this debate, I wouldstate that--"

"Two minutes!" said the chairman. "Refutation by the negative. Miss D. Yocum. Two minutes. "

"I waive them, " said Dora, primly. "I submit that the affirmative hasnot refuted the argument of the negative. "

"Very well. " With his gavel the chairman sharply tapped the desk beforehim, "The question is now before the house. 'Resolved, that Germanyis both morally and legally justified in her invasion of Belgium. ' Allthose in favour of the--"

But here there was an interruption of a kind never before witnessedduring any proceedings of the Lumen Society. It came from neither ofthe debaters, who still remained standing at their desks until thevote settling their comparative merits in argument should be taken. Theinterruption was from the rear row of seats along the wall, wheresat new members of the society, freshmen not upon the program for theevening. A loud voice was heard from this quarter, a loud but nasalvoice, shrill as well as nasal, and full of a strange hot passion. "Mr. Chairman!" it cried. "Look-a-here, Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman, I demandto be heard! You gotta gimme my say, Mr. Chairman! I'm a-gunna have my_say_! You look-a-here, Mr. Chairman!"

Shocked by such a breach of order, and by the unseemly violence of thespeaker, not only the chairman but everyone else looked there. A short, strong figure was on its feet, gesticulating fiercely; and the headbelonging to it was a large one with too much curly black hair, a flat, swarthy face, shiny and not immaculately shaven; there was an impressionof ill-chosen clothes, too much fat red lip, too much tooth, too mucheyeball. Fred Mitchell, half-sorrowing, yet struggling to conceal tearsof choked mirth over his roommate's late exhibition, recognized thisviolent interrupter as one Linski, a fellow freshman who sat next to himin one of his classes. "What's _that_ cuss up to?" Fred wondered, and sodid others. Linski showed them. 

He pressed forward, shoving himself through the two rows in front of himtill he emerged upon the green carpet of the open space, and as he came, he was cyclonic with words. 

"You don't put no such stuff as this over, I tell you!" he shouted inhis hot, nasal voice. "This here's a free country, and you call yourselfa debating society, do you? Lemme tell you _I_ belong to a debatingsociety in Chicago, where I come from, and them fellas up there, they'dthink they'd oughta be shot fer a fake like what you people aretryin' to put over, here, to-night. I come down here to git some moreeducation, and pay fer it, too, in good hard money I've made sweatin'in a machine shop up there in Chicago; but if _this_ is the kind ofeducation I'm a-gunna git, I better go on back there. You call this asquare debate, do you?"

He advanced toward the chairman's platform, shaking a frantic fist. "Well, if you do, you got another think comin', my capitalis' frien'!you went and give out the question whether it's right fer Choimuny to gothrough Belgium; and what do you do fer the Choimun side? You pick outthis here big stiff"--he waved his passionate hand at the paralyzedRamsey--"you pick out a boob like that for the Choimun side, a poor fishthat gits stagefright so bad he don't know whether he's talkin' or dead;or else he fakes it; because he's a speaker so bum it looks more to melike he was faking. You get this big stiff to fake the Choimun side, andthen you go and stick up a goil agains' him that's got brains and makesa pacifis' argument that wins the case agains' the Choimuns like cuttin'through hog lard! But you ain't a-gunna git away with it, mister!Lemme tell you right here and now, I may be a mix blood, but I got someChoimun in me with the rest what I got, and before you vote on this herequestion you gotta hear a few woids from somebody that can _talk!_ Thiswhole war is a capitalis' war, Belgium as much as Choimuny, and theUnited States is sellin' its soul to the capitalis' right now, I tellyou, takin' sides agains' Choimuny. Orders fer explosives and ammanitionand guns and Red Cross supplies is comin' into this country by themillions, and the capitalis' United States is fat already on the bloodof the workers of Europe! Yes, it is, and I'll have my _say, _ youboorjaw faker, and you can hammer your ole gavel to pieces at me!"

He had begun to shriek; moisture fell from his brow and his mouth; thescandalized society was on its feet, nervously into groups. Evidentlythe meeting was about to disintegrate. "I'll have my _say_!" thefrenzied Linski screamed. "You try to put up this capitalis' trick andwork a fake to carry over this debate agains' Choimuny, but you can'twork it on _me_, lemme tell you! I'll have my _say!_"

The outraged chairman was wholly at a loss how to deal with the"unprecedented situation"--so he defined it, quite truthfully; and hecontinued to pound upon the desk, while other clamours began to rivalLinski's; shouts of "Put him out!" "Order!" "Shut up, Freshman!" "Turnhim over to the sophomores!"

"This meeting is _adjourned!_" bellowed the chairman, and there was athronging toward the doors, while the frothing Linski asseverated: "I'ma-gunna git my say, I tell you! I'll have my say! I'll have my _say!_"

He had more than that, before the hour was over. A moment after heemerged from the building and came out, still hot, upon the cool, darkcampus, he found himself the centre of a group of his own classmateswhom he at first mistook for sophomores, such was their manner. 

. .. As this group broke up, a few minutes later, a youth running tojoin it, scenting somewhat of interest, detained one of those who weredeparting. 

"What's up? What was that squealing?"

"Oh, nothing. We just talked to that Linski. Nobody else touched him, but Ramsey Milholland gave him a _peach_ of a punch on the snoot. "

"Whoopee!"

Ramsey was laconic in response to inquiries upon this subject. Whensomeone remarked: "You served him right for calling you a boob and apoor fish and so on before all the society, girls and all, " Ramsey onlysaid:

"That wasn't what I hit him for. "

He declined to explain further. 

Chapter XII

"The way I look at it, Ramsey, " Fred Mitchell said, when they reachedtheir apartment, whither the benevolent Colburn accompanied them, "theway I look at it, this Linski kind of paid you a compliment, after all, when he called you a fake. He must have thought you anyway _looked_ asif you could make a better speech than you did. Oh, golly!"

And as Ramsey groaned, the jovial Mitchell gave himself up to the divanand the mirth. "Oh, oh, oh, _golly_!" he sputtered. 

"Never you mind, Brother Milholland, " Colburn said gently. "The Lumen isused to nervous beginners. I've seen dozens in my time, just like you;and some of 'em got to be first rate before they quit. Besides, thiscrazy Linski is all that anybody'll ever remember about to-night'smeeting, anyhow. There never was any such outbreak as that in _my_ time, and I guess there never was in the whole history of the society. We'llprobably suspend him until he apologizes to the society--I'm on theboard, and I'm in favour of it. Who is the bird, anyhow? He's in yourclass. "

"I never saw him before, " Ramsey responded from the deep chair, wherehe had moodily thrown himself; and, returning to his brooding upon hisoratory. "Oh, murder!" he moaned. 

"Well, " said the senior, "you'll know him when you see him again. Youput your mark on him where you can see it, all right!" He chuckled. "Isuppose I really ought to have interfered in that, but I decided to doa little astronomical observation, about fifty feet away, for a fewminutes. I'm 'way behind in my astronomy, anyhow. Do you know thisLinski, Brother Mitchell?"

"I've talked to him a couple o' times on the campus, " said Fred. "He'sin one of my classes. He's about the oldest in our class, I guess--alot older than us, anyhow. He's kind of an anarchist or something; can'ttalk more'n five minutes any time without gettin off some bug stuffabout 'capitalism. ' He said the course in political economy was all'capitalism' and the prof was bought by Wall Street. "

"Poor old Prof. Craig!" Colburn laughed. "He gets fifteen hundred ayear. "

"Yes; I'd heard that myself, and I told Linski, and he said he had anuncle workin' in a steel mill got twice that much; but it didn'tmake any difference, ole Craig was bought by Wall Street. He said'capitalism' better look out; he and the foreign-born workmen were goin'to _take_ this country some day, and that was one of the reasons he wasafter an education. He talked pretty strong pro-German, too--aboutthe war in Europe--but I sort of thought that was more because he'd bepro-anything that he thought would help upset the United States thanbecause he cared much about Germany. "

"Yes, " said Colburn, "that's how he sounded to-night. I guess there'splenty more like him in the cities, too. That reminds me, I'd betterarrange a debate on immigration for the Lumen. We'll put BrotherMilholland for the negative, this time. "

Ramsey started violently. "See here--"

But the senior reassured him. "Just wanted to see you jump, " heexplained. "Don't fear; you've done your share. "

"I should think I have!" Ramsey groaned. 

"Yes, you won't be called on again this term. By the way, " said Colburn, thoughtfully, "that was a clever girl you had against you to-night. Idon't believe in pacificism much, myself, but she used it very niftilyfor her argument. Isn't she from your town, this Miss Yocum?"

Fred nodded. 

"Well, she's a clever young thing, " said the senior, still thoughtful. And he added: "Graceful girl, she is. "

At this, the roommates looked at him with startled attention. Ramsey wasso roused as to forget his troubles and sit forward in his chair. 

"Yes, " said the musing Colburn, "she's a mighty pretty girl. "

"What!"

This exclamation was a simultaneous one; the astounded pair stared athim in blank incredulity. 

"Why, don't you think so?" Colburn mildly inquired. "She seems to mevery unusual looking. "

"Well, yes, " Fred assented, emphatically. "We're with you there!"

"Extraordinary eyes, " continued Colburn. "Lovely figure, too; altogethera strikingly pretty girl. Handsome, I should say, perhaps. Yes, 'handsome' rather than 'pretty'. " He looked up from a brief reverie. "You fellows known her long?"

"You bet!" said Ramsey. 

"She made a splendid impression on the Lumen, " Colburn went on. "I don'tremember that I ever saw a first appearance there that quite equalledit. She'll probably have a brilliant career in the society, and in theuniversity, too. She must be a very fine sort of person. " He deliberatedwithin himself a few moments longer, then, realizing that his hostsand Brethren did not respond with any heartiness--or with anything atall--to the theme, he changed it, and asked them what they thought aboutthe war in Europe. 

They talked of the war rather drowsily for a while; it was aninteresting but not an exciting topic: the thing they spoke of was sofar away. It was in foreign countries where they had never been andhad no acquaintances; and both the cause and the issue seemed to be inconfusion, though evidently Germany had "started" the trouble. Onlyone thing emerged as absolutely clear and proved: there could be nodisagreement about Germany's "dirty work, " as Fred defined it, inviolating Belgium. And this stirred Ramsey to declare with justice that"dirty work" had likewise been done upon himself by the officialperson, whoever he or she was, who had given him the German side ofthe evening's debate. After this moment of fervour, the conversationlanguished, and Brother Colburn rose to go. 

"Well, I'm glad you gave that Linski a fine little punch, BrotherMilholland, " he said, at the door. "It won't do you any harm in the'frat, ' or with the Lumen either. And don't be discouraged about yourdebating. You'll learn. Anybody might have got rattled by having toargue against as clever and good-looking a girl as that!"

The roommates gave each other a look of serious puzzlement as the doorclosed. "Well, Brother Colburn is a mighty nice fellow, " Fred said. "He's kind of funny, though. "

Ramsey assented, and then, as the two prepared for bed, they enteredinto a further discussion of their senior friend. They liked him "allright, " they said, but he certainly must be kind of queer, and theycouldn't just see how he had "ever managed to get where he was" in the"frat" and the Lumen and the university. 

Chapter XIII

Ramsey passed the slightly disfigured Linski on the campus next daywithout betraying any embarrassment or making a sign of recognition. Fred Mitchell told his roommate, chuckling, that Linski had swornto "get" him, and, not knowing Fred's affiliations, had made him theconfidant of his oath. Fred had given his blessing, he said, upon theenterprise, and advised Linski to use a brick. "He'll hit you on thehead with it, " said the light-hearted Fred, falling back upon this oldjoke. "Then you can catch it as it bounces off and throw it back athim. "

However, Linski proved to be merely an episode, not only so far asRamsey was concerned but in the Lumen and in the university as well. Hissuspension from the Lumen was for a year, and so cruel a punishment itproved for this born debater that he noisily declared he would founda debating society himself, and had a poster printed and distributedannouncing the first meeting of "The Free Speech and Masses' RightsCouncil. " Several town loafers attended the meeting, but the onlyperson connected with the university who came was an oriental student, a Chinese youth of almost intrusive amiability. Linski made a fieryaddress, the townsmen loudly appluading his advocacy of an embargoon munitions and the distribution of everybody's "property, " but theChinaman, accustomed to see students so madly in earnest only whenthey were burlesquing, took the whole affair to be intended humour, andtittered politely without cessation--except at such times as he thoughtit proper to appear quite wrung with laughter. Then he would rockhimself, clasp his mouth with both hands and splutter through hisfingers. Linski accused him of being in the pay of "capital. "

Next day the orator was unable to show himself upon the campus withoutcausing demonstrations; whenever he was seen a file of quickly gatheringstudents marched behind him chanting repeatedly and deafeningly inchorus: "Down with Wall Street! Hoch der Kaiser! Who loves Linski? Who, who, who? Hoo Lun! Who loves Linski? Who, who, who? Hoo Lun!"

Linski was disgusted, resigned from the university, and disappeared. 

"Well, here it isn't mid-year Exams yet, and the good ole class ofNineteen-Eighteen's already lost a member, " said Fred Mitchell. "I guesswe can bear the break-up!"

"I guess so, " Ramsey assented. "That Linski might just as well stayedhere, though. "

"Why?"

"He couldn't do any harm here. He'll prob'ly get more people to listento him in cities where there's so many new immigrants and all such thatdon't know anything, comin' in all the time. "

"Oh, well, " said Fred. "What do _we_ care what happens to Chicago! Comeon, let's behave real wild, and go on over to the 'Teria and get us acouple egg sandwiches and sassprilly. "

Ramsey was willing. 

After the strain of the "mid-year Exams" in February, they lived afree-hearted life. They had settled into the ways of their world; theyhad grown used to it, and it had grown used to them; there was nolonger any ignominy in being a freshman. They romped upon the campusand sometimes rioted harmlessly about the streets of the town. In theevenings they visited their fellows and Brethren and were visited inturn, and sometimes they looked so far ahead as to talk vaguely of theirplans for professions or business--though to a freshman this concernedan almost unthinkably distant prospect. "I guess I'll go in with myfather, in the wholesale drug business, " said Fred. "My married brotheralready is in the firm, and I suppose they'll give me a show--send meout on the road a year or two first, maybe, to try me. Then I'm going tomarry some little cutie and settle down. What you goin' to do, Ramsey?Go to Law School, and then come back and go in your father's office?"

"I don't know. Guess so. "

It was always Fred who did most of the talking; Ramsey was quiet. Fredtold the "frat seniors" that Ramsey was "developing a whole lot thesedays"; and he told Ramsey himself that he could see a "big change" inhim, adding that the improvement was probably due to Ramsey's havingpassed through "terrible trials like that debate. "

Ramsey kept to their rooms more than his comrade did, one reason forthis domesticity being that he "had to study longer than Fred did, tokeep up"; and another reason may have been a greater shyness than Fredpossessed--if, indeed, Fred possessed any shyness at all. For Fred wasa cheery spirit difficult to abash, and by the coming of spring knew allof the best-looking girl students in the place--knew them well enough, it appeared, to speak of them not merely by their first names but byabbreviations of these. He had become fashion's sprig, a "fusser" andbutterfly, and he reproached his roommate for shunning the ladies. 

"Well, the truth is, Fred, " said Ramsey one day, respondingdarkly;--"well, you see the truth is, Fred, I've had a--a--I've had anexperience--"

So, only, did he refer to Milla. 

Fred said no more; and it was comprehended between them that the pastneed never be definitely referred to again, but that it stood betweenRamsey and any entertainment to be obtained of the gentler but lesstrustworthy sex. And when other Brethren of the "frat" would havepressed Ramsey to join them in various frivolous enterprises concerning"co-eds, " or to be shared by "co-eds, " Fred thought it better to explainto them privately (all being sacred among Brethren) how Ramsey's life, so far as Girls went, had been toyed with by one now a Married Woman. 

This created a great deal of respect for Ramsey. It became understoodeverywhere that he was a woman-hater. 

Chapter XIV

That early spring of 1915 the two boys and their friends and Brethrentalked more of the war than they had in the autumn, though the subjectwas not an all at absorbing one; for the trenches in Flanders and Francewere still of the immense, remote distance. By no stretch of imaginationcould these wet trenches be thought greatly to concern the "frat, " theLumen, or the university. Really important matters were the doings ofthe "Track Team, " now training in the "Gym" and on the 'Varsity Field, and, more vital still, the prospects of the Nine. But in May there camea shock which changed things for a time. 

The _Lusitania_ brought to every American a revelation of what had lainso deep in his own heart that often he had not realized it was there. When the Germans hid in the sea and sent down the great merchant ship, with American babies and their mothers, and gallantly dying Americangentlemen, there came a change even to girls and boys and professors, until then so preoccupied with their own little aloof world thousands ofmiles from the murder. 

Fred Mitchell, ever volatile and generous, was one of those who wentquite wild. No orator, he nevertheless made a frantic speech at theweek's "frat meetings, " cursing the Germans in the simple old Englishwords that their performance had demonstrated to be applicable, andgoing on to demand that the fraternity prepare for its own share in theaction of the country. "I don't care _how_ insignificant we few fellowshere to-night may seem, " he cried; "we can do our little, and ifeverybody in this country's ready to do their own little, why, that'llbe plenty! Brothers, don't you realize that all _over_ the United Statesto-night the people are feeling just the way we are here? Millions andmillions and millions of them! Wherever there's an American he's _with_us--and you bet your bottom dollar there are just a few more Americansin this country of ours than there are big-mouthed lobsters like thatfellow Linski! I tell you, if Congress only gives the word, there couldbe an army of five million men in this country to-morrow, and thosedirty baby-killin' dachshunds would hear a word or two from your UncleSamuel! Brothers, I demand that something be done right here and now, and by us! I move we telegraph the Secretary of War to-night and offerhim a regiment from this university to go over and help _hang_ theirdamn Kaiser. "

The motion was hotly seconded and instantly carried. Then followeda much flustered discussion of the form and phrasing of the proposedtelegram, but, after everything seemed to have been settled, someoneascertained by telephone that the telegraph company would not acceptmessages containing words customarily defined as profane; so thetelegram had to be rewritten. This led to further amendment, and it wasfinally decided to address the senators from that state, instead of theSecretary of War, and thus in a somewhat modified form the message wasfinally despatched. 

Next day, news of what the "frat" had done made a great stir in theuniversity; other "frats" sent telegrams, so did the "Barbarians, "haters of the "frats" but joining them in this; while a small band of"German-American" students found it their duty to go before the facultyand report these "breaches of neutrality. " They protested heavily, demanding the expulsion of the "breachers" as disloyal citizens, therefore unfit students, but suffered a disappointment; for the facultyitself had been sending telegrams of similar spirit, addressing notonly the senators and congressmen of the state but the President of theUnited States. Flabbergasted, the "German-Americans" retired; they wereconfused and disgusted by this higher-up outbreak of unneutrality--itoverwhelmed them that citizens of the United States should not remainneutral in the dispute between the United States and Germany. All daythe campus was in ferment. 

At twilight, Ramsey was walking meditatively on his way to dinner atthe "frat house, " across the campus from his apartment at Mrs. Meig's. Everybody was quiet now, both town and gown; the students were at theirdinners and so were the burghers. Ramsey was late but did not quickenhis thoughtful steps, which were those of one lost in reverie. He hadforgotten that spring-time was all about him, and, with his head down, walked unregardful of the new gayeties flung forth upon the air by greatclusters of flowering shrubs, just come into white blossom and lavender. 

He was unconscious that somebody behind him, going the same way, came hastening to overtake him and called his name, "Ramsey! RamseyMilholland!" Not until he had been called three times did he realizethat he was being hailed--and in a girl's voice! By that time, the girlherself was beside him, and Ramsey halted, quite taken aback. The girlwas Dora Yocum. 

She was pale, a little breathless, and her eyes were bright and severe. "I want to speak to you, " she said, quickly. "I want to ask you aboutsomething. Mr. Colburn and Fred Mitchell are the only people I know inyour 'frat' except you, and I haven't seen either of them to-day, or I'dhave asked one of them. "

Most uncomfortably astonished, Ramsey took his hands out of his pockets, picked a leaf from a lilac bush beside the path, and put the stem of theleaf seriously into a corner of his mouth, before finding anything tosay. "Well--well, all right, " he finally responded. "I'll tell you--ifit's anything I know about. "

"You know about it, " said Dora. "That is, you certainly do if you wereat your 'frat' meeting last night. Were you?"

"Yes, I was there, " Ramsey answered, wondering what in the world shewanted to know, though he supposed vaguely that it must be somethingabout Colburn, whom he had several times seen walking with her. "Ofcourse I couldn't tell you much, " he added, with an afterthought. "Yousee, a good deal that goes on at a 'frat' meeting isn't supposed to betalked about. "

"Yes, " she said, smiling faintly, though with a satire that missed him. "I've been a member of a sorority since September, and I think I have anidea of what could be told or not told. Suppose we walk on, if you don'tmind. My question needn't embarrass you. "

Nevertheless, as they slowly went on together, Ramsey was embarrassed. He felt "queer. " They had known each other so long; in a way had sharedso much, sitting daily for years near each other and undergoing the sameoutward experiences; they had almost "grown up together, " yet this wasthe first time they had ever talked together or walked together. 

"Well--" he said. "If you want to ask anything it's all right for me totell you--well, I just as soon, I guess. "

"It has nothing to do with the secret proceedings of your 'frat', " saidDora, primly. "What I want to ask about has been talked of all over theplace to-day. Everyone has been saying it was _your_ 'frat' that sentthe first telegram to members of the Government offering support in caseof war with Germany. They say you didn't even wait until to-day, butsent off a message last night. What I wanted to ask you was whether thisstory is true or not?"

"Why, yes, " said Ramsey, mildly. "That's what we did. "

She uttered an exclamation, a sound of grief and of suspicion confirmed. "Ah! I was afraid so!"

"'Afraid so'? What's the matter?" he asked, and because she seemedexcited and troubled, he found himself not quite so embarrassed as hehad been at first; for some reason her agitation made him feel easier. "What was wrong about that?"

"Oh, it's all so shocking and wicked and mistaken!" she cried. "Even thefaculty has been doing it, and half the other 'frats' and sororities!And it was yours that started it. "

"Yes, we did, " he said, throughly puzzled. "We're the oldest 'frat'here, and of course"--he chuckled modestly--"of course we think we'rethe best. Do you mean you believe we ought to've sat back and letsomebody else start it?"

"Oh, _no_!" she answered, vehemently. "Nobody ought to have started it!That's the trouble; don't you see? If nobody had started it none of itmight have happened. The rest mightn't have caught it. It mightn't havegot into their heads. A war thought is the most contagious thought inthe world; but if it can be kept from starting, it can be kept frombeing contagious. It's just when people have got into an emotionalstate, or a state of smouldering rage, that everybody ought to be soterribly careful not to think war thoughts or make war speeches--or sendwar telegrams! I thought--oh, I was so sure I'd convinced Mr. Colburn ofall this, the last time we talked of it! He seemed to understand, and Iwas sure he agreed with me. " She bit her lip. "He was only pretending--Isee that now!"

"I guess he must 'a' been, " said Ramsey, with admirable simplicity. "Hedidn't talk about anything like that last night. He was as much for itas anybody. "

"I've no doubt!"

Ramsey made bold to look at her out of the side of his eye, and as shewas gazing tensely forward he continued his observation for some time. She was obviously controlling agitation, almost controlling tears, whichseemed to threaten her very wide-open eyes; for those now fullygrown and noticeable eyewinkers of hers were subject to fluctuationsindicating such a threat. She looked "hurt, " and Ramsey was touched;there was something human about her, then, after all. And if he had puthis feeling into words at the moment, he would have said that he guessedmaybe he could stand this ole girl, for a few minutes sometimes, betterthan he'd always thought he could. 

"Well, " he said, "Colburn prob'ly wouldn't want to hurt your feelings oranything. Colburn--"

"He? He didn't! I haven't the faintest personal interest in what hedid. "

"Oh!" said Ramsey. "Well, excuse me; I thought prob'ly you were sorebecause he'd jollied you about this pacifist stuff, and then--"

"No!" she said, sharply. "I'm not thinking of his having agreed with_me_ and fooling _me_ about it. He just wanted to make a pleasantimpression on a girl, and said anything he thought would please her. Idon't care whether he does things like that or not. What I care aboutis that the _principle_ didn't reach him and that he mocked it! I don'tcare about a petty treachery to me, personally, but I--"

Fraternal loyalty could not quite brook this. "Brother Colburn is aperfectly honor'ble man, " said Ramsey, solemnly. "He is one of the mosthonor'ble men in this--"

"Of course!" she cried. "Oh, can't I make you understand that I'm notcondemning him for a little flattery to me? I don't care two strawsfor his showing that _I_ didn't influence him. He doesn't interest me, please understand. "

Ramsey was altogether perplexed. "Well, I don't see what makes you gofor him so hard, then. "

"I don't. "

"But you said he was treach--"

"I don't _condemn_ him for it, " she insisted, despairingly. "Don't yousee the difference? I'm not condemning anybody; I'm only lamenting. 

"What about?

"About all of you that want _war_!"

"My golly!" Ramsey exclaimed. "You don't think those Dutchmen were rightto drown babies and--"

"No! I think they were ghastly murderers! I think they were detestableand fiendish and monstrous and--"

"Well, then, my goodness! What do you want?"

"I don't want war!"

"You don't?"

"I want Christianity!" she cried. "I can't think of the Germans withouthating them, and so to-day, when all the world is hating them, I keepmyself from thinking of them as much as I can. Already half the world isfull of war; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't;it will only make more war!"

"Well, I--"

"Don't you see what you've done, you boys?" she said. "Don't you seewhat you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest; theythought they _all_ had to send telegrams like that. "

"Well, the faculty--"

"Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the firstone. Vengeance is the most terrible thought; once you put it intopeople's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them. "

"Well, it isn't mostly vengeance we're after, at all. There's a lot moreto it than just getting even with--"

She did not heed him. "You're all blind! You don't see what you'redoing; you don't even see what you've done to this peaceful place here. You've filled it full of thoughts of fury and killing and massacre--"

"Why, no, " said Ramsey. "It was those Dutch did that to us; and, besides, there's more to it than you--"

"No, there isn't, " she interrupted. "It's just the old brutal spiritthat nations inherit from the time they were only tribes; it's the tribespirit, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's those thingsand the love of fighting--men have always loved to fight. Civilizationhasn't taken it out of them; men still have the brute in them that lovesto fight!"

"I don't think so, " said Ramsey. "Americans don't love to fight; I don'tknow about other countries, but we don't. Of course, here and there, there's some fellow that likes to hunt around for scrapes, but I neversaw more than three or four in my life that acted that way. Of course afootball team often has a scrapper or two on it, but that's different. "

"No, " she said. "I think you all really love to fight. "

Ramsey was roused to become argumentative. "I don't see where you getthe idea. Colburn isn't that way, and back at school there wasn't asingle boy that was anything like that. "

"What!" She stopped, and turned suddenly to face him. 

"What's the matter?" he said, stopping, too. Something he said hadstartled her, evidently. 

"How can you say such a thing?" she cried. "_You_ love to fight!"

"Me?"

"You do! You love fighting. You always have loved fighting. "

He was dumbfounded. "Why, I never had a fight in my life!"

She cried out in protest of such prevarication. 

"Well, I never did, " he insisted, mildly. 

"Why, you had a fight about _me_!"

"No, I didn't. "

"With Wesley Bender!"

Ramsey chuckled. "_That_ wasn't a fight!"

"It wasn't?"

"Nothing like one. We were just guyin' him about--about gettin' slickedup, kind of, because he at in front of you; and he hit me with his bookstrap and I chased him off. Gracious, no; _that_ wasn't a fight!"

"But you fought Linski only last fall. "

Ramsey chuckled again. "That wasn't even as much like a fight as the onewith Wesley. I just told this Linski I was goin' to give him a punch inthe sn-- I just told him to look out because I was goin' to hit him, andthen I did it, and waited to see if he wanted to do anything about it, and he didn't. That's all there was to it, and it wasn't any more likefighting than--than feeding chickens is. "

She laughed dolefully. "It seems to me rather more like it than that!"

"Well, it wasn't. "

They had begun to walk on again, and Ramsey was aware that they hadpassed the "frat house, " where his dinner was probably growing cold. Hewas aware of this, but not sharply or insistently. Curiously enough, hedid not think about it. He had begun to find something pleasant in theodd interview, and in walking beside a girl, even though the girl wasDora Yocum. He made no attempt to account to himself for anything sopeculiar. 

For a while they went slowly together, not speaking, and withoutdestination, though Ramsey vaguely took it for granted that Dora wasgoing somewhere. But she wasn't. They emerged from the part of thesmall town closely built about the university and came out upon a bitof parked land overlooking the river; and here Dora's steps slowed to anindeterminate halt near a bench beneath a maple tree. 

"I think I'll stay here a while, " she said; and as he made no response, she asked, "Hadn't you better be going back to your 'frat house' foryour dinner? I didn't mean for you to come out of your way with me; Ionly wanted to get an answer to my question. You'd better be runningback. "

"Well--"

He stood irresolute, not sure that he wanted his dinner just then. Itwould have amazed him to face the fact deliberately that perhaps hepreferred being with Dora Yocum to eating. However, he faced no suchfact, nor any fact, but lingered. 

"Well--" he said again. 

"You'd better go. "

"I guess I can get my dinner pretty near any time. I don't--" He had athought. "Did you--"

"Did I what?"

"Did you have your dinner before I met you?"

"No. "

"Well, aren't you--"

She shook her head. "I don't want any. "

"Why not?"

"I don't think people have very much appetite to-day and yesterday, " shesaid, with the hint of a sad laugh, "all over America. "

"No; I guess that's so. "

"It's too terrible!" she said. "I can't sit and eat when I think of the_Lusitania_--of all those poor, poor people strangling in the water--"

"No; I guess nobody can eat much, if they think about that. "

"And of what it's going to bring, if we let it, " she went on. "As ifthis killing weren't enough, we want to add _our_ killing! Oh, that'sthe most terrible thing of all--the thing it makes within us! Don't youunderstand?"

She turned to him appealingly, and he felt queerer than ever. Dusk hadfallen. Where they stood, under the young-leaved maple tree, therewas but a faint lingering of afterglow, and in this mystery her faceglimmered wan and sweet; so that Ramsey, just then, was like one whodiscovers an old pan, used in the kitchen, to be made of chased silver. 

"Well, I don't feel much like dinner right now, " he said. "We--we couldsit here awhile on this bench, prob'ly. "

Chapter XV

Ramsey kept very few things from Fred Mitchell, and usually hisconfidences were immediate upon the occasion of them; but allowedseveral weeks to elapse before sketching for his roommate the outlinesof this adventure. 

"One thing that was kind o' funny about it, Fred, " he said, "I didn'tknow what to call her. "

Mr. Mitchell, stretched upon the window seat in their "study, " andlooking out over the town street below and the campus beyond the street, had already thought it tactful to ambush his profound amusement byturning upon his side, so that his face was toward the window and awayfrom his companion. "What did you want to call her?" he inquired in aserious voice. "Names?"

"No. You know what I mean. I mean I had to just keep callin' her 'you';and that gets kind of freaky when you're talkin' to anybody a good whilelike that. When she'd be lookin' away from me, and I'd want to startsayin' something to her, you know, why, I wouldn't know how to getstarted exactly, without callin' her something. A person doesn't want tobe always startin' off with 'See here, ' or things like that. "

"I don't see why you let it trouble you, " said Fred. "From how you'vealways talked about her, you had a perfectly handy way to start off withanything you wanted to say to her. "

"What with?"

"Why didn't you just say, 'Oh, you Teacher's Pet!' That would--"

"Get out! What I mean is, she called me 'Ramsey' without any bother; itseems funny I got stumped every time I started to say 'Dora. ' Someway Icouldn't land it, and it certainly would 'a' sounded crazy to call her'Miss Yocum' after sittin' in the same room with her every day from thebaby class clear on up through the end of high school. That _would_ 'a'made me out an idiot!"

"What did you call her?" Fred asked. 

"Just nothin' at all. I started to call her something or other a hundredtimes, I guess, and then I'd balk. I'd get all ready, and kind of make asort of a sound, and then I'd have to quit. "

"She may have thought you had a cold, " said Fred, still keeping his backturned. 

"I expect maybe she did--though I don't know; most of the time shedidn't seem to notice me much, kind of. "

"She didn't?"

"No. She was too upset, I guess, by what she was thinkin' about. "

"But if it hadn't been for that, " Fred suggested, "you mean she'd havecertainly paid more attention to who was sitting on the bench with her?"

"Get out! You know how it was. Everybody those few days thought we weregoin' to have war, and she was just sure of it, and it upset her. Ofcourse most people were a lot more upset by what those Dutchmen didto the _Lusitania_ than by the idea of war; and she seemed to feel asbroken up as anybody could be about the _Lusitania_, but what got herthe worst was the notion of her country wantin' to fight, she said. Shereally was upset, too, Fred; there wasn't any puttin' on about it. Iguess that ole girl certainly must have a good deal of feeling, because, doggoned, after we'd been sittin' there a while if she didn't have toget out her handkerchief! She kept her face turned away from me--justthe same as you're doin' now to keep from laughin'--but honestly, shecried like somebody at a funeral. I felt like the darndest fool!"

"I'm not laughing, " said Fred, but he did not prove it by turning sothat his face could be seen. "What did she say?"

"Oh, she didn't say such an awful lot. She said one kind o' funny thingthough: she said she was sorry she couldn't quite control herself, butif anybody had to see her cry she minded it less because it was an oldschoolmate. What struck me so kind o' funny about that is--why, it looksas if she never knew the way I always hated her so. "

"Yes, " said Fred. "It wasn't flattering!"

"Well, sir, it _isn't_, kind of, " Ramsey agreed, musingly. "It certainlyisn't when you look at it that way. "

"What did you say when she said that?" Fred asked. 

"Nothin'. I started to, but I sort of balked again. Well, we kept onsitting there, and afterwhile she began to talk again and got kind ofexcited about how no war could do anything or anybody any good, and allwar was wicked, no matter what it was about, and nothin' could be goodthat was founded on fear and hate, and every war that ever was foughtwas always founded on fear and hate. She said if the Germans wanted tofight us we ought to go to meet them and tell them we wouldn't fight. "

"What did you say?"

"Nothin'. I kind o' started to--but what's the use? She's got thatin her head. Besides, how are you goin' to argue about a thing witha person that's crying about it? I tell you, Fred, I guess we got toadmit, after all, that ole girl certainly must have a lost of heartabout her, anyway. There may not be much _fun_ to her--though of courseI wouldn't know hardly any way to tell about that--but there couldn't behardly any doubt she's got a lot of feeling. Well, and then she went onand said old men made wars, but didn't fight; they left the fighting tothe boys, and the suffering to the boy's mothers. "

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed, and upon that he turned free of mirth for themoment. "That's the woman of it, I guess. Send the old men to do thefighting! For the matter of that, I guess my father'd about a thousandtimes go himself than see me and my brothers go; but Father's so fat hecan't stoop! You got to be able to stoop to dig a trench, I guess! Well, suppose we sent our old men up against those Dutchmen; the Dutchmenwould just kill the old men, and then come after the boys anyway, andthe boys wouldn't be ready, and they'd get killed, too; and then therewouldn't be anybody but the Dutchmen left, and that'd be one fine world, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, " said Ramsey. "Course I thought of that. "

"Did you tell her?"

"No. "

"What did you say?"

"Nothin'. I couldn't get started anyway, but, besides, what was the use?But she didn't want the old men to go; she didn't want anybody to go. "

"What did she want the country to do?" Fred asked, impatiently. 

"Just what it has been doin', I suppose. Just let things simmer down, and poke along, and let them do what they like to us. "

"I guess so!" said Fred. "Then, afterwhile, when they get some free timeon their hands, they'll come over and make it _really_ interesting forus, because they know we won't do anything but talk. Yes, I guess theway things are settling down ought to suit Dora. There isn't goin' to beany war. "

"She was pretty sure there was, though, " Ramsey said, thoughtfully. 

"Oh, of course she was then. We all thought so those few days. "

"No. She said she thought it prob'ly wouldn't come right away, but nowit was almost sure to come sometime. She said our telegrams and all thetalk and so much feeling and everything showed her that the war thoughtthat was always _in_ people somewhere had been stirred up so it wouldgo on and on. She said she knew from the way she felt herself about the_Lusitania_ that a feeling like that in her would never be absolutelywiped out as long as she lived. But she said her other feeling about thehorribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breakingout, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't breakout right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, andsometime it would, though she was goin' to do her share to fight it, herself, as long as she could stand. She asked me wouldn't I be one ofthe ones to help her. "

He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, "Well? What did you say tothat?"

"Nothin'. I started to, but--"

Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while theagitation of his shoulders betrayed him. 

"Go on and laugh! Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before weleft she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do. Itwas half-past nine when we walked back in town, and I was commencin'to feel kind of hungry, so I asked her if she wasn't, and she sort oflaughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace orsomething, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedgeof lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the 'Teria and thefruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a-dozenpeanut butter sandwiches and a box o' strawberries--kind of girl-food, you know--and went on back there, and we ate the stuff up. So then shesaid she was afraid she'd taken me away from my dinner and made me a lotof trouble, and so on, and she was sorry, and she told me good-night--"

"What did you say then?"

"Noth-- Oh, shut up! So then she skipped out to her Dorm, and I came onhome. "

"When did you see her next, Ramsey?"

"I haven't seen her next, " said Ramsey. "I haven't seen her at all--notto speak to. I saw her on Main Street twice since then, but both timesshe was with some other girls, and they were across the street, andI couldn't tell if she was lookin' at me--I kind of thought not--so Ithought it might look sort o' nutty to bow to her if she wasn't, so Ididn't. "

"And you didn't tell her you wouldn't be one of the ones to help herwith her pacifism and anti-war stuff and all that?"

"No. I started to, but-- Shut up!"

Fred sat up, giggling. "So she thinks you _will_ help her. You didn'tsay anything at all, and she must think that means she converted you. Why didn't you speak up?"

"Well, _I_ wouldn't argue with her, " said Ramsey. Then, after a silence, he seemed to be in need of sympathetic comprehension. "It _was_ kind o'funny, though, wasn't it?" he said, appealingly. 

"What was?"

"The whole business. "

"What 'whole bus'--"

"Oh, get out! Her stoppin' me, and me goin' pokin' along with her, andher--well, her crying and everything, and me being around with her whileshe felt so upset, I mean. It seems--well, it does seem kind o' funny tome. "

"Why does it?" Fred inquired, preserving his gravity. "Why should itseem funny to you?"

"I don't mean funny like something's funny you laugh at, " Ramseyexplained laboriously. "I mean funny like something that's out of theway, and you wonder how it ever happened to happen. I mean it seemsfunny I'd ever be sittin' there on a bench with that ole girl I neverspoke to in my life or had anything to do with, and talkin' about theUnited States goin' to war. What we were talkin' about, why, that seemsjust as funny as the rest of it. Lookin' back to our class picnic, f'rinstance, second year of high school, that day I jumped in the creekafter-- Well, you know, it was when I started makin' a fool of myselfover a girl. Thank goodness, I got _that_ out o' my system; it makes mejust sick to look back on those days and think of the fool things I did, and all I thought about that girl. Why, she-- Well, I've got old enoughto see now she was just about as ordinary a girl as there ever was, andif I saw her now I wouldn't even think she was pretty; I'd prob'ly thinkshe was sort of loud-lookin'. Well, what's passed is past, and it isn'teither here nor there. What I started to say was this: that the way itbegins to look to me, it looks as if nobody can tell in this life a darnthing about what's goin' to happen, and the things that do happen arethe very ones you'd swear were the last that could. I mean--you lookback to that day of the picnic--my! but I was a rube then--well, I meanyou look back to that day, and what do you suppose I'd have thought thenif somebody'd told me the time would ever come when I'd be 'way off hereat college sittin' on a bench with Dora Yocum--with _Dora Yocum_, inthe first place--and her crying, and both of us talking about the UnitedStates goin' to war with Germany! Don't it seem pretty funny to you, Fred, too?"

"But as near as I can make out, " Fred said, "that isn't what happened. "

"Why isn't it?"

"You say 'and both us talking' and so on. As near as I can make out, _you_ didn't say anything at all. "

"Well, I didn't--much, " Ramsey admitted, and returned to his point withalmost pathetic persistence. "But doesn't it seem kind o' funny to you, Fred?"

"Well, I don't know. "

"It does to me, " Ramsey insisted. "It certainly does to me. "

"Yes, " said Fred cruelly. "I've noticed you said so, but it don't lookany funnier than you do when you say it. "

Suddenly he sent forth a startling shout. "_Wow!_ You're as red as ablushing beet. "

"I am not!"

"Y'are!" shouted Fred. "Wow! The ole woman-hater's got the flushes! Oh, look at the pretty posy!"

And, jumping down from the window seat, he began to dance round his muchperturbed comrade, bellowing. Ramsey bore with him for a moment, thensprang upon him; they wrestled vigorously, broke a chair, and went tothe floor with a crash that gave the chandelier in Mrs. Meig's parlour, below, an attack of jingles. 

"You let me up!" Fred gasped. 

"You take your solemn oath to shut up? You goin' to swear it?"

"All right. I give my solemn oath, " said Fred; and they rose, arrangingtheir tousled attire. 

"Well, " said Fred, "when you goin' to call on her?"

"You look here!" Ramsey approached him dangerously. "You just gave meyour sol--"

"I beg!" Fred cried, retreating. "I mean, aside from all that, why, Ijust thought maybe after such an evening you'd feel as a gentleman youought to go and ask about her health. "

"Now, see here--"

"No, I mean it; you ought to, " Fred insisted, earnestly, and ashis roommate glared at him with complete suspicion, he added, inexplanation. "You ought to go next Caller's Night, and send in yourcard, and say you felt you ought to ask if she'd suffered any from thenight air. Even if you couldn't manage to say that, you ought to startto say it, anyhow, because you-- Keep off o' me! I'm only tryin' to doyou a good turn, ain't I?"

"You save your good turns for yourself, " Ramsey growled, still advancingupon him. 

But the insidious Mitchell, evading him, fled to the other end of theroom, picked up his cap, and changed his manner. "Come on, ole bag o'beans, let's be on our way to the 'frat house'; it's time. We'll callthis all off. "

"You better!" Ramsey warned him; and they trotted out together. 

But as they went along, Fred took Ramsey's arm confidentially, and said, "Now, honestly, Ram, ole man, when _are_ you goin' to--"

Ramsey was still red. "You look here! Just say one more word--"

"Oh, _no_, " Fred expostulated. "I mean _seriously_, Ramsey. Honestly, Imean seriously. Aren't you seriously goin' to call on her some Caller'sNight?"

"No, I'm not!"

"But why not?"

"Because I don't want to. "

"Well, seriously, Ramsey, there's only one Caller's Night beforevacation, and so I suppose it hardly will be worth while; but I expectyou'll see quite a little of her at home this summer?"

"No, I won't. I won't see her at all. She isn't goin' to be home thissummer, and I wouldn't see anything of her if she was. "

"Where's she goin' to be. "

"In Chicago. "

"She is?" said Fred, slyly. "When'd she tell you?"

Ramsey turned on him. "You look out! She didn't tell me. I just happenedto see in the _Bulletin_ she's signed up with some other girls to go anddo settlement work in Chicago. Anybody could see it. It was printed outplain. You could have seen it just as well as I could, if you'd read the_Bulletin_. "

"Oh, " said Fred. 

"Now look here--"

"Good heavens! Can't I even say 'oh'?"

"It depends on the way you say it. "

"I'll be careful, " Fred assured him, earnestly. "I really and honestlydon't mean to get you excited about all this, Ramsey. I can see myselfyou haven't changed from your old opinion of Dora Yocum a bit. I wasonly tryin' to get a little rise out of you for a minute, because ofcourse, seriously, why, I can see you hate her just the same as youalways did. "

"Yes, " said Ramsey, disarmed and guileless in the face of diplomacy. "Ionly told you about all this, Fred, because it seemed--well, it seemedso kind o' funny to me. "

Fred affected not to hear. "What did you say, Ramsey?"

Ramsey looked vaguely disturbed. "I said--why, I said it all seemed kindo'--" He paused, then repeated plaintively: "Well, to me, it all seemedkind o'--kind o' funny. "

"What did?" Fred inquired, but as he glanced in seeming naivete at hiscompanion, something he saw in the latter's eye warned him, and suddenlyFred thought it would be better to run. 

Ramsey chased him all the way to the "frat house. "

Chapter XVI

Ramsey was not quite athlete enough for any of the 'varsity teams;neither was he an antagonist safely encountered, whether in play orin earnest, and during the next few days he taught Fred Mitchell to becautious. The chaffer learned that his own agility could not save himfrom Ramsey, and so found it wiser to contain an effervescence whichsometimes threatened to burst him. Ramsey as a victim was a continuoustemptation, he was so good-natured and yet so furious. 

After Commencement, when the roommates had gone home, Mr. Mitchell'scaution extended over the long sunshiny months of summer vacation; hebroke it but once and then in well-advised safety, for the occasion wassemi-public. The two were out for a stroll on a July Sunday afternoon;and up and down the street young couples lolled along, young familiesand baby carriages straggled to and from the houses of older relatives, and the rest of the world of that growing city was rocking and fanningitself on its front veranda. 

"Here's a right pretty place, isn't it, Ramsey? don't you think?" Fredremarked innocently, as they were passing a lawn of short-clipped, bright green grass before a genial-looking house, fresh in white paintand cool in green-and-white awnings. A broad veranda, well populatedjust now, crossed the front of the house; fine trees helped the awningsto give comfort against the sun; and Fred's remark was warranted. Nevertheless, he fell under the suspicion of his companion, who hadbegun to evince some nervousness before Fred spoke. 

"What place do you mean?"

"The Yocum place, " said Mr. Mitchell. "I hear the old gentleman's mightyprosperous these days. They keep things up to the mark, don't they, Ramsey?"

"I don't know whether they do or whether they don't, " Ramsey returnedshortly. 

Fred appeared to muse regretfully. "It looks kind of _empty_ now, though, " he said, "with only Mr. And Mrs. Yocum and their three marrieddaughters, and eight or nine children on the front porch!"

"You wait till I get you where they can't see us!" Ramsey warned him, fiercely. 

"You can't do it!" said Fred, manifesting triumph. "We'll both stopright here in plain sight of the whole Yocum family connection till youpromise not to touch me. "

And he halted, leaning back implacably against the Yocum's iron fence. Ramsey was scandalized. 

"Come on!" he said, hoarsely. "Don't stop _here_!"

"I will, and if you go on alone I'll yell at you. You got to stand righthere with all of 'em lookin' at you until--"

"I promise! My heavens, come _on_!"

Fred consented to end the moment of agony; and for the rest of thesummer found it impossible to persuade Ramsey to pass that house in hiscompany. "I won't do it!" Ramsey told him. "Your word of honour meansnothin' to me; you're liable to do anything that comes into your head, and I'm gettin' old enough to not get a reputation for bein' seen withpeople that act the idiot on the public streets. No, sir; we'll walkaround the block--at least, we will if you're goin' with _me_!"

And to Fred's delight, though he concealed it, they would make thisdetour. 

The evening after their return to the university both were busy withtheir trunks and various orderings and disorderings of their apartment, but Fred several times expressed surprise that his roommate shouldbe content to remain at home; and finally Ramsey comprehended theimplications. Mrs. Meigs's chandelier immediately jingled with the shockof another crash upon the floor above. 

"You let me up!" Fred commanded thickly, his voice muffled by the pileof flannels, sweaters, underwear, and raincoats wherein his headwas being forced to burrow. "You let me up, darn you! _I_ didn't sayanything. " And upon his release he complained that the attack wasunprovoked. "I didn't say anything on earth to even hint you might wantto go out and look around to see if anybody in particular had got backto college yet. I didn't even mention the _name_ of Dora Yo-- Keep offo' me! My goodness, but you are sensitive!"

As a matter of fact, neither of them saw Dora until the first meeting ofthe Lumen, whither they went as sophomores to take their pleasure in theagony of freshmen debaters. Ramsey was now able to attend the Lumen, notwith complacence but at least without shuddering over the recollectionof his own spectacular first appearance there. He had made subsequentappearances, far from brilliant yet not disgraceful, and as a spectator, at least, he usually felt rather at his ease in the place. It cannot beasserted, however, that he appeared entirely at his ease this eveningafter he had read the "Programme" chalked upon the large easelblackboard beside the chairman's desk. Three "Freshmen Debates" wereannounced, and a "Sophomore Oration, " this last being followed by thename, "D. Yocum, '18. " Ramsey made immediate and conspicuous effortsto avoid sitting next to his roommate, but was not so adroit as to besuccessful. However, Fred was merciful: the fluctuations of his friend'scomplexion were an inspiration more to pity than to badinage. 

The three debates all concerned the "Causes of the War in Europe, " andhonours appeared to rest with a small and stout, stolidly "pro-German"girl debater, who had brought with her and translated at sight absa-lootproofs (so she called them), printed in German, that Germany had beenattacked by Belgium at the low instigation of the envious English. Everybody knew it wasn't true; but she made an impression andestablished herself as a debater, especially as her opponent was quiteconfounded by her introduction of printed matter. 

When the debates and the verdicts were concluded, the orator appeared, and Fred's compassion extended itself so far that he even refrained fromlooking inquisitively at the boy in the seat next to his; but he madeone side wager, mentally--that if Ramsey had consented to be thoroughlyconfidential just then, he would have confessed to feeling kind o'funny. 

Dora was charmingly dressed, and she was pale; but those notableeyelashes of hers were all the more notable against her pallor. And asshe spoke with fire, it was natural that her colour should come backquite flamingly and that her eyes should flash in shelter of the lashes. "The Christian Spirit and Internationalism" was her subject, yet sheshowed no meek sample of a Christian Spirit herself when she came toattacking war-makers generally, as well as all those "half-developedtribesmen, " and "victims of herd instinct" who believed that war mightever be justified under any circumstances of atrocity. She was eloquenttruly, and a picture of grace and girlish dignity, even when shewas most vigorous. Nothing could have been more militant than herdenunciation of militancy. 

"She's an actual wonder, " Fred said, when the two had got back to Mrs. Meigs's, afterward. "Don't you look at me like that: I'm talkin' abouther as a public character, and there's nothin' personal about it. Youlet me alone. "

Ramsey was not clear as to his duty. "Well--"

"If any person makes a public speech, " Fred protested, "I got a perfectright to discuss 'em, no matter what you think of 'em"--and he addedhastily--"or _don't_ think of 'em!"

"Look here--"

"Good heavens!" Fred exclaimed. "You aren't expecting to interfere withme if I say anything about that little fat Werder girl that argued forGermany, are you? Or any of the other speakers? I got a right to talkabout 'em just as public speakers, haven't I? Well, what I say is:Dora Yocum as an orator is just an actual perfect wonder. Got anyobjections?"

"N-no. "

"All right then. " Fred settled himself upon the window seat with a pipe, and proceeded, "There's something about her, when she stands there, shestands so straight and knows just what she's up to, and everything, why, there's something about her makes the cold chills go down yourspine--I mean _my_ spine, not yours particularly! You sit down--Imean _anybody's_ spine, doggone it!" And as Ramsey increased themanifestations of his suspicions, lifting a tennis racket over theprostrate figure, "Oh, murder, " Fred said, resignedly. "All right, we'llchange the subject. That fat little Werder cutie made out a pretty goodcase for Germany, didn't she?"

Ramsey tossed the racket away, disposed himself in an easy chair withhis feet upon the table, and presently chuckled. "You remember the timeI had the fuss with Wesley Bender, back in the ole school days?"

"Yep. "

"All the flubdub this Werder girl got off to-night puts me in mind ofthe way I talked that day. I can remember it as well as anything! Wesleykept yelpin' that whoever mentioned a lady's name in a public place wasa pup, and of course I didn't want to hit him for that; a boy's gota reg'lar instinct for tryin' to make out he's on the right side in ascrap, and he'll always try to do something, or say something, or he'llget the other boy to say someting to make it look as if the other boywas in the wrong and began the trouble. So I told poor ole Wes that myfather spoke my mother's name in a public place whenever he wantedto, and I dared him to say my father was a pup. And all so on. A boystartin' up a scrap, why, half the time he'll drag his father and motherif there's any chance to do it. He'll fix up some way so he can say, 'Well, that's just the same as if you called my father and mother afool, ' or something like that. Then, afterward, he can claim he wasscrappin' because he had to defend his father and mother, and of coursehe'll more than half believe it himself. 

"Well, you take a Government--it's only just some _men_, the way I seeit, and if they're goin' to start some big trouble like this war, why, of course they'll play just about the same ole boy trick, because it'sinstinct to do it, just the same for a man as it is for a boy--or elsethe principle's just the same, or something. Well, anyhow, if you wantto know who started a scrap and worked it up, you got to forget all the_talk_ there is about it, and all what each side _says_, and just lookat two things: Who was fixed for it first, or thought they were, and whohit first? When you get the answer to those two questions everything'ssettled about all this being 'attacked' business. Both sides, just thesame as boys, they'll both claim they _had_ to fight; but if you want toknow which one _did_ have to, why forget all the arguing and don't takeyour eye off just what _happened_. As near as I can make out, thiswar began with Germany and Austria startin' in to wipe out two littlecountries; Austria began shootin' up Serbia, and Germany began shootin'up Belgium. I don't need to notice any more than that, myself--allthe Werder girls in the country can debate their heads off, they can'tchange what happened and they can't excuse it, either. "

He was silent, appearing to feel that he had concluded conclusively, andthe young gentleman on the window seat, after staring at him for severalmoments of genuine thoughtfulness, was gracious enough to observe, "Well, ole Ram, you may be a little slow in class, but when you thinkthings out with yourself you do show signs of something pretty near likereal horse-sense sometimes. Why don't you ever say anything like thatto--to some of your pacifist friends?"

"What do you mean? Who you talkin' about? Whose 'pacifist friends'?"

"See here!" Fred exclaimed, as Ramsey seemed about to rise. "You keepsitting just where you are, and don't look at me out of the side of youreye like that--pretendin' you're a bad horse. I'm _really_ serious now, and you listen to me. I don't think argufying and debating like thatlittle Fraulein Werder's does much harm. She's a right nifty youngrolypoly, by the way, though you didn't notice, of course. "

"Why didn't I?" Ramsey demanded, sharply. "Why didn't I notice?"

"Oh, nothing. But, as I was saying, I don't think that sort of talk doesmuch harm: everybody knows it goes on among the pro-Germans, and it'sall hot air, anyhow. But I think Linski's sort of talk does do harm, prob'ly among people that don't know much; and what's more, I think DoraYocum's does some, too. Well, you hit Linski in the snoot, so what areyou-- Sit still! My lord! You don't think I'm askin' you to go and hitDora, do you? I mean: Aren't you ever goin' to talk to her about it andtell her what's what?"

"Oh, you go on to bed!"

"No, I'm in earnest, " Fred urged. "Honestly, aren't you ever goin' to?"

"How could I do anything like that?" Ramsey demanded explosively. "Inever see her--to speak to, that is. I prob'ly won't happen to haveanother talk with her, or anything, all the time we're in college. "

"No, " Fred admitted, "I suppose not. Of course, if you did, then youwould give her quite a talking-to, just the way you did the other time, wouldn't you?" But upon that, another resumption of physical violenceput an end to the conversation. 

Chapter XVII

Throughout the term Ramsey's calculation of probabilities against thehappening of another interview with Dora seemed to be well founded, butat the beginning of the second "semester" he found her to be a fellowmember of a class in biology. More than that, this class had every weeka two-hour session in the botanical laboratory, where the structure ofplants was studied under microscopic dissection. The students worked inpairs, a special family of plants being assigned to each couple; and theinstructor selected the couples with an eye to combinations of the quickwith the slow. D. Yocum and R. Milholland (the latter in a strange stateof mind and complexion) were given two chairs, but only one desk and onemicroscope. Their conversation was strictly botanical. 

Thenceforth it became the most pressing care of Ramsey's life to preventhis roommate from learning that there was any conversation at all, evenbotanical. Fortunately, Fred was not taking the biological courses, though he appeared to be taking the sentimental ones with an astonishingthoroughness; and sometimes, to Fred's hilarious delight, Ramseyattempted to turn the tables and rally him upon whatever last affairseemed to be engaging his fancy. The old Victorian and pre-Victorian_blague_ word "petticoat" had been revived in Fred's vocabulary, and inothers, as "skirt. " The lightsome sprig was hourly to be seen, evenwhen university rulings forbade, dilly-dallying giddily along the campuspaths or the town sidewalks with some new and pretty Skirt. And whenRamsey tried to fluster him about such a matter Fred would profess hisardent love for the new lady in shouts and impromptu song. Nothingcould be done to him, and Ramsey, utterly unable to defend his ownsensibilities in like manner, had always to retire in bafflement. Sometimes he would ponder upon the question thus suggested: Why couldn'the do this sort of thing, since Fred could? But he never discovered asatisfying answer. 

Ramsey's watchfulness was so careful (lest he make some impulsiveadmission in regard to the botanical laboratory, for instance) thatMr. Mitchell's curiosity gradually became almost quiescent; butthere arrived a day in February when it was piqued into the liveliestactivity. It was Sunday, and Fred, dressing with a fastidiousnessever his daily habit, noticed that Ramsey was exhibiting an unusualperplexity about neckties. 

"Keep the black one on, " Fred said, volunteering the suggestion, asRamsey muttered fiercely at a mirror. "It's in better taste for church, anyhow. You're going to church, aren't you?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"No. I've got a luncheon engagement. "

"Well, you could go to church first, couldn't you? You better; you'vegot a lot of church absences against you. "

"Then one more won't hurt. No church in mine this morning, thanks! G'by, ole sox; see you at the 'frat house' for dinner. "

He went forth, whistling syncopations, and began a brisk trudge into theopen country. There was a professor's daughter who also was not going tochurch that morning; and she lived a little more than three milesbeyond the outskirts of the town. Unfortunately, as the weather wasthreatening, all others of her family abandoned the idea of church thatday, and Fred found her before a cozy fire, but surrounded by parents, little brothers, and big sisters. The professor was talkative; Fred'smind might have been greatly improved, but with a window in range hepreferred a melancholy contemplation of the snow, which had begunto fall in quantity. The professor talked until luncheon, throughoutluncheon, and was well under way to fill the whole afternoon with talk, when Fred, repenting all the errors of his life, got up to go. 

Heartily urged to remain, for there was now something just under ablizzard developing, he said No; he had a great deal of "cirriculumwork" to get done before the morrow, and passed from the sound ofthe professor's hospitable voice and into the storm. He had a tediousstruggle against the wind and thickening snow, but finally came insight of the town, not long before dark. Here the road led down into adepression, and, lifting his head as he began the slight ascent on theother side, Fred was aware of two figures outlined upon the low ridgebefore him. They were dimmed by the driving snow and their backs weretoward him, but he recognized them with perfect assurance. They wereDora Yocum and Ramsey Milholland. 

They were walking so slowly that their advance was almost imperceptible, but it could be seen that Dora was talking with great animation; andshe was a graceful thing, thus gesticulating, in her long, slim fur coatwith the white snow frosting her brown fur cap. Ramsey had his handsdeep in his overcoat pockets and his manner was wholly that of anaudience. 

Fred murmured to himself, "'What did you say to her?' 'Nothin'. Istarted to, but'--" Then he put on a burst of speed and passed them, sweeping off his hat with operatic deference, yet hurrying by as iffearful of being thought a killjoy if he lingered. He went to the"frat house, " found no one downstairs, and established himself in a redleather chair to smoke and ruminate merrily by a great fire in the hall. 

Half an hour later Ramsey entered, stamped off the snow, hung up his hatand coat, and sat himself down defiantly in the red leather chair on theother side of the fireplace. 

"Well, go on, " he said. "Commence!"

"Not at all!" Fred returned, amiably. "Fine spring weather to-day. Lovely to see all the flowers and the birds as we go a-strolling by. Thelittle bobolinks--"

"You look here! That's the only walk I ever took with her in my life. Imean by--by asking her and her saying she would and so forth. That othertime just sort of happened, and you know it. Well, the weather wasn'tjust the best in the world, maybe, but she's an awful conscientious girland once she makes an engagement--"

"Why, of course, " Fred finished for him, "She'd be too pious to breakit just on account of a mere little blizzard or anything. Wonder how theweather will be next Sunday?"

"I don't know and I don't care, " said Ramsey. "You don't suppose I askedher to go _again_, do you?"

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you don't suppose I want her to think I'm aperfect fool, do you?"

Fred mused a moment or two, looking at the fire. "What was the lecture?"he asked, mildly. 

"What lecture?"

"She seemed to me to be--"

"That wasn't lecturing; she was just--"

"Just what?"

"Well; she thinks war for the United States is coming closer andcloser--"

"But it isn't. "

"Well, she thinks so, anyhow, " said Ramsey, "and she's all broken upabout it. Of course she thinks we oughtn't to fight and she's trying toget everybody else she can to keep working against it. She isn't goin'home again next summer, she's goin' back to that settlement work inChicago and work there among those people against our goin' to war; andhere in college she wants to get everybody she can to talk against it, and--"

"What did you say?" Fred asked, and himself supplied the reply:"Nothin'. I started to, but--"

Ramsey got up. "Now look here! You know the 'frat' passed a rule that ifwe broke any more furniture in this house with our scrappin' we'd bothbe fined the cost of repairs and five dollars apiece. Well, I can affordfive dollars this month better than you can, and--"

"I take it back!" Fred interposed, hastily. "But you just listen to me;you look out--letting her think you're on her side like that. "

"I don't--"

"You _don't?_"

Ramsey looked dogged. "I'm not goin' around always arguin' abouteverything when arguin' would just hurt people's feelings aboutsomething they're all excited about, and wouldn't do a bit o' goodin the world--and you know yourself just _talk_ hardly ever settlesanything--so I don't--"

"Aha!" Fred cried. "I thought so! Now you listen to me--"

"I won't. I--"

But at this moment they were interrupted. Someone slyly opened the door, and a snowball deftly thrown from without caught Ramsey upon the backof the neck and head, where it flattened and displayed itself as anornamental star. Shouting fiercely, both boys sprang up, ran to thedoor, were caught there in a barrage of snowballs, ducked through it inspite of all damage, charged upon a dozen besweatered figures awaitingthem and began a mad battle in the blizzard. Some of their opponentstreacherously joined them, and turned upon the ambushers. 

In the dusk the merry conflict waged up and down the snow-coveredlawn, and the combatants threw and threw, or surged back and forth, orclenched and toppled over into snow banks, yet all coming to chant anextemporized battle-cry in chorus, even as they fought the most wildly. 

"Who? Who? Who?" they chanted. "Who? Who? _Who_ says there ain't goin'to be no war?"

Chapter XVIII

So everywhere over the country, that winter of 1916, there werelight-hearted boys skylarking--at college, or on the farms; and in thetowns the young machinists snowballed one another as they came from theshops; while on this Sunday of the "frat" snow fight probably severalhundreds of thousands of youthful bachelors, between the two oceans, went walking, like Ramsey, each with a girl who could forget theweather. Yet boys of nineteen and in the twenties were not light-heartedall the time that winter and that spring and that summer. Most of themknew long, thoughtful moments, as Ramsey did, when they seemed to bethinking not of girls or work or play--nor of anything around them, but of some more vital matter or prospect. And at such times they weregrave, but not ungentle. 

For the long strain was on the country; underneath all its outwardseeming of things going on as usual there shook a deep vibration, likethe air trembling to vast organ pipes in diapasons too profound to reachthe ear as sound: one felt, not heard, thunder in the ground underone's feet. The succession of diplomatic Notes came to an end after thetorpedoing of the _Sussex_; and at last the tricky ruling Germans inBerlin gave their word to murder no more, and people said, "This meanspeace for America, and all is well for us, " but everybody knew in hisheart that nothing was well for us, that there was no peace. 

They said "All is well, " while that thunder in the ground neverceased--it grew deeper and heavier till all America shook with it and itbecame slowly audible as the voice of the old American soil wherein laythose who had defended it aforetime, a soil that bred those who woulddefend it again, for it was theirs; and the meaning of it--Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--was theirs, and theirs to defend. And they knew they would defend it, and that more than the glory of aNation was at stake. The Freedom of Man was at stake. So, gradually, the sacred thunder reached the ears of the young men and gave them thosedeep moments that came to them whether they sat in the classroom orthe counting-room, or walked with the plow, or stood to the machine, orbehind the ribbon counter. Thus the thunder shook them and tried themand slowly came into their lives and changed everything for them. 

Hate of the Germans was not bred; but a contempt for what Germany hadshown in lieu of a national heart; a contempt as mighty and profound asthe resolve that the German way and the German will should prevail inAmerica, nor in any country of the world that would be free. And whenthe German Kaiser laid his command upon America, that no American shouldtake his ship upon the free seas, death being the penalty for any whodisobeyed, then the German Kaiser got his answer, not only to thisnew law he had made for us, but to many other thoughts of his. Yet theanswer was for some time delayed. 

There was a bitter Sunday, and its bitterness went everywhere, toevery place in the whole world that held high and generous hearts. Itsbitterness came to the special meeting in the "Frat hall, " where therewere hearts, indeed, of that right sort, and one of them became vocalin its bitterness. This was the heart of Fred Mitchell, who was now anauthority, being president of the Junior Class, chairman of the PromCommittee, and other things pleasant to be and to live for at his age. 

"For me, Brothers, " he said, "I'd think I'd a great deal rather havebeen shot through the head than heard the news from Washington to-day! Itell you, I've spent the meanest afternoon I ever did in my life, and Iguess it's been pretty much the same with all of us. The worst of itis, it looks as though there isn't a thing in the world we can do. Thecountry's been betrayed by a few blatherskites and boneheads that hadthe power to do it, and all we can do we've just got to stand it. Butthere's some Americans that aren't just standing it, and I want to tellyou a lot of 'em are men from the universities, just like us. They're_over there_ right now; they haven't said much--they just packed up andwent. They're flying for France and for England and for Canada; they'refighting under every flag on the right side of the Western Front; andthey're driving ambulances at Verdun and ammunition trucks at the Somme. Well, there's going to be a lot more American boys on all these jobsmighty soon, on account of what those men did in Congress to-day. Ifthey won't give us a chance to do something under our own flag, thenwe'll have to go and do it under some other flag; and I want to tell youI'm one that's going to _go!_ I'll stick it out in college up to Easter, and then if there's still no chance to go under the Stars and StripesI'll maybe have to go under the flag my great-great-grandfather foughtagainst in 1776, but, anyhow, I'll _go!_"

It was in speaking to Ramsey of this declaration that Dora said Fred wasa "dangerous firebrand. " They were taking another February walk, but theFebruary was February, 1917; and the day was dry and sunny. "It's justabout a year ago, " she said. 

"What is?" Ramsey asked. 

"That first time we went walking. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, _that_ day? Yes, I remember it was snowing. "

"And so cold and blowy!" she added. "It seems a long time ago. I likewalking with you, Ramsey. You're so quiet and solid--I've always feltI could talk to you just anyhow I pleased, and you wouldn't mind. I'llmiss these walks with you when we're out of college. "

He chuckled. "That's funny!"

"Why?"

"Because we've only taken four besides this: two last year, and anotherweek before last, and another last week. This is only the fifth. "

"Good gracious! Is that all? It seemed to me we'd gone ever so often!"She laughed. "I'm afraid you won't think that seems much as if I'd likedgoing, but I really have. And, by the way, you've never called on me atall. Perhaps it's because I've forgotten to ask you. "

"Oh, no, " Ramsey said, and scuffed his shoes on the path, presentlyexplaining rather huskily that he "never _was_ much of a caller"; and headded, "or anything. "

"Well, you must come if you ever care to, " she said, with a big-sistergraciousness. "The Dorm chaperon sits there, of course, but ours isa jolly one and you'd like her. You've probably met her--Mrs. Hustings?--when you've called on other girls at our old shop. "

"No, " said Ramsey. "I never was much of a--" He paused, fearing that hemight be repeating himself, and too hastily amended his intention. "Inever liked any girl enough to go and call on her. "

"Ramsey Milholland!" she cried. "Why, when we were in school half theroom used to be talking about how you and that pretty Milla--"

"No, no!" Ramsey protested, again too hurriedly. "I never called on her. We just went walking. "

A moment later his colour suddenly became fiery. "I don't mean--Imean--" he stammered. "It was walking, of course--I mean we did go outwalking but it wasn't walking like--like this. " He concluded with a fitof coughing which seemed to rack him. 

Dora threw back her head and laughed delightfully. "Don't youapologize!" she said. "_I_ didn't when I said it seemed to me that we'vegone walking so often, when in reality it's only four or five timesaltogether. I think I can explain, though: I think it came partly froma feeling I have that I can rely on you--that you're a good, solid, reliable sort of person. I remember from the time we were littlechildren, you always had a sort of worried, honest look in school;and you used to make a dent in your forehead--you meant it for afrown--whenever I caught your eye. You hated me so honestly, and youwere so honestly afraid I wouldn't see it!"

"Oh, no--no--"

"Oh, yes--yes!" she laughed, then grew serious. "My feeling aboutyou--that you were a person to be relied on, I mean--I think it beganthat evening in our freshman year, after the _Lusitania_, when I stoppedyou on campus and you went with me, and I couldn't help crying, and youwere so nice and quiet. I hardly realized then that it was the firsttime we'd ever really talked together--of course _I_ did all thetalking!--and yet we'd known each other so many years. I thought of itafterward. But what gave me such a different view of you, I'd alwaysthought you were one of that truculent sort of boys, always justbursting for a fight; but you showed me you'd really never had a fightin your life and hated fighting, and that you sympathized with myfeeling about war. " She stopped speaking to draw in her breath with asharp sigh. "Ah, don't you remember what I've told you all along? Howit keeps coming closer and closer--and now it's almost here! Isn't it_unthinkable?_ And what can we do to stop it, we poor few who feel thatwe _must_ stop it?"

"Well--" Ramsey began uncomfortably. "Of course I--I--"

"You can't do much, " she said. "I know. None of us can. What can anylittle group do? There are so few of us among the undergraduates--andonly one in the whole faculty. All the rest are for war. But we mustn'tgive up; we must never feel afterward that we left anything undone; wemust fight to the last breath!"

"'Fight'?" he repeated wonderingly, then chuckled. 

"Oh, as a figure of speech, " she said, impatiently. "Our languageis full of barbaric figures left over from the dark ages. But, oh, Ramsey!"--she touched his sleeve--"I've heard that Fred Mitchell issaying that he's going to Canada after Easter, to try to get into theCanadian aviation corps. If it's true, he's a dangerous firebrand, Ithink. Is it true?"

"I guess so. He's been talking that way some. "

"But why do you _let_ him talk that way?" she cried. "He's yourroommate; surely you have more influence with him than anybody else has. Couldn't you--"

He shook his head slowly, while upon his face the faintly indicatedmodellings of a grin hinted of an inner laughter at some surreptitiousthought. "Well, you know, Fred says himself sometimes, I don't seem tobe much of a talker exactly!"

"I know. But don't you see? That sort of thing is contagious. Otherswill think they ought to go if he does; he's popular and quite a leader. Can't you do anything with him?"

She waited for him to answer. "Can't you?" she insisted. 

The grin had disappeared, and Ramsey grew red again. He seemed to wishto speak, to heave with speech that declined to be spoken and would notrouse up from his inwards. Finally he uttered words. 

"I--I--well, I--"

"Oh, I know, " she said. "A man--or a boy!--always hates to be intrudinghis own convictions upon other men, especially in a case like this, where he might be afraid of some idiot's thinking him unmanlike. ButRamsey--" Suddenly she broke off and looked at him attentively; hisdiscomfort had become so obvious that suspicion struck her. She spokesharply. "Ramsey _you_ aren't dreaming of doing such a thing, are you?"

"What such a thing?"

"Fred hasn't influenced _you_, has he? You aren't planning to go withhim, are you?"

"Where?"

"To join the Canadian aviation. "

"No; I hadn't thought of doing it. "

She sighed again, relieved. "I had a queer feeling about you justthen--that you _were_ thinking of doing some such thing. You looked soodd--and you're always so quiet, anybody might not really know what youdo think. But I'm not wrong about you, am I, Ramsey?"

They had come to the foot of the steps that led up to the entrance ofher dormitory, and their walk was at an end. As they stopped andfaced each other, she looked at him earnestly; but he did not meet thescrutiny, his eyelids fell. 

"I'm not wrong, am I, Ramsey?"

"About what?" he murmured, uncomfortably. 

"You are my friend, aren't you?"

"Yes. "

"Then it's all right, " she said. "That relieves me and makes me happierthan I was just now, for of course if you're my friend you wouldn't letme make any mistake about you. I believe you, and now, just before I goin and we won't see much of each other for a week--if you still want meto go with you again next Sunday--"

"Yes--won't you, please?"

"Yes, if you like. But I want to tell you now that I count on you in allthis, even though you don't 'talk much, ' as you say; I count on youmore than I do on anybody else, and I trust you when you say you're myfriend, and it makes me happy. And I think perhaps you're right aboutFred Mitchell. Talk isn't everything, nobody knows that better thanI, who talk so much! and I think that, instead of talking to Fred, asteady, quiet influence like yours would do more good than any amount ofarguing. So I trust you, you see? And I'm sorry I had that queer doubtof you. " She held out her hand. "Unless I happen to see you on thecampus for a minute, in the meantime, it's good-bye until a week fromto-day. So--well, so, good-bye until then!"

"Wait, " said Ramsey. 

"What is it?"

He made a great struggle. "I'm not influencing Fred not to go, " he said. "I--don't want you to trust me to do anything like that. "

"What?"

"I think it's all right for him to go, if he wants to, " Ramsey said, miserably. 

"You do? For him to go to _fight?_"

He swallowed. "Yes. "

"_Oh!_" she cried, turned even redder than he, and ran up the stonesteps. But before the storm doors closed upon her she looked down towhere he stood, with his eyes still lowered, a lonely-seeming figure, upon the pavement below. Her voice caught upon a sob as she spoke. 

"If you feel like that, you might as well go and enlist, yourself, " shesaid, bitterly. "I can't--I couldn't--speak to you again after this!"

Chapter XIX

It was easy enough for him to evade Fred Mitchell's rallyings thesedays; the sprig's mood was truculent, not toward his roommate but towardCongress, which was less in fiery haste than he to be definitely at warwith Germany. All through the university the change had come: athletics, in other years spotlighted at the centre of the stage, languishedsuddenly, threatened with abandonment; students working for seniorhonours forgot them; everything was forgotten except that growingthunder in the soil. Several weeks elapsed after Dora's bitter dismissalof Ramsey before she was mentioned between the comrades. Then, oneevening, Fred asked, as he restlessly paced their study floor:

"Have you seen your pacifist friend lately?"

"No. Not exactly. Why?"

"Well, for my part, I think she ought to be locked up, " Fred said, angrily. "Have you heard what she did this afternoon?"

"No. "

"It's all over college. She got up in the class in jurisprudence andmade a speech. It's a big class, you know, over two hundred, under DeanBurney. He's a great lecturer, but he's a pacifist--the only one on thefaculty--and a friend of Dora's. They say he encouraged her to make thisbreak and led the subject around so she could do it, and then called onher for an opinion, as the highest-stand student in the class. She got upand claimed there wasn't any such thing as a legitimate cause for war, either legally or morally, and said it was a sign of weakness in anation for it to believe that it did have cause for war. 

"Well, it was too much for that little, spunky Joe Stansbury, and hejumped up and argued with her. He made her admit all the Germans havedone to us, the sea murders and the land murders, the blowing up of thefactories, the propaganda, the strikes, trying to turn the United Statesinto a German settlement, trying to get Japan and Mexico to make war onus, and all the rest. He even made her admit there was proof they meanto conquer us when they get through with the others, and that they'veset out to rule the world for their own benefit, and make whoever elsethey kindly allow to live, to work for them. 

"She said it might be true, but since nothing at all could be a rightcause for war, than all this couldn't be a cause of war. Of course shehad her regular pacifist 'logic' working; she said that since war isthe worst thing there is, why, all other evils were lesser, and a lesserevil can't be a just cause for a greater. She got terribly excited, they say, but kept right on, anyway. She said war was murder and therecouldn't be any other way to look at it; and she'd heard there wasalready talk in the university of students thinking about enlisting, and whoever did such a thing was virtually enlisting to return murder formurder. Then Joe Stansbury asked her if she meant that she'd feel towardany student that enlisted the way she would toward a murderer, and shesaid, yes, she'd have a horror of any student that enlisted. 

"Well, that broke up the class; Joe turned from her to the platform andtold old Burney that he was responsible for allowing such talk in hislecture-room, and Joe said so far as _he_ was concerned, he resignedfrom Burney's classes right there. That started it, and practically thewhole class got up and walked out with Joe. They said Burney streakedoff home, and Dora was left alone in there, with her head down on herdesk--and I guess she certainly deserves it. A good many have alreadystopped speaking to her. "

Ramsey fidgeted with a pen on the table by which he sat. "Well, I don'tknow, " he said, slowly; "I don't know if they ought to do that exactly. "

"Why oughtn't they?" Fred demanded, sharply. 

"Well, it looks to me as if she was only fightin' for her principles. She believes in 'em. The more it costs a person to stick to theirprinciples, why, the more I believe the person must have somethingpretty fine about 'em likely. "

"Yes!" said the hot-headed Fred. "That may be in ordinary times, but notwhen a person's principles are liable to betray their country! We won'tstand that kind of principles, I tell you, and we oughtn't to. DoraYocum's finding that out, all right. She had the biggest position ofany girl in this place, or any boy either, up to the last few weeks, andthere wasn't any student or hardly even a member of the faculty that hadthe influence or was more admired and looked up to. She had the wholeshow! But now, since she's just the same as called any student amurderer if he enlists to fight for his country and his flag--well, nowshe hasn't got anything at all, and if she keeps on she'll have evenless!"

He paused in his walking to and fro and came to a halt behind hisfriend's chair, looking down compassionately upon the back of Ramsey'smotionless head. His tone changed. "I guess it isn't just the ticket--meto be talking this way to you, is it?" he said, with a trace ofhuskiness. 

"Oh--it's all right, " Ramsey murmured, not altering his position. 

"I can't help blowing up, " Fred went on. "I want to say, though, I knowI'm not very considerate to blow up about her to you this way. I've beenplaying horse with you about her ever since freshman year, but--well, you must have understood, Ram, I never meant anything that would reallybother you much, and I thought--well, I _really_ thought it was a goodthing, you--your--well, I mean about her, you know. I'm on, all right. Iknow it's pretty serious with you. " He paused. 

Ramsey did not move, except that his right hand still fidgeted with thepen upon the table. 

"Oh--well--" he said. 

"It's--it's kind of tough luck!" his friend contrived to say; and hebegan to pace the floor again. 

"Oh--well--"

"See here, ole stick-in-the-mud, " Fred broke out abruptly. "After hersaying what she did-- Well, it's none o' my business, but--but--"

"Well, what?" Ramsey murmured. "I don't care what you say, if you wantto say anything. "

"Well, I _got_ to say it, " Fred half groaned and half blurted. "Aftershe said _that_--and she meant it--why, if I were in your place I'd bedarned if I'd be seen out walking with her again. "

"I'm not going to be, " Ramsey said, quietly. 

"By George!" And now Fred halted in front of him, both being huskilysolemn. "I think I understand a little of what that means to you, oldRamsey; I think I do. I think I know something of what it costs you tomake that resolution for your country's sake. " Impulsively he extendedhis hand. "It's a pretty big thing for you to do. Will you shake hands?"

But Ramsey shook his head. "I didn't do it. I wouldn't ever have doneanything just on account of her talkin' that way. She shut the door onme--it was a good while ago. "

"She did! What for?"

"Well, I'm not much of a talker, you know, Fred, " said Ramsey, staringat the pen he played with. "I'm not much of anything, for that matter, prob'ly, but I--well--I--"

"You what?"

"Well, I had to tell her I didn't feel about things the way she did. She'd thought I had, all along, I guess. Anyway, it made her hate meor something, I guess; and she called it all off. I expect there wasn'tmuch to call off, so far as she was concerned, anyhow. " He laughedfeebly. "She told me I better go and enlist. "

"Pleasant of her!" Fred muttered. "Especially as we know what she thinksenlisting means. " He raised his voice cheerfully. "Well, that's settled;and, thank God, old Mr. Bernstorff's on his way to his sweet littlevine-clad cottage home! They're getting guns on the ships, and the bigshow's liable to commence any day. We can hold up our heads now, andwe're going to see some great times, old Ramsey boy! It's hard on thehome folks--Gosh! I don't like to think of that! And I guess it's goingto be hard on a lot of boys that haven't understood what it's all about, and hard on some that their family affairs, and business, and so on, have got 'em tied up so it's hard to go--and of course there's plentythat just can't, and some that aren't husky enough--but the rest ofus are going to have the big time in our lives. We got an awful lot tolearn; it scares me to think of what I don't know about being anysort of a rear-rank private. Why, it's a regular _profession_, likepractising law, or selling for a drug house on the road. Golly! Do youremember how we talked about that, 'way back in freshman year, whatwe were going to do when we got out of college? You were going tobe practising law, for instance, and I--well, f'r instance, rememberColburn; he was going to be a doctor, and he did go to some medicalschool for one year. Now he's in the Red Cross, somewhere in _Persia_. Golly!"

He paused to digest this impossibility, then chattered briskly on. "Well, there's _one_ good old boy was with our class for a while, backin freshman year; I bet we won't see him in any good old army! Oldrough-neck Linski that you put the knob on his nose for. Tommie Hoppersays he saw him last summer in Chicago soapboxin', yellin' his head offcussin' every government under the sun, but mostly ours and the Allies', you bet, and going to run the earth by revolution and representativesof unskilled labour immigrants, nobody that can read or write allowedto vote, except Linski. Tommie Hopper says he knows all about Linski;he never did a day's work in his life--too busy trying to get theworkingmen stirred up against the people that exploit 'em! Tommie sayshe had a big crowd to hear him, though, and took up quite a little moneyfor a 'cause' or something. Well, let him holler! I guess we can attendto him when we get back from over yonder. By George, old Ram, I'mgettin' kind of floppy in the gills!" He administered a resounding slapto his comrade's shoulder. "It certainly looks as if our big days werewalking toward us!"

He was right. The portentous days came on apace, and each one brought anew and greater portent. The faces of men lost a driven look besettingthem in the days of badgered waiting, and instead of that heavyapprehension one saw the look men's faces must have worn in 1776 and1861, and the history of the old days grew clearer in the new. ThePresident went to the Congress, and the true indictment he made therereached scoffing Potsdam with an unspoken prophecy somewhat chilling evento Potsdam, one guesses--and then through an April night went almostquietly the steady work: we were at war with Germany. 

The bugles sounded across the continent; drums and fifes played up anddown the city streets and in town and village squares and through thecountrysides. Faintly in all ears there was multitudinous noise likedistant, hoarse cheering. .. And a sound like that was what Dora Yocumheard, one night, as she sat lonely in her room. The bugles and fifesand drums had been heard about the streets of the college town, thatday, and she thought she must die of them, they hurt her so, and now tobe haunted by this imaginary cheering--

She started. Was it imaginary?

She went downstairs and stood upon the steps of the dormitory in theopen air. No; the cheering was real and loud. It came from the directionof the railway station, and the night air surged and beat with it. 

Below her stood the aged janitor of the building, listening. "What's thecheering for?" she asked, remembering grimly that the janitor was one ofher acquaintances who had not yet stopped "speaking" to her. "What's thematter?"

"It's a good matter, " the old man answered. "I guess there must be abig crowd of 'em down there. One of our students enlisted to-day, andthey're givin' him a send-off. Listen to 'em, how they _do_ cheer. He'sthe first one to go. "

She went back to her room, shivering, and spent the next day in bed withan aching head. She rose in the evening, however--a handbill had beenslid under her door at five o'clock, calling a "Mass Meeting" of theuniversity at eight, and she felt it her duty to go; but when she got tothe great hall she found a seat in the dimmest corner, farthest from therostrum. 

The president of the university addressed the tumultuous many hundredsbefore him, for tumultuous they were until he quieted them. He talked tothem soberly of patriotism, and called upon them for "deliberation anda little patience. " There was danger of a stampede, he said, and he andthe rest of the faculty were in a measure responsible to their fathersand mothers for them. 

"You must keep your heads, " he said. "God knows, I do not seek to judgeyour duty in this gravest moment of your lives, nor assume to tell youwhat you must or must not do. But by hurrying into service now, withoutcareful thought or consideration, you may impair the extent of yourpossible usefulness to the very cause you are so anxious to serve. Hundreds of you are taking technical courses which should becompleted--at least to the end of the term in June. Instructors from theUnited States Army are already on the way here, and military trainingwill be begun at once for all who are physically eligible and ofacceptable age. A special course will be given in preparation forflying, and those who wish to become aviators may enroll themselves forthe course at once. 

"I speak to you in a crisis of the university's life, as well as that ofthe nation, and the warning I utter has been made necessary by what tookplace yesterday and to-day. Yesterday morning, a student in the juniorclass enlisted as a private in the United States Regular Army. Far be itfrom me to deplore his course in so doing; he spoke to me about it, andin such a way that I felt I had no right to dissuade him. I told himthat it would be preferable for college men to wait until they couldgo as officers, and, aside from the fact of a greater prestige, I urgedthat men of education could perhaps be more useful in that capacity. Hereplied that if he were useful enough as a private a commission might intime come his way, and, as I say, I did not feel at liberty to attemptdissuasion. He left to join a regiment to which he had been assigned, and many of you were at the station to bid him farewell. 

"But enthusiasm may be too contagious; even a great and inspiring motivemay work for harm, and the university must not become a desert. In thetwenty-four hours since that young man went to join the army last night, one hundred and eleven of our young men students have left our walls;eighty-four of them went off together at three o'clock to catch aneast-bound train at the junction and enlist for the Navy at Newport. Weare, I say, in danger of a stampede. "

He spoke on, but Dora was not listening; she had become obsessed by theidea which seemed to be carrying her to the border of tragedy. When thecrowd poured forth from the building she went with it mechanically, andpaused in the dark outside. She spoke to a girl whom she did not know. 

"I beg your pardon--"

"Yes?"

"I wanted to ask: Do you know who was the student Doctor Corvis spokeof? I mean the one that was the first to enlist, and that they werecheering last night when he went away to be a private in the UnitedStates Army. Did you happen to hear his name?"

"Yes, he was a junior. "

"Who was it?"

"Ramsey Milholland. "

Chapter XX

Fred Mitchell, crossing the campus one morning, ten days later, saw Dorastanding near the entrance of her dormitory, where he would pass herunless he altered his course; and as he drew nearer her and the detailsof her face grew into distinctness, he was indignant with himselffor feeling less and less indignation toward her in proportion to thecloseness of his approach. The pity that came over him was mingled withan unruly admiration, causing him to wonder what unpatriotic stuffhe could be made of. She was marked, but not whipped; she still heldherself straight under all the hammering and cutting which, to hisknowledge, she had been getting. 

She stopped him, "for only a moment, " she said, adding with a wanprofoundness: "That is, if you're not one of those who feel that Ishouldn't be 'spoken to'?"

"No, " said Fred, stiffly. "I may share their point of view, perhaps, butI don't feel called upon to obtrude it on you in that manner. "

"I see, " she said, nodding. "I've wanted to speak with you aboutRamsey. "

"All right. "

She bit her lip, then asked, abruptly: "What made him do it?"

"Enlist as a private with the regulars?"

"No. What made him enlist at all?"

"Only because he's that sort, " Fred returned briskly. "He may beinexplicable to people who believe that his going out to fight for hiscountry is the same thing as going out to commit a mur--"

She lifted her hand. "Couldn't you--"

"I beg your pardon, " Fred said at once. "I'm sorry, but I don't knowjust how to explain him to you. "

"Why?"

He laughed, apologetically. "Well, you see, as I understand it, youdon't think it's possible for a person to have something within him thatmakes him care so much about his country that he--"

"Wait!" she cried. "Don't you think I'm willing to suffer a littlerather than to see my country in the wrong? Don't you think I'm doingit?"

"Well, I don't want to be rude; but, of course, it seems to me thatyou're suffering because you think you know more about what's right andwrong than anybody else does. "

"Oh, no. But I--"

"We wouldn't get anywhere, probably, by arguing it, " Fred said. "Youasked me. "

"I asked you to tell my why he enlisted. "

"The trouble is, I don't think I _can_ tell that to anybody who needsan answer. He just went, of course. There isn't any question about it. Ialways thought he'd be the first to go. "

"Oh, no!" she said. 

"Yes, I always thought so. "

"I think you were mistaken, " she said, decidedly. "It was a specialreason--to make him act so cruelly. "

"Cruelly!" Fred cried. 

"It _was!_"

"Cruel to whom?"

"Oh, to his mother--to his family. To have him go off that way, withouta word--"

"Oh, no' he'd been home, " Fred corrected her. "He went home the Saturdaybefore he enlisted, and settled it with them. They're all broken up, ofcourse; but when the saw he'd made up his mind, they quit opposing him, and I think they're proud of him about it, maybe, in spite of feelinganxious. You see, his father was an artilleryman in the war withSpain, and his grandfather was a Colonel at the end of the War of theRebellion, though he went into it as a private, like Ramsey. He diedwhen Ramsey was about twelve; but Ramsey remembers him; he was talkingof him a little the night before he enlisted. "

Dora made a gesture of despairing protest. "You don't understand!"

"What is it I don't understand?"

"Ramsey! _I_ know why he went--and it's just killing me!"

Fred looked at her gravely. "I don't think you need worry about it, " hesaid. "There's nothing about his going that you are responsible for. "

She repeated her despairing gesture. "You don't understand. But it's nouse. It doesn't help any to try to talk of it, though I thought maybeit would, somehow. " She went a little nearer the dormitory entrance, leaving him where he was, then turned. "I suppose you won't see him?"

"I don't know. Most probably not till we meet-if we should--in France. I don't know where he's stationed; and I'm going with the aviation--ifit's ever ready! And he's with the regulars; he'll probably be among thefirst to go over. "

"I see. " She turned sharply away, calling back over her shoulder in achoked voice. "Thank you. Good-bye!"

But Fred's heart had melted; gazing after her, he saw that herproud young head had lowered now, and that her shoulders were movingconvulsively; he ran after her and caught her as she began slowly toascend the dormitory steps. 

"See here, " he cried. "Don't--"

She lifted a wet face. "No, no! He went in bitterness because I told himto, in my own bitterness! I've killed him! Long ago, when he wasn't muchmore than a child, I heard he'd said that some day he'd 'show' me, andnow he's done it!"

Fred whistled low and long when she had disappeared. "Girls!" hemurmured to himself. "Some girls, anyhow--they will be girls! You can'ttell 'em what's what, and you can't change 'em, either!"

Then, as more urgent matters again occupied his attention, he went on atan ardent and lively gait to attend his class in map-making. 

Chapter XXI

That thunder in the soil, at first too deep within it to be audible, hadcome to the surface now and gradually became heard as the thunder ofa million feet upon the training grounds. The bugles rang sharper; thedrums and fifes of town and village and countryside were the drums andfifes of a war that came closer and closer to every hearth between thetwo oceans. 

All the old symbols became symbols bright and new, as if no one had everseen them before. "America" was like a new word, and the song "America"was like a new song. All the dusty blatancies of orating candidates, seeking to rouse bored auditors with "the old flag"; all the mechanicalpatriotics of school and church and club; all these time-worn flaccidthings leaped suddenly into living colour. The flag became brilliant andstrange to see--strange with a meaning that seemed new, a meaning longknown, yet never known till now. 

And so hearts that thought they knew themselves came upon ambushes ofemotion and hidden indwellings of spirit not guessed before. Dora Yocum, listening to the "Star Spangled Banner, " sung by children of immigrantsto an out-of-tune old piano in a mission clubroom, in Chicago, foundherself crying with a soul-shaking heartiness in a way different fromother ways that she had cried. Among the many things she thought of thenwas this: That the banner the children were singing about was in danger. The great country, almost a continent, had always seemed so untouchable, so safe and sure; she had never been able to conceive of a hostilepower mighty enough to shake or even jar it. And since so great andfundamental a thing could not be injured, a war for its defence hadappeared to be, in her eyes, not only wicked but ridiculous. At last, less and less vaguely, she had come to comprehend something of thecolossal German threat, and the shadow that touched this bright bannerof which the immigrants' children piped so briskly in the missionclub-room. 

She had begun to understand, though she could not have told just why, or how, or at what moment understanding reached her. She began tounderstand that her country, threatened to the life, had flung its linethose thousands of miles across the sea to stand and hold Hindenburg andLudendorff and all their Kaisers, Kings, Dukes, and Crown Princes, theirKrupp and Skoda monstrous engines, and their monstrous other engines ofmen made into armies. Through the long haze of misted sea-miles and thesmoke of land-miles she perceived that brown line of ours, and knew itstood there that Freedom, and the Nation itself, might not perish fromthe earth. 

And so, a week later, she went home, and came nervously to Ramsey'smother and found how to direct the letter she wanted to write. He was inFrance. 

As the old phrase went, she poured out her heart. It seems to apply toher letter. 

She wrote:

Don't misunderstand me. I felt that my bitter speech to you had drivenyou to take the step you did. I felt that I had sent you to be killed, and that I ought to be killed for doing it, but I knew that you hadother motives, too. I knew, of course, that you thought of the countrymore than you did of me, or of any mad thing I would say--but I thoughtthat what I said might have been the prompting thing, the word thatthrew you into it so hastily and before you were ready, perhaps. Idreaded to bear that terrible responsibility. I hope you understand. 

My great mistake has been--I thought I sas so "logical"--it's been inmy starting everything with a thought I'd never proven; that war is theworst thing, and all other evils were lesser. I was wrong. I was wrong, because war isn't the worst evil. Slavery is the worse evil, and nowI want to tell you I have come to see that you are making war on thosethat make slavery. Yes, you are fighting those that make both war andslavery, and you are right, and I humbly reverence and honour all ofyou who are in this right war. I have come home to work in the Red Crosshere; I work there all day, and all day I keep saying to myself--but Ireally mean to _you_--it's what I pray, and oh, how I pray it: "God bewith you and grant you the victory!" For you must win and you will win. 

Forgive me, oh, please--and if you will, could you write to me? I knowyou have things to do more important than "girls"--but oh, couldn't you, please?

This letter, which she had taken care not to dampen, as she wrote, wentin slow course to the "American Expeditionary Forces in France, " andfinally found him whom it patiently sought. He delayed not long toanswer, and in time she held in a shaking hand the pencilled missive hehad sent her. 

You forget all that comic talk about me enlisting because of yourtelling me to. I'd written my father I was going at the first chance amonth and a half before that day when you said it. My mind was made upat the first time there was any talk of war, and you had about as muchresponsibility for my going as some little sparrow or something. Ofcourse I don't mean I didn't pay any attention to the different thingsyou said, because I always did, and I used to worry over it because Iwas afraid some day it would get you in trouble, and I'm mighty gladyou've cut it out. That's right; you be a regular girl now. You alwayswere one, and I knew it all right. I'm not as scared to write to you asI was to talk to you, so I guess you know I was mighty tickled to getyour letter. It sounded blue, but I was glad to get it. You _bet_ I'llwrite to you! I don't suppose you could have any idea how glad I was toget your letter. I could sit here and write to you all day if they'd letme, but I'm a corporal now. When you answer this, I wish you'd say howthe old town looks and if the grass in the front yards is as green as itusually is, and everything. And tell me some more about everything youthink of when you are working down at the Red Cross like you said. I guess I've read your letter five million times, and that part tenmillion. I mean where you underlined that "_you_" and what you saidto yourself at the Red Cross. Oh, murder, but I was glad to read that!Don't forget about writing anything else you think of like that. 

Well, I was interrupted then and this is the next day. Of course, Ican't tell you where we are, because that darned censor will read thisletter, but I guess he will let this much by. Who do you think I ranacross in a village yesterday? Two boys from the old school days, andwe certainly did shake hands a few times! It was the old foolish DutchKrusemeyer and Albert Paxton, both of them lieutenants. I heard FredMitchell is still training in the States and about crazy because theywon't send him over yet. 

If you had any idea how glad I was to get your letter, you wouldn't loseany time answering this one. Anyhow, I'm going to write to you againevery few days if I get the chance, because maybe you'll answer morethan one of 'em. 

But see here, cut out that "sent you to be killed" stuff. You've got thewrong idea altogether. We've got the big job of our lives, we know that, but we're going to do it. There'll be mistakes and bad times, but wewon't fall down. Now you'll excuse me for saying it this way, Dora, butI don't know just how to express myself except saying of course we knoweverybody isn't going to get back home--but listen, we didn't comeover here to get killed particularly, we came over here to give theseDutchmen h--l!

Perhaps you can excuse language if I write it with a blank like that, but before we get back we're going to do what we came for. They may notall of them be as bad as some of them--it's a good thing you don't knowwhat we do, because some of it would make you sick. As I say, there maybe quite a lot of good ones among them; but we know what they've done tothis country, and we know what they mean to do to ours. So we're goingto attend to them. Of course that's why I'm here. It wasn't you. 

Don't forget to write pretty soon, Dora. You say in your letter--Icertainly was glad to get that letter--well, you say I have things to domore important than "girls. " Dora, I think you probably know without mysaying so that of course while I have got important things to do, justas every man over here has, and everybody at home, for that matter, well, the thing that is most important in the world to me, next tohelping win this war, it's reading the next letter from you. 

Don't forget how glad I'll be to get it, and don't forget you didn'thave anything to do with my being over here. That was--it was somethingelse. And you bet, whatever happens I'm glad I came! Don't ever forget_that_!

Dora knew it was "something else. " Her memory went back to her firstrecollection of him in school: from that time on he had been just anordinary, everyday boy, floundering somehow through his lessons inschool and through his sweethearting with Milla, as the millions ofother boys floundered along with their own lessons and their ownMillas. She saw him swinging his books and romping homeward from theschoolhouse, or going whistling by her father's front yard, rattlinga stick on the fence as he went, care-free and masterful, but shy as adeer if strangers looked at him, and always "not much of a talker. "

She had always felt so superior to him, she shuddered as she thought ofit. His quiet had been so much better than her talk. His intelligencewas proven now, when it came to the great test, to be of a stronger sortthan hers. He was wise and good and gentle--and a fighting man! "We knowwhat they've done to this country and what they mean to do to ours. Sowe're going to attend to them. " She read this over, and she knew thatRamsey, wise and gentle and good, would fight like an unchained devil, and that he and his comrades would indeed and indeed do what they "camefor. "

"It wasn't you, " he said. She nodded gently, agreeing, and knew what itwas that sent him. Yet Ramsey had his own secret there, and did not tellit. Sometimes there rose, faint in his memory, a whimsical picture, yetone that had always meant much to him. He would see an old man sittingwith a little boy upon a rustic bench under a walnut tree to watch the"Decoration Day Parade" go by--and Ramsey would see a shoot of sunshinethat had somehow got through the walnut tree and made a bedazzlement ofglinting fine lines over a spot about the size of a saucer, upon the oldman's thick white hair. And in Ramsey's memory, the little boy, sittingbeside the veteran, would half close his eyes, drowsily, playing thatthis sunshine spot was a white bird's-nest, until he had a momentarydream of a glittering little bird that dwelt there and wore a bluesoldier cap on its head. And Ramsey would bring out of his memorythoughts that the old man had got into the child's head that day. "Weknew that armies fighting for the Freedom of Man _had_ to win, in thelong run. .. . We were on the side of God's Plan. .. . Long ago we began tosee hints of His Plan. .. . Man has to win his freedom from himself--menin the light have to fight against men in the dark. .. . That light is theanswer. .. . We had the light that made us never doubt. "

A long while Dora sat with the letter in her hand before she answered itand took it upon her heart to wear. That was the place for it, since itwas already within her heart, where he would find it when he came homeagain. And she beheld the revelation sent to her. This ordinary life ofRamsey's was but the outward glinting of a high and splendid spirit, ashigh and splendid as earth can show. And yet it was only the life of aneveryday American boy. The streets of the town were full, now, of boyslike Ramsey. 

At first they were just boys in uniform; then one saw that they wereboys no more. 

They were soldiers.