“If Icoulddo it,” he vociferated, “if Icouldstand up there and debate one o' their darn ole debates in the first place—if I had the gall to even try it, why, my gosh! you don't suppose I'm goin' to get up there and argue withthat girl, do you? That's a hot way to get an education: stand up there and argue with a girl before a couple o' hundred people! Mygosh!”
“You got to!” his prostrate companion cackled, weakly. “You can't get out 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 dog that ever—”
“No use, ole man. The frat seniors'll be on the job. They'll know whether you're sick or not, and they'll have you there, right on the spot to the minute!”
The prediction was accurate. The too fatherly “frat seniors” did all that Fred said they would, and more. For the honour of the “frat,” they coached the desperate Ramsey in the technic of Lumen debate, told him many more things to say than could be said in six minutes, and produced him, despairing, ghastly, and bedewed, in the large hall of the Lumen Society 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 in the early morning of Judgment Day. The members of the society sat, three rows deep, along the walls of the room, leaving a clear oblong of green carpet in the centre, where were two small desks, twenty feet apart, the rostrums of the debaters. Upon a platform at the head of the room sat dreadful seniors, the officers of the society, and, upon benches near the platform, the debaters of the evening were aligned. One of the fraternal seniors sat with sweltering Ramsey; and the latter, as his time 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. Igotto!”
“No. You can't.”
“Honest, Colburn, Igot—”
“Hush!”
Ramsey grunted feebly, and cast his dilating eyes along the rows of faces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (he thought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, a glare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round his waist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, about every fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression of his countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in his consciousness. Over and over he whispered gaspingly to himself the opening words of the sentence with which Colburn had advised him to begin his argument. And as the moment of supreme agony drew close, this whispering became continuous: “In making my first appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in making my first appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in making my first appearance before this honor'ble mem—”
...It had come. The chairman announced the subject of the fourth freshman twelve-minute debate; and Dora Yocum, hitherto unperceived by Ramsey, rose and went forward to one of the small desks in the open space, where she stood composedly, a slim, pretty figure in white. Members in Ramsey's neighbourhood were aware of a brief and hushed commotion, and of Colburn's fierce whisper, “You can't! You get up there!” And the blanched Ramsey came forth and placed himself at the other desk.
He stood before the silent populace of that morgue, and it seemed to him that his features had forgotten that he was supposed to be their owner and in control of them; he felt that they were slipping all over his face, regardless of his wishes. His head, as a whole, was subject to an agitation not before known by him; it desired to move rustily in eccentric ways of its own devising; his legs alternately limbered and straightened under no direction but their own; and his hands clutched each other fiercely behind his back; he was not one cohesive person, evidently, but an assembled collection of parts which had relapsed each into its own individuality. In spite of them, he somehow contrived the semblance of a bow toward the chairman and the semblance of another toward Dora, of whom he was but hazily conscious. Then he opened his mouth, and, not knowing how he had started his voice going, heard it as if from a distance.
“In making my first appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel restrained 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 act of necessity—then had an inspiration.
“The subject assigned to me,” he said, “is resolved that Germany is mor'ly and legally justified in Belgians—Belgiums! This subject was assigned to me to be the subject of this debate.” He interrupted himself to gasp piteously; found breathing difficult, but faltered again: “This subject is the subject. It is the subject that was assigned to me on a postal card.” Then, for a moment or so, he had a miraculous spurt of confidence, and continued rather rapidly: “I feel constrained to say that the country of Belgian—Belgium, I mean—this country has been constrained by the—invaded I mean—invaded by the imperial German Impire and my subject in this debate is whether it ought to or not, my being the infernative—affirmative, I mean—that I got to prove that Germany is mor'ly and legally justified. I wish to state that—”
He paused again, lengthily, then struggled on. “I have been requested to state that the German Imp—Empire—that it certainly isn't right for those Dutch—Germans, I mean—they haven't got any more business in Belgium than I have myself, but I—I feel constrained to say that I had to accept whatever side of this debate I got on the postal card, and so I am constrained to take the side of the Dutch. I mean the Germans. The Dutch are sometimes called—I mean the Germans are sometimes called the Dutch in this country, but they aren't Dutch, though sometimes called Dutch in this country. Well, and so—so, well, the war began last August or about then, anyway, and the German army invaded the Belgian army. After they got there, the invasion began. First, they came around there and then they commenced invading. Well, what I feel constrained—”
He came to the longest of all his pauses here, and the awful gravity of the audience almost suffocated him. “Well,” he concluded, “it don't look right to me.”
“Four minutes!” the chairman announced, for Ramsey's pauses had worn away 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 only a little—about the same amount of relief as that felt by a bridegroom when it is the bride's turn to “respond,” not really relief at all, but merely the slight relaxation of a continuing strain. The audience now looked at Ramsey no more than people look at a bridegroom, but he failed to perceive any substantial mitigation of his frightful conspicuousness. He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth his case for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closely to Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minute closing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his own condition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he had to keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hope that their frenzy might escape general attention.
He realized that Dora was speaking rapidly and confidently, and that somewhere in his ill-assembled parts lurked a familiar bit of him that objected 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 what she 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 have been 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 monster of casuistry. “Thus, having demonstrated thatallwar is wrong,” she said, approaching her conclusion, “it is scarcely necessary to point out that whatever the actual circumstances of the invasion, and whatever the status of the case in international law, or by reason of treaty, or the German oath to respect the neutrality of Belgium, which of course was grossly and dishonorably violated—all this, I say, ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, all this is beside the point of morals. Since, as I have shown,allwar is wrong, the case may be simplified as follows: All war is morally wrong.Quod erat demonstrandum. Germany invaded Belgium. Invasion is war. Germany, therefore, did moral wrong. Upon the legal side, as I began by pointing out, Germany confessed in the Reichstag the violation of law. Therefore, Germany was justified in the invasion neither morally nor legally; but was both morally and legally wrong and evil. Ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, I await the refutation of my opponent!”
Her opponent appeared to be having enough trouble with his legs, without taking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But the marvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with such nicety that the chairman announced “Four minutes,” almost upon the instant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more to the upholder of the affirmative. “Refutation and conclusion by the affirmative,” said the chairman. “Mr. R. Milholland. Two minutes.”
Therewith, Ramsey coughed as long as he could cough, and when he felt that no more should be done in this way, he wiped his face—again an act of necessity—and quaveringly began:
“Gentlemen and ladies, or ladies and gentlemen, in making the refutation of my opponent, I feel that—I feel that hardly anything more ought to be said.”
He paused, looked helplessly at his uncontrollable legs, and resumed: “I am supposed to make the reputa—the refutation of my opponent, and I feel that I ought to say quite a good deal more. In the first place, I feel that the invasion has taken place. I am supposed—anyhow I got a postal card that I am supposed to be here to-night. Well, in talking over this matter with a couple of seniors, they told me I was supposed to 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 his chaotic mind, and he had a brighter moment. “My opponent said she proved all war is wrong—or something like that, anyhow. She said she proved it was wrong to fight, no matter what. Well, if she wasn't a girl, anybody that wanted to get her into a fight could prob'ly do it.” He did not add that he would like to be the person to make the experiment (if Dora weren't a girl), nor did the thought enter his mind until an hour or so later. “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 speechless figure in the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eternity lasting forty-five seconds. He made a racking effort, and at the end of this epoch found words again. “In making my argument in this debate, I would state 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 has not refuted the argument of the negative.”
“Very well.” With his gavel the chairman sharply tapped the desk before him, “The question is now before the house. 'Resolved, that Germany is both morally and legally justified in her invasion of Belgium.' All those in favour of the—”
But here there was an interruption of a kind never before witnessed during any proceedings of the Lumen Society. It came from neither of the debaters, who still remained standing at their desks until the vote settling their comparative merits in argument should be taken. The interruption was from the rear row of seats along the wall, where sat new members of the society, freshmen not upon the program for the evening. A loud voice was heard from this quarter, a loud but nasal voice, shrill as well as nasal, and full of a strange hot passion. “Mr. Chairman!” it cried. “Look-a-here, Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman, I demand to be heard! You gotta gimme my say, Mr. Chairman! I'm a-gunna have mysay! You look-a-here, Mr. Chairman!”
Shocked by such a breach of order, and by the unseemly violence of the speaker, not only the chairman but everyone else looked there. A short, strong figure was on its feet, gesticulating fiercely; and the head belonging to it was a large one with too much curly black hair, a flat, swarthy face, shiny and not immaculately shaven; there was an impression of ill-chosen clothes, too much fat red lip, too much tooth, too much eyeball. Fred Mitchell, half-sorrowing, yet struggling to conceal tears of choked mirth over his roommate's late exhibition, recognized this violent interrupter as one Linski, a fellow freshman who sat next to him in one of his classes. “What'sthatcuss up to?” Fred wondered, and so did others. Linski showed them.
He pressed forward, shoving himself through the two rows in front of him till 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 in his hot, nasal voice. “This here's a free country, and you call yourself a debating society, do you? Lemme tell youIbelong to a debating society in Chicago, where I come from, and them fellas up there, they'd think they'd oughta be shot fer a fake like what you people are tryin' to put over, here, to-night. I come down here to git some more education, and pay fer it, too, in good hard money I've made sweatin' in a machine shop up there in Chicago; but ifthisis the kind of education I'm a-gunna git, I better go on back there. You call this a square 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 go through Belgium; and what do you do fer the Choimun side? You pick out this here big stiff”—he waved his passionate hand at the paralyzed Ramsey—“you pick out a boob like that for the Choimun side, a poor fish that 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 me like he was faking. You get this big stiff to fake the Choimun side, and then you go and stick up a goil agains' him that's got brains and makes a 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 some Choimun in me with the rest what I got, and before you vote on this here question you gotta hear a few woids from somebody that cantalk!This whole war is a capitalis' war, Belgium as much as Choimuny, and the United States is sellin' its soul to the capitalis' right now, I tell you, takin' sides agains' Choimuny. Orders fer explosives and ammanition and guns and Red Cross supplies is comin' into this country by the millions, and the capitalis' United States is fat already on the blood of the workers of Europe! Yes, it is, and I'll have mysay,you boorjaw 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; the scandalized society was on its feet, nervously into groups. Evidently the meeting was about to disintegrate. “I'll have mysay!” the frenzied Linski screamed. “You try to put up this capitalis' trick and work a fake to carry over this debate agains' Choimuny, but you can't work it onme, lemme tell you! I'll have mysay!”
The outraged chairman was wholly at a loss how to deal with the “unprecedented situation”—so he defined it, quite truthfully; and he continued to pound upon the desk, while other clamours began to rival Linski's; shouts of “Put him out!” “Order!” “Shut up, Freshman!” “Turn him over to the sophomores!”
“This meeting isadjourned!” bellowed the chairman, and there was a thronging toward the doors, while the frothing Linski asseverated: “I'm a-gunna git my say, I tell you! I'll have my say! I'll have mysay!”
He had more than that, before the hour was over. A moment after he emerged from the building and came out, still hot, upon the cool, dark campus, he found himself the centre of a group of his own classmates whom he at first mistook for sophomores, such was their manner.
...As this group broke up, a few minutes later, a youth running to join it, scenting somewhat of interest, detained one of those who were departing.
“What's up? What was that squealing?”
“Oh, nothing. We just talked to that Linski. Nobody else touched him, but Ramsey Milholland gave him apeachof a punch on the snoot.”
“Whoopee!”
Ramsey was laconic in response to inquiries upon this subject. When someone remarked: “You served him right for calling you a boob and a poor fish and so on before all the society, girls and all,” Ramsey only said:
“That wasn't what I hit him for.”
He declined to explain further.
“The way I look at it, Ramsey,” Fred Mitchell said, when they reached their apartment, whither the benevolent Colburn accompanied them, “the way 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 anywaylookedas if you could make a better speech than you did. Oh, golly!”
And as Ramsey groaned, the jovial Mitchell gave himself up to the divan and the mirth. “Oh, oh, oh,golly!” he sputtered.
“Never you mind, Brother Milholland,” Colburn said gently. “The Lumen is used 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, this crazy Linski is all that anybody'll ever remember about to-night's meeting, anyhow. There never was any such outbreak as that inmytime, and I guess there never was in the whole history of the society. We'll probably suspend him until he apologizes to the society—I'm on the board, and I'm in favour of it. Who is the bird, anyhow? He's in your class.”
“I never saw him before,” Ramsey responded from the deep chair, where he had moodily thrown himself; and, returning to his brooding upon his oratory. “Oh, murder!” he moaned.
“Well,” said the senior, “you'll know him when you see him again. You put your mark on him where you can see it, all right!” He chuckled. “I suppose I really ought to have interfered in that, but I decided to do a little astronomical observation, about fifty feet away, for a few minutes. I'm 'way behind in my astronomy, anyhow. Do you know this Linski, Brother Mitchell?”
“I've talked to him a couple o' times on the campus,” said Fred. “He's in one of my classes. He's about the oldest in our class, I guess—a lot older than us, anyhow. He's kind of an anarchist or something; can't talk more'n five minutes any time without gettin off some bug stuff about '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 a year.”
“Yes; I'd heard that myself, and I told Linski, and he said he had an uncle workin' in a steel mill got twice that much; but it didn't make any difference, ole Craig was bought by Wall Street. He said 'capitalism' better look out; he and the foreign-born workmen were goin' totakethis country some day, and that was one of the reasons he was after an education. He talked pretty strong pro-German, too—about the war in Europe—but I sort of thought that was more because he'd be pro-anything that he thought would help upset the United States than because he cared much about Germany.”
“Yes,” said Colburn, “that's how he sounded to-night. I guess there's plenty more like him in the cities, too. That reminds me, I'd better arrange a debate on immigration for the Lumen. We'll put Brother Milholland for the negative, this time.”
Ramsey started violently. “See here—”
But the senior reassured him. “Just wanted to see you jump,” he explained. “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. I don't believe in pacificism much, myself, but she used it very niftily for 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 was so 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 at him in blank incredulity.
“Why, don't you think so?” Colburn mildly inquired. “She seems to me very unusual looking.”
“Well, yes,” Fred assented, emphatically. “We're with you there!”
“Extraordinary eyes,” continued Colburn. “Lovely figure, too; altogether a 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't remember that I ever saw a first appearance there that quite equalled it. She'll probably have a brilliant career in the society, and in the university, too. She must be a very fine sort of person.” He deliberated within himself a few moments longer, then, realizing that his hosts and Brethren did not respond with any heartiness—or with anything at all—to the theme, he changed it, and asked them what they thought about the war in Europe.
They talked of the war rather drowsily for a while; it was an interesting but not an exciting topic: the thing they spoke of was so far away. It was in foreign countries where they had never been and had no acquaintances; and both the cause and the issue seemed to be in confusion, though evidently Germany had “started” the trouble. Only one thing emerged as absolutely clear and proved: there could be no disagreement about Germany's “dirty work,” as Fred defined it, in violating Belgium. And this stirred Ramsey to declare with justice that “dirty work” had likewise been done upon himself by the official person, whoever he or she was, who had given him the German side of the evening's debate. After this moment of fervour, the conversation languished, and Brother Colburn rose to go.
“Well, I'm glad you gave that Linski a fine little punch, Brother Milholland,” 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 your debating. You'll learn. Anybody might have got rattled by having to argue against as clever and good-looking a girl as that!”
The roommates gave each other a look of serious puzzlement as the door closed. “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 entered into a further discussion of their senior friend. They liked him “all right,” they said, but he certainly must be kind of queer, and they couldn't just see how he had “ever managed to get where he was” in the “frat” and the Lumen and the university.
Ramsey passed the slightly disfigured Linski on the campus next day without betraying any embarrassment or making a sign of recognition. Fred Mitchell told his roommate, chuckling, that Linski had sworn to “get” him, and, not knowing Fred's affiliations, had made him the confidant of his oath. Fred had given his blessing, he said, upon the enterprise, and advised Linski to use a brick. “He'll hit you on the head with it,” said the light-hearted Fred, falling back upon this old joke. “Then you can catch it as it bounces off and throw it back at him.”
However, Linski proved to be merely an episode, not only so far as Ramsey was concerned but in the Lumen and in the university as well. His suspension from the Lumen was for a year, and so cruel a punishment it proved for this born debater that he noisily declared he would found a debating society himself, and had a poster printed and distributed announcing the first meeting of “The Free Speech and Masses' Rights Council.” Several town loafers attended the meeting, but the only person connected with the university who came was an oriental student, a Chinese youth of almost intrusive amiability. Linski made a fiery address, the townsmen loudly appluading his advocacy of an embargo on munitions and the distribution of everybody's “property,” but the Chinaman, accustomed to see students so madly in earnest only when they were burlesquing, took the whole affair to be intended humour, and tittered politely without cessation—except at such times as he thought it proper to appear quite wrung with laughter. Then he would rock himself, clasp his mouth with both hands and splutter through his fingers. Linski accused him of being in the pay of “capital.”
Next day the orator was unable to show himself upon the campus without causing demonstrations; whenever he was seen a file of quickly gathering students marched behind him chanting repeatedly and deafeningly in chorus: “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 of Nineteen-Eighteen's already lost a member,” said Fred Mitchell. “I guess we can bear the break-up!”
“I guess so,” Ramsey assented. “That Linski might just as well stayed here, though.”
“Why?”
“He couldn't do any harm here. He'll prob'ly get more people to listen to him in cities where there's so many new immigrants and all such that don't know anything, comin' in all the time.”
“Oh, well,” said Fred. “What dowecare what happens to Chicago! Come on, let's behave real wild, and go on over to the 'Teria and get us a couple egg sandwiches and sassprilly.”
Ramsey was willing.
After the strain of the “mid-year Exams” in February, they lived a free-hearted life. They had settled into the ways of their world; they had grown used to it, and it had grown used to them; there was no longer any ignominy in being a freshman. They romped upon the campus and sometimes rioted harmlessly about the streets of the town. In the evenings they visited their fellows and Brethren and were visited in turn, and sometimes they looked so far ahead as to talk vaguely of their plans for professions or business—though to a freshman this concerned an almost unthinkably distant prospect. “I guess I'll go in with my father, in the wholesale drug business,” said Fred. “My married brother already is in the firm, and I suppose they'll give me a show—send me out on the road a year or two first, maybe, to try me. Then I'm going to marry 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. Fred told the “frat seniors” that Ramsey was “developing a whole lot these days”; and he told Ramsey himself that he could see a “big change” in him, adding that the improvement was probably due to Ramsey's having passed through “terrible trials like that debate.”
Ramsey kept to their rooms more than his comrade did, one reason for this domesticity being that he “had to study longer than Fred did, to keep up”; and another reason may have been a greater shyness than Fred possessed—if, indeed, Fred possessed any shyness at all. For Fred was a cheery spirit difficult to abash, and by the coming of spring knew all of 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 by abbreviations of these. He had become fashion's sprig, a “fusser” and butterfly, and he reproached his roommate for shunning the ladies.
“Well, the truth is, Fred,” said Ramsey one day, responding darkly;—“well, you see the truth is, Fred, I've had a—a—I've had an experience—”
So, only, did he refer to Milla.
Fred said no more; and it was comprehended between them that the past need never be definitely referred to again, but that it stood between Ramsey and any entertainment to be obtained of the gentler but less trustworthy sex. And when other Brethren of the “frat” would have pressed Ramsey to join them in various frivolous enterprises concerning “co-eds,” or to be shared by “co-eds,” Fred thought it better to explain to 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 understood everywhere that he was a woman-hater.
That early spring of 1915 the two boys and their friends and Brethren talked more of the war than they had in the autumn, though the subject was not an all at absorbing one; for the trenches in Flanders and France were still of the immense, remote distance. By no stretch of imagination could these wet trenches be thought greatly to concern the “frat,” the Lumen, or the university. Really important matters were the doings of the “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 came a shock which changed things for a time.
TheLusitaniabrought to every American a revelation of what had lain so 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 American gentlemen, there came a change even to girls and boys and professors, until then so preoccupied with their own little aloof world thousands of miles from the murder.
Fred Mitchell, ever volatile and generous, was one of those who went quite wild. No orator, he nevertheless made a frantic speech at the week's “frat meetings,” cursing the Germans in the simple old English words that their performance had demonstrated to be applicable, and going on to demand that the fraternity prepare for its own share in the action of the country. “I don't carehowinsignificant we few fellows here to-night may seem,” he cried; “we can do our little, and if everybody in this country's ready to do their own little, why, that'll be plenty! Brothers, don't you realize that alloverthe United States to-night the people are feeling just the way we are here? Millions and millions and millions of them! Wherever there's an American he'swithus—and you bet your bottom dollar there are just a few more Americans in this country of ours than there are big-mouthed lobsters like that fellow Linski! I tell you, if Congress only gives the word, there could be an army of five million men in this country to-morrow, and those dirty baby-killin' dachshunds would hear a word or two from your Uncle Samuel! 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 offer him a regiment from this university to go over and helphangtheir damn Kaiser.”
The motion was hotly seconded and instantly carried. Then followed a much flustered discussion of the form and phrasing of the proposed telegram, but, after everything seemed to have been settled, someone ascertained by telephone that the telegraph company would not accept messages containing words customarily defined as profane; so the telegram had to be rewritten. This led to further amendment, and it was finally decided to address the senators from that state, instead of the Secretary of War, and thus in a somewhat modified form the message was finally despatched.
Next day, news of what the “frat” had done made a great stir in the university; 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 faculty and 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 faculty itself had been sending telegrams of similar spirit, addressing not only the senators and congressmen of the state but the President of the United States. Flabbergasted, the “German-Americans” retired; they were confused and disgusted by this higher-up outbreak of unneutrality—it overwhelmed them that citizens of the United States should not remain neutral in the dispute between the United States and Germany. All day the campus was in ferment.
At twilight, Ramsey was walking meditatively on his way to dinner at the “frat house,” across the campus from his apartment at Mrs. Meig's. Everybody was quiet now, both town and gown; the students were at their dinners and so were the burghers. Ramsey was late but did not quicken his thoughtful steps, which were those of one lost in reverie. He had forgotten that spring-time was all about him, and, with his head down, walked unregardful of the new gayeties flung forth upon the air by great clusters 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! Ramsey Milholland!” Not until he had been called three times did he realize that he was being hailed—and in a girl's voice! By that time, the girl herself was beside him, and Ramsey halted, quite taken aback. The girl was 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 about something. Mr. Colburn and Fred Mitchell are the only people I know in your 'frat' except you, and I haven't seen either of them to-day, or I'd have 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 the leaf seriously into a corner of his mouth, before finding anything to say. “Well—well, all right,” he finally responded. “I'll tell you—if it's anything I know about.”
“You know about it,” said Dora. “That is, you certainly do if you were at your 'frat' meeting last night. Were you?”
“Yes, I was there,” Ramsey answered, wondering what in the world she wanted to know, though he supposed vaguely that it must be something about Colburn, whom he had several times seen walking with her. “Of course I couldn't tell you much,” he added, with an afterthought. “You see, a good deal that goes on at a 'frat' meeting isn't supposed to be talked 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 an idea of what could be told or not told. Suppose we walk on, if you don't mind. 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 shared so much, sitting daily for years near each other and undergoing the same outward experiences; they had almost “grown up together,” yet this was the 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 to tell you—well, I just as soon, I guess.”
“It has nothing to do with the secret proceedings of your 'frat',” said Dora, primly. “What I want to ask about has been talked of all over the place to-day. Everyone has been saying it wasyour'frat' that sent the first telegram to members of the Government offering support in case of war with Germany. They say you didn't even wait until to-day, but sent off a message last night. What I wanted to ask you was whether this story 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 seemed excited and troubled, he found himself not quite so embarrassed as he had 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 the faculty 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're the best. Do you mean you believe we ought to've sat back and let somebody 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 it might have happened. The rest mightn't have caught it. It mightn't have got into their heads. A war thought is the most contagious thought in the world; but if it can be kept from starting, it can be kept from being contagious. It's just when people have got into an emotional state, or a state of smouldering rage, that everybody ought to be so terribly careful not to think war thoughts or make war speeches—or send war telegrams! I thought—oh, I was so sure I'd convinced Mr. Colburn of all this, the last time we talked of it! He seemed to understand, and I was sure he agreed with me.” She bit her lip. “He was only pretending—I see that now!”
“I guess he must 'a' been,” said Ramsey, with admirable simplicity. “He didn't talk about anything like that last night. He was as much for it as anybody.”
“I've no doubt!”
Ramsey made bold to look at her out of the side of his eye, and as she was gazing tensely forward he continued his observation for some time. She was obviously controlling agitation, almost controlling tears, which seemed to threaten her very wide-open eyes; for those now fully grown and noticeable eyewinkers of hers were subject to fluctuations indicating such a threat. She looked “hurt,” and Ramsey was touched; there was something human about her, then, after all. And if he had put his feeling into words at the moment, he would have said that he guessed maybe he could stand this ole girl, for a few minutes sometimes, better than he'd always thought he could.
“Well,” he said, “Colburn prob'ly wouldn't want to hurt your feelings or anything. Colburn—”
“He? He didn't! I haven't the faintest personal interest in what he did.”
“Oh!” said Ramsey. “Well, excuse me; I thought prob'ly you were sore because he'd jollied you about this pacifist stuff, and then—”
“No!” she said, sharply. “I'm not thinking of his having agreed withmeand foolingmeabout it. He just wanted to make a pleasant impression on a girl, and said anything he thought would please her. I don't care whether he does things like that or not. What I care about is that theprincipledidn't reach him and that he mocked it! I don't care about a petty treachery to me, personally, but I—”
Fraternal loyalty could not quite brook this. “Brother Colburn is a perfectly honor'ble man,” said Ramsey, solemnly. “He is one of the most honor'ble men in this—”
“Of course!” she cried. “Oh, can't I make you understand that I'm not condemning him for a little flattery to me? I don't care two straws for his showing thatIdidn't influence him. He doesn't interest me, please understand.”
Ramsey was altogether perplexed. “Well, I don't see what makes you go for him so hard, then.”
“I don't.”
“But you said he was treach—”
“I don'tcondemnhim for it,” she insisted, despairingly. “Don't you see the difference? I'm not condemning anybody; I'm only lamenting.
“What about?
“About all of you that wantwar!”
“My golly!” Ramsey exclaimed. “You don't think those Dutchmen were right to drown babies and—”
“No! I think they were ghastly murderers! I think they were detestable and 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 without hating them, and so to-day, when all the world is hating them, I keep myself from thinking of them as much as I can. Already half the world is full 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 see what you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest; they thought theyallhad to send telegrams like that.”
“Well, the faculty—”
“Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the first one. Vengeance is the most terrible thought; once you put it into people'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 more to it than just getting even with—”
She did not heed him. “You're all blind! You don't see what you're doing; 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 spirit that nations inherit from the time they were only tribes; it's the tribe spirit, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's those things and the love of fighting—men have always loved to fight. Civilization hasn't taken it out of them; men still have the brute in them that loves to fight!”
“I don't think so,” said Ramsey. “Americans don't love to fight; I don't know 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 never saw more than three or four in my life that acted that way. Of course a football 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 get the idea. Colburn isn't that way, and back at school there wasn't a single 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 had startled her, evidently.
“How can you say such a thing?” she cried. “Youlove 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 aboutme!”
“No, I didn't.”
“With Wesley Bender!”
Ramsey chuckled. “Thatwasn't a fight!”
“It wasn't?”
“Nothing like one. We were just guyin' him about—about gettin' slicked up, kind of, because he sat in front of you; and he hit me with his book strap and I chased him off. Gracious, no;thatwasn't a fight!”
“But you fought Linski only last fall.”
Ramsey chuckled again. “That wasn't even as much like a fight as the one with Wesley. I just told this Linski I was goin' to give him a punch in the sn— I just told him to look out because I was goin' to hit him, and then 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 like fighting 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 had passed the “frat house,” where his dinner was probably growing cold. He was aware of this, but not sharply or insistently. Curiously enough, he did not think about it. He had begun to find something pleasant in the odd interview, and in walking beside a girl, even though the girl was Dora Yocum. He made no attempt to account to himself for anything so peculiar.
For a while they went slowly together, not speaking, and without destination, though Ramsey vaguely took it for granted that Dora was going somewhere. But she wasn't. They emerged from the part of the small town closely built about the university and came out upon a bit of parked land overlooking the river; and here Dora's steps slowed to an indeterminate 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' for your dinner? I didn't mean for you to come out of your way with me; I only wanted to get an answer to my question. You'd better be running back.”
“Well—”
He stood irresolute, not sure that he wanted his dinner just then. It would have amazed him to face the fact deliberately that perhaps he preferred being with Dora Yocum to eating. However, he faced no such fact, 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 a thought. “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,” she said, 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 theLusitania—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 if this killing weren't enough, we want to addourkilling! Oh, that's the most terrible thing of all—the thing it makes within us! Don't you understand?”
She turned to him appealingly, and he felt queerer than ever. Dusk had fallen. Where they stood, under the young-leaved maple tree, there was but a faint lingering of afterglow, and in this mystery her face glimmered wan and sweet; so that Ramsey, just then, was like one who discovers 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 could sit here awhile on this bench, prob'ly.”