Ramsey kept very few things from Fred Mitchell, and usually his confidences were immediate upon the occasion of them; but allowed several weeks to elapse before sketching for his roommate the outlines of this adventure.
“One thing that was kind o' funny about it, Fred,” he said, “I didn't know what to call her.”
Mr. Mitchell, stretched upon the window seat in their “study,” and looking out over the town street below and the campus beyond the street, had already thought it tactful to ambush his profound amusement by turning upon his side, so that his face was toward the window and away from his companion. “What did you want to call her?” he inquired in a serious 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 while like that. When she'd be lookin' away from me, and I'd want to start sayin' something to her, you know, why, I wouldn't know how to get started exactly, without callin' her something. A person doesn't want to be 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've always talked about her, you had a perfectly handy way to start off with anything 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; it seems funny I got stumped every time I started to say 'Dora.' Someway I couldn'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 the baby class clear on up through the end of high school. Thatwould'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 hundred times, I guess, and then I'd balk. I'd get all ready, and kind of make a sort of a sound, and then I'd have to quit.”
“She may have thought you had a cold,” said Fred, still keeping his back turned.
“I expect maybe she did—though I don't know; most of the time she didn'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 have certainly 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 were goin' to have war, and she was just sure of it, and it upset her. Of course most people were a lot more upset by what those Dutchmen did to theLusitaniathan by the idea of war; and she seemed to feel as broken up as anybody could be about theLusitania, but what got her the worst was the notion of her country wantin' to fight, she said. She really was upset, too, Fred; there wasn't any puttin' on about it. I guess 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 to get out her handkerchief! She kept her face turned away from me—just the same as you're doin' now to keep from laughin'—but honestly, she cried 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 so that his face could be seen. “What did she say?”
“Oh, she didn't say such an awful lot. She said one kind o' funny thing though: she said she was sorry she couldn't quite control herself, but if anybody had to see her cry she minded it less because it was an old schoolmate. What struck me so kind o' funny about that is—why, it looks as if she never knew the way I always hated her so.”
“Yes,” said Fred. “It wasn't flattering!”
“Well, sir, itisn't, kind of,” Ramsey agreed, musingly. “It certainly isn'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 on sitting there, and afterwhile she began to talk again and got kind of excited about how no war could do anything or anybody any good, and all war was wicked, no matter what it was about, and nothin' could be good that was founded on fear and hate, and every war that ever was fought was always founded on fear and hate. She said if the Germans wanted to fight 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 that in her head. Besides, how are you goin' to argue about a thing with a person that's crying about it? I tell you, Fred, I guess we got to admit, after all, that ole girl certainly must have a lots of heart about her, anyway. There may not be muchfunto her—though of course I wouldn't know hardly any way to tell about that—but there couldn't be hardly any doubt she's got a lot of feeling. Well, and then she went on and said old men made wars, but didn't fight; they left the fighting to the boys, and the suffering to the boy's mothers.”
“Yes!” Fred exclaimed, and upon that he turned free of mirth for the moment. “That's the woman of it, I guess. Send the old men to do the fighting! For the matter of that, I guess my father'd about a thousand times go himself than see me and my brothers go; but Father's so fat he can'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 Dutchmen would just kill the old men, and then come after the boys anyway, and the boys wouldn't be ready, and they'd get killed, too; and then there wouldn'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 time on their hands, they'll come over and make itreallyinteresting for us, because they know we won't do anything but talk. Yes, I guess the way things are settling down ought to suit Dora. There isn't goin' to be any 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 now it was almost sure to come sometime. She said our telegrams and all the talk and so much feeling and everything showed her that the war thought that was alwaysinpeople somewhere had been stirred up so it would go on and on. She said she knew from the way she felt herself about theLusitaniathat a feeling like that in her would never be absolutely wiped out as long as she lived. But she said her other feeling about the horribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breaking out, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't break out right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, and sometime 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 of the ones to help her.”
He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, “Well? What did you say to that?”
“Nothin'. I started to, but—”
Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while the agitation of his shoulders betrayed him.
“Go on and laugh! Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before we left she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do. It was 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 of laughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace or something, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedge of lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the 'Teria and the fruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a-dozen peanut 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 she said she was afraid she'd taken me away from my dinner and made me a lot of 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 on home.”
“When did you see her next, Ramsey?”
“I haven't seen her next,” said Ramsey. “I haven't seen her at all—not to speak to. I saw her on Main Street twice since then, but both times she was with some other girls, and they were across the street, and I couldn't tell if she was lookin' at me—I kind of thought not—so I thought it might look sort o' nutty to bow to her if she wasn't, so I didn't.”
“And you didn't tell her you wouldn't be one of the ones to help her with her pacifism and anti-war stuff and all that?”
“No. I started to, but— Shut up!”
Fred sat up, giggling. “So she thinks youwillhelp her. You didn't say anything at all, and she must think that means she converted you. Why didn't you speak up?”
“Well,Iwouldn't argue with her,” said Ramsey. Then, after a silence, he seemed to be in need of sympathetic comprehension. “Itwaskind 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, and her—well, her crying and everything, and me being around with her while she felt so upset, I mean. It seems—well, it does seem kind o' funny to me.”
“Why does it?” Fred inquired, preserving his gravity. “Why should it seem funny to you?”
“I don't mean funny like something's funny you laugh at,” Ramsey explained laboriously. “I mean funny like something that's out of the way, and you wonder how it ever happened to happen. I mean it seems funny I'd ever be sittin' there on a bench with that ole girl I never spoke to in my life or had anything to do with, and talkin' about the United States goin' to war. What we were talkin' about, why, that seems just as funny as the rest of it. Lookin' back to our class picnic, f'r instance, second year of high school, that day I jumped in the creek after— Well, you know, it was when I started makin' a fool of myself over a girl. Thank goodness, I gotthatout o' my system; it makes me just 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 enough to see now she was just about as ordinary a girl as there ever was, and if I saw her now I wouldn't even think she was pretty; I'd prob'ly think she was sort of loud-lookin'. Well, what's passed is past, and it isn't either here nor there. What I started to say was this: that the way it begins to look to me, it looks as if nobody can tell in this life a darn thing about what's goin' to happen, and the things that do happen are the very ones you'd swear were the last that could. I mean—you look back to that day of the picnic—my! but I was a rube then—well, I mean you look back to that day, and what do you suppose I'd have thought then if somebody'd told me the time would ever come when I'd be 'way off here at college sittin' on a bench with Dora Yocum—withDora Yocum, in the first place—and her crying, and both of us talking about the United States 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,youdidn't say anything at all.”
“Well, I didn't—much,” Ramsey admitted, and returned to his point with almost 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 look any funnier than you do when you say it.”
Suddenly he sent forth a startling shout. “Wow!You're as red as a blushing 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 much perturbed comrade, bellowing. Ramsey bore with him for a moment, then sprang upon him; they wrestled vigorously, broke a chair, and went to the 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, arranging their tousled attire.
“Well,” said Fred, “when you goin' to call on her?”
“You look here!” Ramsey approached him dangerously. “You just gave me your sol—”
“I beg!” Fred cried, retreating. “I mean, aside from all that, why, I just thought maybe after such an evening you'd feel as a gentleman you ought to go and ask about her health.”
“Now, see here—”
“No, I mean it; you ought to,” Fred insisted, earnestly, and as his roommate glared at him with complete suspicion, he added, in explanation. “You ought to go next Caller's Night, and send in your card, and say you felt you ought to ask if she'd suffered any from the night air. Even if you couldn't manage to say that, you ought to start to say it, anyhow, because you— Keep off o' me! I'm only tryin' to do you a good turn, ain't I?”
“You save your good turns for yourself,” Ramsey growled, still advancing upon him.
But the insidious Mitchell, evading him, fled to the other end of the room, 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 call this 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, whenareyou goin' to—”
Ramsey was still red. “You look here! Just say one more word—”
“Oh,no,” Fred expostulated. “I meanseriously, Ramsey. Honestly, I mean seriously. Aren't you seriously goin' to call on her some Caller's Night?”
“No, I'm not!”
“But why not?”
“Because I don't want to.”
“Well, seriously, Ramsey, there's only one Caller's Night before vacation, and so I suppose it hardly will be worth while; but I expect you'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 this summer, 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 happened to see in theBulletinshe's signed up with some other girls to go and do settlement work in Chicago. Anybody could see it. It was printed out plain. You could have seen it just as well as I could, if you'd read theBulletin.”
“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 honestly don't mean to get you excited about all this, Ramsey. I can see myself you haven't changed from your old opinion of Dora Yocum a bit. I was only tryin' to get a little rise out of you for a minute, because of course, seriously, why, I can see you hate her just the same as you always did.”
“Yes,” said Ramsey, disarmed and guileless in the face of diplomacy. “I only told you about all this, Fred, because it seemed—well, it seemed so 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 kind o'—” He paused, then repeated plaintively: “Well, to me, it all seemed kind o'—kind o' funny.”
“What did?” Fred inquired, but as he glanced in seeming naivete at his companion, something he saw in the latter's eye warned him, and suddenly Fred thought it would be better to run.
Ramsey chased him all the way to the “frat house.”
Ramsey was not quite athlete enough for any of the 'varsity teams; neither was he an antagonist safely encountered, whether in play or in earnest, and during the next few days he taught Fred Mitchell to be cautious. The chaffer learned that his own agility could not save him from Ramsey, and so found it wiser to contain an effervescence which sometimes threatened to burst him. Ramsey as a victim was a continuous temptation, he was so good-natured and yet so furious.
After Commencement, when the roommates had gone home, Mr. Mitchell's caution extended over the long sunshiny months of summer vacation; he broke it but once and then in well-advised safety, for the occasion was semi-public. The two were out for a stroll on a July Sunday afternoon; and up and down the street young couples lolled along, young families and baby carriages straggled to and from the houses of older relatives, and the rest of the world of that growing city was rocking and fanning itself on its front veranda.
“Here's a right pretty place, isn't it, Ramsey? don't you think?” Fred remarked innocently, as they were passing a lawn of short-clipped, bright green grass before a genial-looking house, fresh in white paint and cool in green-and-white awnings. A broad veranda, well populated just now, crossed the front of the house; fine trees helped the awnings to give comfort against the sun; and Fred's remark was warranted. Nevertheless, he fell under the suspicion of his companion, who had begun to evince some nervousness before Fred spoke.
“What place do you mean?”
“The Yocum place,” said Mr. Mitchell. “I hear the old gentleman's mighty prosperous 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 returned shortly.
Fred appeared to muse regretfully. “It looks kind ofemptynow, though,” he said, “with only Mr. and Mrs. Yocum and their three married daughters, 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 stop right here in plain sight of the whole Yocum family connection till you promise 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 stophere!”
“I will, and if you go on alone I'll yell at you. You got to stand right here with all of 'em lookin' at you until—”
“I promise! My heavens, comeon!”
Fred consented to end the moment of agony; and for the rest of the summer found it impossible to persuade Ramsey to pass that house in his company. “I won't do it!” Ramsey told him. “Your word of honour means nothin' 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 with people that act the idiot on the public streets. No, sir; we'll walk around the block—at least, we will if you're goin' withme!”
And to Fred's delight, though he concealed it, they would make this detour.
The evening after their return to the university both were busy with their trunks and various orderings and disorderings of their apartment, but Fred several times expressed surprise that his roommate should be content to remain at home; and finally Ramsey comprehended the implications. Mrs. Meigs's chandelier immediately jingled with the shock of another crash upon the floor above.
“You let me up!” Fred commanded thickly, his voice muffled by the pile of flannels, sweaters, underwear, and raincoats wherein his head was being forced to burrow. “You let me up, darn you!Ididn't say anything.” And upon his release he complained that the attack was unprovoked. “I didn't say anything on earth to even hint you might want to go out and look around to see if anybody in particular had got back to college yet. I didn't even mention thenameof Dora Yo— Keep off o' me! My goodness, but you are sensitive!”
As a matter of fact, neither of them saw Dora until the first meeting of the Lumen, whither they went as sophomores to take their pleasure in the agony of freshmen debaters. Ramsey was now able to attend the Lumen, not with complacence but at least without shuddering over the recollection of his own spectacular first appearance there. He had made subsequent appearances, far from brilliant yet not disgraceful, and as a spectator, at least, he usually felt rather at his ease in the place. It cannot be asserted, however, that he appeared entirely at his ease this evening after he had read the “Programme” chalked upon the large easel blackboard beside the chairman's desk. Three “Freshmen Debates” were announced, and a “Sophomore Oration,” this last being followed by the name, “D. Yocum, '18.” Ramsey made immediate and conspicuous efforts to avoid sitting next to his roommate, but was not so adroit as to be successful. However, Fred was merciful: the fluctuations of his friend's complexion were an inspiration more to pity than to badinage.
The three debates all concerned the “Causes of the War in Europe,” and honours appeared to rest with a small and stout, stolidly “pro-German” girl debater, who had brought with her and translated at sight absa-loot proofs (so she called them), printed in German, that Germany had been attacked by Belgium at the low instigation of the envious English. Everybody knew it wasn't true; but she made an impression and established herself as a debater, especially as her opponent was quite confounded 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 from looking inquisitively at the boy in the seat next to his; but he made one side wager, mentally—that if Ramsey had consented to be thoroughly confidential just then, he would have confessed to feeling kind o' funny.
Dora was charmingly dressed, and she was pale; but those notable eyelashes of hers were all the more notable against her pallor. And as she spoke with fire, it was natural that her colour should come back quite flamingly and that her eyes should flash in shelter of the lashes. “The Christian Spirit and Internationalism” was her subject, yet she showed no meek sample of a Christian Spirit herself when she came to attacking war-makers generally, as well as all those “half-developed tribesmen,” and “victims of herd instinct” who believed that war might ever be justified under any circumstances of atrocity. She was eloquent truly, and a picture of grace and girlish dignity, even when she was most vigorous. Nothing could have been more militant than her denunciation 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' about her as a public character, and there's nothin' personal about it. You let me alone.”
Ramsey was not clear as to his duty. “Well—”
“If any person makes a public speech,” Fred protested, “I got a perfect right to discuss 'em, no matter what you think of 'em”—and he added hastily—“ordon'tthink of 'em!”
“Look here—”
“Good heavens!” Fred exclaimed. “You aren't expecting to interfere with me if I say anything about that little fat Werder girl that argued for Germany, are you? Or any of the other speakers? I got a right to talk about '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 any objections?”
“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, she stands so straight and knows just what she's up to, and everything, why, there's something about her makes the cold chills go down your spine—I meanmyspine, not yours particularly! You sit down—I meananybody'sspine, doggone it!” And as Ramsey increased the manifestations of his suspicions, lifting a tennis racket over the prostrate figure, “Oh, murder,” Fred said, resignedly. “All right, we'll change the subject. That fat little Werder cutie made out a pretty good case for Germany, didn't she?”
Ramsey tossed the racket away, disposed himself in an easy chair with his feet upon the table, and presently chuckled. “You remember the time I 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 of the way I talked that day. I can remember it as well as anything! Wesley kept yelpin' that whoever mentioned a lady's name in a public place was a pup, and of course I didn't want to hit him for that; a boy's got a reg'lar instinct for tryin' to make out he's on the right side in a scrap, and he'll always try to do something, or say something, or he'll get the other boy to say someting to make it look as if the other boy was in the wrong and began the trouble. So I told poor ole Wes that my father spoke my mother's name in a public place whenever he wanted to, and I dared him to say my father was a pup. And all so on. A boy startin' up a scrap, why, half the time he'll drag his father and mother if 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 a fool,' or something like that. Then, afterward, he can claim he was scrappin' because he had to defend his father and mother, and of course he'll more than half believe it himself.
“Well, you take a Government—it's only just somemen, the way I see it, 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's instinct to do it, just the same for a man as it is for a boy—or else the principle's just the same, or something. Well, anyhow, if you want to know who started a scrap and worked it up, you got to forget all thetalkthere is about it, and all what each sidesays, and just look at two things: Who was fixed for it first, or thought they were, and who hit first? When you get the answer to those two questions everything's settled about all this being 'attacked' business. Both sides, just the same as boys, they'll both claim theyhadto fight; but if you want to know which onedidhave to, why forget all the arguing and don't take your eye off just whathappened. As near as I can make out, this war began with Germany and Austria startin' in to wipe out two little countries; Austria began shootin' up Serbia, and Germany began shootin' up Belgium. I don't need to notice any more than that, myself—all the Werder girls in the country can debate their heads off, they can't change what happened and they can't excuse it, either.”
He was silent, appearing to feel that he had concluded conclusively, and the young gentleman on the window seat, after staring at him for several moments of genuine thoughtfulness, was gracious enough to observe, “Well, ole Ram, you may be a little slow in class, but when you think things out with yourself you do show signs of something pretty near like real horse-sense sometimes. Why don't you ever say anything like that to—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 keep sitting just where you are, and don't look at me out of the side of your eye like that—pretendin' you're a bad horse. I'mreallyserious now, and you listen to me. I don't think argufying and debating like that little Fraulein Werder's does much harm. She's a right nifty young rolypoly, 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 does much harm: everybody knows it goes on among the pro-Germans, and it's all 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 Dora Yocum's does some, too. Well, you hit Linski in the snoot, so what are you— Sit still! My lord! You don't think I'm askin' you to go and hit Dora, do you? I mean: Aren't you ever goin' to talk to her about it and tell 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. “I never see her—to speak to, that is. I prob'ly won't happen to have another talk with her, or anything, all the time we're in college.”
“No,” Fred admitted, “I suppose not. Of course, if you did, then you would give her quite a talking-to, just the way you did the other time, wouldn't you?” But upon that, another resumption of physical violence put an end to the conversation.
Throughout the term Ramsey's calculation of probabilities against the happening of another interview with Dora seemed to be well founded, but at the beginning of the second “semester” he found her to be a fellow member of a class in biology. More than that, this class had every week a two-hour session in the botanical laboratory, where the structure of plants was studied under microscopic dissection. The students worked in pairs, a special family of plants being assigned to each couple; and the instructor selected the couples with an eye to combinations of the quick with the slow. D. Yocum and R. Milholland (the latter in a strange state of mind and complexion) were given two chairs, but only one desk and one microscope. Their conversation was strictly botanical.
Thenceforth it became the most pressing care of Ramsey's life to prevent his roommate from learning that there was any conversation at all, even botanical. Fortunately, Fred was not taking the biological courses, though he appeared to be taking the sentimental ones with an astonishing thoroughness; and sometimes, to Fred's hilarious delight, Ramsey attempted to turn the tables and rally him upon whatever last affair seemed to be engaging his fancy. The old Victorian and pre-Victorianblagueword “petticoat” had been revived in Fred's vocabulary, and in others, as “skirt.” The lightsome sprig was hourly to be seen, even when university rulings forbade, dilly-dallying giddily along the campus paths or the town sidewalks with some new and pretty Skirt. And when Ramsey tried to fluster him about such a matter Fred would profess his ardent love for the new lady in shouts and impromptu song. Nothing could be done to him, and Ramsey, utterly unable to defend his own sensibilities in like manner, had always to retire in bafflement. Sometimes he would ponder upon the question thus suggested: Why couldn't he do this sort of thing, since Fred could? But he never discovered a satisfying answer.
Ramsey's watchfulness was so careful (lest he make some impulsive admission in regard to the botanical laboratory, for instance) that Mr. Mitchell's curiosity gradually became almost quiescent; but there arrived a day in February when it was piqued into the liveliest activity. It was Sunday, and Fred, dressing with a fastidiousness ever his daily habit, noticed that Ramsey was exhibiting an unusual perplexity about neckties.
“Keep the black one on,” Fred said, volunteering the suggestion, as Ramsey 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've got 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 the open country. There was a professor's daughter who also was not going to church that morning; and she lived a little more than three miles beyond the outskirts of the town. Unfortunately, as the weather was threatening, all others of her family abandoned the idea of church that day, and Fred found her before a cozy fire, but surrounded by parents, little brothers, and big sisters. The professor was talkative; Fred's mind might have been greatly improved, but with a window in range he preferred a melancholy contemplation of the snow, which had begun to fall in quantity. The professor talked until luncheon, throughout luncheon, 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 a blizzard developing, he said No; he had a great deal of “cirriculum work” to get done before the morrow, and passed from the sound of the professor's hospitable voice and into the storm. He had a tedious struggle against the wind and thickening snow, but finally came in sight of the town, not long before dark. Here the road led down into a depression, and, lifting his head as he began the slight ascent on the other side, Fred was aware of two figures outlined upon the low ridge before him. They were dimmed by the driving snow and their backs were toward him, but he recognized them with perfect assurance. They were Dora 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; and she was a graceful thing, thus gesticulating, in her long, slim fur coat with the white snow frosting her brown fur cap. Ramsey had his hands deep in his overcoat pockets and his manner was wholly that of an audience.
Fred murmured to himself, “'What did you say to her?' 'Nothin'. I started to, but'—” Then he put on a burst of speed and passed them, sweeping off his hat with operatic deference, yet hurrying by as if fearful of being thought a killjoy if he lingered. He went to the “frat house,” found no one downstairs, and established himself in a red leather 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 hat and coat, and sat himself down defiantly in the red leather chair on the other 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. The little bobolinks—”
“You look here! That's the only walk I ever took with her in my life. I mean by—by asking her and her saying she would and so forth. That other time just sort of happened, and you know it. Well, the weather wasn't just the best in the world, maybe, but she's an awful conscientious girl and once she makes an engagement—”
“Why, of course,” Fred finished for him, “She'd be too pious to break it just on account of a mere little blizzard or anything. Wonder how the weather will be next Sunday?”
“I don't know and I don't care,” said Ramsey. “You don't suppose I asked her to goagain, do you?”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you don't suppose I want her to think I'm a perfect 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 and closer—”
“But it isn't.”
“Well, she thinks so, anyhow,” said Ramsey, “and she's all broken up about it. Of course she thinks we oughtn't to fight and she's trying to get 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 in Chicago and work there among those people against our goin' to war; and here 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 if we broke any more furniture in this house with our scrappin' we'd both be fined the cost of repairs and five dollars apiece. Well, I can afford five 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—”
“Youdon't?”
Ramsey looked dogged. “I'm not goin' around always arguin' about everything when arguin' would just hurt people's feelings about something they're all excited about, and wouldn't do a bit o' good in the world—and you know yourself justtalkhardly ever settles anything—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 back of the neck and head, where it flattened and displayed itself as an ornamental star. Shouting fiercely, both boys sprang up, ran to the door, were caught there in a barrage of snowballs, ducked through it in spite of all damage, charged upon a dozen besweatered figures awaiting them and began a mad battle in the blizzard. Some of their opponents treacherously joined them, and turned upon the ambushers.
In the dusk the merry conflict waged up and down the snow-covered lawn, and the combatants threw and threw, or surged back and forth, or clenched and toppled over into snow banks, yet all coming to chant an extemporized battle-cry in chorus, even as they fought the most wildly.
“Who? Who? Who?” they chanted. “Who? Who?Whosays there ain't goin' to be no war?”