Part 15 (1/2)

We are enjoying good health, though it is getting quite cold now and we have the furnace running now and it feels pretty good to have it. We had _such_ a good time at Adelaide's party she wore such a pretty dress. She flirted terribly with Joe Jordan though of course you'll call me a cat for telling you because you like her so much better than me & all.

Oh I haven't told you the news yet Joe has accepted a position at St. Hilary in the mill there.

I have some pretty new things for my room, a beautiful hand-painted picture. Before Joe goes there is going to be a party for him at Semina's. I wish you could come I suppose you have learned to dance well, of course you go to lots of parties at Plato with all the pretty girls & forget all about _me_.

I wish I was in Minneapolis it is pretty dull here, & such good talks you and me had _didn't_ we!

Oh Carl dear Ray writes us you are sticking up for that crazy Professor Frazer. I know it must take lots of courage & I admire you _lots_ for it even if Ray doesn't but oh Carl dear if you can't do any _good_ by it I hope you won't get everybody talking about you without its doing any good, will you, Carl?

I do so expect you to succeed wonderfully & I hope you won't blast your career even to stand up for folks when it's too late & won't do any good.

We all expect so much of you--we are waiting! You are our knight & you aren't going to forget to keep your armor bright, nor forget,

Yours as ever,

GERTIE.

”Mmm!” remarked Carl. ”Dun'no' about this knight-and-armor business.

I'd look swell, I would, with a wash-boiler and a few more tons of junk on. Mmm! 'Expect you to succeed wonderfully----' Oh, I don't suppose I had ought to disappoint 'em. Don't see where I can help Frazer, anyway. Not a bit.”

The Frazer affair seemed very far from him; very hysterical.

Two of the Gang ambled in with noisy proposals in regard to a game of poker, penny ante, but the thought of cards bored him. Leaving them in possession, one of them smoking the Turk's best pipe, which the Turk had been so careless as to leave in sight, he strolled out on the street and over to the campus.

There was a light in the faculty-room in the Academic Building, yet it was not a ”first and third Thursday,” dates on which the faculty regularly met. Therefore, it was a special meeting; therefore----

Promptly, without making any plans, Carl ran to the back of the building, s.h.i.+nned up a water-spout (humming ”Just Before the Battle, Mother”), pried open a cla.s.s-room window with his large jack-knife, of the variety technically known as a ”toad-stabber” (changing his tune to ”Onward, Christian Soldiers”), climbed in, tiptoed through the room, stopping often to listen, felt along the plaster walls to find the door, eased the door open, calmly sat down in the corridor, pulled off his shoes, said, ”Ouch, it's cold on the feets!” slipped into another cla.s.s-room in the front of the building, put on his shoes, crawled out of the window, walked along a limestone ledge one foot wide to a window of the faculty-room, and peeped in.

All of the eleven a.s.sistant professors and full professors, except Frazer, were a.s.sembled, with President S. Alcott Wood in the chair, and the Greek professor addressing them, referring often to a red-leather-covered note-book.

”Um! Making a report on Frazer's lecture,” said Carl, clinging precariously to the rough faces of the stones. A gust swooped around the corner of the building. He swayed, gripped the stones more tightly, and looked down. He could not see the ground. It was thirty-five or forty feet down. ”Almost fell,” he observed. ”Gos.h.!.+ my hands are chilly!” As he peered in the window again he saw the Greek professor point directly at the window, while the whole gathering startled, turned, stared. A young a.s.sistant professor ran toward the door of the room.

”Going to cut me off. Dog-gone it,” said Carl. ”They'll wait for me at the math.-room window. Hooray! I've started something.”

He carefully moved along the ledge to a point half-way between windows and waited, flat against the wall.

Again he glanced down from the high, windy, narrow ledge. ”It 'd be a long drop.... My hands are cold.... I could slip. Funny, I ain't really much scared, though.... Say! Where'd I do just this before? Oh yes!” He saw himself as little Carl, lost with Gertie in the woods, caught by Bone Stillman at the window. He laughed out as he compared the bristly virile face of Bone with the pasty face of the young professor. ”Seems almost as though I was back there doing the same thing right over. Funny. But I'm not quite as scared as I was then.

Guess I'm growing up. Hel-lo! here's our cunning Spanish Inquisition rubbering out of the next window.”

The window of the mathematics cla.s.s-room, next to the faculty-room, had opened. The young professor who was pursuing Carl peppered the night with violent words delivered in a rather pedagogic voice. ”Well, sir! We have you! You might as well come and give yourself up.”

Carl was silent.

The voice said, conversationally: ”He's staying out there. I'll see who it is.” Carl half made out a head thrusting itself from the window, then heard, in _sotto voce_, ”I can't see him.” Loudly again, the pursuing professor yapped: ”Ah, I see you. You're merely wasting time, sir. You might just as well come here now. I shall let you stay there till you do.” Softly: ”Hurry back into the faculty-room and see if you can get him from that side. Bet it's one of the sneaking Frazer faction.”

Carl said nothing; did not budge. He peeped at the ledge above him. It was too far for him to reach it. He tried to discern the ma.s.s of the ground in the confusing darkness below. It seemed miles down. He did not know what to do. He was lone as a mateless hawk, there on the ledge, against the wall whose stones were pinchingly cold to the small of his back and his spread-eagled arms. He swayed slightly; realized with trembling nausea what would happen if he swayed too much.... He remembered that there was pavement below him. But he did not think about giving himself up.