Part 9 (2/2)
So subtle a reference to my bucolic appearance was lost on my innocent mind. He seemed quite serious and as he was mistaken I wanted to set him right. I was proud of my laudable ambition. Proclaiming it had brought me only commendation, and I proclaimed it now.
”I'm going to be a minister,” I said, drawing myself up a little.
”Indeed--a minister--how interesting!” returned Boller, raising his eyebrows.
Now had he laughed at me, had he called his fellows from the step to mob me, in the glory of my martyrdom I should have held fast to my purpose; or had he flattered me like Miss Spinner or Mr. Smiley, my vanity would have carried me on my chosen path. His middle course was disconcerting. He treated my ambition as though it were quite a natural one and just about as interesting as to follow dentistry or plumbing.
”I'm going to be a missionary,” I said in a louder tone, hoping to arouse in him either antagonism or adulation.
”Curious,” he returned. ”Very curious. Why I am thinking of taking up the same line myself. It makes a man so interesting to the girls.
I've a cousin who is a minister, and last year he received seventeen pairs of knit slippers from the young ladies of his congregation.
That's going some--eh, Malcolm?”
What a different picture from my cherished one of cork hats and express rifles! The suggestion was horribly insidious. To be interesting to women _en ma.s.se_ was to my manly view exceedingly unmanly; to labor for reward in knit slippers the depth of degradation. I was about to declare to Boller that I was not going to be his kind of a clergyman when I stopped to ask myself if I had ever known any other kind, if my own ideal were not as unattainable as to be another Ivanhoe or Captain Cook. Mr. Pound rose before me, his feet incased in the loving handiwork of Miss Spinner. From him my mind shot wide afield to the Reverend Doctor b.u.mpus, fresh from the dark continent, thanking our congregation for the barrel of clothing sent to his eleven children in far-off Zululand. Thoughts like these were as arrows in the heart of my n.o.ble purpose.
”I haven't absolutely made up my mind,” I said suddenly.
But Boller refused to accept such a qualification. He had me firmly by the arm and brought me face to face with the loungers on the step.
”Gentlemen,” he said, ”allow me to present to you the Reverend Doctor David Malcolm!”
And the loungers on the step saluted me as gravely as if I had been that friend of Mr. Pound's, the Reverend Sylvester Bradley, thrice moderator of the synod.
It was thus that I became the Reverend David Malcolm, and this was all the authority I ever had for so honorable a cognomen. So it was that by the insidious raillery of a moment, Boller shook the foundations laid by Mr. Pound in five years of labor, and it was not long before the whole structure of his building tumbled into ruins. My first violent protest against a nickname which seemed to me to savor of sacrilege served only to fasten it to me more securely. Resigning myself to it, I came to regard it lightly, and the longer I bore it in jest the less I desired to earn it in honor. It was a far cry from Mr.
Pound to Boller of '89, but I doffed the vestment and donned the motley that September day, for Boller became my mentor and in all things my model. I was flattered by his condescending treatment. Before a week had pa.s.sed my engrossing ambition was to wear trousers as wide as his and to crown myself with a ”smoky city” derby. Having accomplished this ambition by going into debt, I realized a greater, and pinned to the lapel of my gayly checked coat, the pearl and diamond-studded pin of Gamma Theta Epsilon. That, of course, was Boller's fraternity, and I think he could have persuaded me to join whatever he asked, so wholly was I captured by his kindness.
In the study of Doctor Todd to which he led me, in the presence of the great man, he did not venture any airy presentation. Boller of '89 inside of the study door was quite a different person from the Boller without it. The bold manner fled. He was suppressed, obsequious; even his clothes seemed to shrink and grow humbly dun. We entered so quietly that the doctor, bending over his desk, did not hear us, and we had to cough apologetically to apprise him of our presence.
”David Malcolm, sir--a new freshman,” Boller said.
The doctor rose. I saw a little man with a very large head covered with hair which shot in all directions in scholarly abandon. His neck seemed much too thin to carry such a weight, but that, I think, was the effect of a collar much too large, and a white tie so long that its ends trailed down over an expanse of crumpled s.h.i.+rt. The doctor's black clothes looked dusty; the doctor himself looked dusty, yet the smile with which he greeted me was as warm as the suns.h.i.+ne breaking through the mist.
”This is splendid,” he cried, shaking my hand fervently. ”Mr. Malcolm, you are welcome. You make the thirty-ninth new man this year--a record in our history. McGraw is growing. Have I not predicted, Mr. Boller, that McGraw would grow?”
To this Boller very readily a.s.sented, and the doctor, rubbing his hands with delight at his vindication, placed a chair for me at his side and began talking rapidly, not of me, nor of my plans, but of the university. He did mention incidentally that he had heard of me through his dear friend, Mr. Pound--a man of whom the university was proud--yet, though I was sure Mr. Pound had spoken well of me, he made no mention of it. I was of interest to him simply because by my coming I had broken the records of McGraw's freshman cla.s.s. Last year it numbered thirty-eight; this year, thirty-nine. Through me the university had taken another stately step onward. He showed me the blue-print and explained it in detail. He spoke so earnestly that in a moment he had abandoned the subjunctive mood, and was describing the buildings as though they actually existed--here the new dormitory, there the chemical laboratory, the gymnasium, the chapel. So potent was his imagination that when I was dismissed and stood again on the steps, I found myself sweeping the campus in search of the beautiful structures which he had pictured for me. Not finding them, I was prey to disappointment, so small did the McGraw that was appear beside the McGraw that should be. I began to suspect that those other universities upon which Mr. Pound looked with such contempt might resemble the creation of Doctor Todd's imagination, that there might be more behind those foot-ball scores than my old mentor had cared to disclose. Distrust of him was rising in me, but I was not allowed to remain long pondering over these things, for Boller had been waiting for me and I was quickly in his possession.
Had the murmurs of rebellion risen to a point where I was planning to abandon McGraw, my new friend must have blocked me. He regarded me as his property. He installed me in the bare little room which for four years was to be my home. He took me to his own quarters and there gave me such a glimpse of my new life as to make me forget my momentary disillusionment. While he dressed, arrayed himself more impressively than ever in evening clothes, I divided my eyes between him and the pictures on the wall. Here Boller, in foot-ball clothes, sat on a fence, wonderfully das.h.i.+ng, with a foot-ball under his arm; there he was in base-ball toggery, erect with bat lifted, ready to strike; here holding a baton, a conspicuous figure in a group of young men, looking exceedingly conscious and uncomfortable in evening clothes--the glee club, he explained, taken on their last tour of the State. And while he dressed, he painted such a glowing picture of life at McGraw as to make it of little moment to me now whether or not Doctor Todd's dream ever came true. That I should grow to Boller's size and fas.h.i.+on was all I asked.
As I watched him soaping and brus.h.i.+ng his hair, struggling a half hour with his tie and setting that hair all awry again, soaping and brus.h.i.+ng once more and at last emerging flawless from the conflict, my own self-confidence ebbed away and the sense of my own rusticity and awkwardness oppressed me. I was to go with him to the first important social event of the year, the reception to the new students, and seeing how my friend arrayed himself for it, I wanted to crawl away to my own room and hide there. But he would not let me. He laughed at my excuses. To be sure my clothes were not the best form, but it was not to be expected that a man new to university life should be--here Boller surveyed himself in the gla.s.s and I understood the implication. So I polished my shoes, wetted and soaped my own hair to rival his and went with him. Had he been leading me into battle I could not have been colder with fright. Had he not had a fast hold on my arm I am sure that when I came face to face with the formidable array of faculty and faculty wives waiting to receive me, I should have beaten a precipitate retreat. I had never before been received; I had never before been a guest at any formal social function, and it was appalling to have to charge this battery of solemn eyes. But there was no escape. Boller pushed me into the hands of Doctor Todd, who gave another hearty handshake to the thirty-ninth and presented him to Mrs. Todd. She a.s.sured me that it was a great pleasure to meet me, a statement entirely at variance with the severity of her countenance and the promptness with which she pa.s.sed me on to Professor Ruffle, who combined the chair of modern languages with the business management of the college. He with a dexterous twist consigned me to his good lady, and thus I pa.s.sed from hand to hand down the dreaded line.
The ordeal was over. I had had my baptism of social fire. Fear left me, but not embarra.s.sment. I forgot that thirty-eight other young men were being received and were undergoing numberless bewildering introductions. It seemed that the whole college was there simply to meet me, and I returned its greeting in a daze. If I lost Boller in the press, I felt the need of his supporting arm and peered longingly among the jostling crowd to find him. He was continually going and coming, but he never forgot me for any time. He was wonderfully kind about informing as to whom it was worth my while to be agreeable. . . .
Don't trouble with Brown; be pleasant to Jones, but look out for Robinson, the fellow with a Kappa Iota Omega pin. He had hardly warned me against Robinson, before that young man was addressing me with great cheerfulness. I saw nothing whatever repulsive about him; but to Boller I was evidently in danger.
”There's a young lady here who is dying to meet you,” he whispered in my ear as he drew me from the sinister clutches.
Oh, subtle flattery! This was the first time I had ever had a young lady dying to meet me. Of course I understood that Boller had spoken figuratively, and yet I did not question that the young lady had seen me, and I was vain enough to hold it not at all unlikely that something in my appearance had interested her. Had not vanity overcome my embarra.s.sment, curiosity would have done so. I wanted to see what she was like who had been so affected by the sight of me. And when I did see her, when I stood before her on s.h.i.+fting feet, I would have given the world to be somewhere else, yet, by a curious contradiction, nothing could have dragged me from the spot, so fair was she to look on.
”Miss Todd--Mr. Malcolm,” said Boller of '89. Then he mopped his brow with a purple silk handkerchief and added that it was very warm. I said that it was very warm, and Miss Todd smiled quite the loveliest smile that I had ever seen.
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