_Vide supra_, under "Friends."
I was just going to ask him something else, when we heard Mrs. Chester
exclaiming,--
"Land sakes, if it ain't Mr. Duggie! I saw the light from Mis'
Buckson's parlor."
"Hello, you dear old buzzard! How dare you turn me out in the cold this
way?" he called to her; and as she came in, he jumped up and took both
her hands. "I 'm so glad to see you again." She gave him a little
push, and looked pleased.
"Law, Mr. Duggie--how you talk! He's got real fleshy--ain't he?" she
added, looking at me. She asked him where he 'd been all summer, and he
told her he 'd been off shooting in the Rocky Mountains, and had brought
her a breastpin made of an elk's tooth that she'd have to wear on
Sundays when she went to see her married daughter in Somerville. I
thought I ought to leave, but did not know how to interrupt them
exactly; so I turned and examined some silver cups on the mantelpiece.
There were five beauties, but I could n't make out the inscriptions on
them.
"You 've had lots of visitors the last few days. They kept a-comin' to
find out when you 'll be back. The Dean was here to-day--a real
sociable gentleman, aren't he?--and he wants you to go right 'round and
see him as soon as you can. And yesterday that little man--I forget his
name--oh, you know, he's the President of the Crimson--came to find out
about something. He said you were the only one who could tell him. And
then there 've been lots of young men to see about the football--oh, my,
just crowds of them, and they all left notes. I 'll run down and get
them, and then I 'll put up your bed."
After she left, I said good-night. It's awfully late, and I have to get
up early, to be in time to register.
I wonder who he is. I hope he didn't think I was fresh. I don't
believe he did, though, for as I was going he said,--
"We 're such near neighbors, you must drop in when you haven't anything
better to do."
Mamma's train must have passed Utica by this time.
*II*
Well, I 've learned a lot of things during the past week, that are n't
advertised in the catalogue. If I 've neglected to make a note of them
until now, it has been my misfortune, and not my fault.
We registered on Wednesday morning--Freshmen have to register the day
before college really opens--and I confess I was a little disappointed
at the informal way such an important act of one's life is done. In the
first place, as you can drop in any time between nine A.M. and one P.M.,
you don't see the whole class together. Then the room we registered in
might have been in the High School at home. I don't know what I
expected exactly, but it certainly was n't a bare, square room, a desk
on a low platform, some plaster casts, and a lot of plain wooden chairs
arranged in rows on an inclined plane. However, when I think the matter
over, I don't see what else they could have.
A dissatisfied-looking little man with a red necktie sat reading a
newspaper at the desk when I went in, and near him--reading a book--was
a younger fellow who looked as if he might be a student. There were
piles of registration cards on the desk, and after I had stood there a
moment, not knowing what to do, the little man looked up absently from
his paper, handed me some cards with a feeble sort of gesture, and
murmured in a melancholy, slightly trembling, and very sarcastic
voice,--
"... This gentleman is come to me
With commendation from great potentates,
And here he means to spend his time awhile."
Then he yawned, and took up the paper again. The young man, without
apparently thinking this remark in the least odd, closed his book on his
thumb so as not to lose the place, and gave me another card, saying in a
perfectly businesslike voice,--
"Please fill this one out, too." I sat down at a bench to write, and
just then five or six other fellows came in. One of them was the
good-looking chap (with the pretty mother) who rooms in the same house
with me. I hadn't seen him since the day I signed my lease. I listened
to hear if the little man at the desk would spring anything weird on
them; but as they went right up to him, and took cards as if they knew
all about it, and retreated to the back of the room, he didn't have
time. They talked and laughed a good deal, and once they got into a
scuffle, but the instructors didn't even glance up. I finished
answering the questions on my cards, and was reading them over, when one
of the fellows behind me said,--
"I'll ask him--we live in the same house;" and the handsome one came and
sat down beside me. There was something they did n't understand in
making out the cards, and the first thing I knew, they were all gathered
around me examining mine. I felt quite important. But the next minute
I felt equally cheap.
The cards that had been given us by the young man with the book had to
be filled out with one's name and address and religion. When the
good-looking one (whose name I 've since found out is Berrisford) came
to it, he began to giggle, and after he had written on it he showed it
to the man next to him, who burst out laughing, and passed it on to the
others. They all laughed as soon as they saw it, and I was just about
to hold out my hand to take it, when the young instructor closed his
book, and said in a rather tired, dry tone,--
"By the way, unless you actually happen to be Buddhists or Hindus or
Mohammedans, or followers of Confucius, kindly refrain from saying so on
the card; only four men have indulged in that particular jest this
morning, which, in comparison with former years, is really very few. I
begin to feel encouraged; pray don't depress me."
I don't know what Berrisford had written, but he got very red while the
instructor was speaking, and crumpled the card into a little lump which
he afterward slipped into his pocket. The others pretended to be deeply
absorbed in their writing just then; but one of them snorted
hysterically.
If anything like that had happened to me, I think I should have expired
with mortification; but Berrisford after a minute or two did n't seem to
mind it at all. I almost think it encouraged him to do something even
more idiotic.
There are two large, fine statues standing in the front corners of the
room. One of them is a Greek athlete in the act of hurling something
not unlike a pancake, and is called, I believe, The Discus Thrower. (We
have a little one in the library at home.) The other is a venerable old
man in flowing robes--probably Homer or Sophocles or some such person.
Well, we had all gone up to the desk with our cards. Berrisford was
first, and just as he got there he stopped (without giving his cards to
the little man who reached out for them), and looked inquiringly from
statue to statue. Berrisford has a beautiful, silly face with big,
innocent eyes, and when he talks his manner is graceful--almost timid;
you can't help liking it. I could see that he impressed the instructors
just the way he did mamma and me the day we saw him with his mother. He
looked at the statues a moment, and then said to the little man,--
"Would you mind telling me, please, which of these gentlemen is the
President of the college?" His voice was so deferential, and there was
something so eager and earnest and pure in his expression, I really
believe that for a moment the instructor thought he was just a nice
fool, and was on the point of kindly explaining what the statues
represented. He didn't, though, for one of the fellows in the
background tittered and ran out of the room, and the little man leaned
back in his chair, examined Berrisford very deliberately, and then
remarked in his queer, sarcastic way,--
"'Sir, thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; but it speeds too
fast--'twill tire!'"