doing genuine work. People who have seen it declare that the spectacle
of Mason cramming for an examination was one of the show sights of the
University. He generally let things go until the last day of grace; then
with sundry fellow-victims and a motley collection of notes, syllabi,
books, reports--anything on the subject--gathered on the green cloth of
his table, he would start in. Raps might come from time to time on the
locked door; Jimmy would hold up a warning finger for silence, while the
outsider shot through the keyhole such remarks as "Jimmy Mason, loosen
up. You've mixed my clothes again;" or, "Hi, Jimmy! give me the
markings;" or, possibly, hurled a mass of unrepeatable terms at the
unresponsive door. Perhaps his roommate, Marion, would come in when the
lights went out; then Jimmy would call a breathing-spell, during which,
while "Nosey" went to bed behind the portieres, he drew his lamp from
its hiding-place and made strong coffee in the coffee-pot or
chafing-dish, whichever had been washed the more recently. Somewhere in
the small hours the seminary would adjourn with "international
complications," "tendencies of the age," "sub-head B," heating their
brains. Out of bed at seven for a final swift review of the subject,
Mason would sail over to class with a great unbreakfasted hollow beneath
his sweater, to pass freely and gloriously, and to forget the whole mess
by the time he had finished his afternoon nap.
And to see Jimmy in the seminary itself! How masterfully he kept track
of headings, sub-headings and modifying circumstances! How he could
scent at a day's distance the things which the professor was going to
ask, as well as those he was going to skip! When he said, "Now, old
Morton is heavy on this," the seminary digested the subject in all its
bearings and ramifications; and when he said, "No use looking that up,"
they skipped the heading, though pages of syllabi were slighted
thereby. When the wandering mind of Pellams slid off the work, it was
beautiful to see Jimmy lead it back with a word and a look; when he sent
some sleepy Senior to bed with the remark, "You're no more good. Sleep
it off and be fresh to-morrow," Jimmy touched the sublime.
The glory of it all was that upper-classmen as well as Freshmen put
themselves absolutely under the Sophomore's rule when it was a question
of an examination. Thus does the elective system level all ranks and
give genius opportunity.
On the night that Boggs dropped in on them, Jimmy and Pellams were
cramming alone. Two seniors who were usually in the group had gone
somewhere to mix up in a complication over Student-Body treasurer. A
Junior seldom out of line was a candidate for the Executive Committee;
he had put his head in at the door to say, "Dead sorry, fellows, but
can't get in it," and then gone down to Palo Alto to make himself
agreeable to a dig girl who had "influence." The popularity of some
people waxes strangely the latter part of April. A Freshman who was
taking the course when he shouldn't and who stood on the dizzy brink of
flunking it, had gone off with a Junior who wanted to stand well with
certain Freshmen of importance, and who had overjoyed the youngster
with an invitation to Mayfield, an event which made flunking clear out
of the University a thing of small moment to the Freshman's mind.
Pellams alone showed up. He was not in politics; further, he knew the
value to himself of these evenings with Jimmy; not that the syllabi made
much impression on him, but he carried enough to class next day to
shadow forth an apparent knowledge of the subject. This he supplemented
with two or three original reflections that interested the instructor
and slipped him through. It was these flashes of intelligence that made
him worth the labor to Mason. Sometimes he could set the whole seminary
right on an obscure phrase; this made up for an hour of imperfect
attention.
To-night the two men were hard at it. They sat at opposite sides of the
table, the electric drop-light illuminating the papers between them.
"Say," said Pellams, "Bob Duncan's the luckiest baby in the bunch. He
doesn't know as much about this course as I do, and he's got
appendicitis, the doctor says--no fake."
"Now, Pellams," said Mason seriously, "you have to remember Cromwell. He
did all this in sub-headings four to eleven. You've placed him, haven't
you?"
"The guy that made them keep the powder dry?"
"The _minister_ Cromwell; you remember _him_--the one who was bald."
Jimmy had learned that Pellams needed a concrete peg on which to hang
his memories.
"Oh, sure, I've got him; that throw-away-ambition boy. Hadn't a hair
between him and heaven."
A knock came at the door.
"That's it. Sh--sh!"
"Let me in, Jimmy." The room was still.
"I know you and Pellams are digging. I won't say a word to either of
you, only give me a smoke."
"Haven't any," said Jimmy, rapidly transferring a sack of Durham and a
package of papers from the table.
"Well, let me in, anyway. I want to read by your lamp. Oh, say, open
up!"
"It's Boggs. If we don't let him in he'll stand and plead in outer
darkness all night."
The door rattled. Jimmy howled "Ye-e-es!" in a tone of provoked
affirmative, and Boggs was opened unto.
It would be hard to tell in what way Boggs did not block the seminary.
He found the tobacco by invading Jimmy's sacred drawer during an
absorbing discussion on land tenure; then he rolled and consumed exactly
fourteen cigarettes. Pellams kept count out of the corner of his eye.
Boggs was making smoke in the sunshine of free tobacco. He put his feet
on Mason's laundry packages, freshly stacked in the corner. He broke his
word by talking politics steadily, and finally, when he drew out of the
room just ahead of ten-thirty lights, a double sigh of relief went up
from the crammers.
"That article needs fixing," said Pellams, meditatively, as Jimmy got
out the chafing-dish and prepared the black coffee that makes additional
pages of syllabi possible before sleep comes.
"I wonder," said Jimmy, "if he ever bought an ounce of tobacco since he
came here. He's smoked mine every time he could find it since I've been
in college. I remember," here Jimmy stopped to laugh, "that when I was a
Freshmen--you'll bear witness I was a fresh one, too--I used to be
pleased clear to the red at getting all that attention from an
upper-classman. The satisfaction cost me a good many pounds of tobacco,
though."
"His opinion of himself politically is what kills me. Lyman is his
ideal. He loafs in Frank's room until Frank has had to give up smoking.
It's fun to see him. I was in there the other night. 'How are you going
to stand on the election, Frank?' says Boggsie, as though it were a
conference of the powers. 'Oh, I think Higgins is pretty good,' says
Frank; 'what do you think?' Not that he gave a whoop; he was trying to
be polite. 'Well, I may use my influence for Castleton,' says Boggsie,
with his pet air of mystery. His influence consists of his roommate.
'The deuce you will!' says Frank, with sarcasm. All wasted though, for
Boggsie fairly chapped at the compliment of having surprised him. 'Yes,'
said Boggs, 'that's what I like to see, the office seeking the man; you
know, a fellow ought to wait and go about his business until people
recognize him. I don't like to see a man going around with his hand out,
raking the Freshmen in.' Then he looks around for applause and slopes
out, smoking the last of Lyman's Durham."
"He rake in the Freshmen! It would cost too much! Boggs wants the office
to seek him, so as to save expense. When he was small I think he must
have been the sort of kid that won't play his marbles for fear that
he'll wear them out. He'd do anything mean to get office, but he won't
spend money for it; he has enough, too; he doesn't have to pinch as he
does, but he hates to spend a nickel when he can worm it out of other
people. I'd love to get a feed out of him in some way; oh, it would
taste good!"
Pellams' ruddy face glowed fire-red with the dawn of an idea. His
inspiration had come.
"James Russell Lowell Mason, I'll bet you the price of--anything you
name--that I can get a feed, a genuine,
Mayfield-with-all-accompaniments, a Mayfield
beer-beefsteak-Swiss-cheese-wine-and-song feed out of Boggsie!"
The aroma of the coffee filled the room. Jimmy polished his stein and a
tumbler and poured for the two of them.
"But for my principle never to bet on a sure thing, I'd take you," he
answered calmly. "You exclusive frat-men over on the Row" (Pellams was
always loafing around the Hall) "haven't lived long enough with Boggsie
to know him. He's a lobster, Pellams."
But the fat Junior sat there with mirth shining from every line of his
face, and drank his coffee; then he rolled on the floor in joyous
delirium and beat Jimmy's rugs with an Indian club until the man
overhead jumped out of bed and shouted uncultured things down the
elevator.
"Jimmy, darling!" cried he, waving a leg in the air for pure rapture,
"Boggsie will treat, sure. We'll get him on his one big weakness; we'll
play politics against pinching; you watch the office seek the man."
"I don't--"
"I do. Look here; to-morrow we nominate him. You have a mob on the back
seats applauding like fiends, and I'll be the power behind the throne to
such a campaign of blood, beer and boodle as you never saw, old
Laundry-bags. We'll make Boggsie think he's ahead all the time; we can
get him _some_ votes, you know; and then he's to go away election day
for the sake of the proprieties. I telegraph to him, 'Elected by one
vote. Feed!' We have the feed business all properly worked up by that
time, of course; just sizzling in his brain, and when he gets off the
train we'll meet him with a mob and a brass band, run him to Mayfield or
Menlo, and there'll be a sound of revelry by night at his expense."
The ruin of this particular cramming seminary was accomplished. The
"coffee hours" were spent in a conference broken by smothered laughter,
and by "Nosey" Marion's sleepy protests from behind the curtains.
Next day, after Higgins and Castleton had been duly placed in
nomination, Pellams rose from his seat in Chapel and nominated "Lorenzo
Boggs, gentleman and student; a man who has let college politics alone,
never having sought office from his fellow-students until now, when the
office seeks him--Lorenzo Boggs for Student-Body president," amidst a
storm of applause half ironical, half worked up by Jimmy Mason.
Pellams flunked in the examination; his co-conspirator passed meagerly;
but Pellams' heart lost little of its wonted buoyancy. This was about
the last class of any kind he attended in the week between nomination
and election. From the Row to the Hall and from the Hall to Palo Alto he
moved with an energy rare to his rotund body. It was a new sensation,
politics with a josh behind. He revelled in it.
"We have to put up some show of constituents, you know," he said to
Mason; "and, as Higgins and Castleton have no strings on me, I might as
well help Boggsie out. Too bad my personal magnetism isn't being
diffused for a more likely candidate."
"Looks curious," said Jimmy, "the fight Boggs is putting up. Yesterday I
struck the Women's Debating League; they won't vote for Higgins because
they have been credibly informed--by the Castleton people, of
course--that he's bad, and--"
"You and I should have been nominated, St. James," interrupted Pellams,
crossing his hands on his breast and looking at the gas fixture.
"And they won't vote for Castleton because they have found out that when
he fixed up the open meeting between his society and theirs he was only
playing for votes."
"Do you know that Boggs has a girl cousin in Palo Alto? He has worked
her to whoop it up for him down there."
"His literary society will go for him all right. They are tired of the
way Castleton and Higgins have been waiting for the job to drop down
like a ripe plum. Those two marks have worked the thing too long."
"Jimmy, you don't mean that Boggs has any chance?"
"Not a ghost. But we don't have to work up the whole thing; there'll be
enough to make a decent showing and lend an air of truth to that
telegram of ours. What have you done?"
"Got the Rhos, anyway. We won't vote for anyone as a frat; the fellows
hate Castleton on account of that Annual-board election last Christmas,
and Higgins has thrown mud at us that we know of. I've about signed them
all, except Duncan. Bob knew Higgins' wife's cousin in some dark corner
of the country. Say, it's funny how tired people in general are getting
of Higgins and Castleton and their gang politics. At Palo Alto yesterday
I heard a crowd talking about it. 'Down with organized politics,' they
said, and one of them who works in the laboratory with Boggsie said he
was going to vote for modest merit."
"Keep it going, Pellams, it won't hurt. Soothe his feelings beautifully
after the banquet. I have it all fixed up to get him off the campus."
Higgins' stock went down wonderfully in the next few days. Higgins, said
the Castleton men, had pulled wires and worked combinations ever since
he had been in the University. It hurts a College politician to have it
known that he has been in politics. They pointed to his rather doubtful
record as a member of the _Daily Palo Alto_ board. The sins of his
Freshman days rose up against him when they touched on the fact that he
had been elected class-president on a barb ticket, and had immediately
gone over to the enemy in a fraternity house. Finally, to fill his cup,
a Freshman, who had withstood fraternity blandishments for a year,
glided through the hands of the Gamma Chi Taus, who fully believed they
had him, and appeared on the very Sunday preceding election in all the
glory of Higgins' frat pin. It was a bad slip; right there it cost
fifteen Gamma Chi votes with a large girl following.
"It isn't the swell girls that count for numbers, anyway," reflected the
Higgins' supporters, wisely, and they turned to the cultivation of the
dig girl who trails up the cinder paths mornings at eight, and who lives
in the library during football practice. But the girl cousin of Boggs
had been there to good purpose when they turned in that direction, and
Roble only showed Castleton still ahead. Then a not over-scrupulous
Junior in Higgins' trail started a story on Castleton, a tale calculated
to put him in the same category, so far as being "bad" was concerned.
Wednesday evening the anecdote reached Roble; a girl who had a brother
heard it spreading at dinner, and by noon next day half the girls in
Roble had their opinion of a crowd that would start such a malicious
libel on Mr. Castleton "just to get votes." The Encina politicians did
not know Roble girls for nothing.
So it happened on Thursday that Pellams clumped breathlessly into
Jimmy's room with a still wet copy of the _Daily_ and tragically pointed
to the notice: "_WithdrawalI: I hereby withdraw from my candidacy for
Student-Body presidency in favor of Lorenzo Boggs. Andrew Higgins."
"Ye gods," gasped the Sophomore, "he can't win, Pellams, he can't!
Castleton gets it sure. For heaven's sake, don't put the gang on to this
until after to-morrow, though. I wouldn't have the double-cross worked
on us for a cool ten credits."
Fair dawned the day that was to float or to wreck so many little hopes.
There are two periods of the year when the professor who has been young
forgets the roll-call, and the one who never has been, remembers it. The
first period comes in late November; the other is the morning of the
Student-Body election.
With consummate tact, Jimmy had come to an understanding with Boggs as
to the propriety of his leaving the campus during the election.
"You see, you stand a splendid show of getting it," he explained, "and
the appropriate thing for you is to keep out of sight. When Pellams
nominated you he made a point out of the fact that the office was
seeking you; that has been a leading feature of the campaign, and it has
won you lots of votes. You must not spoil the impression you have made
for yourself and which we have emphasized all along. See?"
Boggs saw, or thought he did, and went to town, ostensibly to carry out
a commission for Pellams, but not before he had rallied some of his
constituents and given them final instructions. It was wonderful to see
what a variety of tastes and interests were represented. An older
politician would have scented danger from the fact that so many of them
had never come out into the arena before; but Jimmy only looked with
smiling curiosity on the Ethics major or the Education "shark," dug up
somewhere from their abstruse speculations.
It was on their way to the station that Jimmy touched on the remaining
issue of the campaign which he was managing.
"You remember my speaking about a feed the other day? I ought to have
spoken more fully, but I've been busy with other details."
"Oh,"--began Boggs.
"You know the custom," cut in the conspirator; "it will be expected of
you if you get the office; it ought to come off to-night to be done
properly."
"That will all be attended to," said Boggs calmly.
"You've seen about it?"
"It's all fixed."
"There'll be a lot of them; they will meet you at the train and you'll
have to do it in shape. I can lend you a little."
"Thanks, old man," said the victim, squeezing Mason's arm, "but just you
leave that to me. It's all arranged to do the square thing by the people
who have stood in with me. So long. Look out for me, won't you? I'll be
down on the Flyer."
When Jimmy got back to the Quadrangle there was a shifting mass about
the polls. Encina politicians were there, Palo Alto politicians,
serious-looking fellows from the Camp, and spruce ones from the Row.
Castleton's followers stood in groups, looking smug and confident, while
sour-faced Higgins people were revengefully putting in all their work
for Boggs.
Every election has its Mark Hanna; this time it was Jennie Brown, whom
Pellams knew as "Boggsie's dig girl cousin." She was the silent spirit
of the whole Boggs campaign. Mason, in telling the story of it
afterward, said:
"Pellams and I were there when the polls opened. That girl was on hand,
too, with a gang of Palo Alto girls all ready to start things for
Boggsie. Well, you ought to have seen her. Heaven help us and our
masculine schemes if they get women suffrage and the Brown lives. At
ten-thirty in the first rush she steered a whole Education class, worked
them beautifully past Castleton's hungry heelers, right up to the
ballot-box. _She_ wasn't working combinations; it cut no ice with her
how they voted for managers, and treasurers and editors, so long as they
were solid for Lorenzo Boggs.
[Illustration: ... THEN A LULL DURING CLASS.]
"I numbered them off as they voted, and I could see that things were
going darkly and suspiciously for our friend the Lobster. 'What do you
think of it?' says Pellams. He was getting excited. 'We didn't know our
power, did we? Look at the votes he's rolling up. Say, we're corkers and
never knew it!' A few classes from the respectable part of the Quad,
where they do Political Science, came drifting along then with votes for
Castleton, and it went Castleton for awhile; then a lull during
class, followed by a scattering vote for Boggs. It was about an even
thing during eleven-thirty break, with Castleton still ahead. The frat
votes fell in bunches in the biggest rush at noon; I could catch old
Boggsie's name marked on most of them, but Castleton was full fifty to
the good then. I bolted lunch with Pellams at his house and came back to
the Quad. Things were beginning to happen. People I never heard of, the
kind of bird that floats in and out on the train and probably doesn't
know there is a Student-Body with troubles of its own; digs, crawling
out into the light, blinking away at the line; Laboratory fiends in
squads, actually losing twenty minutes of precious credit,--the darndest
crowd of resurrected stiffs the Quad ever saw, strung out from the
registrar's office to the polls, every last one of them squeezing a
ballot properly marked ahead, all looking as if it were a conferring of
degrees, serious as hell, you know, and the eye of the Brown girl or of
one of her crowd fastened on each of them. Poor Castleton, he was a
goner! His heelers got up against this line of sphinxes and fell back,
done up. It was two o'clock and after; still the vote rolled up. At
two-thirty they closed shop, and Pellams and I fell on each other's
chests behind a pillar, and busted at the josh on ourselves.
"Then we went over to get the figures of our triumph. 'Boggs, 402;
Castleton, 375,' and the biggest vote in the history of the office.
Well, you bet we went down to the train! Couldn't freeze _us_ out! We
were going to pry open the Lobster's claws and use them for a corkscrew.
So we piled into a 'bus. But, honest, we were paralyzed.
"Down at the station was the conquering Brown with her people, all
watching for the train. Say, when Boggsie saw the whole gang of us, he
was a balloon. He got up on a truck and made us a speech of thanks.
Pellams and I yelled 'Hear, Hear,' right along. Oh, it was awful! He
gave us the whole history of the Student-Body from the days of
'Ninety-one up. Finally Pellams couldn't stand it any longer and called
out, 'Good boy, Boggsie. How about that feed?' and Boggsie waved his
hand like a Tuesday evening spieler and said, 'I have provided for that,
ladies and gentlemen. Miss Brown, my cousin, invites you all down to her
home in Palo Alto for a little refreshment. Everyone is welcome.'
"I had to pick my fat friend up. Boggsie's getting out of the whole
thing without spending a bean knocked him cold. But he got his wind
later. You ought to have heard his speech down there at the house, with
a plate of melted strawberry muck in one hand and a glass of sour in the
other, replying to Boggsie's vote of thanks to us two, and skinning his
face at the Brown girl. Oh, it was a peach!"
IN THE DARK DAYS.
In the Dark Days.
"Mrs. Leland Stanford has decided to sell her jewels to keep
open the doors of the University."
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTS, 1896.
Bonita, mother of racers, stood just beyond the shadow of an oak tree,
leisurely cropping the new pasture grass. Occasionally, she lifted her
head toward the red roofs of the University buildings as though she
expected somebody. The chimney sent up a stripe of black against patches
of cloud and sky, and the even hum of the shops came across the pasture
with a distinctness born of the motionless Spring air. Bonita, putting
her pointed ears forward, could catch the upper notes of the chorus,
rehearsing in the Chapel.
Such a day as this should bring Craig into the pastures. He could lean
on the fence and pull at his pipe to his heart's content. The brood-mare
did not fancy the smoke, but she liked to have him talk to her. There
were a number of interests they had in common; the smell of the new
grass, the tempting silver-green of willows budding along the lake
beyond the fence, delighted him, too, while Bonita herself was deeply
interested in his University.
She could remember perfectly the days when the ranch spread undisturbed
from her paddock in the stockfarm yard to the deep shadows of the
Arboretum. Then she was only a colt, to be sure; but the world beyond
the paddock fence interested her. The grooms in the yard were not more
sorry than she herself that the last colt from a famous sire should be a
filly with an imperfect ankle-joint. When they took the other colts out
of the paddock to put them through their morning lessons around the
little ring in the kindergarten, she wished mightily to follow. She
turned about the corral at a good speed to show them that she had the
proper spirit of her blood, but they always shut the red gate too soon
and the others went on up the road impudently flicking their fuzzy tails
at her.
A gray-bearded man with kindly eyes, whom they called the "Governor,"
used to drive up under the blossoming eucalyptus trees every now and
then; he stopped one day by her paddock and came to look at her. Bonita
liked him at once, and she paid him the most delicate attention she knew
by trying to eat his clothes. The Governor laughed as he put her off,
and said that it was too bad about her ankle. Then he drove over to
watch the kindergarten learn the alphabet of race-winning.