They stood in droves, in the sheltered entrances of the halls, and
occasionally darted out by ones and twos and threes to rescue distressed
co-eds.
* * * * *
Down in the room over the tin and plumbing shop in which I lived, I
found it cold indeed. I could afford no heat ... and, believing in
windows open, knew every searching drop in the barometer.
But never in my life was I happier, despite my secretly cherished love
for Vanna. For I assured myself in my heart of certain future fame, the
fame I had dreamed of since childhood. And I wore every hardship as an
adornment, conscious of the greatness of my cause.
Isolation; half-starvation; cold; inadequate clothing;--all counted for
the glory of poetry, as martyrs had accepted persecution and suffering
for the glory of God.
My two hours of daily work irked me. I wanted the time for my writing
and studying ... but I still continued living above the din of the shop
that I had grown accustomed to, by this time.
Rarely, when the nights were so subarctic as to be almost unbearable,
did I slip down through the skylight and seek out the comparative warmth
of the shop ... and there, on the platform where the desk stood so that
it could overlook all the store, I wrote and studied.
But Randall said this worried the night watchman too much, my appearing
and disappearing, all hours of the night. He didn't relish coming every
time to see if the store was being burglarised.
* * * * *
The outside world was beginning to notice me. My poems, two of which I
had sold to the _Century_, two to _Everybody's_, and a score to the
_Independent_, were, as soon as they appeared in those magazines,
immediately copied by the Kansas newspapers. And the Kansas City _Star_
featured a story of me at Laurel, playing up my freaks and oddities ...
but accompanied by a flattering picture that "Con" Cummins, our college
photographer, had taken.
Also I was receiving occasional letters from strangers who had read my
poems. But they were mostly letters from cranks ... or from girls very,
very young and sentimental, or on the verge of old-maidhood, who were
casting about for some escape from the narrow daily life that environed
them....
But one morning a letter came to me so scrawlingly addressed that I
marvelled at the ability of the postal authorities in deciphering it.
The writer of it hailed me as a poet of great achievement already, but
of much greater future promise.... Mr. Lephil, editor of the _National
Magazine_, for whom he was writing a serial, had showed him some of my
verse, and he must hasten to encourage me ... I puzzled long over the
writer's signature.... It could not be possible! but it seemed to be
inscribed with the name of a novelist famous for his investigations of
capitalistic abuses of the people ... the author of the sensational
novel, _The Slaughter House_, which was said to out-Zola Zola--Penton
Baxter.
I hurried downstairs from my attic, to intercept some friend who would
confirm me in my interpretation of the signature.
It was Travers I ran into. I showed the letter to him.
"By Jove! It _is_ Baxter!" he cried.
He was as overwhelmed as I had been.
"Say, Johnnie, you must really amount to something, with all these
people back East paying such attention to you ... come on into Kuhlman's
and have a "coke" with me."
In Kuhlman's, the college foregathering place, the ice cream and
refreshment parlour of the town, we joined with Jimmy Thompson, our
famous football quarterback. The room was full of students eating ice
cream and drinking coco-cola and ice cream sodas.
"Say, let me print this."
"No, but you may put an item in the _Laurelian_, if you want to."
"I must write a story for the _Star_ about it."
It would have pleased my vanity to have had Jack put the story in the
papers, but I was afraid of offending Baxter ... afterward I learned
that it would not have offended him ... he had the vanity of a child, as
well as I.
I answered his letter promptly, in terms of what might have seemed, to
the outside eye, excessive adulation. But Penton Baxter was to me a
great genius ... and nothing I could have written in his praise would
have overweighed the debt I owed him for that fine letter of
encouragement.
* * * * *
So at last I was reaping the fruits of my years of struggle for the
poetic ideal--my years of poverty and suffering.
A belated student at college, twenty-five years of age ... a tramp for
the sake of my art ... as I sat in my cold room ... propped up by my one
overturned chair ... in bed ... betaking myself there to keep from
freezing while I wrote and dreamed and read and studied,--I burst out
singing some of my own verses, making the tune to the lines as I went
along.
"John Gregory, you are a great man, and some day all the world shall
know and acknowledge it!" I said over and over again to myself....
"And now, Vanna, my love, my darling," I cried aloud, so that if anyone
overheard, the auditor would think I was going mad, "now, Vanna, you
shall see ... in a year I shall have my first book of poetry out ... and
fame and money for royalties will be mine ... then I will dare speak to
you boldly of my love for you ... and you will be glad and proud of it
... and be happy to marry me and be my wife!"
* * * * *
In the meantime Vanna Andrews was daily seen driving down the streets
with Billy Conway, whose father was Governor of a Western State ... as I
saw her going by in her fragile beauty, I bowed my head to her, and in
return came a slight nod of mere, passing acquaintanceship.
I made friends with Billy, as I had done with Vanna's homely room-mate
... who thought I was becoming interested in her--because I often spoke
in Vanna's dispraise, to throw her off the track, and to encourage her
to speak at greater length of the woman I loved and worshipped from
a-far.
Now I sought through Billy Conway a nearer opportunity for her favour.
He approached me one day while we were out on the football field,
practicing formations. I was on the scrub team--whose duty it was to
help knock the big team into shape.
"Johnnie, you know Vanna, don't you?... Vanna Andrews, the art student."
"Slightly," I concealed, thanking God I hadn't blushed straightway at
the mention of her name ... "--met her when I posed for Professor
Grant's classes."
"She's a beaut, ain't she?"
"Everybody thinks so."
"Don't you?"
"She'd be perfect, if she weren't so thin," I answered, almost
smothering from the thumping of my heart.
"I've often wondered what makes you so cold toward the girls ... when
you write poetry ... poets are supposed to be romantic."
"We have a good imagination."
"--wish you'd exercise your imagination a little for me ... I'd pay you
for it."
"For what?"
"--writing poems on Vanna, for me."
My heart gave a wild jump of joy at the opportunity.
"I'll think it over. But if I do so, I won't take anything for it."
Billy shook my hand fervently.
"You're all right, Gregory ... it'll help me a lot ... I've got a case
on her, I'll admit."
"Come on!" roared Coach Shaughnessy, "get on the job."
He began calling letters and numbers for a play.
And just for a joke, he took "Barrel" Way, the two hundred pound
fullback, aside, and "Rock-crusher" Morton ... he whispered them, I
afterward learned, to give me rough stuff, go through me with a bang....
"Rock-crusher" took the ball, with "Barrel" for interference ... they
came flashing my way.
I was so frenzied with joy over the prospect of getting my poems through
to Vanna, even if it was in another man's behalf, that I flung myself
forward and brought both stars down with only a yard gained.
Shaughnessy gave a whoop of joyous amazement and the other boys shouted,
and kidded "Barrel" and "Rock-crusher," the latter of whom won his
nickname from the gentle way he had of hitting his antagonists with his
hard knees as he ran into them, and bowling them over ... he was a
recruit from the hurdles, who ran "high."
Shaughnessy came over to me.
"Gregory, I want to say right here, I wish you took enough studies, and
you could make sub on the big team right off. You're skinny, but you've
got the mettle I wish all my boys had."
No sooner was I out of my football clothes than I hurried to Kuhlman's,
drank three coco-colas to stimulate me, and went to my room, to write my
first poem for Vanna....
Nearly every day Billy received a poem from me. Henceforth, when I
passed Vanna, I received a gentle, appreciative smile ... but I was too
timid even to speak to her ... and too self-conscious of my clothes,
which were worn and frayed....
* * * * *
There were a few negro students at Laurel. One of them, a girl named
Matty Smith, approached me in the library one day, introduced herself as
one of the chairmen of the entertainment committee of the First African
Methodist Church, and asked me if I would come and give them a talk the
following Saturday night....
The night came ... I found myself on the platform with the preacher by
my side. They had seated me in the chair of honour.
First the congregation prayed and sang ... such singing, so clear and
soaring and melodious. It rocked the very church, burst out through the
windows in great surges of melody.