_Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant
to me--E'en take it for a sacrifice, acceptable to Thee_.
--KIPLING
THE ball game on Friday, the thirteenth, was a great event this year.
The Sunrise football eleven had held the championship record with an
uncrossed goal line in the autumn. The basket-ball team had had no
defeat this year. Debating tests had given Sunrise the victory. That
came through Trench and the crippled student. And the state oratorical
struggle repeated the story, a conquest, all the greater because Victor
Burleigh, the athlete, wore also the laurels of oratory. And why should
he not, with that fine presence and magnificent voice? As Dr. Fenneben
listened to his forceful logic he saw clearly the line for the boy's
future, a line, he thought, that could end at last only in the pulpit.
One more battle to fight now and Lagonda Ledge and the whole Walnut
Valley would go down in history as famous soil. It was a banner year for
Sunrise, and enthusiasm was at fever pitch, which in college is the only
healthy temperature. In this last battle Sunrise turned again to Victor
Burleigh as its highest hope. Although this was his first game for the
season, he had never failed to bring victory to the Sunrise banners, and
in all his base-ball practice he was as unerring as he was speedy. And
then success was his habit anyhow. So “Burleigh at the bat” was the
slogan now from the summit of the college ridge to the farthest corners
of Lagonda Ledge; and idol worship were insignificant compared to the
adulation poured out on him. And Burleigh, being young and very human,
had all the pleasure the adoration of a community can bring to its local
hero. For truly, few triumphs in life's later years can be fraught with
half the keen joy these school day victories bring. And the applause of
listening senates means less than good old comrades' yells.
Vincent Burgess, A.B., Greek Professor from Boston, seemed to have
forgotten entirely about types and geographical breadths and seclusion
for profound research amid barren prairies. He was faculty member on the
Athletic board now and enthusiastic about all college sports. Sunrise
had done this much for him anyhow. In addition, the young educator was
taking on a little roundness, suggestive of a stout form in middle life.
But Vincent Burgess had not forgotten all of the motives that had
pulled him Kansas-ward, although unknown to Dr. Fenneben, he had already
refused to consider a position higher up in an eastern college. He was
not quite ready to leave the West yet. Of course, not. Elinor Wream was
only half through school and growing more popular as she was growing
more womanly and more beautiful each year. His salvation lay in keeping
on the grounds if he would hold his claim undisturbed.
Burgess had come to Kansas, he had told Fenneben, in order to know
something of the state where his only sister had lived. He did not know
yet all he wished to know about her life and death here. Her name was
never spoken in his father's presence after she came West, so great was
that father's anger over her leaving the East. And deep in Vincent's
mind he fixed the impression that his daughter had died as unreconciled
to her brother as to her father himself.
This was all his own business, however, and hidden deep, almost out of
sight of himself, was a selfish motive that had not yet put a visible
mark on the surface.
Burgess wanted to marry Norrie Wream, and he wanted her to have all the
good things of life which in her simple rearing had been denied her.
The heritage from his father's estate included certain trust funds
ambiguously bestowed by an eccentric English ancestor upon someone who
had come West not long before his death. These funds Vincent held by his
father's will--to which will Joshua Wream was witness--on condition that
no heir to these funds was living. If there were such person or persons
living--but Burgess knew there were none. Joshua Wream had made sure of
that for him before he left Cambridge. And yet it might be well to
stay in Kansas for a year or two--much better to settle any possible
difficulty here than to have anything follow him East later. For Burgess
had his eye on Dr. Wream's chair in Harvard when the old man should
give it up. That was a part of the contract between the two men, the old
doctor and the young professor. Until the night when Bond Saxon forced
him to take an unwilling oath, Burgess had had a comfortable conscience,
sure that his financial future was settled, and confident that this
assured him the hand of Elinor Wream when the time was ripe. With that
October night, however, a weight of anxiety began that increased with
the passing days. For as he grew nearer to the student life and took on
flesh and good will and a broader knowledge of the worth of humanity, so
he grew nearer to this smoothly hidden inner care. And, outside and in,
he wanted to stay in Kansas for the time.
In the weeks before the big ball game, Victor Burleigh seemed to have
forgotten the glen and the west bluff above the Kickapoo Corral. The
girls who would have substituted for Elinor in the afternoon ramble took
up much of the big sophomore's time, and he never seemed more gay nor
care free. And Elinor, if she had a heartache, did not show it in her
happy manner.
On the afternoon before the ball game, a May thunderstorm swept the
Walnut Valley and the darkness fell early. As Dennie Saxon waited on
the Sunrise portico before starting out in the rain, Professor Burgess
locked the front door and joined her. Victor Burleigh was also waiting
beside a stone column for the shower to lighten. Burgess did not see
him in the darkening twilight and Burleigh never spoke to the young
instructor when it was not necessary.
“I must be nervous,” Professor Burgess said, trying to manage Dennie's
umbrella and catching it in her hair. “I had a letter today that worried
me.”
“Too bad!” Dennie said sympathetically.
“I'll tell you all about it sometime.”
He was trying to loose the wire rib-joint from Dennie's hair, which
the dampness was rolling in soft little ringlets about her forehead and
neck. Half-consciously, he remembered the same outline of rippling
hair, as it had looked in the glow of the October camp fire down in the
Kickapoo Corral when she was telling the old legend of Swift Elk and The
Fawn of the Morning Light. She smiled up at him consolingly. Dennie was
level-headed, and life was always worth living where she was.
“I'll be your rain beau.” He took her arm to assist her down the steps.
So courteous was his action, she might have been a lady of rank instead
of old Bond Saxon's daughter carrying her own weight of a sorrow greater
than Lagonda Ledge dreamed of. As the two walked slowly homeward under
the dripping shelter of the trees, Vincent Burgess felt a sense of
comfort and pleasure out of all keeping for a man in love elsewhere.
Victor Burleigh watched them from the shadow of the portico column.
“I believe Trench is right. He insists that Burgess likes Dennie, or
that he is mean enough to deceive Dennie into liking him. A man like
that ought to be killed--a scholar, and a rich man, and Dennie such a
brave little poor girl with a kind, weak-kneed, old father on her heart.
Norrie ought to know this, but who am I to say a word?”
“Victor Burleigh, won't you release the fair princess from the tower?” a
girl's voice called.
Vic turned to see Elinor framed in the half-way window of the south
turret. And in that dripping shadowy light, no frame could want a rarer
picture.
“I've fallen into the pit and am far on the road to perdition,” Elinor
said. “I hurried down this way from choir practice and Uncle Lloyd's
gone and left the lower door locked. It thundered so, and Dennie didn't
come into the study, and nobody heard my screams. But if I perish, I
perish,” she added with mock resignation.
“If you'll let up on perishing for half a minute, Rapunzel, I'll to
the rescue,” Vic cried, “if I have to climb the dome and knock the _per
aspera_ out of the State Seal and come down through the hole, _per astra
ad aspera_.” And then he rushed off to find an unlocked exit to the
building.
From the Chapel end of the circular stairs, he called presently.
“Curfew must not ring for a couple of seconds. Rise to the surface, fair
mermaid.”
Elinor came up the winding stair into the dimly lighted chapel at his
call. The two had avoided each other since the April day in the glen.
They were not to blame for this chance meeting now.
“When you are in trouble and the nights are dark and rainy, call me,
Elinor,” Vic said as they were crossing the rotunda.
“If I show you sometimes how to look up and find the light, as you
showed me the Sunrise beacon on the night of the storm out on West
Bluff, you may be glad you heard me. See that glow on the dome! You
would have missed that down in Lagonda Ledge.”
A level ray from a momentary cloudrift in the western sky smote the
stained glass of the dome, lighting its gleaming inscription with a
fleeting radiance.
“But the light comes rarely and is so far away, and between times, only
the cave, and the dark ways behind it leading to the river,” he said
gravely. The sorrow of hopelessness was his tone.
“Not unless one chooses to burrow downward,” she replied softly. “Let's
hurry home. Tomorrow you will be 'Victor the Famous' again. I hope this
shower won't spoil the ball game.”
As night deepened, the rain fell steadily. Up in Victor Burleigh's room
Bug Buler grew drowsy early.
“I want to say my pwayers now, Vic,” he said.
The big fellow put down his book and took the child in his arms. Bug
had a genius for praying briefly and for others rather than for himself.
Tonight he merely clasped his chubby hands and said, reverently:
“Dear Dod, please ist make Vic dood as folks finks he is, for Thwist's
sake. Amen-n-n.”
When he fell asleep, Victor sat a long while staring at the window where
the May rain was beating heavily. At length, he bent over little Bug and
pushed back the curls from his brow. Bug smiled up drowsily and went on
sleeping.
“As good as folks think I am, Bug!” he mused. “You have gotten between
me and the rattlesnakes that were after my soul a good many times,
little brother-of-mine. As good as folks think I am! Do you know what it
costs to be that good?”
Ten minutes later he sat in Lloyd Fenneben's library.
“I have come for help,” he said in reply to the Dean's questioning face.
“I hope I can give it,” Fenneben responded.
“It's about tomorrow's game. There are sure to be some professional
players on the other team. I want Sunrise to win. I want to win myself.”
Vic's voice was harsh tonight. And the Dean caught the hard tone.
“I want Sunrise to win. I want you to win. There will probably be some
professionals to play against, but we have no way of proving this,”
Fenneben said.
“What do you think of such playing, Doctor?” Vic asked.
“I think the rule about professionalism is often a strained piece of
foolishness. It is violated persistently and persistently winked at, but
so long as it is the rule there is only one square thing to do, and that
is to live up to the law. You should not dread any professionalism in
the game tomorrow, however. You'll bring us through anyhow, and keep the
Sunrise name and fame untarnished.” The Dean smiled genially.
Burleigh's face was very pale and a strange fire burned in his eyes.
“Dr. Fenneben”--his musical voice rang clear--“I'm only a poor devil
from the short-grass country where life each year depends on that year's
crop. Three years out of four, the wind and drouth bring only failure
at harvest time. Then we starve our bodies and grip onto hope and
determination with our souls till seedtime comes again. I want a college
education. Last summer burned us out as usual within a month of harvest.
Then the mortgage got in its work on my claim and I had to give it up.
I had barely enough to get through here at pauper rates this year--but
I could n't do it and keep Bug, too. I went into Colorado and played
baseball for pay, so I could come here and bring him with me. That's why
I can out-bat our team, and could win dead easy for Sunrise tomorrow.
Nobody in Kansas knows it. Now, what shall I do?”
The words were shot out like bullets.
“What shall you do?” Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes held Burleigh. “There
is only one thing to do. When you ranked high in grades with only the
trivial matter of excusable absence against you--no broken law--you took
Professor Burgess gently by the throat and told him you meant to play
anyhow. You stood your ground like a man, for your own sake and for the
honor of Sunrise. Stand like a man for your own sake and the honor of
Sunrise, now. Go to Professor Burgess and take him gently--by the hand,
this time--and tell him you do not mean to play, and why you cannot.”
Burleigh sat still as stone, his face white as marble, his wide-open
eyes under his black brows seeing nothing.
“But our proud record--the glorious honor of this college,” he said at
length, and back of his words was the thought of Victor Burleigh, the
idol of Sunrise, dethroned, where he had been adored.
“There is no honor for a college like the honesty of its students. There
is no prouder record than the record of daring to do the right. You
could get into the game once by a brute's strength. Get out of it now by
a gentleman's honor.”
Behind the speech was Lloyd Fenneben himself, sympathetic, firm,
upright, before whom the harshness of Victor Burleigh's face slowly gave
place to an expression of sorrow.
“My boy,” Fenneben said gently, “Nature gave us the Walnut Valley with
its limestone ledges and fine forest trees. But before our Sunrise could
be builded the ledge had to be shapen into the hewn stone, the green
tree to the seasoned lumber, quarter-sawed oak--quarter-sawed, mind you.
Mill, forge and try-pit, ax and saw and chisel, with cleft and blow
and furnace heat, shaped them all for Service. Over our doorway is
the Sunrise initial. It stands also for Strife, part of which you know
already; but it stands for Sacrifice as well. You are in the shaping.
God grant you may be turned out a man fitted by Sacrifice for Service
when the shaping is done.”
Burleigh rose, silent still, and the two went out together. At the
doorway, he turned to Fenneben, who grasped his hand without a word. And
once again, the firm hand clasp of the Dean of Sunrise seemed to bind
the country boy to the finer things of life. It had done the same on
that day after the Thanksgiving game when he sat in Fenneben's study,
and understood for the first time what gives the right to pride in
brawny arm and steel-spring nerve.
After Burleigh left him, Lloyd Fenneben stood for a long time on his
veranda in the light of the doorway watching the steady downpour of the
warm May rain. As he turned at length to enter the house a rough-looking
man with rain-soaked clothing and slouched hat, sprang out of the
shadows.
“Stranger,” he called hastily. “There's a little child fell in the river
round the bend, and his mother got hold of him, but she can't pull him
out, and can't hold on much longer. Will you come help me, quick? I've
only got one arm or I would n't have had to ask for help.”
An empty sleeve was flapping in the rain, and Fenneben did not notice
then that the man kept that side of himself all the time in the shadows.
Fenneben had only one thought as he hurried away in the darkness, to
save the woman and child. His companion said little, directing the
course toward the bend in the river before the gateway of Pigeon Place.
As they pushed on with all speed through rain and mud, Fenneben was
hardly conscious that Dennie Saxon's words about the lonely gray-haired
hermit woman were recurring curiously to his mind.
“If talking about Sunrise made her cry like that, maybe you might do
something for her,” Dennie had said. He had never tried to do anything
for her. Somehow she seemed to be the woman who was in peril now, and
he was half-consciously blaming himself that he had never tried to help
her, had not even thought of her for months. Women were not in his line,
except the kindly impersonal interest he felt for all the Sunrise
girls, and his sense of responsibility for Norrie, and the memory of a
girl--oh, the hungry haunting memory!
All this in a semi-conscious fleetness swept across his mind, that was
bent on reaching the river, and on that woman holding a drowning child.
At the bend in the river, the man halted suddenly.
“Look out! There's a stone; don't stumble!” he said hoarsely, dodging
back as he spoke.
Then Fenneben was conscious of his own feet striking the slab of stone
by the roadside, of a sudden shove from somebody behind him, a two-armed
man it must have been, of stumbling blindly, trying to catch at the elm
tree that stood there, of falling through the underbrush, headforemost,
into the river, even of striking the water. As he fell, he was very
faintly conscious of a sense of pity for Victor Burleigh fighting out a
battle with his own honor tonight, and then he must have heard a dog's
fierce yelp, and a woman's scream. Somehow, it seemed to come through
distance of time, as out of past years, and not through length of
space--and then of a brutal laugh and an oath with the words:
“Now for Josh Wream, and--”
But Fenneben's head had struck the stone ledge against which the Walnut
ripples at low tide, and for a long time he knew no more.
It was raining still when Victor Burleigh reached the Saxon House.
At the door he met Professor Burgess, who was just leaving. Strangely
enough, the memory of their first meeting at the campus gate on a
September day flashed into the mind of each as they came face to face
now. They never spoke to each other except when it was necessary. And
yet tonight, something made them greet each other courteously.
“Professor, will you be kind enough to come up to my room a few
minutes?” Burleigh asked, lifting his cap to his instructor with the
words.
“Certainly,” Vincent Burgess said with equal grace.
Bug Buler had kicked off the bed covering and lay fast asleep on his
little cot with his stubby arms bare, and his little fat hands, dimpled
in each knuckle, thrown wide apart.
“I saw a picture like this once for the sign of the cross,” Vic said as
he drew the covering over the little form. “Bug has been a cross to me
sometimes, but he's oftener my salvation.”
Professor Burgess wondered again, why a boy like Burleigh should have
been given a voice of such rare charm.
“I will not keep you long,” Vic said, turning from Bug. “I cannot play
in tomorrow's game, and be a man.”
Then, briefly, he explained the reason.
“It is raining still. Take my umbrella,” he said at the close of his
simply told story. “But tomorrow's sunshine will dry the field for the
game, all right. Good night.”
“Good night,” Vincent Burgess said hoarsely, and plunged into the
darkness and the rain.
Ten steps from the Saxon House, he came plump into Bond Saxon, who
staggered a little to avoid him.
“My luck on rainy nights,” Vincent thought. “The old fellow's sprees
seem to run with the storms. He hasn't been 'off' for a long time.”
But Bond Saxon was never more sober in his life, and he clutched the
young man's arm eagerly.
“Professor Burgess, won't you help me!” he cried.
“What do you want to do on a night like this?” Burgess asked,
remembering the vow he had been forced to make, by this same man.
“Come help me save a man's life!” Bond urged.
“Look here, Saxon. You've got some wild notion out of a boot-legger's
bottle. Straighten up now. It's an infamous thing in a college town like
Lagonda Ledge, where neither a saloon nor a joint would be allowed, that
some imp of Satan should forever be bringing you whisky. Who does it,
anyhow?”
“I'm not drunk and haven't been for six months. Come on, for God's sake,
and help me to save a life, maybe two lives, from the very man that's
done the boot-leggin' and robbin' in this town for months and months.”
Saxon's words were convincing enough.
“What can I do?” Burgess asked. “I'm not a policeman.”
“Come on! Come on!” Saxon urged, tugging at the professor's arm. “It 's
a life, I tell you.”
Vincent yielded unwillingly, the night, the beating rain, the man who
asked it of him, the purpose, his own unfitness--all holding him back.
Before they had gone far, Bond Saxon suddenly exclaimed:
“Say, Professor, do you remember the night I asked you to take care of
Dennie if anything should happen to me?”
“Do YOU remember it?” Burgess responded. “You didn't ask; you demanded.”
“I was drunk then. I'm sober now. Burgess, if anything should happen to
me now, would you still be willing?” Bond Saxon asked in tense anxiety.
“I've already taken oath,” Burgess said. “I think your daughter may need
somebody's care before anything happens if you keep up this gait.”
They hurried on through the rain until they had left the board walk and
the town lights, and were staggering along the cinder-made path, when
Burgess halted.
“Saxon, who's the man, or two men, you want to save? I believe you are
drunk.”
Bond Saxon grasped his arm, and said hoarsely:
“Don't shriek here. We are in danger, now. It's not two men. It's a man
and a woman, maybe. It's Dean Funnybone. Come on!”