I WALKED across the bridge from New Jersey into Easton, Pennsylvania,
one afternoon. I discovered there was a college atop of the hill. In
exchange for a lecture on twenty-six great men[4] based on a poem on
the same theme, that I carried with me, the boys entertained me that
night. They did not pay much attention to the lecture. Immediately
before and after was a yell carnival. There was to be a game next day.
They were cheering the team and the coach with elaborate reiteration.
All was astir.
But for all this the boys spoke to me gently, gave me the privileges
of the table, the bath-room, the dormitory. The president of the Y. M.
C. A. lent me a clean suit of pajamas. He and two other young fellows
delighted my vain soul, by keeping me up late reciting all the poems I
knew.
I record these things for the sake of recording one thing more, the
extraordinary impression of buoyancy that came from that school. It was
inspiring to a degree, a draught of the gods. Coming into that place
not far from the centre of hard-faced Easton-town I realized for the
first time what sheltered, nurtured boy-America was like, and what
wonders may lie beneath the roofs of our cities.