You might think that, with so radical a change in my ideas, I should
see Gladys Todd in another light than that of my college days. Indeed,
looking back, those college days did seem of another age and another
world, but in them Gladys Todd had become linked to me by ties as
indissoluble as those which bound me to my father and mother. To what
I deemed my broader view of life, their ways of living and their ways
of thinking were certainly exceedingly narrow, but none the less I
thought of them only with reverence and affection. So it was with
Gladys Todd. That mirthful outburst over her effusion about the
crusader was followed by many of its kind as her daily letters came to
me, but this meant simply that I was growing older than she, and she to
my mind became a child, but was none the less lovely for her
unsophistication. In the turmoil of my daily work, in the unlovely
clatter of Miss Minion's boarding-house, I often recalled the vine-clad
veranda and our walks in the grass-grown lane, looked back to them
regretfully, looked forward yearningly to the renewal of such hours.
Sometimes when my evening was free from my routine duty, and I was
working harder than ever I had worked in my college days, I would
forget my task to dream of the time when Miss Tucker's piano would no
longer be clattering beneath me, and I should be no more disturbed by
Mrs. Kittle, who had a habit of jumping her chair around the room next
to mine, when somewhere in the city's outskirts I should have a house
of my own, a little house in a bit of green, where I could find quiet
and peace and Gladys Todd. For the realization of that dream all that
I needed was money. By the lack of it I was condemned to Miss
Minion's. Even when I had attained to the munificent salary of Mr.
Carmody, a figure which Boller had announced to me with so much awe, I
was still far from having an income to keep two in the simplest
comfort. It was difficult to make this clear to Gladys Todd. Her
father and mother had married on eight hundred dollars a year, and even
now my salary equalled the doctor's as president of the college. To
her my salary read affluence, and in my letters I began to have
difficulty to convince her that I had not grown exceedingly worldly and
was not putting material comfort in the balance against unselfish and
uncomplaining love. On my third biannual visit to Harlansburg I went
armed with facts and figures as to house rents and flat rents, the
prices of meats per pound, the cost of fuel, light, and clothing.
Having in my pocket such a tabulated statement which showed for
incidentals a balance of but fifty dollars, I could not but smile
ironically at the manner in which Doctor Todd presented me to his
friends. Boller was forgotten. Boller's achievements were outshone by
those of David Malcolm. Malcolm's success demonstrated the high
character of McGraw's system of training. Malcolm was already being
heard from!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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