Harvard Stories: Sketches of the UndergraduatePost, Waldron Kintzing
History
Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate
Post, Waldron Kintzing
College stories, American; College students -- Fiction; Harvard University -- Fiction
The pale, beseeching face of Dick, languishing among five women, rose
before Ned's vision, but this was no time to think of his comrade;--he
had to forage ice-cream for the aunts. Then he had to get some water;
then he had to look for the escaped daughter, an unsuccessful quest.
("It's too bad to trouble you this way, Mr. Burleigh"); then he had to
round up two small boys. ("The boys have no business here, I know, but
they begged so hard to come"); then he had to take the pig-tail round
the Yard; then more water ("Oh, if you _could_ get some Apollinaris");
Apollinaris; then he had to order the carriage ("Where _can_ Steve be?
We can't go away without saying good-by to the boy, and telling him what
a good time we have had"); then he had to put off the carriage; etc,
etc, etc. And thus fell the last of the Amalgamated Seniors!
* * * * *
The carriages were beginning to leave. Ernest Gray got his family off
among the first, and then went on a search.
He looked everywhere, as far as the outlying spread at the Agassiz; but
unsuccessfully. He came to the conclusion that Class Day was about over,
and began to think that it was not so merry as he had always thought it
before. As he strolled back over the Delta, it occurred to him that he
would not cross the old historic battle-ground often again--if at all.
Memorial Hall was brightly illuminated. The light shone through the
stained-glass windows, and showed the array of those who had done their
duty. The window of '61 caught his eye most plainly. On the one half was
a student listening to the trumpet, on the other he was going forth full
armed. Over the Senior's head, the calm face of the Founder looked
through the night into the West,--into the West, where spread the
nation.
He did not go through the Yard, he walked slowly along behind it. He
heard the sound of music, and between the buildings caught a glimpse of
the enchanted quadrangle, the last bright transformation scene before
the drop of the curtain. He wandered on and beneath a well-known window
looked up, perhaps from force of habit. Then he stopped, for, though the
open window was dark, he thought he saw a form in it. He went up-stairs
and knocked at the door. "Come in," said Jack Rattleton's voice. The
room was unlit, and Jack was sitting in the window-seat with his dog.
"Hello, old man," said Gray. "I haven't seen you since the Tree. Have
you been up here by yourself all the evening?"
"Well, you see," drawled Jack. "Blathers was up here all alone, and I
thought I'd sit with him a little while. I can amuse him better than I
can a girl, you know."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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