Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical NarrativeKemp, Harry
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Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical Narrative
Kemp, Harry
Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960
But I seldom cut class deliberately.... I would find myself lost in a
book back in the "stack" as the big room that housed the tiers of books
was called. The day would be dusking, the lights of evening glimmering
below in town, to my bewildered eyes! The day gone, when I had stepped
back among the books at nine o'clock, intending to while away a half
hour between classes! (Once it was Sidney's Arcadia that entranced me
so).
Or I would set out for class ... hatless ... my hair tousled and long
... in my sandals that were mocked at by my colleagues ... my books
under arm ... and fall into a reverie that would fetch me up, two miles
or so away, a-stray up a by-road flanked with a farmhouse and young
cornfields.
Then it would be too late for my schoolday, and I would make a day of it
... would perhaps get acquainted with some farmer and his family, have
dinner and supper at his house, and swap yarns with him and the rest of
his people.
* * * * *
Jack Travers was as proud of my foot-trip to Osageville as if he had
accomplished it himself.
"The boys out at the Sig-Kappa house expect three or four kegs of beer
in from Kansas City ... come on out and help us to celebrate."
"But I don't drink."
"Go on! you've told me about the time you did what you called 'slopping
up' down in Texas!"
"That was only once ... and since then I've become a physical
culturist."
"Well, come and join the party anyhow ... it won't hurt you to look on."
My curiosity impelled me to accept the invitation to the "keg party" as
such a jamboree was known among the students.
The kegs of beer waited us at the station ... disguised with misleading
labels ... "chemicals, handle with care." Tenderly we loaded them on the
waggon that had been hired. The driver sat smiling as the solicitious
students heaved them up and secured them firmly....
We sat dignified and quiet, till the outskirts of the town were reached
... then the whip was brought down and away we whooped, bouncing along
the country road....
We whipped off down the road into the open country with a roar of
singing and shouting. We sat on the kegs to keep them from jumping out,
as we urged the driver to ply the whip.
* * * * *
There was a corner in a cornfield that bent inward, hidden from the
casual passer-by by a grove of Osage orange trees. Here we drew up,
jumped out, tenderly conveyed the kegs forth ... the ground we had
chosen, in the corner of the field, was too rocky for planting. It was
sultry early afternoon, of a late spring day.
The driver was offered a drink.
"Nope," he shook his head, grinning wisely, "I'm a teetotaler."
"Be back for us at dark," we shouted, as he jee-d about, heading toward
town again.
"Here's to old Gregory and his first drunk!"
Tin cups had been produced, and the bung of one of the barrels started
... the boys lifted their full, foaming cups in unison.
"Bottoms up!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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