Shortly after this an epidemic of disease broke out in the village. The University was quarantined--even from attendance at the village church services. The momentousness of this is plainly evident when it is remembered that it was these church services which gave to the University lovers their chance to walk together, sit together, sing and pray and talk together; consequently the quarantine imposed a severe restriction upon the poor unfortunates. When Sunday dawned, glorious with the summer sun, some of the members of Jason’s clique together with their young ladies took their black-bound Bibles and sat under the campus saplings for Bible study: two in a class and every sapling shade occupied. But the Dean, who hated sham of every sort, interrupted these classes and the next morning in chapel he had some very emphatic and pointed remarks to make on the subject: “The Sacrilege of Pretending to Study the Bible when You are Doing Nothing but Make Love!” It was the Pro-gymnasiums’ turn to laugh then. _Chapter XV. A Ph.D. in a Clay Ditch and the Futility of it. A Can of Beans at the Conclusion of a Morbid Meditation. How Thropper and I Played David and Jonathan_ The first summer vacation brought joy to a majority of the students, but to me it merely meant a lonely isolation for three months on the campus where I was accustomed to watch my friends move back and forth hour after hour through the day. They went out with tents: the Evangelists. They went out with books: the canvassers. They went out with brawn and health: the miners and farmers. They left me alone to share the solitude of the campus with the few professors who were not going to conferences, and with the superintendent of grounds, whose assistant I was to be. The winter’s struggle, though pleasant, had left me tired and listless. I needed a rest, but saw no possibility of any. I had few good clothes and no money. Any adventure into the world would have been utter folly. So I began to scrub floors in the University building, to mow the grass, and trim the flowers. I painted and scraped and hung wall paper, all in the silences of the dormitories once full of merry sounds, the recollections of which doubled the loneliness I suffered from. Meanwhile I made my home in the little room where we had held our feast in honor of Queen Victoria’s birthday. In it stood the stove on which I cooked my own meals: canned goods, tea, and sundry fries of bacon, eggs, ham, and potatoes. Here, too, I washed my clothes.