The Vision Splendid, Page 2

  CHAPTER 2

  I wonder if Morgan, the Pirate, When plunder had glutted his heart, Gave part of the junk from the ships he had sunk To help some Museum of Art; If he gave up the role of "collector of toll" And became a Collector of Art?

  I wonder if Genghis, the Butcher, When he'd trampled down nations like grass, Retired with his share when he'd lost all his hair And started a Sunday-school class; If he turned his past under and used half his plunder In running a Sunday-school class?

  I wonder if Roger, the Rover, When millions in looting he'd made, Built libraries grand on the jolly mainland To honor success and "free trade"; If he founded a college of nautical knowledge Where Pirates could study their trade?

  I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, If Pirates were ever the same, Ever trying to lend a respectable trend To the jaunty old buccaneer game Or is it because of our Piracy Laws That philanthropists enter the game? --Wallace Irwin, in Life.

  THE REBEL IS INSTRUCTED IN THE WORSHIP OF THE GOD-OF-THINGS-AS-THEY-ARE

  Part 1

  Jeff was digging out a passage in the "Apology" when there came a knockat the door of his room. The visitor was his cousin, James, and heradiated such an air of prosperity that the plain little bedroom shrankto shabbiness.

  James nodded in offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. "Hello,Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your diggings, eh?" Beforehis host could answer he rattled on: "Just ran in for a moment. Had thedevil of a time to find you. What's the object in getting clear off theearth?"

  "Cheaper," Jeff explained.

  "Should think it would be," James agreed after he had let his eyeswander critically around the room. "But you can't afford to save thatway. Get a good suite. And for heaven's sake see a tailor, my boy. Incollege a man is judged by the company he keeps."

  "What have my room and my clothes to do with that?" Jeff wanted to know,with a smile.

  "Everything. You've got to put up a good front. The best fellows won'tgo around with a longhaired guy who doesn't know how to dress. Nooffense, Jeff."

  His cousin laughed. "I'll see a barber to-morrow."

  "And you must have a room where the fellows can come to see you."

  "What's the matter with this one?"

  A hint of friendly patronage crept into the manner of the junior. "Mydear chap, college isn't worth doing at all unless you do it right.You're here to get in with the best fellows and to make connections thatwill help you later. That sort of thing, you know."

  Into Jeff's face came the light that always transfigured its plainnesswhen he was in the grip of an idea. "Hold on, J. K. Let's get at thisright. Is that what I'm here for? I didn't know it. There's a hazynotion in my noodle that I'm here to develop myself."

  "That's what I'm telling you. Go in for the things that count. Make agood frat. Win out at football or debating. I don't give a hang what yougo after, but follow the ball and keep on the jump. I'm strong with thecrowd that runs things and I'll see they take you in and make you a cogof the machine. But you'll have to measure up to specifications."

  "But, hang it, I don't want to be a cog in any machine. I'm here togive myself a chance to grow--sit out in the sun and hatch anindividuality--give myself lots of free play."

  "Then you've come to the wrong shop," James informed him dryly. "If youwant to succeed at college you've got to do the things the other fellowsdo and you've got to do them the same way."

  "You mean I've got to travel in a rut?"

  "Oh, well! That's a way of putting it. I mean that you have to acceptcustoms and traditions. You have to work like the devil doing thingsthat count. If you make the team you've got to think football, talk it,eat it, dream it."

  "But is it worth while?"

  James waved his protest aside. "Of course it's worth while. Successalways is. Get this in your head. Four-fifths of the fellows at collegedon't count. They're also-rans. To get in with the right bunch you'vegot to make a good showing. Look at me. I'm no John D. Rockefeller, Jr.Athletics bore me. I can't sing. I don't grind. But I'm in everything.Best frat. Won the oratorical contest. Manager of the football team nextseason. President of the Dramatic Club. Why?"

  He did not wait for Jeff to guess the reason. "Because our set runsthings and I go after the honors."

  "But a college ought to be a democracy," Jeff protested.

  "Tommyrot! It's an aristocracy, that's what it is, just like the littleold world outside, an aristocracy of the survival of the fittest. Youget there if you're strong. You go to the wall if you're weak. That'sthe law of life."

  The freshman came to this squint of pragmatism with surprise. He hadthought of Verden University as a splendid democracy of intellectualbrotherhood that was to leaven the world with which it came in touch.

  "Do you mean that a fellow has to have money enough to make a goodshowing before he can win any of the prizes?"

  James K. nodded with the sage wisdom of a man of the world. "The longgreen is a big help, but you've got to have the stuff in you. Successcomes to the fellow who goes after it in the right way."

  "And suppose a fellow doesn't care to go after it?"

  "He stays a nobody."

  James was in evening dress, immaculate from clean-shaven cheek to patentleather shoes. He had a well-filled figure and a handsome face witha square, clean-cut jaw. His cousin admired the young fellow's virilecompetency. It was his opinion that James K. Farnum was the last personhe knew likely to remain a nobody. He knew how to conform, to take thecolor of his thinking from the dominant note of his environment, but hehad, too, a capacity for leadership.

  "I'm not going to believe you if I can help it," Jeff answered with asmile.

  The upper classman shrugged. "You'd better take my advice, just thesame. At college you don't get a chance to make two starts. You're sizedup from the crack of the pistol."

  "I haven't the money to make a splurge even if I wanted to."

  "Borrow."

  "Who from?" asked Jeff ungrammatically.

  "You can rustle it somewhere. I'm borrowing right now."

  "It's different with you. I'm used to doing without things. Don't worryabout me. I'll get along."

  James came with a touch of embarrassment to the real object of hisvisit. "I say, Jeff. I've had a tough time to win out. You won't--you'llnot say anything--let anything slip, you know--something that might setthe fellows guessing."

  His cousin was puzzled. "About what?"

  "About the reason why Mother and I left Shelby and came out to thecoast."

  "What do you take me for?"

  "I knew you wouldn't. Thought I'd mention it for fear you might make aslip."

  "I don't chatter about the private affairs of my people."

  "Course not. I knew you didn't." The junior's hand rested caressinglyon the shoulder of the other. "Don't get sore, Jeff. I didn't doubt you.But that thing haunts me. Some day it will come out and ruin me when I'mnear the top of the ladder."

  The freshman shook his head. "Don't worry about it, James. Just tellthe plain truth if it comes out. A thing like that can't hurt youpermanently. Nothing can really injure you that does not come from yourown weakness."

  "That's all poppycock," James interrupted fretfully. "Just that sort ofthing has put many a man on the skids. I tell you a young fellow needsto start unhampered. If the fellows got onto it that my father had beenin the pen because he was a defaulting bank cashier they would drop melike a hot potato."

  "None but the snobs would. Your friends would stick the closer."

  "Oh' friends!" The young man's voice had a note of angry derision.

  Jeff's affectionate grin comforted him. "Don't let it get on yournerves, J. K. Things never are as bad as we expect at their worst."

  The junior set his teeth savagely. "I tell you, sometimes I hate himfor it. That's a fine heritage for a father to give his son, isn't it?Nothing but trouble and disgrace.
"

  His cousin spoke softly. "He's paid a hundred times for it, old man."

  "He ought to pay. Why shouldn't he? I've got to pay. Mother had to aslong as she lived." His voice was hard and bitter.

  "Better not judge him. You're his only son, you know."

  "I'm the one he's injured most. Why shouldn't I judge him? I've been apauper all these years, living off money given us by my mother's people.I had to leave our home because of what he did. I'd like to know why Ishouldn't judge him."

  Jeff was silent.

  Presently James rose. "But there's no use talking about it. I've got tobe going. We have an eat to-night at Tucker's."

  Part 2

  Jeff came to his new life on the full tide of an enthusiasm that did notbegin to ebb till near the close of his first semester. He lived in anew world, one removed a million miles from the sordid one through whichhe had fought his way so many years. All the idealism of his nature wentout in awe and veneration for his college. It stood for something hecould not phrase, something spiritually fine and intellectually strong.When he thought of the noble motto of the university, "To Serve," it wasalways with a lifted emotion that was half a prayer. His professors wentclothed in majesty. The chancellor was of godlike dimensions. Even theseniors carried with them an impalpable aura of learning.

  The illusion was helped by reason of the very contrast between thejostling competition of the street and the academic air of harmony inwhich he now found himself. For the first time was lifted the sense ofstruggle that had always been with him.

  The outstanding notes of his boyhood had been poverty and meagerness.It was as if he and his neighbors had been flung into a lake wherethey must keep swimming to escape drowning. There had been no rest fromlabor. Sometimes the tragedy of disaster had swept over a family. Buton the campus of the university he found the sheltered life. The echo ofthat battling world came to him only faintly.

  He began to make tentative friendships, but in spite of the advice ofhis cousin they were with the men who did not count. Samuel Miller wasan example. He was a big, stodgy fellow with a slow mind which arrivedat its convictions deliberately. But when he had made sure of them hehung to his beliefs like a bulldog to a bone.

  It was this quality that one day brought them together in the classroom.An instructor tried to drive Miller into admitting he was wrong in anopinion. The boy refused to budge, and the teacher became nettled.

  "Mr. Miller will know more when he doesn't know so much," the instructorsnapped out.

  Jeff's instinct for fair play was roused at once, all the more becauseof the ripple of laughter that came from the class. He spoke up quietly.

  "I can't see yet but that Mr. Miller is right, sir."

  "The discussion is closed," was the tart retort.

  After class the dissenters walked across to chapel together.

  "Poke the animal up with a stick and hear him growl," Jeff laughedairily.

  "Page always thinks a fellow ought to take his say-so as gospel," Millercommented.

  Most of the students saw in Jeff Farnum only a tallish young man, thinas a rail, not particularly well dressed, negligent as to collar andtie. But Miller observed in the tanned face a tender, humorous mouth andeager, friendly eyes that looked out upon the world with a suggestionof inner mirth. In course of time he found out that his friend was anunconquerable idealist.

  Jeff made discoveries. One of them was a quality of brutal indifferencein some of his classmates to those less fortunate. These classy younggentlemen could ignore him as easily as a hurrying business man can anewsboy trying to sell him a paper. If he was forced upon their noticethey were perfectly courteous; otherwise he was not on the map for them.

  Another point that did not escape his attention was the way in which theinstitution catered to Merrill and Frome, because they were large donorsto the university. He had once heard Peter C. Frome say in a speech tothe students that he contributed to the support of Verden Universitybecause it was a "safe and conservative citadel which never had yieldedto demagogic assaults." At the time he had wondered just what thepresident of the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He was slowlypuzzling his way to an answer.

  Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian gentlemenwho gave of their substance to promote the moral and educational life ofthe state." But Jeff knew that many believed Frome and Merrill to be nobetter than robbers on a large scale. He knew the methods by which theyhad gained their franchises and that they ruled the politics of the cityby graft and corruption. Yet the chancellor was always ready to speakor write against municipal ownership. It was common talk on the streetsthat Professor Perkins, of the chair of political science, had had hisexpenses paid to England by Merrill to study the street railwaysystem of Great Britain, and that Perkins had duly written severalbread-and-butter articles to show that public ownership was unsuccessfulthere.

  The college was a denominational one and the atmosphere wholly orthodox.Doubt and skepticism were spoken of only with horror. At first it was ofhimself that Jeff was critical. The spirit of the place was opposed toall his convictions, but he felt that perhaps his reaction upon life hadbeen affected too much by his experiences.

  He asked questions, and was suppressed with severity or kindly paternaladvice. It came to him one night while he was walking bareheaded underthe stars that there was in the place no intellectual stimulus, thoughthere was an elaborate presence of it. The classrooms were arid.Everywhere fences were up beyond which the mind was not expected totravel. A thing was right, because it had come to be accepted. That wasthe gospel of his fellows, of his teachers. Later he learned that it isalso the creed of the world.

  What Jeff could not understand was a mind which refused to accept theinevitable conclusions to which its own processes pushed it. VerdenUniversity lacked the courage which comes from intellectual honesty.Wherefore its economics were devitalized and its theology ananachronism.

  But Jeff had been given a mind unable to lie to itself. He was in veryessence a non-conformist. To him age alone did not lend sanctity to theghosts of dead yesterdays that rule to-day.