Part 8

"What a perfectly excruciating smell! It's like overshoes on a hot register, only much worse. What on earth is it?" At this the rest of us at the table began to sniff the air, and I confess it was pretty bad. Bertie Stockbridge had finished his luncheon while we were still eating, and had taken his chair over to the window, where he was reading something for a half-past one recitation and smoking one of Amadeo's cigars. He was too absorbed in his book to hear the rest of us, but all at once he looked up with a very pained expression and exclaimed,--

"What a beastly cigar! I was reading and did n't notice how queer it was; it 's made me very sick." Then of course we all discovered at once where the hot rubbery fumes came from,--all but Berri and Hemington, that is to say; they refused to believe it. So everybody began to light cigars, and in a minute or two the room was simply unendurable. Stockbridge said they were like the trick cigars you see advertised sometimes; the kind that "explode with a red light,--killing the smoker and amusing the spectators." We dissected several of them; they seemed to contain a little of everything except tobacco. The fellows insisted on knowing all the details of the colossal sell, and although Berri and Hemington felt awfully cheap about their part in it, they finally told. Duggie says an Amadeo or a Manuele or a Luigi or an Anselmo appears in Cambridge every year at about this time, and invariably returns to Santa Bawthawthawthoth laden with Freshman gold.

1.25 P.M. Rushed home; got a shirt and took it to a Chinese laundry just off Mt. Auburn Street and implored the proprietor to wash it and have it ready for me by five o'clock. He seemed to think me somewhat insane, and said in a soothing, fatherly kind of way,--

"You come back day aftle to-mollel." Then I explained the situation and told him I would give him anything he asked if he would do me this favor. He made strange Oriental sounds, at which sleepy, gibbering things tumbled out of a shelf behind a green calico curtain, and from a black hole in the partition at the end of the shelf there began a tremendous grunting and snuffling, pierced by squeaks of rage and anguish. Then five Chinamen swarmed about my shirt, gesticulating murderously, and uttering raucous cries like impossible birds. I wanted to stay and see how it all turned out; but the bell had rung for my half-past one o'clock, and I hurried away.

The Oriental temperament is an impassive, deliberative, sphinx-like, inscrutable thing.

1.40-2.30 P.M. This hour I spent in class listening to a lecture on narration. I enjoyed it very much, and the hour went by so quickly that when the instructor dismissed us, I thought he had made a mistake. He gave us short scenes from various famous books in illustration of his points; and ended, as usual, by reading a lot of daily themes written by the class. Two of them were mine. He said they were good, but pointed out how they could have been better. One of his suggestions I agree with perfectly, but I think he 's all off in regard to the other. I 'll talk it over with him at his next consultation hour. Some of the fellows thought the whole thing perfect drool; but I confess it interested me very much. I never feel like cutting this course, somehow.

2.30. Went to my room with the intention of reading history until it was time to go for my shirt, and--if it was done up--get ready for the tea. I had read only part of a chapter when some fellows, passing by, yelled at my windows. I had made up my mind, when I began to read, not to answer any one, as it 's impossible to accomplish anything if you do. But of course I forgot and yelled back, and in a minute three fellows clattered up the stairs and I realized that they were good for the rest of the afternoon.

It's a queer thing about going to see people here. I don't think that any one ever goes with the intention of staying any length of time, or even of sitting down; you merely drop in as you 're passing by and happen to think of it. You would n't believe it if somebody told you you were destined to stay for several hours. But that's what usually happens. Another queer thing is that very few fellows admit that they 're studying when you come in, unless of course it's in the midst of the exams. If you find a man at a desk with a note-book and several large open volumes spread out before him, and you say to him, "Don't mind me--go on with your grinding," nine times out of ten he'll answer, "Oh, I wasn't grinding; I was just glancing over these notes." The tenth man fixes you with a determined eye and replies: "You get out of here, or take a book and go into a corner and shut up."

3.45. We all took a walk up Brattle Street past the Longfellow house as far as James Russell Lowell's place and back. It's a great old street, even with the leaves all gone--which makes ordinary places so dreary. Duggie pointed out the most famous houses to me one day and told me who had lived in them. I tried to do it this afternoon, but the fellows said they did n't care.

5. Got my shirt at the Chinaman's. It looked all right, but it was still damp in spots--wet, in fact. I went prepared to pay almost any price after all the excitement I had caused; but the proprietor was surprisingly moderate in his demands. I gave him something more than he asked, but he would n't take it until I accepted some poisonous-looking dried berries done up in a piece of oiled paper. He seemed to have grasped the idea of a tea, for he kept saying over and over again with a delighted smile: "You go see girl--you go see girl."

5.20. Went to Duncan's tea and "saw girl"--lots of them. They were very nice, and pretended they were dreadfully excited at being in a college room. They asked all sorts of silly questions, and the fellows replied with even sillier answers. Duncan had taken them to see the museums and the glass flowers and Memorial and the Gym, and had done the honors of Cambridge generally.

6.30. Went to dinner at Mrs. Brown's, but as I had just come from Duncan's, where I had drunk two cups of tea (I don't know why, as I hate it) and had eaten several kinds of little cakes, I had no appetite whatever. Somebody had put a chocolate cigar on Berri's and Hemington's plate,--the kind that has a piece of gilt paper glued to the large end. Berri and Hemington had to stand a good deal of guying during dinner, but were consoled by the fact that Amadeo's pal had worked precisely the same game on some other men we know slightly at the very moment that Amadeo himself was doing us.

7.15. Went to my room and made a big fire, as I had a curious kind of chill, although the house was warm and it was n't cold outside. I had just decided to stay at home and read, when I came across an Advocate postal card on my desk, and remembered that there was a meeting of the board in the Secretary's room at eight o'clock.

8.11. Listened to manuscripts and voted on them, and then sat around and talked afterwards. It's rather embarrassing sometimes when a story happens to be by one of the editors and isn't good. This evening we had a long, terribly sentimental passage from the life of a member of the board. We all knew who had written it, and although it was ever so much worse than the tale that had just been read (which had been most unmercifully jumped on), the criticisms were painfully cautious and generously sprinkled with the praise that damns. Of course it isn't always this way when the editors submit things; they 're often made more fun of than anybody else. But this man for some reason is n't the kind with whom that sort of thing goes down. He has been known to refer to writing for the Advocate as "My Art."

One thing that happened during the evening made a good deal of fun. The advertisers have kicked about our not having the leaves of the paper cut. They say that the subscribers cut the leaves of the reading matter only, and never get a chance to see the advertisements at all. We think it is ever so much nicer not to have it done by machinery, for when the subscribers do it themselves with a paper-cutter, the effect on the thick paper is very rough and artistic. Well, we discussed this for a long time, until some one exclaimed: "I don't see why we shouldn't have it done by hand. It would take a little longer, but the expense would n't amount to much, and in that way we could have our rough edges and appease the advertisers at the same time." So after some more talk it was voted on and carried unanimously. Then the President got up, and turning to a solemn person who had been very much in favor of the motion, said:

"It has been moved and carried that the leaves of the Advocate be cut henceforth by Hand. Mr. Hand, you will kindly see that the work is done on time; I think there are only eight or nine hundred copies printed this year."

11. On the way home from the Advocate meeting I saw the most gorgeous northern lights I ever imagined,--great shafts of deep pink that shot up from the horizon and all joined at the middle of the sky like a glorious umbrella. I ran upstairs to get Duggie and Berri, but neither of them was in; so, as I simply had to have some one to marvel with, I called Mrs. Chester. She and another old crone--Mis' Buckson--were having a cup of tea in the kitchen, and did n't seem particularly enthusiastic over my invitation to come out and see the display, but they finally bundled up in shawls and followed me to the piazza. We stood there a minute or two looking up in silence, and I thought at first that they were as much impressed as I was. Finally, however, Mrs. Chester gave a little society cough and remarked,--

"It's real chilly, aren't it?" and Mis' Buckson, drawing her shawl more tightly about her bent shoulders, jerked her chin in an omnipotent, blase kind of fashion towards the heavens, and croaked,--

"That there's a sign o' war." Then they both limped back to the house.

11.30. Made a big blaze in the fireplace, as I was cold again and did n't feel well at all. I sat down to write to mamma, and was just finishing when Duggie came in on his way to bed. He 's not in training now and can stay up as long as he pleases. He asked me how often I wrote to mamma, and I told him that I had written twice a week at first because there was so much to tell, but that now since things had settled down and I did n't have so much to say, I write about once a week. He answered that there was just as much to say now as there ever was, and told me to write twice a week or he 'd know the reason why.

Then I went to bed and had a chill. And that's how a whole day was spent from half-past eight in the morning until half-past twelve at night.

The next morning I woke up with a very bad sore throat and a stiff neck and pains all over. Duggie and Berri made me send for a doctor, and signed off for me at the office. I can't imagine how I caught cold, unless, perhaps, it was from wearing that wet shirt.

*IX*

I was very sick for about three days, and just sick for three or four days more. When Berri signed off for me at the office, the college doctor bustled around to my room at noon to see what was the matter. His motives in doing this are somewhat mixed, I believe. He has not only the health but the veracity of the undergraduate very much at heart. If you are laid up, of course he has to know about it; and if you are n't well enough to attend lectures but manage with a heroic effort to go skating,--well, he likes to know about that too.

"Of course you haven't measles," Duggie said when he came in a few minutes after Dr. Tush had gone, "but equally, of course, he said you had,--did n't he?"

"Yes, he did," I answered dismally; for he had told me this at considerable length, and I remembered that measles a good many years before had almost been the end of me.

"Well, _that_'s a relief," Duggie went on cheerfully. "You may have all sorts of things, but it's a cinch that you have n't measles. Tush is a conservative old soul; he always gambles on measles, and of course every now and then he wins. It pleases him immensely. He usually celebrates his success by writing a paper on 'The University's Health,' and getting it printed in the Graduates' Magazine."

When the other doctor--the real one--came, he found that I was threatened with pneumonia.

Oh, I had a perfectly miserable time of it at first. The feeling dreadfully all over and not being able to breathe was bad enough, but I think the far-away-from-homeness and the worrying about mamma were worse. I was afraid all the time that she would hear (although I could n't imagine how that would be possible), and then in the middle of the night I lay awake hoping and praying that she _would_ hear and leave for Cambridge by the next train. I don't suppose I realized just then how wonderfully good Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester were to me. Duggie and Berri took turns in sitting up all night and putting flannel soaked in hot mustard-water on my chest (ugh! how I loathe the smell of mustard), and when they had to go to lectures during the day,--I think, as a matter of fact, they cut a great many of them,--Mrs. Chester would come in and hem endless dish-cloths by the window. Berri says that he ceased to worry about me from the time I looked over at Mrs. Chester after about half an hour's silence and exclaimed,--

"Sew some more with the crisscross pattern; I 'm tired of those dingy white ones."

As I began to get better, I appreciated how much trouble I 'd given them all and tried to thank them; but Berri said,--

"Why, your illness has been a perfect god-send to me. I 've done more grinding lately between midnight and six in the morning than I ever thought would be possible. I 've caught up with almost everything." And Duggie stopped me with,--

"But if it had n't been Berri and I, it would have been someone else--which we're very glad it was n't."

Old Mrs. Chester is a jewel. I didn't pay much attention to her at first, but was just glad to know she was in the room. Later, however, when I began to want to get up and she devoted the whole of her marvellous art to keeping me amused, I appreciated her. She is wonderful. I was going to assert that she inspires the kind of affection one can't help feeling for a person who is all heart and no intelligence; but that, somehow, misses the mark. She has intelligence--lots of it--only it's different. And before my recovery was complete I began to wonder if it wasn't the only kind that is, after all, worth while. For it's the kind with which books and newspapers and "going a journey" and other mechanical aids have nothing to do. (Perhaps I should concede something to the influence of foreign travel, as there was a very memorable expedition "to Goshen in New York State" some time in the early sixties.) Mrs. Chester's intelligence gushes undefiled from the rock, and then flows along in a limpid, ungrammatical stream that soothes at first and then enslaves. Her gift for narrative of the detailed, photographic, New England variety positively out-Wilkins Mary, and I am to-day, perhaps, the greatest living male authority on what Berri calls _la cronique scandaleuse_ of Cambridge. One of her studies in the life of the town forty years ago (it was a sort of epic trilogy that lasted all morning and afternoon and part of the evening with intermissions for luncheon and dinner) I mean to write some time for the Advocate. It all leads up to the New Year's Eve on which "old Mrs. Burlap passed away," but it includes several new and startling theories as to the real cause of the Civil War, an impartial account of the war itself, a magnificent tribute to the late General Butler, a description of Mrs. Chester's wedding,--the gifts and floral tributes displayed on that occasion together with a dreamy surmise as to their probable cost,--a brief history of religion from the point of view of one who is at times assailed by doubt,--but who doesn't make a practice of "rushin' around town tellin' folks who'd only be too glad to have it to say" (this last I assumed to be a thrust at Mis' Buckson),--a spirited word picture of the festivities that took place when Cambridge celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as a city, and at the end a brilliant comparison between Cambridge and "Goshen in New York State." There was, I believe, some mention of the passing away of old Mrs. Burlap on New Year's Eve, but of this I am not sure.

One thing I discovered that rather astonished me in this part of the world (a locality that Berri in one of his themes called "a cold hot-bed of erudition"), and that is--Mrs. Chester doesn't know how to read. I never would have found it out but for an embarrassing little miscalculation on her part, in the method by which until then she had delightfully concealed the fact. More than once while I was sick, she sat by the lamp apparently enjoying the evening paper that Duggie subscribes to, and I had n't the slightest suspicion that she was probably holding it upside down, even when I would ask her what the news was and she would reply,--

"Oh, shaw--these papers! They 're every one of 'em alike. They don't seem to be any news to 'em. I don't see why you young gentlemen waste your good money a-buyin' 'em."

Often on the way upstairs she takes the letters that the postman leaves between the banisters in the little hall below, and manages to distribute them with more or less accuracy.

"I 've got somethin' for you, and it 's from your mother too, you naughty little man, you," is her usual way of handing me a communication from mamma. I did n't realise until the other day that, as mamma's letters always came in the same kind of gray-blue envelopes, it doesn't take a chirographic expert to tell whom they are from. Nor did I recall that, when Mrs. Chester appears with a whole handful of things, she invariably stops short in the middle of the room and artlessly exclaims,--

"Well, now, if that does n't beat all! Here I 've climbed up them steep stairs again and forgotten my specs. Who 's gettin' all these letters anyhow?"

A few mornings ago, however,--when they let me sit up for the first time,--Mrs. Chester appeared with two letters. One of them was unmistakably gray-blue, but the other was white and oblong and non-committal. She paused at the door as if about to examine the address, and then suddenly,--

"If I ain't the most careless woman in the world," she said. "I 've gone and brought up the letters again, and forgotten--" But just at this point we both became aware that her steel-rimmed spectacles were dangling in her other hand. They not only dangled, but they seemed to me a moment later to dangle almost spitefully; for Mrs. Chester's worn cheeks became very pink. She looked at the spectacles and at the white envelope and at me. Then she said with a sort of wistful lightness,--

"Maybe you can make it out; your eyes are younger than mine. I never seen such a letter; it's so--so--it's so flung together like."

"It is--isn't it?" I agreed hastily, as I stretched out my hand, to receive a letter from papa with the address in type-writing.

Just as I thought would happen, mamma heard I was sick and was, of course, very much worried. Dick Benton--who has never come near me, and whom I 've only seen twice on the street since College opened--mentioned the fact of my illness in a letter home. (I suppose he did it in a despairing effort to make his sentences reach the middle of page two.) Of course Mrs. Benton had to throw a shawl around her meddling old back and waddle across the street to our house, to find out the latest news; and as there had n't been any news, mamma's letter to me expressed a "state of mind." But I fixed her (and incidentally Dick Benton) with a telegram.

By the way, I really must speak to mamma about her recent letters to me. Mildred has been away from home, and as mamma writes very regularly to both of us, she often refers to things she remembers having written to somebody, but without pausing to consider how maddening they are when the somebody doesn't happen to be myself. From her last, for instance, I gleaned these interesting items without having the vaguest idea what they belong to:--

"Your father and I have just got back from the funeral. I suppose, when one arrives at such a great age, death is a relief. But it is always solemn.

"Is n't it nice about the Tilestons? I don't know when--in a purely impersonal way--I 've been so pleased. They 've struggled so long and so bravely and now it seems as if their ship had come in at last. Of course, I should n't care to spend so much time in South America myself, (Guatemala _is_ in South America, is n't it?) but they all seem delighted at the prospect."

Now would n't that jar you?

My acquaintances generally found out that I was sick about the time that Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester discharged me, so to speak, as well. I could n't go out, and the doctor made me stay in bed longer than was really necessary, as the bottom of the furnace fell to pieces one morning and it was impossible to heat the house for several days. But I felt pretty well. By that time, as I say, there was all at once a ripple of interest among my friends over the fact that I was sick. They were awfully kind, and came to my room from early in the morning--right after breakfast--until late at night, when they would drop in on their way back from the theatre. My desk was a perfect news-stand of illustrated magazines and funny papers, and I had left in my book-case, probably, the queerest collection of novels that was ever assembled outside of a city hospital. Duggie had a fit over them, and as he read out the titles one evening, he kept exclaiming, "What, oh, what are the children coming to!" The only volume that was n't fiction was a thing called "The Statesman's Year Book," and was brought by a queer sort of chap who is very much interested in sociology. I know him pretty well; so after I thanked him, I could n't help saying,--

"What on earth did you lug this thing up here for?--it looks like an almanac." To which he replied,--

"Well, it's darned interesting, I can tell you. Until I got it I never knew, for instance, how many quarts of alcohol per head were consumed annually in Finland."

Although Duggie did n't say anything, I don't think he was particularly pleased at the fellows dropping in so often and staying so long. They played cards a lot, and smoked all the time until you could hardly see across the room; and sometimes when night came I felt rather tired and my eyes and throat hurt a good deal. But I confess I liked it, even if Duggie and Mrs. Chester did n't.

Only one change of any importance took place while I was laid up: Berri's Icelandic dog--Saga--has been removed from our midst. I was aware that an unusual spirit of peace and order reigned in the house as soon as I began to be about once more, but I attributed it vaguely to the chastening influence of my illness. However, one morning, when on my way to a lecture I remembered that I had noticed my best hat lying on a chair in my study as I came away, and ran back to save it from being eaten, it occurred to me that I had n't seen Saga for days. So, while Berri and I were strolling home from luncheon, I asked him what had happened.

"He 's gone--gone, poor old darling!" said Berri; "I hate to speak of it."

"He was n't stolen or run over or anything, was he?" I asked sympathetically; for now that Saga was no longer an hourly source of anxiety and conflict, I felt reasonably safe in expressing some regret. "Did he run away?"