Stanford Stories Part 1

Stanford Stories.

by Charles K. Field and Will H. Irwin.

DEDICATION.

"To the newest born of the Sisters, At the end of the race's march, In her quaint, old Spanish garment, Pillar and tile and arch; Awaiting the age that hallows, Her face to the coming morn-- Whose scholars still walk in her cloisters, Whose martyrs are yet unborn."

"We scatter down the four wide ways, Clasp hands and part, but keep The power of the golden days To lull our care asleep, And dream, while our new years we fill With sweetness from those four, That we are known and loved there still, Though we come back no more."

PREFATORY NOTE.

These are stories of the University as it was before the era of new buildings. While the attempt has been made to create, in character, incident and atmosphere, a picture of Stanford life, the stories, as stories, are fiction, with the exception of "Pocahontas, Freshman," and "Boggs' Election Feed," which were suggested by local occurrences, and "One Commencement," which is mainly fact. The original draft of "His Uncle's Will" was printed in _The Sequoia_ with the t.i.tle "The Fate of Freshman Hatch."

It may be necessary to add that, in the endeavor to present the actual life of the University, it has seemed quite inadvisable to edit the conversation of the characters from the standpoint of the English purist. Since, however, those readers who boggle over slang could hardly be much interested in the Undergraduate, it is sufficient merely to call attention to the point.

STANFORD STORIES.

A Midwinter Madness.

Genius has been defined as a capacity for taking pains.

When a college man's good fairy makes her first call at his cradle, she may bestow upon him the football instinct, with muscles to match; no fairy could do more. But if she b.u.mps up against Heredity, and is powerless to give him the supreme gift, she may compensate for it in a degree by leaving the kind of larynx and tympanum used in the Glee Club.

Failing this, she may render next best service by throwing a mandolin in his way and bewitching his parents into paying for lessons. Some twenty years later, behind the enchanted scenes of a specially hired theater, or on the polished floor of society's inner temple, he may think of the fairy kindly.

Doubtless, all theatrical life means drudgery, but the Christmas tour of the Glee and Mandolin clubs is drudgery amidst bowers of roses. The hard-working professional would call it play; yet, even in this gilded stage-life, there is the common affliction of being forced to appear at every concert, and in places you don't care about--unless, of course, you happen to be seriously ill.

The Clubs had just done an abbreviated stunt for the Los Angeles High School the afternoon before Christmas. The occasion was a big ad., but they ripped matters through in a hurry, because the social event of the trip came that afternoon--Lillian Arnold's reception at her home on Figuerroa Street.

At Hacienda Arnold there is running water along the garden copings, and the grounds are large. It was bud-time, and the heavy fragrance of the orange blossoms mingled with the bitter-almond smell of oleanders. Miss Arnold served her refreshments on the lawn, and the girls looked peachy in plume-laden hats and filmy organdies. The day was rather warm for December. To this out-door reception came the prettiest girl in Los Angeles, Dolores Payson; her full name, she confided to Cecil Van d.y.k.e that evening with a slight but captivating roll of her Andalusian eyes and r's, was Dolores Ynez Teresa Payson. Van d.y.k.e was the only man on the trip who had thought to bring his summer togs, and he looked very swell. Van played first mandolin and was notoriously susceptible. It is down in the Club annals that she caught his game at first sight.

Had she been given to genealogical investigation, the name Van d.y.k.e might have recalled to this descendant of many hidalgos that foggy battle-field in the Netherlands on which her ancestor and his took pot-shots at each other with the primitive cross-bow. Motley records that on that day far-gone Holland laid low the Spaniard. The present historian is forced to chronicle the final triumph of Spain. The only bow used in this last encounter was in the hands of a mythological person whose existence is doubted only by scoffers.

They tried a dance or two in the crowded rooms, they strolled out into the gardens, they ate ices under the roses in a secluded arbor. The place, the time, the air had their influence on Van d.y.k.e. He was from Montana, where the magnolias do not shed their waxen petals at Christmas, and the gold-of-Ophir roses sternly refuse to leaf until the Fourth of July.

Perhaps he might have withstood all the seductive charms of the hour if he had not escorted Dolores home and essayed to bid her good-bye. There was a great clump of flaming poinsettia at the Payson gate. Dolores was dark, with a rich southern complexion; her dress was white. So she stood against the poinsettia. That is why there is more to this story.

Van d.y.k.e meditated as he went into town. She was the finest girl he had ever met. It was a hard graft, this playing one day in a live town where one could meet charming people, and being forced to take the train next morning for some uninteresting country place where they would have to lounge around a cheap hotel until concert time. Why couldn't the manager get up a schedule that would give them a day or so longer in a place like Los Angeles? This making a college trip with the sole idea of money-getting was degrading. He, for one, was willing enough to pay his share of the extra expense.

On his way he stopped at a florist's. It was a habit he had acquired under similar circ.u.mstances. He was puzzled to know just what to send in a land where the highways and hedges run riot with flowers, but he finally selected some wonderful orchids of delicate lavender and mauve.

Purposely, he put no card with them, feeling that she would guess the sender.

He got into his dress clothes in rather an ungracious humor. Pomona was the next place, a fruit town further south. Oh, it was too bad! Well, at least he would see her again at the concert that night. He was grateful for this much. Her seat was on an aisle, she told him; he would be able to speak to her during the intermission; more than this, she had said, in her best convent manner, that he might ride home with her papa and mamma afterwards.

Still, this was an unsatisfactory way of carrying on an affair of the sort, especially when it was the first really serious one he had ever had. Clean out of Van's mind had faded the memory of a Montana cow-girl, a San Francisco actress, a senior in the Lambda Mu sorority, a----but s.p.a.ce forbids. He mussed three ties. Freshmen are petulant things.

Perkins, who led the Mandolin Club, joshed him at dinner.

"What's the matter, my boy; didn't you have a good time this afternoon?"

"Of course he didn't," answered a guitar man. "You must have noticed his bored expression all through; that is, when you saw him at all."

"That was merely the blase look that comes with four months at the Youngest and Best," said "Cap." Smith. "The Freshman was happy on his little inside because he was so well got up. He really looked the part; now he's in ordinary clothes, like a common strolling player, and he feels cross."

"No," growled Van d.y.k.e, "I've caught cold or something."

"Oh," said Phillips, the Glee Club leader. He took up his table fork and bit the end; holding it to his ear he gave the table a starting chord, and they hummed "Ma Onliest One," while Van grew red, and the rest of the dining-room stopped to listen.

Dolores Payson sat in an orchestra seat and smiled up at the immaculate Mr. Van d.y.k.e, above the only bunch of orchids in the theatre. He came to chat with her during the interval between "La Czarina" and "Schneider's Band." She was doubly guarded by her father on one side and her mother on the other. It was a way they had. She introduced him demurely with an adorable little wave of her black fan. He wondered if, should he quit college right away, he could get a job which would enable him to support a wife. He looked at the placid, olive-skinned mother, not yet old enough to be very fat, and decided that he could; his glance wandered to the angular, sharp-featured American father, and he was sure he couldn't.

Van could not remember ever having seen such great, dark liquid eyes as now melted into his. It seemed hard not to behold them again for a whole week. Hard? It was impossible. It was dreadful to leave her for the little time while the mandolin club was on the stage. On his way up the aisle his freshman brain was seized and overmastered by a brilliant idea; he almost stopped to pat himself on the shoulder.

Going into one of the dressing rooms, he sank dejectedly on a chair and pressed his hand to his forehead. Perkins, gathering in his musicians for the next piece, found him there.

"Come along, Fres.h.i.+e."

The first mandolin rose slowly.

"What's the matter?" asked the leader.

"Oh, nothing," said the other, "I'll be all right."

After the piece he went back to the dressing-room.

"Encore!" cried Perkins, rus.h.i.+ng in.

"I can't help it," said Van, in a contracted tone, "I can't go on."

"Why not?" demanded Perkins.

"I'm in awful pain, Ted," pleaded Van. "Something I've eaten, I guess. I can hardly stand up straight."

"Oh, rats!" answered Perkins sympathetically, and tore out again.

Van took his coat and mandolin and disappeared. Between numbers he came in and slipped down the aisle to the Paysons' seats.

"Will you excuse me, Miss Payson? I can't go home with you after the concert. I'm awfully sorry, but I feel pretty sick and I'm going back to the hotel now."

"Oh, what is it?" Dolores asked, and her mother leaned forward with polite interest.