Tramping on Life Part 83

Immediately I went to Locker's, the smart students' clothier, and put on a ready-made suit of clothes, of blue serge. And I charged new s.h.i.+rts and little white collars ... and several flowing ties. And a fine, new pair of shoes.

"You sure look nifty," commented Locker, who himself waited on me.

Then I went to a bookstore and plunged recklessly, purchasing Gosse and Garnett's _Ill.u.s.trated History of English Literature_, in four volumes, an expensive set.

I charged everything on the strength of my endowment, and, of course, in order to gain the credit I sought, I showed Baxter's letter, and pledged each storekeeper not to spread the story....

Before nightfall practically the whole student body knew of my good luck. And Jack Travers had found me, lying back, luxuriously clad in my newly acquired, big blue bathrobe, in my morris chair....

He looked me over with keen amus.e.m.e.nt.

Somehow, for several years, my one dream of luxury and affluence had been to own a flowered bathrobe to lounge in, and to wear on the athletic field. I had hitherto had to be content with a shabby overcoat.

On my new sectional bookcase stood a statue of the Flying Mercury, that my eye might continually drink in my ideal of physical perfection.

Opposite that, stood my plaster cast of Apollo Belvedere, as indicative of the G.o.d of song that reigned over my thoughts and life.

"Jack, I want you to come and have supper with me!"

"Johnnie, you are just like a big baby ... all right, I'll dine with you, after I've shot in the story about your endowment to the _Star_."

"Hurry up, then,--it's after five now. I've never had enough money before, to treat you ... it's you that have always treated me."

"Where'll we dine?"

"At the swellest place in town, the Bellman House ... Walsh will charge me." Walsh Summers was the proprietor.

Big, fat Walsh welcomed me and Travers.

"No, Johnnie, I won't charge you. Instead, you and Jack are dining as guests of the house."

And he would have it no other way.

Ally Merton was right about appearances. To have your s.h.i.+rts laundered regularly makes a man a different being. People that only noticed me before with a sort of surrept.i.tious mockery now began to treat me with surprised respect. Professors invited me even more--the more conservative of them--to dine at their homes.

And it was delightful to have living quarters where there was both hot and cold running water. I took a cold bath, every morning, after my exercise, and a hot bath, every night, before going to bed.

The place was well-heated, too. I no longer had to sit up in bed, the covers drawn to my chin to keep from freezing, while I read, studied, wrote. Nor did I need sit on my hands, in alternation, to keep one warm while I rhymed with the other, during those curious spells of inspiration, those times of ecstasy--occurring mostly in the night--when I would write and write so rapidly that morning would find me often not able to decipher the greater part of what I had written ... five or ten poems in a night ... scrawled madly almost like automatic writing....

William Jennings Bryan came to talk to us at our school auditorium. His lecture, _The Prince of Peace_, soon degenerated into an old-fas.h.i.+oned attack on science and the evolutionary theory.

The professors sat bored and mute on the platform beside him, while he evacuated the forty-year-old wheeze of "your great-great-great-grandfather might have been a monkey, but, thank G.o.d, mine was not!" he won the usual great response of handclapping and laughter with this....

And then he held out a gla.s.s of water, to prove that miracles might happen, because G.o.d, being omnipotent, could, at will, suspend natural laws.

"Look at this gla.s.s of water. I hold it out at arm's length, so. If I did not hold it, it would drop to the floor and shatter into pieces.

Thus I, by a human act, suspend the law of gravitation ... so G.o.d!--"

There was huzzaing and applause. Several professors uneasily s.h.i.+fted the crossing of their knees ... one or two stared diplomatically at the ceiling.

I grew angry and sent forth several sharp hisses before I knew what I was doing ... the effect was an electric stillness for the moment. Then a roar of indignant applause drowned my protest. And I stopped and remained quiet, with much craning of necks about me, to look at me.

As the crowd poured out, I ran out into the road, from group to group, and, wherever I found a professor walking along, I vociferated my protest at our allowing such a back-water performance at the State's supposed centre of intelligence.

"But, Gregory, it makes no difference ... the argument is settled, let platform orators like Bryan tilt at windmills all they may."

"The h.e.l.l it doesn't make a difference! if you professors are worth your salt, you won't let a Chautauqua man get by with such bunco."

The writing of my fairy drama progressed amain.

I mailed a copy of it to Penton Baxter, who said that it had genuine merit. Was not great, but showed great promise.

Henry Belton, from London, wrote me that it was beautiful and fine, but too eccentric for production in even the eccentric theatre.

And Belton kept deluging me with Single Tax pamphlets. And I wrote him hot letters in reply, villifying the Single Tax theory and upholding revolutionary Socialism. And he grew angry with me, and informed me that he had meditated keeping me in his patronage longer, but I was so obdurate that he would end my remittance with the six months ... as, in fact, was all that was originally promised me.

I replied that it made no difference ... that I would be always grateful to him. His letters stopped. The money stopped. But I went on living at the Y.M.C.A., charging up rent ... said that I was nearing the end of my rope again, glad because I had shown to myself that I was capable of sustained creative effort.

Many well-known men came to Laurel for lectures to the students.

Lyman Abbott appeared.

"The ancient bell-wether of the Standard Oil," Travers irreverently dubbed him.

The College Y.M.C.A. accorded him a reception. I was one of those invited to meet him.

After he had delivered a brief talk on G.o.d and The Soul, questions were invited--meant only to be politely put, that the speaker might s.h.i.+ne.

But my question was not put for the sake of social amenity ... though I'll admit, just a little for the sake of showing off.

"Dr. Abbott," I asked, "it is quite possible that there are other worlds in the sky--that, also, the rest of the planets either are or will be, homes for souls, for living beings equal to or higher than our present human grade of development?"

"Yes, yes, that is quite probable."

"Well, then, G.o.d, to prove a just G.o.d, would have to send his Son to be crucified a million times--once for each world ... for, if He did not, then the souls on these worlds would either be d.a.m.ned without a chance for salvation, or, if G.o.d made an exception in their case, that would be an unfair deal--for us to suffer from a fault other worlds are free of."

Dr. Abbott hemmed and hawed.

"It is not yet proven that there are other inhabited worlds. I an only dealing with questions of practical theology," he answered, with some heat and an attempt to be sarcastic.