The Student Vagabond

"So you live in Boston?" he queried, as he cut in again. "Perhaps we'll meet a lot this winter. I'm entering Harvard next month." "Oh!" she cooed, "Are you! We'll see each other at the Brattles. That'll be ducky. 'N you know, I live in Concord. Just call, won't you? It isn't so far." Someone tapped his shoulder. "May I?" asked a blank-faced Dinner Jacket: Three more years, he thought as he crossed the polished floor to the liner's bar, he would be of age, and no more damned guardians. * * * John was cutting cordwood when the postman drove up and rattled at the tin mailbox by the road. "H'lo John" the postman sang out. How d' ye make out?" "Dandy Mr. Clinton. They gave me a scholarship and the state Harvard Club promised to fix things if I get stuck. I got a job for my meals, and I guess I can get by on four hundred hard money." "Wull, good luck John," Mr. Clinton wished as his car rattled away: John returned to his wood pile. The September sun poured upon his broad back, on the stone fence along the road. * * * While the evening sun sank beneath the waves of Superior the lake breeze coughed sweetly through the pines. The Doctor lit another cigarette. "Twenty-eight years ago," he said, "my father told me to go and learn to be a gentleman. That wasn't much help, but I can't do any more. Drink what you can hold, boy, cast up your accounts regularly, pick your friends slowly, and devote a little time to study. That'll carry through." His son didn't answer, but started across the porch at the whitecaps. He was thinking that the new baby of the squatters up the woods showed signs of cretinism * * * Even Dean Briggs, reflected the Vagabond, said that freshmen were all alike. And he remembered the fable of the seven blind men.