Frederic Kenyon Brown

“ So that dream, “to make something of myself,” with a college appended, only made my days in the mill harder to bear. When the sun is warm, and you, yourself are shut in a chilly room, the feeling is intensified tragedy.
But day after day I had to face the thousands of bobbins I had in charge and keep them moving. Thousands of things turning, turning, turning, emptying, emptying, emptying, and requiring quick fingers to keep moving. A fight with a machine is the most cunning torture man can face—when the odds are in favor of the machine. ”

“ Denouncing scholarship! A student in a college denouncing the very charter of the college. It’s incredible: audacious and heretical: undermining the very foundations of the college! And to think that you, an editor, interested in culture and education, support such a paradox. You ought to be tortured in a Smithfield fire or have your thumbs twisted with Inquisition screws!”
“Oh, I don’t know!” smiled Garvin. “I’m not the only one that scoffs somewhat at the scholars: there are hundreds of us on the campus: hundreds of us.” ”

“ If I took hold of a broom, and tried to sweep, I had to drag the broom wearily after the first few moments. I went home after the day’s work as tired as if I had been holding up the world all day. And though I went to bed soon after supper, and slept soundly till the morning, I awoke as tired as if I had been toiling at a slave’s task every minute of the night.
I tried, in no complaining spirit, to describe my feelings to my aunt. “Why, they’re nothing but growing pains, Al,” she said. “You ought to feel proud that you’re going to be a tall man. It’ll pass. ”

“ I did not wonder, then, at the praise the college had given him.
But this was not all, for on the afternoon when the trials took place,—in the big, dim room of empty seats, with a few judges scattered lonesomely about,—as I took my turn and was walking to the platform, I felt a hearty clap on the shoulder and heard Ellis whisper, “Good luck to you, Priddy!” exactly the way in which he had encouraged his men in the big football [365] contests. I walked to the platform thrilled through by the magnificence of Ellis’ sporting spirit. I felt that if any other man won, it should be Ellis. ”

“ Oh, dream of neatness, sweetness, and womanly kindness! Miss Flaffer was that to me at the moment. She was a picture, that put away my aunt and all the tenement women who came into our house for beer-drinking, put them away from memory entirely. I thought that she would send me home, and tell me to look tidy before I knocked at her door, or that I had made a mistake, and that such a woman, with her white hands, could not be giving thirty-five cent piano lessons to Al Priddy, a mill-boy! ”

“ As I left the dining-hall, I saw young women with duster caps on their heads, leaning out of dormitory windows shaking rugs; others I found hurrying down to other dormitories with bundles of laundry. When I arrived in Pungo Hall, I was greeted with the thumping of brushes, the clatter of furniture, and the shouts of the men as they called to one another above the clouds of dust that were being hurled from the rooms into the hallway. ”

“ The mill was bound to get me, in the long run. It was only playing with me in letting me out in the sun, the fresh air, and the fields for a while. The mill owned me. I would have to go back!
We tried to live through the winter, without getting word from my uncle, on the money I earned. Occasionally aunt would take some liquor, but she seemed to realize at last that she must not indulge overmuch. One day, growing desperate, I said to her, “If I catch you drinking on my money, now, I’ll leave home, you see! I’ll earn money to buy food, but I won’t earn it for no saloon-keeper, mark my words!” ”

“ Besides bewildering me in the intellectual meshes of that new doctrine, the woman made me sit in her office and listen to a fascinating recital of her household’s progress from a drug-store of drugs to an empty medicine chest: to a radical change in the family temper from semi-pessimism into a real sunburst of glorious, mellowing optimism: to an intricate and involved interpretation of the Old Testament and then in a very cloudy but, to me, excitingly suggestive denial of all facts that men and books had told me were positive and real. ”

“ So we went back to the drug-store corner, [203] with its drinking trough, where we could have been found huddled, miserable, like animals who have so much liberty and do not know how intelligently to use it. For we knew that after the night, came the morning, and with the morning another round in the mill, a fight with a machine, a ten hours’ dwelling in heated, spiceless, unexciting monotony, and a thought like that made us want to linger as long as we dared on that drug-store corner. ”

“ Oh, yes, a wonderful education in student affairs? Like one of your boys that came into this village, and in broad daylight went up to the grocery store, there, on the main street, and deliberately took down and carried off a four-foot, patent-medicine thermometer, the folks all the while thinking him to be an agent fellow, come to mend it, or change it. Oh, yes, a wonderful education those fellows get among themselves! ”

“ Curley was Mallet’s antithesis in everything but moral ignorance. He was a towering brute, with a child’s, yes, less than a child’s, brain. He ran to muscle. He could outlift the strongest man in the mill without increasing his heartbeat. His chief diversions were lifting weights, boasting of his deeds with weights in contests of the past, and the recital of filthy yarns in which he had been the chief actor.
That afternoon of my first day in the mill, Mallet and Curley shut themselves in the elevator room with Zippy and me. ”

“ As we filed out into the light of the noon sun, and could easily discover the towering, broad shoulders of Ellis, our leader, at the head of the line, I thought of the honor he had brought to the college in his four years’ presence in it, and saw in him the union of all that is best in American college life and those qualities which the college aims to invest in every willing student’s life: loyalty to one’s fellows, physical fitness, moral alertness, humility in success, and a respect for the law that governs men and nations. ”

“ I have seen her take broths and meats to neighbors, when uncle and I have had too much buttered bread and preserves. I have seen her take her apron with her to a neighbor’s, where she washed the dishes, while her own had to accumulate, to be later disposed of with my assistance. There was a shiftless man in the town, the town-crier, who would never take charity outright. Him did aunt persuade to come and paint rural scenes, highly colored with glaring tints, as if nature had turned color-blind. There were cows in every scene, and aunt noticed that all the cows were up to their knees in water. ”

“ Over on the north side a snow-white meeting-house fronted us with a stiff, proud chest, and with its hexagonal bell-tower rising above the roof like the smoke-stack of a railway engine, made one expect to see it start puffing forward over the campus, with a very tiny, Greek-pillared vestry accompanying it, like a colt engine, destined, sometime later, perhaps, to grow into a meeting-house, like its companion. ”

“ The scene I had looked upon was disheartening, somewhat like a sudden blow in the face, for those box-like, wooden duck-houses were not to be compared with the ivy-covered, romantic rows of Hadfield with their flower-gardens, arches, and slate roofs! But I was in America, anyway!
We had the breakfast-table to ourselves, uncle, aunt, and myself, for the boarders had gone to work long ago, and this was our holiday, our first American day! What are those round golden things with holes in? Doughnuts? They don’t grow on trees, do they? Baked? Isn’t it funny they call them “nuts?” ”

“ Midway on the route we drove through an abandoned village, past a once commodious church, a mill, and several houses, all storm bent and in forsaken ruin. We rode along sand-rutted highways which seemed to take us farther and farther away from living creatures. [286] We passed acres and acres of stumps showing where the axes and saws of woodsmen had left a permanent scar in the forestry of the back-roads. Then we emerged on the first street of a quaint, slumberous town whose green and drab-shuttered white houses hid demurely behind screens of elm and of maple. ”

“ I felt that I could go into the pulpit and preach on themes, which instead of arousing the hostility of men, as the doctrine of Evangelical University seemed destined to do, would by their breadth, optimism, and freedom from Phariseeism win the repentant consent of men. I had gone into the Seminary tutored by Evangelical University to be afraid to let the sun shine on religion’s chief doctrines, I had come from the Seminary believing that the flood of light intensified the beauty of religion. ”

“ But back of it all were good habits, fair speech, heroic chivalry, and Christian manliness, and the reading of it did me good, aroused my romantic interest in college, made me eager to live as clean a life as Frank amidst such profligacy as I had to meet. That reading spoiled me ever after for the mill, even if there had been nothing else to spoil me. I, too, a poor mill lad, with little chance for getting money, with so sober a background as was against my life, wanted to make my mark in the world as the great figures in history had done. ”

“ I cried, “you might get me to give up wearing a watch-chain and a tie-pin, but you aren’t going to stop me from joining one of these societies. I want social life and I’m going to have it, jokes or no jokes. I’m not so good as you on logic or Bible, but you aren’t going to stand between me and a few pleasures. Don’t some of the faculty belong to the Blepoes and the Boulomaies? If they can join without scruples—and they are Christian men and women—I can join. So it’s no use arguing the matter with me, Jason. I think I’ll send in my name to the Blepoes for the next meeting.” ”

“ When my uncle saw me reading the novels, he interposed with, “That’s cheap stuff, Al, and will never make you any better. You want to read refining things, the great books. There’s many an exciting one that is exciting without [146] being cheap. I wish you would let me plan for you.” I told him that I would—sometime, but I kept on reading Cheap John’s bargain-counter literature.
The ten and a half hours in the mill, with its humdrum rattle, its high-pitched hum, the regularity of its fixtures, the monotonousness of its routine, bullied my nerves into a tamed, cowed state. ”

“ So, at last, I had the opportunity of testing on community life this doctrine which comforted me with an inexpressible comfort. I bent to my work, with my wife at my elbow, as proud of my chance as any king called suddenly from obscurity to a kingdom.
I occupied a study whose front window overlooked the trees and gave me an excellent view of the sailing ships and steamers which dotted the bay. I had my typewriter in one corner, my desk in the centre of the room, and an abundant supply of manuscript paper on which I intended writing years and years of sermons for that parish. ”

“ I wanted to do a man’s work now, in a man’s way, for a man’s wage. I learned with alarm, too, that I was getting past the age when young men enter college, and there I was, without even a common school education! Once more the gloom of the mill settled down on me. The old despair gripped me.
I did find companionship in my ambitions, now that I had left the gang. Pat Carroll, an Irishman, wanted to go to college also. He was far past me in the amount of schooling he had enjoyed, for by patient application to night-school in the winter, he had entered upon High School studies. ”

“ We must have discipline, brother Priddy!”
Thropper was waiting for me, after breakfast, when the call to chapel sounded: the first exercise of the day. We joined the procession of students which moved swiftly towards the central building. Into it the procession hurried, racing against the tolling of the bell. Then followed a tiresome climb up three pairs of stairs to the topmost room of all, used for a chapel. An attic room, square and dimly lighted by dormer windows. The roof girders overhead clung together like knitted arms bent on holding together such a load of humanity as trusted to them. ”

“ And oh, what prizes of the dump! Cracked plates, cups and saucers, tinware, bric-à-brac, footwear, clothing, nursing-bottles and nipples, bottles with the dregs of flavoring extracts, cod-liver oil, perfumes, emulsions, tonics, poisons, antiseptics, cordials, decayed fruit, and faded flowers! These were seized in triumph, taken home in glee, and no doubt used in faith. There is little philosophy in poverty, and questions of sanitation and prudence come in the stage beyond it. ”

“ I felt like a lad having to choose from fifteen nectar flavors of ice cream, only the courses of study from which I had the privilege of choosing went into the hundreds. Almost every theme of my desire was spread before me; explorations into literature, social life, fine arts, science, language, and economics. Old yearnings could be abundantly gratified at last: a formidable list of professors and a more formidable list of studies awaited my option. ”

“ I stretched myself to my full height many times a day. I exercised with weights and broom handles, even though I found it very painful. I gulped in the fresh air when out of the mill, and walked with my chest thrust out, a stiff, self-conscious, growing lad, fighting ever against the impending tragedy of a deformed body. ”

“ In Pungo Hall I came face to face with young men to whom the gates of educational privilege had been closed until they, like myself, were on the threshold of young manhood. They had come from the hearts of coal mines and breakers, bringing their life’s dreams with them, and an indomitable purpose. Every penny they spent for books and board had been earned by the sweat of their brow. ”

“ I spent in the elevator room, where the doffers also came for a rest.
I had occasion to get very well acquainted with two of the doffers that first day. Their names were “Mallet” and “Curley,” two French Canadians. Mallet was a lithe, sallow-faced, black-haired depreciator of morals, who fed on doughnuts, and spent most of his wages in helping out his good looks with the aid of the tailor, the boot-maker, and the barber. He came to the mill dressed in the extreme of fashion, and always with his upper lip curled, as if he despised every person he passed—save the good-looking girls. ”

“ From dormitory windows came shouts, cornet practise, and various moanings which, at a quieter time, would have been differentiated as vocal trios and duets. Down the business street, from the upper floors where some of the fraternities had rooms, the sounds of clanging piano rag-time tried to merge with explosive bellowings of happy, singing fraternity men. On the College Club porch a jostling crowd of students could be seen, shaking hands, telling summer experiences, and knocking chairs about in the anxiety to get at one another. ”

“ I spoke to my uncle about it one noon-hour.
“Why can’t I work in the mill, too?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you rather get some learning, Al?” he asked. “You know men can’t do much in the world without learning. It’s brains, not hands, that makes the world really go ahead. I wish you could get a lot of schooling and perhaps go to college. It’s what I always wanted and never got, and see where I am to-day. I’m a failure, Al, that’s what I am!”
“But aunt says that I’ve got to go in the mill as soon as I can, uncle.”
His face grew sad at that, and he said, “Yes, through our drinking and getting in debt! ”

“ Then the road became a climb until some highlands were attained and we sped through a little fishing village which nestled close to a mysterious, secluded cove, guarded by stern, fretted cliffs, a place where Stevenson would have had a cave of smugglers or the anchorage of a rakish pirate craft. Then came a turn in the road, where, behind a fringe of thick, old gold birches and in the midst of some dead oak stumps, nature had placed a cathedral pile of gigantic slabs of stone, one on another, as if to show to man what the angels of strength could do once they started to build with stone. ”

“ We passed a grim, grey fort and then stopped at a quiet town whose roofs were buried in tall trees, which in turn were topped by the spires of two old-fashioned churches which seemed to be telling the townspeople in which direction God was to be found. The river roadway deepened and narrowed and twisted as we ascended it. Then we left the autumn beauties of tree and shrub and passed between ice-houses, factories, and tenements until a bridge marked the limits of navigation and we were put ashore in the Seminary city. ”

“ I wanted to come to college to sport around and imagined my doom sealed when father emphatically refused to fund me, but mother—say Priddy, what would the spoiled children of the rich do without generous-hearted mothers?—my mother privately funded me and sent me here and still maintains me, even against father’s orders, for he will not relent and imagines me to be the fool of fools in taking the course I did. ”

“ I concluded as I felt of my tires, preparatory to taking up my journey towards home, “students may seem shiftless, indifferent, and unenthusiastic on the campus, but when you get behind the laziest of them you are liable to find that they are giving themselves to some sort of character-making work,—contrary to the posters which lead outsiders to think that college life consists of a place where the student sits in the sun on a fence, smoking a pipe with a leashed bull-pup at his feet!” ”

“ Not a sound is heard, until the college song-leader hums a pitch. Then the Alma Mater hymn goes up with all the thrilling reverence in it of a song of love sung to the college mother. If one were near the singers, it would be possible to see, how, when the song deepens in theme, the sophomore unconsciously throws his arm over the shoulder of the freshman, and the senior throws his over the shoulder of the junior: all brothers as the melody unfolds itself. ”

“ Like a stern, powerful, determining Ruler, the head waiter stood at the opposite end of the room, with his eye on his watch, not willing to press his thumb on the Sunday-School bell until the instant seven o’clock arrived. Eyes looked longingly on the hot, fried potatoes. It was no use. Seven o’clock was a minute off. Some rumbled the legs of the chairs. To no purpose. The German had patience. Finally the snap of the bell sent every man and woman to the table accompanied by the roar of scraping chairs, thumping feet, and expressions of satisfaction. ”

“ In the dining-hall I met my fellow waiters and waitresses: college students, all of them, from different parts of the country. The orchestra, at dinner, played complimentary college tunes in our honor: our guests broke down all perfunctory relations and intimately entered into our ambitions. While waiting for the arrival of guests at breakfast the waiters stood under a wooden canopy in the hotel yard and ironed napkins and towels. Of course neither Thropper nor I were very expert in the laundry, but that did not excuse us from it. ”

“ It has eaten up much of my time, and there have been days and days when the grind of training and practise and of having to go to bed early, and all that, have been wearing and uninspiring. If it hadn’t been that I felt that I was maintaining the honor of the college by my playing, I should have quit the game long ago. Well, there are a lot of folks that think of college athletics as a waste of the student’s time and as a feature of college life not good in itself, but which must be endured, if men are to be won to college. ”

“ Morning, afternoon, and evening the city people united with the seminary members in crowding the lecture hall; school-teachers, women’s clubs, college professors and college students, librarians, esthetic clerks, intellectually inclined mill-workers, doctors, lawyers, and church people,—these were in evidence always, for the lecturers’ names, and the three poles of their thought—religion, social service, and letters—made a universal appeal. ”

“ Its name had been reverently spoken in so far away a place as Evangelical University. The history of the United States cannot be written without mention and eulogy of some of its noted graduates. During those July days, while we were establishing [284] our household goods in the parsonage, I caught myself sniffing the east wind, as if eager to slake my curiosity by catching the flavor of the college. My enthusiasm was unbounded over the possibility of at last attaining unto a college education: the trade-mark of American culture. ”

“ Here we met several young men walking slowly and engaged in earnest conversation.
“Those are students!” the Senior whispered, “out for a walk.”
When some mill whistles at a remote distance announced the noon hour, the Senior conducted me to a grove of stiff, tall pines where on the brown, fragrant needles he spread a lunch of sandwiches, jelly, and pears.
Then we took up the walk again, passing on into the wilderness of trees and rushing river. At a turn in the track we came to a high cliff whose outer surface was stained with moss and glistened with dampness. ”

“ The pine groves and the quiet cliffs lured tired men and women to their restful silences. Trout fishers rubbed oil of camphor over their faces to restrain the ambitious stings of flies and mosquitoes, and sought the brook pools where Walton’s classic trout waited to be played with. My little rustic church became filled with city people, who not only sat in the pews, but sang in the choir, decorated the pulpit with flowers and grasses, and served on responsible committees. ”

“ Give up your education! You must have money and strength, money and strength, money and strength!” And then the thought of my classmates would obtrude itself and I saw them in visions at their tasks, at their homes, in the full enjoyment of work, companionship, and wages. I seemed to hear, borne on the summer wind, above the bleating of the sheep, the exhortations of the evangelists in their tents which were crowded with farmers, paying heed to the gospel, and I was envious of them. I thought of the miners deep under the earth, black with their toil but happy in earning a substantial wage ”

“ I tell you, Priddy, the students aren’t interested very much in pure scholarship: even many of the men who are here for a serious purpose.”
“Then why do they come here, Garvin, tell me that?” I demanded.
“For an education, Priddy.”
“But how can they secure an education unless they are solicitous about scholarship, Garvin?”
“Oh, I see what is the matter, Priddy. You imagine that because so many of us aren’t interested in scholarship, pure scholarship, we aren’t interested in education. Education and scholarship are two very different things.” ”

“ I tried to paint in glowing terms the high station to which Nora, through Martin, might be exalted. I leaped from point to point with enthusiastic eloquence, when the theme had mastered me. But when I had concluded, and was looking eagerly into the young woman’s face for a favorable sign, she gasped, then in a cold voice she said:
“Oh, yes, it’s all right for him; but don’t I know that if he goes to college he’ll meet other girls, better looking, better dressed, better educated than I am, or can ever hope to be. ”

“ Every dormitory was always in danger of a visit from the Dean, and as the students in the dormitories were prevailingly men and women considerably beyond their ’teens, there was no inconsiderable disobedience of this rule; it made us feel too much like little children who [84] are put to bed while the daylight lingers on the earth. I soon had a taste of the common experience. One evening three students met with Thropper and me to indulge in a heated and loud discussion on the question: “That it is best for a man to marry his first love!” ”