(A Portrait)

I

Generally he was to be found in one of the galleries of the library, surrounded by tiers on tiers of books that formed for him a veritable barricade of erudition. Or it was as though he sat at the bottom of a well the bricks of which were the solid thoughts of men, themselves gone these many, many years. But there he would sit hour after hour and read, read, read, by the ragged light that filtered down upon him through the unscrubbed glass above. Always he was the first person the librarian met on the broad stone steps when he came over in the morning with his huge key to unlock the great, thick door and throw the building open for another day.

"Good-morning, sir," the old professor would say, in his dry, thin, little voice, and bow stiffly.

"'Morning," the librarian would respond, not so gruffly as characteristically, and bustle away.

Then, on tiptoe, the old professor would pass the swinging doors of baize and silently mount the gray iron stairs to the narrow galleries of the book-room where the life of his waking hours was lived among his unresponsive loves.

For he did love them, his books, whose friendship did not suffer change be the day gay or gray, and with them all about him—he the centre of the chaos of wisdom—he was happy. Among them he lived his simple life in sweet companionship and was joyous for the privilege, for without the books darkness would be his, whilst in them was light for his dim eyes and solace for his gently beating heart. So, day in, day out, in sunshine and in rain, in cold and snow and warmth, the old professor mounted, silently, the gray iron stairs in the childhood of the day, to come down again, as silently, when the lights were extinguished one by one and the broad campus without was wrapped in melancholy black.

Once he had been young. But that was in the day of hard work, when youth toiled to live. Then no lad was more sprightly than he. His early home was a long, low, rambling farmhouse in a southern state, where the flowers came early in the spring and bloomed and bloomed again late into autumn. There, to him, imaginative, dreaming, for all his boyish activity, the life out-of-doors was little less than participation in a splendid pageant—the Pageant of Summer.

On the farm adjoining lived another boy and together they builded air-castles and procrastinated through the long, still evenings, when the work of the day was done. And of such sort were the castles that they lived in them, even as they worked afield, and sowed, and reaped, and sowed again.

Of all their dreams one was fairer than the others. It was of a college in the north where boys might go, and, once there, might learn the finer things. One day they resolved to make their goal that college. They toiled longer each day, then, until the red sun slipped below the wood-line to the west, and when the summer died they fared forth together.

Side by side they sat at lectures and at recitations. They lived together in a little room across the river where rooms were more cheaply to be had and where landladies were more accommodating and framed no loud objections to simple cooking on a smoky oil stove. Halcyon days those were to the lads, and the very experience of poverty whetted their appetites for the luxuries they dreamed one day would be for them.

Together they had from the hands of the president their diplomas, squares of sheepskin all written over in stately Latin—the golden fleece of their heroic quest.

He who later was to be the old professor, became the young professor then; and the friend of the four years in the little room across the river, where simple cooking was permitted, went away, nor ever came back again.

So near had been their lives that for a time the young professor was sad. A portrait on tin was all he had to recall the face of him who was gone, and frequently, of a Sunday afternoon which was set apart for a walk afield, he would seat himself beside the river and with the little portrait on his knee indulge in retrospections of the by-gone days when they were lads together on adjoining farms. Such fragrant reveries constituted the leaven needed in the young professor's life, for in the University circle he was much sought. He was a brilliant man; his ideas were "advanced" then, original and new. His conversation at dinner was sprightly, vivacious. He had the gallantry of generations of Southern gentlemen and was beloved of all the ladies. He was wont on occasion to pass the compliment with an almost Italian grace and he rejoiced in the tap of the fan upon his wrist which was his feminine reward.

"You must not fail us," a hostess would say, "you know Professor —— will be here; such a brilliant man; such charming manners."

And the bidden guest would promise straightway, whilst the hostess would turn back from the door with a sigh, betokening, perhaps, a discontent that her Henry had not the graces of Professor ——. Then the children would cry to her from the nursery and she would forget——

Or—

"That is Professor ——," a fellow academician would say to a stranger on the campus as the erect, lithe-limbed young man veered round a corner. "A pillar, sir, a pillar of the institution. The making of a great man, a great man, sir."

But all this was long before the advent of the old professor, long before the day when people ceased to seek him out, to fawn before his talent, and to cherish in memory the brilliant phrases that he was so apt in making. For when that day came he was no more noticed in his passage to and fro across the campus than one of the rats that were wont to scamper from building to building in the dead hours of the night.

The transition from the young professor to the old professor was not sudden, but stealthily gradual. He loved the past, its doctrines and its methods. What had been his youth should be, he thought, the youth for all time, and he never knew his error. Little by little, year by year, he became less often the honored guest at a faculty dinner. He clung to the manners of his youth and the younger wives called him an old fogey and smiled when his name was mentioned.

Thus it continued until he became a mere ghost of dead days, an occasional, living reminder of an ancient system of education or method of class-room work long since relegated to that dusty storehouse where are heaped "old things" that have served their usefulness, flung aside to make room for papier machÉ manikins and varnished maps of pasteboard with the mountains raised to scale and the winding streams indented.

And yet in the official circle of the institution there lingered a certain reverence for the old professor. His sweetness of character, his gentleness of spirit, his humility, made it a sad duty to point the way to him; and so, from month to month, the president's request for his resignation was delayed, and then there occurred a little incident that secured for him, unknowing, another period of service.

The trembling country awaited application of the torch of war. In the college town a meeting was called and the citizenry swarmed into a church where the president of the University was to deliver an address.

On a bench at the front sat the old professor, his face uplifted, drawn with the pain that tore his gentle heart, for the South he loved was proving its disloyalty to the Union that he worshipped.

Through the open windows came a breeze of gentle April that moved the old professor's hair, and he lifted a trembling hand to his high smooth forehead.

Even as the president spoke there was heard a cry in the street that caused the faces of strong men to pale and their eyes to start.

"Sumpter has been fired upon!"

And at the cry right triumphed over wrong in the old professor's throbbing heart. Getting unsteadily upon his feet he raised his hand.

"Silence!" he called, and then, in the hush, he added, his voice trembling,

"I move that this meeting adjourn at once to Court House Square!"

A cheer was raised, and in the wake of the procession that was formed upon the instant the old professor marched—his head bowed, his eyes wet—to the open place where the speeches, now ablaze, with patriotic fervor, were resumed.

There were those who knew and somewhat understood what it had meant to the old professor to move that adjournment and when they spoke of him among themselves for many days thereafter it was with a little tremor of the voice and a certain mistiness of the eyes. And for three years he lived among them uncomplaining though stricken to the soul.

II

But the weeks became months and the months gathered into years, and after many years even the old professor himself forgot the incident save at such times as the appearance of a man in uniform recalled it to him. At such times he was wont to close his book—his long slim finger marking the place—and let it fall upon his knee, whilst his mind galloped back across the desert of the years to hover an instant about the past's neglected grave.

Perhaps some ray of humor would creep in and part the clouds and the old professor's smile would reflect the glint of sunshine deeper in his heart. Then he would shake his head and sigh and open the book again, following the lines as he read, with that long, slim forefinger.

"A dream—a dream," he would murmur and forget.

And for a long time the memories of the dead days would sleep in his quiet mind.

He dwelt in peace in the midst of an active warring world; the peace that is the man's who feels that he has done his part, his little share, in making his world better. He knew his work was ended, that his time for rest had come, and knowing this he was satisfied to creep noiselessly and unnoticed into a dingy, unfrequented corner and there, with a book or two, a ream of pure white paper and a pen, to spend the time allowed him in the sweet society of his books.

Unhappy, you ask, this frail old man into whose thick hair the years had sprinkled many snowflakes?

All about him there was none happier.

Had you asked him, he would have said, no doubt, with that pale little smile of his:

"I have my books. I live well. I have my room. I have my bed. I have my meals—and some of them I prepare myself. And I have a friend. Could a man ask more? As I grow older I find myself agreeing more and more with David Thoreau, who, you will remember, once said, as he passed a tool box standing beside a railway, that he could not understand why a man should want a better home than such a box would make."

And he would laugh with himself at the philosophic quip.

His friend in his later years was another old man; not a scholar, but a man who had worked hard and lived hard, and at sunset took his rest. He too, had many graces.

On Sunday afternoons whenever the weather would permit the old professor sought him out and they walked afield, or by the river where the old professor had loved to wander as a boy. If their path were barricaded by a turnstile it always meant a lengthy parley as to whom should cross it first.

"After you, my friend," the old professor would say, bowing low.

Lifting a protesting hand, "No," the other would respond, "after you."

"I insist," the old professor would contend.

The other would indicate the turnstile with a gesture. "You first," he would repeat.

And so they would stand there bowing, insisting, until, neither seeing fit to give way, they would retrace their steps and seek a path that had no turnstile.

But once, filled with zeal to explore the wood beyond a certain stile, an ingenious plan occurred to the old professor which was immediately carried to a successful issue. Both clambered over the fence at one side of the opening and proceeded on their way.

And for a long time after each held the incident as a joke against the other.

The conversation of the friends on such occasions was of the life that lay before them, serious; never of the past. And they agreed in their philosophy at all points. They never argued.

"Well, friend," the old professor said one day, "when the time comes for us to go I hope we may go together—may continue our walk."

"I hope we may," the other answered.

"I have always thought," the old professor added with a twinkle in his eyes, "that there must be many a pleasant walk in heaven—after one has left the pavement."

III

Alike as they were, there was one joy that now and then came into the old professor's life that the other could not share.

It came to him when, at widely separated intervals, there crossed his path a man with hair almost as white as his own, who in the days long gone had sat before him on the benches of the class-room as a student, and absorbed his wider wisdom. When such an one he met, the old professor's voice always caught in his throat and he sought to cover the confusion that he suffered by a closer pressure of his hand. Then, the emotion passing, something of the old light would flame up in his eyes.

He would step back and exclaim: "Well! well! well!" Then the memories would surge back into his mind and he would gaze abstractedly without speaking.

"You remember me?" the other old fellow would ask, gaily.

"Remember you!" the old professor would exclaim and nudge him, playfully. "Remember you? Well, well, I guess I couldn't forget you if I tried! Why you were the scamp that tied the white mule to my desk-leg and left him there over night so I should be greeted by his bray when I entered the room in the morning! Remember you! Ha! ha! I've been waiting all these years to get at you!"

Then he would stride upon the white haired "grad" with hand raised, ominously, but with the merry twinkle still lighting up his eyes; whilst the victim would quail mockingly, with a brighter twinkle in his own.

The old professor was known often to have kissed gray haired boys when they met on alumni day.

"I have always called you the mule-pupil," he would continue as, arm in arm they strolled back and forth along the broad main corridor.

"And do you remember what you said to the class when you found that mule at your desk, in the morning?" the scamp would ask, with a chuckle, perhaps.

"No, what?"

"Ah, I remember it as though it were yesterday; how you came bustling into the room. You saw the mule. We were all boiling inside. You did not scowl. You did not rant. You did not call down upon our heads the venging hand of a just heaven. You just turned to us as calm as you are now...."

The old professor would gurgle here, with rare delight.

" ... and said, 'young gentlemen, I perceive that you have already been provided with an instructor quite competent to teach you all you will ever be able to learn!' And then you walked out of the room with a polite 'good-morning.'"

Here the former student would roar with laughter.

"You don't tell me," the old professor would exclaim. "You don't tell me I said that! Well, well, well; that was rather hard on you boys, wasn't it? I'd forgotten all about it. I—I just remembered the mule!"

"And do you recall," the man who was a boy, again would ask, "how you found all the wood from the big wood-box in the south-wing corridor piled against your door?"

The old professor would wrinkle his forehead here and stare thoughtfully at the floor.

"No, I don't seem to recollect," he would say.

"Well you did; we boys had piled it there, of course. Must have been a cord at least. Then we hung around to see what you would do."

"And what did I do?"

"You began to remove the pile, stick by stick, and to pack them all away in the great wood-box."

Here the old professor was always wont to shake with silent laughter.

"Well, we stood it as long as we could, and then Billy Green—you remember Billy Green; poor Billy, he was killed at Gettysburg. Billy went up to you, as brave as you please, and said: 'Professor, I don't know who piled this wood against your door but un-piling it is no work for you.' And then he shouted to us, 'come on, boys,' and we fell to and got the wood away from that door in about two jerks of a lamb's tail. But didn't we feel small! Professor, why didn't you have a few of us fired bodily?"

"Oh, no, no, my friend," the old professor would perhaps exclaim, quickly. "Expel a boy for being a boy! It is not for you or me, dear sir, to seek to improve upon the handiwork of God!"

And there would ensue another laugh, and many more in the three days to follow, and then commencement would be over and the old student would go back to Kansas City and the old professor to his books.

But for more than three days a subtle effect of the meeting would remain with him. For many days he would carry his head a bit higher. A color flush would show upon his hollow cheeks; his step would take on an unaccustomed elasticity. For a discriminating Fate had touched to the old professor's lips the cup of life and he had sipped of the contents, and another year was his.

IV

I remember him best as I saw him first. It was in the late afternoon of a golden day in mid-October. A companion pointed him out to me as we approached the ivy-green library. He was coming slowly down the steps, one arm encircling a great bundle of books, one hand fumbling at his neck scarf. The clothes he wore were of another day. The coat was full-skirted, long, and bulging at the breast. About his thin throat was twisted a black silk stock, frayed and rusty, over which the loose and unstarched collar rolled. On his broad-toed shoes his baggy trousers fell in folds. There was a seeming rigidity to the creases that induced the thought they must have been so always; like the wrinkles in the wrappings of a mummy. And yet, infinitely pathetic as the picture was, I knew that such a coat, such a stock, even such a round crowned, broad brimmed soft hat as that he wore, once had made the old professor a man of fashion—a quarter of a century before.

"That's the oldest professor on the campus," my companion said. "In college? No. He hasn't taught a class for twenty years. He was an old fogey and they removed him, I'm told, to make room for a younger man. He's only waiting for the end now. Every one says he'd give five years to get back on the faculty. You'll usually find him near the library, either just going in or just coming out. He hides himself all day among the books. The fellows call him 'The Ghost.' I've been told he saved a little from his salary every quarter and that now he lives in a little back room somewhere near the campus and cooks his own meals."

And whenever after that I saw him it was this last phrase that recurred to me with almost painful insistency ... "lives in a little back room somewhere ... and cooks his own meals."

It was hard for youth to realize that such could be humanity's reward to a man who had given a life of patience, forebearance, toil, and sacrifice, to make his little world the better for his having lived within it.

We stood apart and watched him as he came slowly down the broad, stone steps. At the last he stopped and looked up at the sky. We saw his face more clearly then. It was thin, pale, drawn about the mouth, but the eyes were infinitely tender. His lips trembled and seemed to form words that were not uttered. Then he walked on. Twice, before he turned the corner of the ivy-covered wall, he raised a hand to his face and passed the dangling finger-tips of his black cloth glove across his eyes.

That slow walk home beneath the canopy the painted maples made marked the ending of another day in the old professor's fading life; a day such as days had been for twenty years, a space of time in which a smile had flitted to his lips, a tear had risen, and he had held the book a little closer to his eyes.

It was not long thereafter that we learned the end had come. They found him in his chair, a book upon his knee, his slim forefinger marking the page where he had left off reading to close his eyes and dream. The pale ghost of a smile still lingered about his mouth.

Some one, gentler than the rest, placed a single rose in the cold hand, and a scant company followed the slow hearse to the cemetery.

No one wept. Perhaps no one even felt a sadness, standing there beside the open grave. Yet he would not have wished it otherwise. They covered him for the long, long sleep, and went away.

And now, on a day in June, when the air is heavy with the fragrance of the green and growing things and the grasses are alive with singing creatures, the breeze that stirs alike the tall tree-tops and the tender shoots of grain seems to whisper above the lonely grave, unmarked in that great City of the Dead: "Sleep on; thy work is done; done well. Thou shalt be rewarded."