Carleton College - Algol Yearbook (Northfield, MN)

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CHAT WITH MISS EVANS On Sunday nights, Miss Evans' room is bright and cosy. The fire burns cheerfully on the open hearth, and as the girls' come in, in little groups like flocks of birds, they are greeted by a pleasant, smiling face and a loving voice which speaks its Welcome from the heart. Seats are found on chairs and stools, and all about the floor, and then the talk begins. Sometimes We learn to look with a new and clearer vision at some great work of art in which heretofore perhaps, We had failed to see the beauty and the meaning. Sometimes it is the .beauty of Nature and of the common things which lie all about us, While We go blindly on not seeing, that is pointed out to us. Now we are told of many Wonders of foreign lands and of varied and interesting and sometimes ludicrous experiences in visiting them. Again the talk is of great and inspiring lives, perhaps those of some of our own Carleton alumni who as missionaries and teachers are heroically struggling against great odds, and making their iniluence and Works a blessing to humanity. There is a Genius in this room Which makes a girl's life seem nobler, more Worth the livingg which gives higher ideals, and Worthier purposes, which makes us dissatished with our narrowness and selfishness, and 23

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honor, of honesty, his aesthetic, his spiritual nature. Wphen had he opened his mother's Bible? Who ever thought of coming to him for aid in a philanthropic movement? And then, in the midst of it all had come the impulse to go back, quietly and unannounced to this spot, to live again in memory the sweet old days when with his companions-youths and maidens- he passed in and out of the small group of buildings overlooking river and wooded hill, in that simple life of the little western college. And now, all the sweet holy influences of the place were upon him again, but he felt them now with all the deeper intensity of his ripened manhood, and as contrasted with his full knowledge of what sin and temptation meant. He lifted his head. All about him was bathed in the tender radiance of a half-grown moon. Below him, the river shone white as angel's wings, the new beams drank the silver light and smiled. A tiny throb of hope shot throught his burdened heart. Was it possible that he, all sin-smirched, could drink this holy calm? Could he whiten his spirit again? He arose-What God-given impulses were guiding him this night! Up in the path paced an aged man, it was a professor whom he once nloved, returning from some duty, slowly in the cool of the evening. Face to face the two men met. The elder stretched out glad arms to welcome a pupil always a favorite, and hand in hand they passed beneath the whispering trees. At such times may such men meet as spirit with spirit, and it was as if God spoke the shriven soul. The night was far spent when the Man sought his resting place, and in the morning' an early train bore him back to imperative duties, but it carried a changed man. A year past, and at sunset of the same month and day, the Man had reached the end of a long journey, and stood before Hilda. She looked up with her steady, unsurprised eyes, I always knew you would come, she said simply. HI was never worthy before, nor am I now, but I had to come and I shall never go away, he said. She was busy, useful, calm, and gentle. Receptive to all the happiness which ,her intellect and heart could bring her, she was able to give out the stores of her ripe, rich nature, and to be a Hilda indeed-a. conscience for others. By and by he told her of that night a year ago, andwondered about the maid with Hilda's eyes. HMy little sister, they do tell us we are like, she interposed. And they spoke long and tenderly of the dear old days, and most of all they talked of the spirit of kindly sym- pathy, of comradeship, of unitedness, which bound young and old together, and of the noble and unselfish type of Christianity in the leaders which had been instrumental in rightly direct- ing the lives of many. 22

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teaches us to look with a purer vision into broad fields where our influence may count for true womanhood. It is like a vision to us. We realize more adequately what privileges and op- portunities are oursg what duties and responsibilities follow themg how the college girl is blessed with that for which many others are longingg and we are filled with the determination to strive more earnestly for the fulfilling of those high ideals in our own lives. And as we go away after the sweet voice has bidden a loving goodnight and spoken a warm invitation to come again soon, we feel that this and other experiences like it, will be precious and blessed memories in all our lives to come. THE READ The fellows who are accustomed to gather in Gridley Hall parlors on Sunday evenings to hear Miss Richardson read an interesting story or a few chapters from a book, have some- thing to which they can look back with pleasure when college days have passed, and much of their life at Carleton has been forgotten. When the chilling wind is whistling about old 24