University of the South - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Sewanee, TN)

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®he ©ap attb ( oxv% . 13 A college town! Already I felt battered and bruised with Commence- ment Exercises. The air seemed dark with crawling essays — my arms were being waved by countless declamations — my ears were roaring with orations. I could see the model youth dressed with pitiless care walk for- ward, stop with military precision, draw the right foot back and bow, return to the perpendicular, fit his middle finger to the outside seam of his trousers, and gazing at the top of the furthest window, begin in a hollow tone : Friends ! —Romans ! — Countrymen ! The memory was so strong it made me smile, even though longing to wring Jack ' s neck. What had I done to be so punished ? Does the road stop at Sewanee ? I asked. No ; it goes on to the mines. Mines ! with sudden hope. Yes, at Tracy City. My hopes collapsed. Between an unknown college and an unknown city, I chose the college. It stops at Monteagle, too. Monteagle, I repeated, with my hopes under better control. A girls ' school and Chatauqua, with pride. I had often tried to imagine the despair of the guide when they asked him of the mummy, Is it dead? I realized it now. Boys were bad, but more to my taste than anything else offered me, and as we drew up at the station I decided that Sewanee was my fate. I was the only passenger for Sewanee, and felt myself a base coward that though 1 dreaded the college, I was not brave enough to go on. But the vision of the girls ' school and the crowds that were always at Chatauqua gatherings terrified me, and I felt that any number of the very worst boys would be less unnerving to me, a timid bachelor. The station house and the village were a great advance on Cowan, and I looked about anxiously for the College. A huge wooden barn was what I expected to see, with spindling saplings planted in rows all about it. Will you go up, sir ? asked a man with a whip. Where? fastening my college-hunting gaze on his face. To the University. I ' ll take you up for a quarter, and Dan ' 11 take your trunk for a quarter. How far is the University ? A good piece. What house are you going to ? The hotel.

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12 ®hu ( ap atxii (JBonm. We travelled through a beautiful country where the brave mountain- born streams fought their way among the hills ; where peaceful valleys stood thick in corn, and wild clefts and gorges broke away on every side. At last a grand amphitheater of mountains seemed to close about us — a wild dash out of the sunshine into the darkness of the tunnel — then emerging, a sudden stop and a cry, Cowan ! I sprang up in the wildest haste. I had said the word so often that at last it seemed to be attached to every nerve in my body, and when the call came — Cowan ! — the shock was great. I stood on the platform of the station and wondered why I had let go my last hold on civilization. As far as one could see from the station, it was a mud-bespattered little place, haunted by lean, slab-sided horses and gaunt, long-legged swine. I contemplated taking the next train away. Then I looked and saw the mountains sound asleep in the sunshine, with their arms flung out across- the valleys, and the shadows of the clouds floating over them. I would go on ; I could come back to-morrow. A long line of empty coal-cars appeared with two carriages at the end for passengers, and from somewhere the passengers came who almost filled the seats. Left over from another train, I mused, and looked at them with some curiosity. It being June, the weather was hot, but not too hot for me to take my stand on the back platform. It was not long before we crossed the mouth of the tunnel, that from this stand-point looked like the gate of the lower regions. The grade was heavy as we climbed higher and higher, curving in and out among masses of rock, and catching glimpses of the valley that looked like the plains of Paradise. ' So to the Jews fair Canaan stood, ' I quoted, my eyes resting on a. white village that nestled among the green fields. What a restful home one might make there ! That ' s Cowan, and the brakesman pointed relentlessly to my dream village. I turned away. We were in dense woods now, and I asked the brakesman, What is ' Sewanee? He looked at me in wondering amusement. It ' s a college. A qualm as of sea-sickness swept over me ; I cast a longing glance in the direction of Cowan. I thought with hatred of Jack who had inveigled me into such a scrape. I contemplated pitching the brakesman overboard.. I was in a bad temper.

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14 f he (£ap anb ©own. It ain ' t opened yet. The mischief ! There ' s lots of boarding-houses, though ; they ' 11 take you in. Here is your half dollar, I said. Tell Dan to fetch the trunk, and I stepped into the hack. I had had so many shocks since noon that I could not again be astonished, but I had observed that the hackman had called the place a University, and I did not know whether to expect mere pretension, or whether to hope for a pleasanter reality. The driver having instructed Dan, waked up his horses, and we set off in a reposeful trot. For a little while it really seemed to me that the horses jumped gently up and down in the same place, but after some moments I observed that we did move forward. The road led directly from the station up a steep incline, and it seemed that we would go directly through a little stone ■ church that crowned the hill. But we turned to the left, and after a short curve we entered another village. The houses here had grounds about them, and each house and fence had an individuality of its own. Still, I did not see the University, and I asked the hackman for it. This is it, he answered, waving his hand to the houses on each side of the road. The boys stay all about in these houses, and go to chapel. Are all of these boarding-houses ? No. Some live with their mothers and go to chapel. A gigantic kindergarten, I said to myself, then aloud, What is the chapel? It ' s the University where Mr. Gailor preaches. The mystery deepened. Presently a bicycle whirled by and the rider had a mustache. Is that a professor? I asked, the vision of the kindergarten being still in my mind. Lor ' , no ! that ' s a boy. I pulled my own mustache and sat a little straighter. A bicycle and a mustache made me a little more, hopeful. What boarding-house do you take me to ? I asked. TheZ ' s. Boys there? The boys are everywhere, Mister, but we ' ve got mighty nice boys ; you ' 11 like ' em. We passed a pretty house in a bright garden. A lot. of young fellows- stood about the gate ; they touched their hats.