VIII.
A crowd of boys were waiting about the door. The boy of the back seat linked his arm in Richard's. “What'd old Four-Eyes want?” he demanded.
“Got a leather medal anywhere?”
“What'd he say, anyhow?”
The fact that Richard was their senior by several years did not seem to impress them. They gathered about him, chaffing and questioning. They disregarded his stern look as he tried to shoulder his way through the crowd.
“Oh, hold on.”
“Tell us what he said.”
In the end Richard complied, half resentfully.
“Liked it, did he? My eye!”
They danced about him.
“For he liked it, don't you know, don't you know?” they chanted, “For he liked it, don't you know—o-oh!”
“Then Aurora, rosy-fingered daughter of the morn,” wailed a small, chubby lad with pink cheeks.
“ᾘμος ὂ ἡριένεια φἀνη ῥοδοδἀχτυλος ᾘᾡς,”
It was the seesaw chant of the woods.
The group took it up with a shout of joy. They sent the burlesque jigging across the campus.
Heads were thrust out above. “Hey, you Freshies! Haw-haw-haw! Keep quiet, down there!”
A shout of defiance went up from the group. They were drunk with too much Greek and with release from oppression.
“ᾘμος ὂ ἡριένεια φἀνη ῥοδοδἀχτυλος ᾘᾡς,”
they chanted on, marching with mock, solemn front.
A deep voice underran the chant and snatched it from them and made it beautiful, hurling it out with force. The group looked at him a moment doubtingly. Then they gave way and followed his lead. The burlesque had become a march of triumph. Breathless they landed him at his own door.
“Say, you fellows, what do you bet old Four-Eyes don't let us all off easy on account of the Farmer?”
“Three cheers for Farmer!”
“Hip—hip!”
“Three cheers for Four-Eyes!”
Heads were thrust out again above. “Yah—yah—yah! Dry up, down there. Yah—yah!”
The group broke up and drifted apart with a final yell. Windows descended with a slam, and quiet reigned.
The Greek Professor, crossing the campus five minutes later, heard only the twittering of English sparrows and the quiet rustle of the leaves. Underneath the quiet, for the Professor's ears, ran sonorous epic lines, chanted to a deep measure. The Professor held his head high and stepped to a mighty tune.
The whole class was entered without condition in Greek—a thing unprecedented. The faculty gasped when they heard the news. The students grinned. News of the Greek prodigy got about college. Poor Richard found his path a thorny one. He could not appear on the campus but a chant in Greek would spring up of itself in the distance—swelling or dying away to an echo, according to the number of students on hand, and ending always with the mocking refrain, “For he liked it, don't you know—o-oh!”
The situation gave him enough to think about. He forgot to remember Emily, or even to remember that he had expected to remember her and be miserable. She rested in the background of memory, a faint blur, brushed out of existence by a grinning yell of derision.
He learned to set his teeth and grin back; and in the end he found his unwelcome distinction an advantage. It might not be comfortable to be recognized and pointed out in every new class he attended as the learned wood-chopper; but at least he was recognized. No professor forgot his name or fumbled up and down the class-list trying to place him. And the fact that he was older than the majority of the class, added to the uncanny Greek distinction, gave him an assured place.
When it was known that he was working his way through college numberless opportunities sprang up. The faculty gave him tutoring and secretary work to do. The student body put him on the football team. Emily's image grew so faint that Cupid must have wrung his infant hands in despair.
The four years went by with undignified haste. Richard was conscious of leaving undone half that he meant to do. He groaned in spirit over vast tracts of literature—of which he knew not even the name—that he could get no time to explore. Nevertheless, he found himself, at the end of the course, taking honors in English. He gasped a little. Then he hunted up the professor of English and laid before him his secret desire.
“Want to be a journalist?” said the Professor with a smile. “I thought it was Greek.”
Richard made a hasty gesture—“Never!”
The Professor laughed out. He was a trim, slight man. “Had enough in college?”
Richard nodded.
The Professor drummed with his fingers on the table for a moment. “Had you thought of trying for a college position—English assistant, or something?” He watched Richard's face.
It flushed a little. “I want something that will take me into life. I've never known anything but the woods—and this.”
The Professor winced a little. “Well, journalism will take you into life, all right.” He remained thoughtful a moment. “Have you ever done anything at it?”
“I've done the college news for two papers and sent specials now and then. But that stands for nothing permanent.”
“It will do more for you than I can,” said the Professor. He had drawn a sheet of paper towards him. “How would you like Chicago?”
“All right.”
“You might as well have plenty of life while you're about it. I hear they hustle things out there. You won't think you're in the woods—or in college.” He had taken up his pen. “I have a friend on one of the dailies. I'll drop him a line.”
“Thank you, sir.” Richard stood up to go.
The Professor held out his hand. “That's all right. Bring around some of the letters you've done on the college. They'll help you more than anything I can say. I'll put them in when I write.”