Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/257

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE FIRST DAY AT COLLEGE

off at every train since. The combination of seeing his Alma Mater and leaving his sons—they are all he's got left, he says—is too much for him. Oh, there'll be some pretty homesick parents to-night, I tell you, whether their boys are homesick or not. Think of the prayers that will be going up all over the country to-night, so many different prayers—all so much alike. But, of course, I can't make you think about that just now. I don't blame you; it is pretty fine, walking up under these groined arches and through this echoing courtway, with the remarkable feeling that your feet have a right to echo there.

And now, Dick, now that you are here at last, what are you going to do with yourself?—be a young fool or brace up and be a credit to the family? Oh, I just wanted to know; you needn't drop your eyes and look that way. I may be an old grad., but I'm young enough to know it wouldn't do any good to give you gratuitous advice. Turn around and look back at your classmates. Some of these fellows—perhaps that little

231