Repository: UIHistories Project: Illio - 1896 [PAGE 86]

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I waa durmg the spring term of 79. Back in the days when the college government was an honored factor m i mveraity life. My hrotherand I rootiM'l m the oh! 'l"i''iH!"iv, o?er whose ashee and

•lu>t the . j n e n grass has heen grouimj. ami w ho-r >i;e the ten-second sprinter, the " h i k e H v h r r . " tho SIM'I putter, the high j u m p e r ami kiekei ami t he el try san theiiiu in-haired pursuer of the e\a>ive pigskin h a \ e . for many \ ears, hehl high eai nival. < Mir eyrie wason tie- tiftli Moor—the top. We lived " high." Naught higher, save the roof, the eupola ami its clinging lightning rod. Tin* evening was the one yearly set apart for the Junior exercises in the chapel. The hour was about eleven r. M. The midnight oil was smoking the lamp chimue\ for M me. A knock sounded at the outer portal of my door. " Come i n ? 1 responded. Brenton of SI, then a modest Sophomore, came into the room wearing a very serious and troubled look upon his face in place of his accustomed smile, which, on the day he first entered the college halls, gave him the Pobriquet oi " Smiler." He had a grievance, inasmuch as I then held the office of president of the college government he appealed to me and asked me to accompany him to Ins room. \N hich was on the floor below, which, during his absence absorbing wisdom at the Junior meeting, had heen entered by unchristian feet and sacked by vandal hands. I went with him. and surely he had cause for lamentation, for lo!—the room which at seven o'clock p. M. hi* had left in quiet order and home-like neatn e s s - n e a t l y carpeted, a good bed standing snugly made ready to receive his tired body on his return—the coventional student's dormitory wash-stand, made of a dry goods box covered with oil cloth, with the shelf inside and the "catch-all " beneath, his book case, his clock, the very pictures on the wall which had added color and home-like cheer to his room for nearly a college year, his chairs, his lamp, in fact all that he had, save what he had on, was gone, and instead, in the center of the carpetless, pietureless, cheerless room stood a large box (his washstand), nailed up tight and snug, his bed-stead and chairs tied up strong and firm, marked ready for transportation, and no visible comforts or necessaries of life left. 4 " Just look at it, ain't that too bad ? " exclaimed Brenton. * Everything packed up, even to my clothes, books and bedding, and over a month of the college year left. Why, he even swept the Moor and burned the straw I had in the tick under the mattress.*' And with that Brenton took me out beside the dormitory and showed me the blackened evidences of a recent incineration. ""Whom do you soepect?" I asked. " T h e r e is only one fellow in the college who would do all that work for so little fun," responded Brenton. We parted about midnight, Brenton finding a solitary occupant of a bed in one of the sky chambers of our tfliii mon home. But the sequel. The episode had passed from my thoughts, when one balmy May night, about 99