"Rot! Let "em come--let "em _all_ come! Don"t you fellows lie awake nights worrying about little Willie. He"s old enough to sit up and take notice."
And the crescent in front of the table broke.
It was grat.i.tude simply that prompted Kerwin to take Norse to Ypsilanti one evening during the week following and make him known to a Miss Myrtle Green of the normal school. It was obvious to Kerwin that Norse"s ignorance of girls was not due to any disinclination on his part to abolish that state. Indeed he seemed to hunger for knowledge on the subject. As for Miss Green she seemed quite willing to instruct him. He became a regular caller. The other girls learned to speak of him as "Myrtle"s steady." And Myrtle seemed agreeable that he should continue just that.
II
February promised to go out like a thousand lions. Toward noon on the twenty-fourth it began to snow, listlessly, at first, but more thickly as nightfall approached. The next morning the townsfolk awoke to find their homes half buried in a white, downy ma.s.s as thick as the height of the fences.
It was a morning of fine sport. Old men and young turned out with a will to clean the walks of the city. It was hard work for strong hands manipulating broad wooden shovels, for so deep was the snow that after a few feeble attempts Paddy, the plowman, was forced to give in and urge his plunging horse back to the stable. His plow was useless.
The oldest resident experienced such pleasure as had not been his for many years. He reveled in vague recollections of the winter of 1830 when the snow--according to him--had fallen "a mite deeper," and the farmers, living along the main highways, had been compelled to combine their genius and their strength in digging tunnels to the market!
That day and the following were clear and crisp. Every one wore green spectacles. Cases of snow-blindness were numerous; and then, toward evening on the twenty-sixth, the mercury, which for thirty-six hours had hovered near the zero-point, began slowly to rise. At midnight a weak, half-hearted rain set in. The next noon, with that mischievousness in which the elements of our zone not infrequently indulge, a strong piercing wind, straight from the north, swept down the state. At seven o"clock that night the common thermometers registered five degrees below zero and a shimmering crust of ice an inch thick lay upon the land.
Across the fields and over the fences the farmers drove, in heavy bob-sleds, into town. In the southwest corner of the state a new sect was born whose leaders proclaimed the dawn of the Age of Ice and beseeched the people to look to their souls, before the final congealment of all things.
In town a season of gaiety ensued. Numbers of art students proceeded to the open spots upon the campus, and, with hatchets, cut out of the crust gigantic caricatures of well-known instructors. With the zeal and yo-heave-ho of lumber-jacks they raised the figures upright supporting them with props, and the campus became, as if by magic, adorned with profile statues of professors!
General as was the interest in the unique entertainment a kind nature had provided, there were certain soph.o.m.ores who, shunning the spectacle afforded by the decorated campus, sought the seclusion of a certain back-room down-town where they evolved a plan of hazing that promised to be entirely overlooked in the interest otherwise occasioned.
Thus far Kerwin had not been molested and had begun to think that at least one banquet was to pa.s.s without a recurrence of those adventures which for years had made it notable among the events of the college year.
"There"s too much else to interest them," he said to Norse, one morning in the State Street Billiard Hall. "If they were up to any stunts we"d have heard before this, with the banquet coming off day after to-morrow.
It"s all easy sailing, thanks to the ice."
Norse, however, was not so certain. "You can"t tell," he said, with a significant wag of his head. "Maybe this keeping-still now means action at the last minute. What do your own freshmen say?"
"There"s not one in the frat. who thinks they"ll attempt anything,"
Kerwin replied. "And as for the soph.o.m.ores, they say there"s too much going on for them to waste time fooling with a d.i.n.ky freshman toastmaster."
Norse"s doubts were not, however, to be so easily dispelled. "You"d better keep an eye out," he advised. "I"ll help you all I can. If I get next to anything I"ll let you know."
But neither that day nor the day after did he hear a word that sounded in the least suspicious, but on Friday he did; and thus wise:
At noon he met Kerwin again in the billiard hall.
The toastmaster drew him to one side. "I"m fixed," he whispered with a grin of satisfaction.
"How?" Norse asked.
"Got my dress suit hid."
"Where, in the furnace?"
"No; better"n that. You know that built-in closet in my room? Yes. Well, the top of it is lower than it seems to be from the front, and I"ve put my suit, and dress-shirt, and all, up there. Such a simple way of hiding the stuff they"ll never think of, if they get into the room while I"m away."
"Anybody know about it?"
"Not a soul but you."
"Good. It does look as if they were going to let you alone, but you can"t be too careful the rest of the day. What are you going to do this afternoon?"
Kerwin was going to do many things; he was going to be busier than a puppy with a bone, he said.
"You see," he explained, "I want the affair to go off as smooth as oil; and, by Jove, it"s going to, if I"ve got anything to say about it. What were you going to do?"
Norse had planned to go skating.
"Go on," Kerwin urged, then perceiving that his friend hesitated, he added, slapping him st.u.r.dily on the back, "Don"t you have any fear for me. Go on. I wish I might go but I simply can"t; and that"s all there is to it."
"If you think it"s safe, all right," Norse said.
"Safe!" Kerwin exclaimed, flauntingly. "Of course its safe. Go on!"
So Norse went.
It was half-past five, and quite dark, when he clambered over the high iron fence at the Michigan Central station, and started to climb the slippery State Street hill. The chimes, ringing out from the library tower in the crisp air, were clear and genuinely musical. For four hours he had skated over the flats above the pulp-mill. He noted mentally, now, that he would telephone Myrtle in the morning and have her come over for the afternoon. Skating alone is all very well for exercise, but not much in the way of pleasure, he considered. His skates, dangling from a strap over his shoulder, clinked, musically, as he picked his way with exceeding caution along the icy pavement. A moon was due in an hour and the street-lamps were unlighted. When he reached the top of the hill and saw ahead of him the street flooded with the golden glow of the store illuminations, he suddenly recalled the box of flash-light powder that he had, till now, forgotten. Myrtle had expressed a desire for a picture of her room to send "back home," and he had promised to take one. He would, he thought, secure a box at once and have done with it.
He recalled having read in one of Heenan"s _U. of M. Daily_ advertis.e.m.e.nts that a full line of photographers" supplies was carried.
He noticed several cameras and plate-holders in the window as he entered the store. It was the supper hour and the single salesman was busy with a customer at the rear. She was examining the stock of tissue paper.
Innumerable rolls lay before her on the table. Taking advantage of her indecision, the salesman served Norse, then returned to the girl who couldn"t quite make up her mind whether she desired her lamp-shade to be pink or pale blue.
On a table in front of the fireplace, across the store, stood several tall piles of a new and exceedingly popular magazine. Norse lingered a moment to read the announcement poster. Thus engaged there fell upon his ear the sound of voices. Unconsciously listening he made out a word now and then of what seemed an earnest conversation carried on in undertone. And then he heard mentioned a name that caused him to start and cast a quick glance to the rear of the store where the salesman was still busy with the girl who could not make up her mind. The speakers whom he could not see were on the other side of the piles of magazines, in front of the fireplace. Norse craned forward, eagerly. He heard a throat cleared, and then these words, quite distinctly:
"At seven o"clock, eh? Ain"t it funny he"s not to be at his frat.
house?"
"No; not under the circ.u.mstances," was the indefinite reply. "He doesn"t suspect anything."
Norse grinned with sardonic delight.
"Don"t you think it"s a bloomin" long way to take him, Billy?"
"Oh, I don"t know," was the reply. "It ain"t over three miles."
Every muscle in Norse"s body was tense, every nerve on edge.
"I know," he heard, "but it"s so blasted cold. We don"t want him to freeze on our hands."
"He won"t. Morton lugged an oil stove out there yesterday. We can get some blankets at the livery."
Norse felt all hot, yet he shivered.
"Say."
He held his breath.
"What?"