XIII
A BLUE CHRISTMAS
No age, no race, no single soul,
By lofty tumbling wins the goal.
The steady pace it keeps between;
The little points it makes unseen;
By these, achieved in gathering might,
It moveth on, and out of sight:
And wins, through all that's overpast,
The city of its hopes at last. —Mrs. Whitney.
Of these true knights Charlemagne Kindred was one. Lessons, problems, questions, went down before his fierce assault. He had never enjoyed being headed off in what he chose to do; and had pledged it to himself that if ever anything did that kind office for him, it should not be West Point.
"You stop me?" he would say to some particularly obnoxious book. "You get in my way?" and probably the hard-headed volume would then and there find itself pitched to the furthest corner of the room. But after that little expression of opinion, Magnus would pick the book up, and bone with all his might. Smith's "Conic Sections" got quite used to such short excursions, and Ketel's "French Grammar" grew old before its time.
Rig's method was different.
"Kin, I'm growing grey," he said plaintively one morning.
"Grey as a goose."
"No, but really," said Rig, laying down the book. "This thing's too hard, you know. Breaks a man all up."
"You'd best stick yourself together again before two o'clock," said Magnus.
"No good," said Rig, taking up another study volume from the heap. "I'll try this a while. Nobody ought to be expected to learn such stuff."