It seemed to surprise the students of both sexes when it dawned upon them that Belle and I were not that kind of friends. Miss Thorndike, our Buffalo friend, attracted the prim Miss Wilkins in this same way. It amused Belle and me to see Miss Wilkins actually blush at little attentions from Miss Thorndike; but Belle herself soon succumbed to the strange attraction: One night after a quiz held at Miss Thorndike’s room, Belle having lingered behind a little, on joining me, grasped my hand and fervently whispered, “Genie! Miss Thorndike kissed me good night!” I could feel only pitying amusement at such extravagance. Miss Thorndike evidently enjoyed such triumphs; she tried to get me under her spell. The more I saw of her, I saw that certain girls and women were always falling a victim to her. Years later a sickly, neurotic girl became so absorbed in her as to become almost estranged from her family; she lived merely to bask in the Doctor’s presence—distinctly an unhealthy relation. My own instincts from the first led me to avoid such associations. In the years that followed, coming upon such attachments, I clearly saw how it hampered women in their work, the “vinewoman” acting like a parasite to the more rugged, energetic personality; the latter having a multiplicity of interests, while the clinging vine would be wretched at any interests in which she did not have the lion’s share; in fact, was always chary of sharing her inamorata with others to any degree.
There was a lackadaisical girl in our class, several years older than I, who had been thus inclined toward me. I did not understand it at first. She followed me about, trying to absorb my time and attention, eager to do all sorts of little services for me; but I quickly put a stop to it, though having to seem unkind in doing it. And there was a married woman in our class who attempted a like attachment. One night when several of us were discussing this topic, I must have spoken of myself as bullet proof, as I ridiculed such folly. Suddenly this student seized and kissed me, not once or twice, but several times, fiercely, almost brutally. Surprised and indignant, I was actually weak and unresisting for a moment, the others looking and laughing while this aggressive creature triumphed and sparkled as she said, “There! that is the way I would make you love me!” There were but two ways to treat her assault—as a jest, or an indignity—I chose the former, and shunned her throughout the rest of the course. I had disliked her glittering black eyes and her personality anyhow, and this incident only strengthened my instinctive repugnance.
Still another student, one of the juniors when I was “middler,” showed a romantic inclination toward me: I had befriended her in little ways because she seemed forlorn, and because I remembered every little kindness shown me during the first year. She was of the pronounced masculine type and seemed to glory in it, was careless in dress; unprepossessing, and with a heavy voice. She was docile as a lamb with me, and I succeeded in getting her to abandon some of her mannish ways, and to be more mindful of her appearance. She would have been my willing slave; but her devotion was irksome and I nipped it in the bud; I neither wanted to adore, nor to be adored. Even at their best, these inordinate attachments seem like outlets into a false channel—the natural one being impeded. They affect me much as does a woman’s silly devotion to a pet dog when, failing to find its natural outlet, her maternal love degenerates, descending to the dog-kennel, instead of blessing the nursery.
The religious qualms and questions of my school days were still actively disturbing during that first college year, and I did not cease trying to get on comfortable footing concerning them, though knowing it could never be on the old footing. Miss Wilkins, a good orthodox Congregationalist, listening sympathetically to my doubts and difficulties, attempted to help me, finally urging me to let the doubts go and just pray. I tried hard to follow her advice. On my knees alone I prayed earnestly, but could get no awareness of a listening Father; still I prayed, but soon, to my shame and sorrow (and, yes, to my amusement, too), my mind having wandered, I found myself repeating the branches of the axillary artery which I had been studying that evening! I arose with a helpless feeling, convinced that it was useless to try further. The next day when I told Miss Wilkins, grieved, but a bit amused, too, she shook her head—at a loss whether to scold or to pet me.
As soon as our first-year “exams” were over I was wild to get home. Shall I ever look forward to anything with the eagerness I looked to that first home-going? Belle, who had gone at the Christmas holidays, was less eager. I had set the date of arrival a day later than I intended reaching there, just to surprise them. When, on nearing Utica we saw the fertile Mohawk valley, in such contrast to the stony, more picturesque scenery of New England, we grew wild with delight. This was the home country; we were no longer on alien soil. And when the drumlins came in sight, we jumped from side to side of the car, hungrily regarding them. The conductor and the few passengers smiled indulgently; they knew we were going home! That final twenty-five-mile stretch was interminable, and when, at the last stop but one, three miles from our station, we saw our own drumlins, and the familiar houses and trees, my heart leaped for joy. My eyes were blinded with happy tears when the train pulled in.
There was the very platform on which I had stood in the darkness months ago and torn myself from my sister’s embrace! There was the dear old rattly “stage” and the familiar driver to take us to the village! How good everyone about the station looked! I felt like hugging everybody. Our trunks were put on; the horses started; the bells jingled; the windows rattled in the old coach as we jolted along all too slowly over the mile that lay between me and Home!
It was a beautiful summer evening. I glanced hungrily from the windows at every familiar sight—it all seemed so real, yet so incredible—here were the old scenes just as I had known them, unchanged, when so much had been happening to me! “Unchanged?” But there was a change, a glamour over everything, a light that never had been, and never could be again—the light in which one sees a dear, familiar scene on returning to it after his first absence! When we got to the “corner”—the top of the hill that leads down to our house—I climbed out and ran ahead to surprise them before they should hear the stage-bells. I can see myself now, flying down the hill in the June twilight, and running up the steps into Mother’s arms, almost before she knew who it was. Home again, among the four beings I loved best in all the world! If one wants to know how much he loves home and family, let him go away in his youth to a distant city for long months, then let him come back to that shelter and learn to the full the blessedness, the sacred joy of all that is comprised in that word “Home”!
How late we talked that night! Neighbours and friends flocked in to see the wanderer; how good they all looked! but how odd their voices sounded—every r in their words stood out with such distinctness, after hearing the broad a’s and the softened r’s of the New England pronunciation. I spoke of the peculiarities of the New England speech; how funny it had seemed to hear the College professors speak of idears; how the chemistry professor talked of sodar ash, and, unless she was very careful, the Maine elocutionist called her room-mate “Annar”; of how affected it seemed to omit their r’s in words where they should be, and insert them where they did not belong. I said I had noticed a decided difference in Belle’s speech, although she had ridiculed it as much as I did when we went there. While I was speaking of this, a smile went round the family circle, finally they laughed outright.
“What are you all laughing at?” I asked, a bit nettled. They said they guessed Belle was not the only one who had taken on the Boston pronunciation.
“Do you mean me?” I asked incredulously.