Scott Burton, Forester

by Edward G. Cheyney

“Of course it means some work. The school supplies a good cook shack and all the equipment. You will have to elect some good man manager to attend to all the business, and another good man secretary to keep the books, pay the bills and help him out generally. Then the rest of you must back them up in everything they do. Hire your own cook, buy your provisions wholesale and buy your own cows.”

Morgan then explained the organization of the camp crews and the rules of the game as well as he could.

With this information as a guide the new officers were quickly elected and the organization completed. Merton was elected manager and Scott, secretary. Before his experience at the shed Scott would have been afraid of this responsibility, but he had more confidence in himself now and welcomed the experience.

The next few weeks were indeed full ones for the new officers. They levied an assessment of twenty-five dollars from each member of the class to meet the immediate expenses, held long conferences with the former officers, making up grocery lists and collecting details of information which would aid them in handling the various contingencies which might arise in the course of the summer. They signed a written contract with the director of the College defining their duties and privileges. They carried on an extensive correspondence in an effort to locate a suitable cook and find two cows which would answer their purpose. After holding a protracted meeting with the representative of a wholesale grocery company they placed an order for what seemed to them an inexhaustible supply of provisions.

In the bustle of preparation various lines of private enterprise were brought to light. One man had constituted himself a special agent for a certain shoe concern and took orders for all styles of boots, puttees and moccasins. Another was appointed to purchase compasses and all other needed equipment of a like nature; while still another canvassed the class for sweaters, flannel shirts, mackinaws, and riding breeches. Scott added to his official duties the selection and purchase of a canoe which he paid for with the money he had earned at the shed. It was a busy time for everyone and the fever of expectant excitement pervaded the entire class. The tang of spring was in the air and these young savages were yearning for the freedom of the woods.

Two days before the appointed day of departure came the annual banquet of the Forestry Club to speed the parting juniors. It was regarded somewhat as a sacred rite because it was the last meeting of the year when all the classes could be together. By the time the juniors would come down from the woods the seniors would be scattered to the four corners of the country and there was no chance of getting them all together again after that. It was also the time when the embryo orators of the different classes aired their wit in after-dinner speeches. Men had been known to keep jokes secret for a whole year for the sake of springing them publicly at the banquet.

A committee of the Club had made all the arrangements. A hungry crowd some forty strong assembled at the hotel and, as is customary on all such occasions, starved for almost an hour waiting for the banquet to be served. It was a very good banquet and tasted all the better for the delay—maybe that is the reason all banquets are delayed—but everyone was more interested in what was to come afterward than in the dinner itself.

The professor of engineering was in the chair as toastmaster, the director of the College was present and so were all the popular professors. It was rather an honor for a faculty member to be invited if he was not a member of the Club—for it was an independent organization and invited none out of mere politeness. This was pretty generally understood and few who were invited failed to appear. One or two outsiders who had earned the friendship of the Club were also there.

As the last waiter closed the door behind him the toastmaster arose and solemnly proposed that they should all sing “Minnesota.” Every man was on his feet in an instant, for it was traditional that the “Foresters had more spirit than all the rest of the University put together,” and they never neglected to show it at every opportunity. The song had the desired effect; it struck fire which melted all formality and welded the crowd into one homogeneous whole. There were no longer any class distinctions; the faculty were stripped of their dignity. The toastmaster grilled everyone unmercifully. The faculty told all the jokes they could think of on the students and on each other; the students “slammed” the faculty unrestrained. Everyone had the best kind of a time. When the toastmaster finally resigned his seat it was close to eleven o’clock, and there were many under classmen among those present who were already looking forward to the meeting of the next year. There was more than one senior who went home rather sadly thinking that it was the last of its kind for him.

It had been a revelation to Scott. His relations with the faculty had been wholly of the classroom, and he had formed the students’ usual opinion of them as a type. That night he had seen them act like human beings and he began to wonder if some of them were not almost human after all.