Chapter II: Finding My Wings
Harvard College
When I passed the examination for Harvard I had a French turned-up nose, two spindle legs, and weighed only 114 pounds. Everyone called me a “barrel on straws,” until I cried myself to sleep night after night for fear I was going to be a little runt.
I developed very late and very quickly; I did not shave until I was eighteen years old, yet only one year later I measured six feet in height and weighed 165 pounds.
My mind was as undeveloped as my body, and my proudest brag was that I knew the name of everyone who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, and that I hadn’t an enemy in the world.
I had no taste whatever—if I had been crushed under the tongue, I would have given out nothing. I was proud of the first nicknames they gave me, most of them being “Wimba,” “Wambat,” “Winnie”—all of them being derived from that flattering title, “Wamba, son of Witless.” I was proud, also, of being able to make a louder noise than anyone else, due to my training in the public school, where we were taught to go to the back of the room and shout one another down.
It never occurred to me to refuse to go to college. I went because I was told to, and had no particular desires about it one way or another. My expenses of something under nine hundred dollars each year were furnished me by my family and again I never gave a thought as to where or how they were obtained. Money, I was taught, I should not work for, but gifts were to be freely taken—probably this was due in some measure to the inherited ideas of parsons, who are always supported. I could easily have led my class, but I saw no reason for excelling. I was considered a pretty second-rate person at home; they didn’t expect anything from me, and to win, for my own sake, things I had been surrounded with ad nauseam as a child, held no attraction for me. In fact, I had not really learned to care for books as such, and college opened up nothing new to me except in the line of English and botany. My power of judgment was poor, as I had not been required to use it before. I was conditioned in algebra, in which I was expert, because I devoted nearly all of the time allotted to it in the examination to Greek composition, and could not finish the answers to the questions in algebra on time.
Holworthy Hall, the old Colonial building, was as full of inconveniences then as it is to-day, but the rooms were just as much sought after. The old-fashioned grates; the window seats whose yearly coats of paint formed a covering over an inch thick, of a lovely ivory color; the leaky plumbing and general disrepair—gave an interesting atmosphere, and the traditions hung round about as thick as the cobwebs on the walls. My suite, a sitting room and two bedrooms, was given me by Professor Cutler for my service rendered the parietal committee who governed the private acts of the students. In this capacity I was called the “Last of the Parietals,” as the next year the summonses were sent through the mails. I do not remember much about my duties except that I had to report to the committee every morning to see if there were any papers to be served that day. The freshmen and sophs generally took the summons kindly enough, but the upper classmen were sometimes rather disdainful of the messenger, and I remember only once being treated in an undignified manner. I had to order a senior who had disregarded the rule about snowballing to appear before the committee. He was very rude to me, seemed to blame me personally, and at last tried to kick me down the stairs. I told my chum about it that night.
“Who was the chap?” he asked.
“I think his name is Cabot Lodge,” I replied.
“Oh, you must be mistaken!” he laughed. “I know Cabot Lodge, and he would never have the nerve to kick you downstairs.”