Everybody was the friend of Quarles. He would be groping his way alone over a path to a class but a brief moment, for a student, playing ball, nearby would signal to his comrade, who would hold the ball, and then, throwing down his glove would hurry over, have a cheery word of greeting, ask Quarles whither he was bound, link arms with the blind student and guide him into a path where he could find his own way without need of piloting. In this way, Quarles must have felt the arm of nearly every upper-classman, for not only were they willing to straighten out his walks for him, and read to him, but they also took him with them on excursions, which he shared with excellent comradeship and proved to be as good a mountain climber as the best.
In this way, too, through walks, at meals, and in classes, I soon had the students differentiated and had a formidable list of friendships.
It was my custom, throughout the fall months when the highways were hard and untouched by snow, to ride weekly to and from college on a bicycle which I had bought for that purpose. On this twenty-mile excursion, along a winding river and through quiet, little hamlets, I had certain resting-places where I could breathe and refresh myself with a sup of water.
Doctor Floyd’s well, conveniently near the highway at the summit of a steep grade, had also a rustic bench near it, from which a most gratifying vista could be obtained, which included the view of a pyramidal mountain cone framed in a circular opening of twinkling poplar leaves, at whose foot a silvery dash of river curved under high, bush-lined banks, with now and then a cow or a colt completing the composition by standing in the river.
The Doctor, himself, whose permission to drink of the water and to seat myself on the bench for a rest I had taken pains to secure, was a short, stout, bald-headed man of about sixty, whose clean-shaven cheeks were always flushed by an excess of blood. He had retired from active practise and was engaged in the delightful, old age recreation of seeing how many eggs he could persuade a harem of Plymouth Rocks to lay through a most careful, scientific mixture of laying foods, use of germless drinking troughs, and adaptation to an expensive mode of existence.
One Saturday noon, as I sat on the bench puffing for breath, for the day was both dusty and hot, the Doctor, with the egg record for the week in his hands, which he came down to show me, sat down on the bench and said,
“Well, do those wild students know what they are in college for?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled by his sneer.
“Usually,” he explained, “more’n half of the students in the college over there don’t know why they’re there!”
“Oh,” I said, “there are a great number of my friends who are not certain what they are going to do in the world, after graduation, if that is what you mean, Doctor.”