And now school was over at Laurel.
And I determined to bum my way to New York, and, from there, ship on a cattleboat to Europe. Where I would finish writing my play, Judas.
Farewell to Laurel!—
I went up to the athletic field and ran my last two miles on its track, at top speed, as good-bye to its cinders forever!
I walked, with a guilty feeling of too much sentimentality, back into the "stack" at the university library. I took down book after book of the great English poets, and pressed my cheek to them in long farewell ... first glancing cautiously around, to be sure that no one was near to observe my actions....
I did not say good-bye to Langworth or my other professor friends, as they had already left for their summer vacations.
I sat in Joe Deacon's room, talking, that last night of my sojourn in Laurel....
"Good old Joe" we called him, because he was possessed of all the old-fashioned virtues, and unassumingly lived up to them. He was a fellow member of the Scoop Club, an associate teacher in the School of Journalism, and taught during the summer session....
Long, long Joe and I talked ... of everything young idealists discuss or dream of. We ended with a discussion of the sex question. I reiterated what he already had heard me say, that I had had so far no sex experience. He confessed that he, also, had had none ... maintained that a decent man should wait, if he expected a woman to come pure to him....