T. Haviland Hicks, Senior

by James Raymond Elderdice

"College ties can ne'er be broken—
Loyal will remain each heart;
Though the last farewell be spoken—
And from Bannister we part!

"Bannister, Bannister, hail, all hail!
Echoes softly from each heart;
We'll be ever loyal to thee—
Till we from life shall part!"

Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous, intensely studious Human Encyclopedia,
stood at the window of John Thorwald's study room. That behemoth, desiring
quiet, had moved his study-table and chair to a vacant room across the
second-floor corridor of Creighton, the Freshman dormitory, when the
Bannister youths cheered him, and he was still there, so that Theophilus,
on his mission, had finally located him by his low rumblings, as he
laboriously read out his Latin. The little Senior was gazing across the
brightly lighted Quadrangle. He could see into the rooms of the other
class dormitories, where the students studied, skylarked, rough-housed,
or conversed on innumerable topics; from a room in Nordyke, the abode of
care-free Juniors, a splendidly blended sextette sang songs of their
Alma Mater, and their rich voices drifted across the Quad. to Thor and
Theophilus:

"Though thy halls we leave forever
Sadly from the campus turn;
Yet our love shall fail thee never
For old Bannister we'll yearn!
Bannister, Bannister, hail, all hail!"

Theophilus turned from the window, and looked despairingly at that young
Colossus, Thor. The behemoth Norwegian, oblivious to everything except the
geometry problem now causing him to sweat, rested his massive head on his
palms, elbows on the study-table, and was lost in the intricate labyrinth
of "Let the line ABC equal the line BVD." The frail chair creaked under his
ponderous bulk. On the table lay an unopened letter that had come in the
night's mail, for, tackling one problem, the bulldog Hercules never let go
his grip until he solved it, and nothing else, not even Theophilus, could
secure his attention. Hence the Human Encyclopedia, trembling at the
terrific importance of the mission entrusted to him, waited, thrilled by
the Juniors' songs, which failed to penetrate Thor's mind.

"Oh, what can I do?" breathed Theophilus, sitting down nervously on the
edge of a chair and peering owlishly over his big-rimmed spectacles at the
stolid John Thorwald. "I am sure that, in time, I can help Thor to—to know
campus life better; but—tomorrow is his last chance! He will be dropped
from the squad, unless—"

As Thor at last leaned back and gazed at his little comrade, just then, to
the tune of "My Old Kentucky Home," an augmented chorus drifted across the
Quadrangle:

"And we'll sing one song
For the college that we love—
For our dear old Bannister—good-by"

To the Bannister students there was something tremendously queer in the
friendship of Theophilus and Thor. That the huge Freshman, of all the
collegians, should have chosen the timorous little boner was most puzzling.
Yet, to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a keen reader of human nature, it was
clear; Thorwald thought of nothing but study, Theophilus was a grind,
though he possessed intense college spirit, hence Thor was naturally drawn
to the little Senior by the mutual bond of their interest in books, and
Theophilus, with his hero-worshiping soul, intensely admired the splendid
purpose of John Thorwald, toiling to gain knowledge, because of the promise
of his dying mother. The grind, who thought that next to T. Haviland Hicks,
Jr., Thor was the "greatest ever," as Hicks phrased it, had been, doing
what that care-free collegian termed "missionary work," with the stolid,
unimaginative Prodigious Prodigy for some weeks. Thrilled with the thought
that he worked for his Alma Mater, he quietly strove to make Thorwald
glimpse the true meaning and purpose of college life and its broadness of
development. The loyal Theophilus lost no opportunity of impressing his
behemoth friend with the sacred traditions of the campus, or of explaining
why Thor was wrong in characterizing all else than study as foolishness and
waste of time.

"Thor," began Theophilus timidly yet determinedly, for he was serving old
Bannister now, "old man, do you feel that you are giving the fellows at
Bannister a square deal?"