P.S. I am sailing on the Valkyrie today, will write you on my return to
New York, in a few weeks.
Theophilus looked at the massive young Norwegian, who had taken this
solar-plexus blow with that same stolid apathy that characterized his every
action. He wanted to offer sympathy, but he knew not how to reach Thor. He
fully understood how terrific the blow was, how it must stagger the
big, earnest Freshman, just as he, after ten years of grinding toil, of
sacrifice, of grim, unrelenting determination, had conquered obstacles and
fought to where he had a clear track ahead. Just as it seemed that fate had
given him a fair chance, with his father rescued and five thousand dollars
to give him a college course, this terrible misfortune had befallen him.
Theophilus realized what it must mean to this huge, silent Hercules, just
making good his promise to his dying mother, to give up his studies, and go
back to work, toil, labor, to begin all over again, to put off his college
years.
"Leave me, please," said Thor dully, apparently as unmoved by the blow
as he had been by Theophilus' appeal. "I—I would like to be alone, for
awhile."
Left alone, John Thorwald stood by the window, apparently not thinking of
anything in particular, as he gazed across the brightly lighted Quad. The
huge Freshman seemed in a daze—utterly unable to comprehend the disaster
that had befallen him; he was as stolid and impassive as ever, and
Theophilus might have thought that he did not care, even at having to give
up his college course, had not the Senior known better.
Across the Quadrangle, from the room of the Caruso-like Juniors,
accompanied by a melodious banjo-twanging, drifted:
"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!'
Echoes softly from each heart;
We'll be ever loyal to thee
Till we from life shall part."
Strangely enough, the behemoth Thorwald was not thinking so much of having
to give up his studies, of having to lay aside his books and take up again
the implements of toil. He was not pondering on the cruelty of fate in
making him abandon, at least temporarily, his goal; instead, his thoughts
turned, somehow, to his experiences at old Bannister, to the football
scrimmages, the noisy sessions in "Delmonico's Annex," the college
dining-hall, to the skylarking he had often watched in the dormitories. He
thought, too, of the happy, care-free youths, remembering Hicks, good Butch
Brewster, loyal little Theophilus; and as he reflected, he heard those
Juniors, over the way, singing. Just now they were chanting that
exquisitely beautiful Hawaiian melody, "Aloha Oe," or "Farewell to Thee,"
making the words tell of parting from their Alma Mater. There was something
in the refrain that seemed to break down Thor's wall of reserve, to melt
away his aloofness, and he caught himself listening eagerly as they sang.
Somehow he felt no desire to condemn those care-free youths, to call their
singing silly foolishness, to say they were wasting their time and their
fathers' money. Queer, but he actually liked to hear them sing, he realized
he had come to listen for their saengerfests. Now that he had to leave
college, for the first time he began to ponder on what he must leave. Not
alone books and study, but—
As he stood there, an ache in his throat, and an awful sorrow overwhelming
him, with the richly blended voices of the happy Juniors drifting across to
him, chanting a song of old Ballard, big Thor murmured softly: