A Master's Degree

by Margaret Hill McCarter

Then came Satan into the game. “Nobody knew this but Gresh! Who had saved Bug's life? Who had cared for him and would always care for him? Why should Bug, little, loving Bug, come now to spoil his hopes? If Bug knew he would be first to give it all to his beloved Vic.”

And then came Satan's ten strike. “No need to settle things now. Wait and think it over.” And Vic decided in a blind way to think it over.

In the rotunda he met Trench, old Trench, slow of step but a lightning calculator.

“Where are you going?” he exclaimed, as he saw Vic's face.

“I'm going to the whirlpool before I'm through,” Vic said, hoarsely.

Trench caught him in a powerful grip and shoved him to the foot of the rotunda stairs.

“No,-you re-not-going-to-the-whirlpool,”' he said, slowly. “You're going up to the top of the dome right against that Ad Astra per Aspera business up there, and open the west window and look out at the world the Lord made to heal hurt souls by looking at. And you are going to stay up there until you have fought the thing out with yourself, and come down like Moses did with the ten Commandments cut deep on the tables of your stony old heart. If you don't, you'll not need to go to old Lagonda's pool. By the holy saints, I'll take you there myself and plunge you in just to rid the world of such a fool. You hear me! Now, go on! And remember in your tussle that that big S cut over the old Sunrise door out there stands for Service. That's what will make your name fit you yet, Victor.”

Vic slowly climbed up to where an hour ago the sudden opportunity for the fruition of his young life and hope had been brought to him. Lost now, unless—Nobody would ever know and Bug could lose nothing. He opened the west window and looked out at the Walnut Valley, dim and shadowy now, and the silver prairies beyond it and the gorgeous crimson tinted sky wherefrom the sun had slipped. And then and there, with his face to the light, he wrestled with the black Apollyon of his soul. And every minute the temptation grew to keep the funds “in trust,” and to keep on caring for the boy he had cared for since babyhood. He clinched his white teeth and the tiger light was in his eyes again as the longing for Elinor's love overcame him. He pictured her as only one sunset ago she had looked up into his eyes, her face transfigured with love's sweetness, and he wished he might keep that picture forever. But, somehow, between that face and his own, came the picture of little Bug alone in the wretched dugout, reaching up baby arms to him for life and safety; on his baby face a pleading trustfulness.

Victor unbuttoned his cuff and slipped up his sleeve to the scar on his arm.

“Anybody can see the scar I put there when I cut out the poison,” he said to himself, at last. “Nobody will see the scar on my soul, but I'll cut out the poison just the same. I did not save that baby boy from the rattlesnakes only to let him be crushed by the serpent in me. Trench was right, the S over the doorway down there stands for Service as well as for Sacrifice and Strife. Dr. Fenneben says they all enter into the winning of a Master's Degree. Shall I ever get mine earned, I wonder?”