ABSOLOM DRIVER.
For many years Janitor at the Medical Hall of Transylvania University.
In the spacious lecture-room in the front of the building many fashionable and distinguished audiences had assembled on various occasions, not only to hear the gifted incumbent professors in due discourse of introductory or valedictory, but to be charmed with concerts by Ole Bull, Strakosch, Adelina Patti—who sang there on her first tour in this country—and other celebrities of the period. There the learned Guyot had instructed in geology; there unique "Tom Marshall" had uniquely delivered a unique course of lectures on History. Over the rostrum hung the portrait of Doctor Samuel Brown—the first medical professor. This lecture hall was lighted for evening assemblages, from the sides mostly, by "scounches," as they were called by the "ole Virginny" negro janitor. This factotum, "Absolom Driver," is unforgotten by any whose path some time ran parallel with his. For many years the keeper of the Medical Hall, his zeal and vigilance were unimpeachable, his dignified solemnity on state occasions unsurpassed. Contemptuous of letters—except for doctors—and with unshakable prejudice against "book learnin' for niggers," he was faithful in trusts with the matchless fidelity of the dog. "Bad boys"—the problem of philosophers and ordinary folk in all ages—was one of easy solution by "Uncle Absolom" with a bent nail at the end of a long pole. Charged upon with elan with this unprecedented weapon, accompanied by an ominous war-cry, no truant could withstand, even though the artfully strewn broken bottles on the high back fence had been successfully outflanked. "Robbers" had their everlasting antidote at hand in the peculiarly uncanny, long, "one-barreled shotgun" with curious lock, which stood in the corner of the Faculty room. Nobody ever heard it "go off," but the mystery of it was what appalled one. Happily "Uncle Absolom's" death was nearly coeval with the closing of the medical school. To have witnessed the burning of his sacred temple, the Medical Hall, after all his "keer," would have broken his heart indeed.
And now, bidding adieu to the shades of the grand old Transylvania Medical Department, conjured from the past by one now numbered with them, may the earnest wish be permitted with hope of realization, that some other hand with cunning in such craft will unveil to us the portraits of that bygone throng of brilliant men which constituted and which were the exponents of the honored Transylvania Law School.