Chapter 26 - Page 2

since then. There was a great
flash and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of
it all prudence went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both
sides, smashing hats and bruising heads and hands. The canes went
down in a jiffy and then we closed with each other hip and thigh.
Collars were ripped off, coats were torn, shirts were gory from the
blood of noses, and in this condition the most of us were rolling
and tumbling on the ground. I had flung a man, heavily, and broke
away and was tackling another when I heard a hush in the tumult
and then the voice of the president. He stood on the high steps, his
grey head bare, his right hand lifted. It must have looked like
carnage from where he stood.

'Young gentlemen!' he called. 'Cease, I command you. If we
cannot get along without this thing we will shut up shop.'

Well, that was the end of it and came near being the end of our
careers in college. We looked at each other, torn and panting and
bloody, and at the girls, who stood by, pale with alarm. Then we
picked up the shapeless hats and went away for repairs. I had heard
that the path of learning was long and beset with peril but I hoped,
not without reason, the worst was over. As I went off the campus
the top of my hat was hanging over my left ear, my collar and
cravat were turned awry, my trousers gaped over one knee. I was
talking with a fellow sufferer and patching the skin on my
knuckles, when suddenly I met Uncle Eb.

'By the Lord Harry!' he said, looking me over from top to toe,
'teacher up there mus' be purty ha'sh.'

'It wa'n't the teacher,' I said.

'Must have fit then.'

'Fit hard,' I answered, laughing.

'Try t' walk on ye?'

'Tried t' walk on me. Took several steps too,' I said stooping to
brush my trousers.

'Hm! guess he found it ruther bad walkin' didn't he?' my old friend
enquired. 'Leetle bit rough in spots?'

'Little bit rough, Uncle Eb - that's certain.'

'Better not go hum,' he said, a great relief in his face. 'Look 's if
ye'd been chopped down an' sawed - an' split - an' throwed in a
pile. I'll go an' bring over some things fer ye.'

I went with my friend, who had suffered less damage, and Uncle
Eb brought me what I needed to look more respectable than I felt

The president, great and good man that he was, forgave us, finally,
after many interviews and such wholesome reproof as made us all
ashamed of our folly.

In my second year, at college, Hope went away to continue her
studies in New York She was to live in the family of John Fuller, a
friend of David, who had left Faraway years before and made his
fortune there in the big city. Her going filled my days with a