Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1855-11-08
AsAD BUT TRUE STORY OF COLLEGE
LIFE.

Tom Atchison was by odds the finest
looking man in College He was near
ly six feet high, had splendid pair of
shoulders, stood erect, and walked like
a king. To say truth, Tom thought
rather more of his person than his stud
les; not of his appearance, for he was
not vain, far from it. He did not know
that he was good looking man. But
of his strength and manliness he was
proud; and it was worth seeing to look
at him when he swung sledge ham,
mer, and threw it twenty feet over the
farthest throw any other man had made.
He was a man of brilliant talent withal,
and mastered Greek strophe with the
ease of an old scholar, when he chose
to apply himself to it; but that was sell
dom, He preferred the free and easy
life that many of us led in those times;
and the morning drive, the afternoon
siesta, the evening invisible-these were
the daily routine of his life. l say the
evening invisible for it was impossible
10 say where the evenings of most of
the students in our day were passed
Some were on the road, some over on
The neck, some making long calls on fair
friends, seme in these Inaccessible re
cesses back of the City Hotel, which
students frequented, but the tutors
never reached. No one could locate
Tom Atchison's evenings, and his room
mate was as silent as stone wall. But
the fact was simply this. On the COM
mencement day when he had passed
from his Junior into his Senior year, he
had in some way become acquainted
with young lady who had come fifteen
or more miles from her village home, to
attend the exercises, and who was with
a troop OF village girls under the care
of the clergyman of the parish Tom
saw her, and his large heart was moved
towards her. He devoted himself to
her. fancy that his courtly and pol
ished manners, his elegant appearance
and dress, had their immediate effect
upon her; and certain it is, that the
next day, Tom, instead of gong forth
to pass ms vacation (for he never went
to Louisiana, where was his home took
board at the little inn, in -, and
there lived six weeks of unalloyed hap
piness. There were long strolls over
the fields, long walks by moonlight with
the village maiden, and as in all such
cases, an utter ,forgetfulness of conse-
quences, i'll love had done its work, and
bound them fast TO each other.
So it was that, after the term COM
menced, be passed his evenings regular
ly with her; and though it cost him a
long drive of more than thirty miles, he
took it regularly after evening prayers,
and returned before daylight in the
morning. This continued through the
winter, until the Faculty deemed it ne
ecessary to inquire where he was, and he
declined 10 answer the professor who
made the inquiry. The result was a
summons to attend before the faculty,
and the summons was delivered by the
servant who was the bailif in all such
cases, and who made himself free to
enter any room, by virtue of his writ,
to appear and answer. He entered
Toms room without knocking, as was
his custom; and he had not delivered
ten words of his message, when he
found himself flying down the stone
steps in the entry, and he brought up
with broken leg at the bottom. That
evening Tom received a sentence of rus
tifcation for two months, to the village
of He sprang into the all
with a huzza when he read it. Never
was luckier sentence to his notion. He
did little study in those two months, and
did much oye-making.
/ hesitate as l write this, for the sad
point of the story is to come. 1t is the
old story again, of betrayal and sor'
row. He did not mean it. He did hot
dream of winning her love to ruin her
He but wasted her love as boys vast