Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1898-09-22
Concerning Contraries.

Concerning Contraries.
Ruggles strolled up the street that
day promiscuously at peace. 1t was not
SO much that the spring sun was shin
! ing away impartially, or that it felt
! good to be young, or that she was
coming up for the alumni ball that
night. 1t was simply condition,
Ruggles argued, like being hungry or
not being, and he liked it. There
were negative situations that helped.
For instance, he had nobody to come
up for commemoration. Ruggles had
been reading parcel of Oxford
stories aloud to Miss Billy Dugdale,
and he had appropriated stay up for
commemoration," among other things,
as an adequate phrase. He had
used it once at what the men were
pleased to call mess, this being Mrs.
Elizabeth Frawleys boarding house
unions, and they had promptly plung-
ed at him in vast unmanageable,
metaphorical body-Grant and Lush
ington and the rest, and he had not
been minded to resort to the expression
since But he treasured it for his
own use, and he said it to the only
appreciatiye audience the terms had
50 far won.
No one was his guest for com
mencement in other words, and that
was pleasant, moreover this was his
own commencement, and that was
pleasant plus just the added tinge
Of melancholy that stood for neces-
sary minor strain,-a middle dark, as
it were. And 1t was to its last day
exercises that he was strolling over
alone and at peace. He had not
wished to mount the final platform.
He was not on the programme, having
never been the family poet or the
frat composer or an institutional
stellar light of any sort. He was
called on all round good fellow, and
that was epitaph enough as every
body knows, who knows.
"A fellow" he observed to himself
as an unbiased listener, must feel
an idiot behind college footlights as
supe. | have disliked matinees from
my infancy anyway"
He turned in at the armory pres
emily. Back on the lake front he han
glimpse of Lushington wandering like
a restless ghost, hemmed in by the
character of the country with
guarding cousin in duck on one side,
and q blockading aunt with a loud
sunshade on the other,
"Ho Ho! Ho! he chortled in his
glee!"
Ruggles' clean-cut whistle of the
catchy line almost spoke the words,
and his sympathetic wave and grin
as Washington turned nearly upset the
latter's explanation of the Norman
architecture OF the Armory SO Rug
Giles, unrelatived and rejoicing, passed
into the building and up the stairs
Little Brady was reading the class
prophecy. Ruggles strolled in alone,
nodded here and there and sat down
alone with an air OF polite interest
i He was seeing himself graduate, and
he liked IT, little Brady had labored
up TO the class reunion in 1925, and
3 had come to the flower of his humor
And it came TO pass" hurled lit
tie Brady's slender voice, that at the
head Of the table sat a man whose
3 look was hunted And to him who
. knew | turned about and asked:
% wise ana sage, who IS that, ha?'
And he smiling made answer to
me in this wise:
That, child, Is Ruggles. Why is
he sad2 For this reason because he
! has never been able to fall in love
with all Of the same girl slmultane-
ously. He has been known greatly
and superlatiyely TO admire certain
smile, certain dancing, certain car
riage. certain fashion Of holding
teacup. certain voice, certain hands
/ eyes, intellect. teeth, judgment, mind
arms and other abilities OF as many
girls as | enumerate qualities, But
he has never been able to collect
them, focus them, or take a composite
! Photograph He is a blighted be-
! ing"
\ delighted howl went up Ruggles
smiled indulgently and privately
shook hands with himself al not hav-
ing to stand the other things.
I 3 tsffs ttft1fr7- Z EJ7T1 TIT
common" he reflected its having to
acknowledge honestly 70 yourself
4 that you have been In bona fide love
4 with q dozen girls, Heavens"
The howl melted TO a murmur, TO
quote an enthusiast in later print, and
/ Ruggles, not being interested in the
( iiiosyncrasies OF the unknown whom