Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1903-12-02
THE QUIET LIFE.

cultured East and settled in little
trans-Mississippi town as professor
of mathematics in Blockit College.
DR.. Orson, president of the little fresh
water school, was also a graduate OF
Yale, and he welcomed the coming or
Prof. Anders. Together they would
raise the lamp of learning SO that it's
rays would shine far into the thick
Weedsand over the limitless prairles
where the pioneers were raising homes
in the wilderness. They were men OF
the noblest ideals and of a self-sacri-
ficing spirit which is almost lost in
these days Of ready-made universities.
! 'Mr Anders," said President Orson,
as he met the newcomer at the steam
boat dock, 81 shall be glad to have you
make your home at our house. We are
rough and crude here in the West; and
perhaps you may feel more at home
with us than elsewhere"
! ''Thank you, sir" said Prof. Anders,
a tall, thin young man, with small
brown side whiskers and serious
face. ''You offer pleasant solution
to problem which has perplexed me
greatly"
! Prof. Anders moved his chest of
books and his trunk into two rooms on
the second floor Of President Orson's
cottage. There he settled down to a
lifetime of teaching trigonometry, SOL
i'd geometry and the higher mathema-
tics.
The two rooms in which he lived
I grew to be part of his life. On the
table on the corner of his sitting room
always lay his badly worn copy of Mil
ton, his Dante, in the original, his dog
cared Horace, relic of college days, and
his Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
On the shelf just above the table were
the rest Of the British poets. Behind
the door were his slippers; his dress
ing gown hung on the third peg from
the right on the inside of the closet
door. The portraits of his father and
mother hung side by side on the west
wall
Before he was forty, the irreverent
students Of Blockit College called him
cold Zeke," and loved him as the per-
sonification of all that was scholarly,
gentle and unworldly.
When Prof Anders first came to live
in the home of President Orson the
other occupants of the house were the
president, his wife and their daughter
and only child, Alice, then a happy lit
tie girl of eight. From the beginning
fr.tO n
and chums. Naturally the shyest of
men, Alice was too small and too lack
ing in self-consciousnes to embarrass
him. She simply took it for granted
that everybody liked her, and, without
thinking about it at all, the professor
found himself willingly taken into the
circle of her intimate friends.
The professor read her little verses,
told her wonderful tales of fairies, and
on one occasion at least was detected
down on all tours, with Miss Alice
mounted in state upon his back.
Hes lion," explained the little
girl, as the professor scrambled up in
embarrassment from the floor, "and
I'm the lion tanner"
Which was perhaps nearer the truth
than she imagined.
When Prof. Anders had lived in the
house ten years Miss Alice was beau
fuI, blooming girl of eighteen. AS the
professor saw her budding into woman
hood he started to shrink back into
his shell. But the girl would not allow
It, She insisted on remaining in her
old position Of friendly intimacy, and
even went so far as to discover an un-
expected fondness for the problems of
higher mathematics.
There was never anything like a
love affair between them. At least not
even the mothers eye of Mrs. Orson
could detect any symptoms of tender
fondness, though it may be that, in dis
cussing the future of their daughter
with her husband she raised the ques
ton as remote possibility. She had
suitors aplenty. Almost everyon OF the
younger members of the enlarged ia
Guilty laid himself at her feet, to say
nothing of countless college students
who, as a rule, were obliged to wor
ship Miss Alice at a distance, for, as
she often said, she had no idea of be
coming college widow
Twenty years went by without at al
disturbing the relations of the four
jewellers under the Orson roof. Prof
Anders had become more and more
prim and precise. His days were
spent in routine that rarely varied
His rooms and everything in them hat
become a necessary part of his life. 1
he had not been able to reach out hi!
hand in the dark and touch his Hor
ace or his Plutarch; if he had aWak
ened som morning and not seen, frs