Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1907-05-24
The....
Professors
NJ mn. BY HENRY
- LEWIS.
BY HENRY
LEWIS.


Professor Sweetzer naturalist for
certain New England college, was
little man. He was round shouldered.
He was awkward on his legs. He
wore goggles for his weak eyes, and
he arrived at the age of fifty-five with
out having loved. AS between bugs
and beetles and women, the bugs and
beetles were ahead. 1t was only on
rare occasions and when under the
stress of excitement that he took the
slightest notice Of the other sex. Even
when he did sit up and take notice of
them he could not have recalled half
an hour later what he said or whether
they had red hair or black.
On a certain day it came to the ears
of Professor Sweetzer that a portion of
the vertebrae of whale had been
found on a farm in Connecticut. He
arrived on the spot next day and veri-
fed the find. On an occasion thou
sands of years before an old bull whale
had decided to take a trip inland and
through some error of judgment had
left his bones in gravel pit. A piece
of the backbone six feet long had been
uncovered. The professor wanted to
excavate for the rest. Where there is
six feet of whale you can take it that
there is more. He engaged board at
the Widow Webbs and hired a man to
WELD the pick and shovel and thus
went to work.
The Widow Webb was fat and forty
and childless. She was worth a stony
farm and 5000 in cash. A still older
sister lived with her. and the farm
work was done by n hired man with
the good old fashioned name of Hiram
StebbinS Hiram was thirty-five and
drank nothing stronger than cider, but
he thOught deeply. One Of them was
that if he married the widow he would
become the pOSsesSor of the farm and
$500. He had been thinking of this
and taking the farm work easy when
Professor Sweetzer put in an appear
ance. Hiram looked at him and grin
ned. If any one had told him that
within n week he would be jealous of
that little dried up and humpbacked
specimen of humanity, he would have
roared with laughter.
AS soon as the professor had inspect
ed the bone and become enthusiastic,
he was a changed man. He became a
fluent talker. He became fatherly to-
ward the widow. He called her my
child" and often took her hand and
held it while he tried to make her I'M
derstand that a whale was a cachelot
and that cachelot could stand on his
tail in the water as we'll as on his head.
When Hiram witnessed the hand
holding act. he quit grinning. He was
mad all that day as he hoed corn. He
was mad when he came up to supper.
He was mad when one of the cows
kicked him at milking time. While
the professor took a ramble In search
Of beetles, Hiram carried the milk into
the kitchen and began
'Widder Webb, how does 1t feel to
have a baboon holding your hand?"
Hiram, what do you mean?" was
demanded.
Il mean that have seen you and
that little runt of man squeezing
hands dozen times, and neither of
you seems to care who stands by. Fell
in love mighty quick, didn't you?"
Look here, Mr.. Stebbins, you have
no right to talk to me this way. You
know who the professor Is. He's a
great man. He has taught me more
about whales In the last three days
than knew in all my life before. He
also knows all about birds and bugs
and bees. It's twice as interesting to
hear him talk as 1t Is to hear SER
mon"
Has a Teller got to squeeze your
hand to talk to you about whales"
asked Hiram.
, HE hasn't squeezed 1t. That's sim
ply his way. H2 is a fatherly man.
When he gets to talking he don't know
whether he has got hold of my hand
or the leg of chair. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself to talk as you do.
l always thought there was mean
and jealous streak In you. and now it's
come out"
ooh, it has, eh?" muttered Hiram
"Perhaps if | went around looking for
the bones of an old whale. I'd be all
right"
granting around. You don't care for
educated folks, but l do. l was born
that way. If l was to ask you about
whales, you couldn't tell me anything"
But the professor could?"
eyes, sir, he could. Hiram Stebbns,
do you know that the Latin name of
whale is Physeter macrocephalus? Do
you know that we get spermaceti and
ambergris from its body? Do you
know that he sometimes reaches the
length of seventy or eighty feet? You
stand there with a mean look on your
face, and yet let me tell you that the
sperm whale can swallow a man at a
gulp. There are no teeth in the upper
jaw, but the lower one has from TWEEN
ty-five to thirty on each side. The eyes
are small and placed far back in the