Newark post., 1915-02-03
NEWARK IN
THE LONG AGO

NA W. Nv
Continued from page y
door Of the Doric portico. Within
were the semi-monastic bare halls
that echoed gruesomely to the feet
of vagrant boys, while aloft in the
cupola hung the bell, festooned
with cobwebs, dry, and choking
with the dumbness of annually ac
cumulating dust upon it's unwag-
ging tongue. No boy guessed that
he would live to hear the bell boom
forth it's call in the cold dusk of
winter mornings, summoning re-
luctant youth to early prayers.
Troops Of boys sometimes found
their way to the mysterious locked
doors of the two society halls. They
quarreled long over the signif-
canoe of "Cuivis'' and "Alicui, "
over slits in the Delta Phi door,
and puzzled in vain over the three
Greek initials that bafflingly greet
ed all comers at the portal Of the
Athenaean Society. The fascina-
ton of crime and mystery hung
about the building, while the in
scriptions in unknown tongues, and
the tantalizing glimpses of tenant
less apartments adrowse in the mid
summer sun heightened the roman
tic and awesome effect. The hot
stiffness Of those empty, cobwebbed
rooms, barely glimpsed through
crack or keyhole, accentuated by
the droning, drowsy hum of i'm
prisoned flies soon to fall victims
to the wiles of spiders that had
woven their snares summer after
summer undisturbed by any house
wife's besom, was something that
every imaginative boy has carried
with him ever since as the final and
authentic expression of loneliness
and cherries desolation. Hardly
the void ruins Of Persopolis or
Petra could impress the adult mind
more powerfully than the sleeping
college impressed some of us boys
in the COS. For me to this day, not
hoary Europe or dateless Asia, but
the sultry quiet of those dusty
apartments is antiquity. Some of
the more adventurous lads found
their way by means of dimly seen
ladders and through close, hot
passages upward to the cupola it.
self, and returning to terra firma as
heroes, gave report of marvels.
The star on the lightning rod, a
mere spark as seen from the vii
lage street, proved to be bigger
than any boys head, while the
comet weather vane, seemingly
scarce foot long to those who saw
it from below, was sald to be longer
than an umbrella. AS to the view
from that dizzy height, it was re-
ported as nothing less than para
disic. All the familiar land for
miles around was spread out map
like, transfgured into a fairy re-
gion. Sails, refined to gossamer
and bleached by distance to candid
purity, were glimpsed upon the
far Delaware, while Iron Hill drew
near with all it's multitudinous
forest green.
Sweet airs blandly blew over the
densely shaded lawns OF the cam
pus, but the spot was not one
where a small boy cared to linger
unattended. There was a pail OF
tragedy hanging over the green
oasis, and country folks, driving
through the town, pointing with
their whips toward the red brick
building aglimmer through the
trees, told for the hundredth time
it's unhappy tale. By and by,
however, some of us grew bolder
with years, and the place lost its
terrors. From time to time, now
the building was used. A drawing
class was held in one Of the rooms,
and the Oratory was open for one
and another public purpose. Pro-
fessor Porter, whose older youths
at the Academy marched magnlfi-
Gently about town smoking long
stemmed German pipes with decor
ated porcelain bowls, quite ike
university men, used to give an