Abbeville progress. (Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, La.) 1913-1944, 1916-12-30

lily SuluIN. w llth a llilllh VI WHAT my
life might have been without having
her with me to wade into me every
night and assault me with her entire
large and well-chOsen vocabulary while
trying to persuade me to revise my
language and squeeze the hot air out
of it or to stop holding Peter Ether
bridge Simmons, Jr., up by one leg or
to admit that l am entirely wrong in
my claims concerning the weight of
Queen Anne, / hold up my hands and
bless Siwash college, which gave her
to me.
Quarreling with Martha is more ex-
fhilarating than shooting the chutes.
And it's a perfectly harmless pastime.
I've quarreled with her for about eight
years nOw-three of them in Siwash
and five more since then, and as far
as | remember we have never settled
a single quarrel or Quarreled over a
subject that was worth settling. l am
very proud of our system. Sometimes
i think we ought to patent it. No mat
ter what l really want to quarrel with
her about, or no matter what reason
she has for locking up The Hague tri-
bunal and calling out her reserves
against me, we always quarrel about
English history. It's a bully idea. You
can put all the enthusiasm and Ia
basco you please into the discussion,
but you never get anywhere-most
especially you don't get around to
what you would really like to quarrel
about. That's why all of our Quarrels
together have never PANIED out drop
of brine. If l ever made Martha cry,
] think should go out to Lincoln Park
and feed myself to the lions.
j suppose we choose English history
to row about because it was English
history which first brought us together
when 1 was bowling young nuisance
at Siwash and she was q compendium
of useful information with a twinkle
in her talk. l got acquainted because
of English history-don't tell me
college education hasn't its advan-
tages. And most of our Quarrels end
up with a discussion as to when /
fell in love with her. She maintains
that it took three years Of steady eff
fort on her part to land me. l claim
that 1t was a case of love at first
sight that she won me 10y declining
to become acquainted with me, and
that long after / was her slave she
tried to give me away to a fat girl
who wore No. 8 shoes. She always
shudders at this, and so do /. 1t
yNIa o,at nxnartonnn for
Martha and / went through college
\ practically hand in hand, and only
parted long enough afterward to en-
able me to sandbag a Chicago bank
into paying me living salary. But
there was q time-in my freshman
year-when if
Oh, well, for that matter, the whole
affair is full of ifs. If l had gotten
as mad as / should have gotten al
her indifference-if l hadn't taken UP
study to amuse myself that spring; II
hadn't seen that Marthas hair would
be beautiful If she fluffed it up instead
of tying 1t in a hard knot that pulled
her eyebrows out of shape; and, mos
particularly, II / hadn't gotten a ire
ondous crouch in the spring Of m!
man year, never would hav,
Martha. It's fun to figure on
IFS. Think Of winning a wifi
ng an acute case of dark blu
jblesl If that wasn't a top
eward for foolishness, I'll Civ
/ am not going to tell 1t al
while I'm perfectly willing
other peoples love affairs
INIT seem to care to take tn
oo'd let the world peer into our
..rsuaded Martha to look upo
pheasant diversion, and ho'
led her to come down abor
-hd miles and decorate exis
ACE Tor me-those are secrets. But
don't mind telling you how 1t all star
ed. After all, that's the importaI
part of these college affairs. It's Jul
like rolling SNOWFALL down hill-sta
ii and you don't have to worry abol
1t. 1t will take care Of itself. That
all 1 really did about falling In 10,
with Martha. l started the affair; b,
] didn't mean a thing by II, eithe
Neither did she mean anything.
fact, she was a lot meaner than
about ii.
1t was the calendar that really b
gan 1t ALL One of the most mystel
Gus things In college life is the W,
the year slips by under you and go
away before you are half through wi
1t. This never failed to surprise al
grieve me. A year is such a contour
edly long affair when you look it
the face-particularly a college YET
When you consider, along in Septel
Der, that before June you have to
TO chapel 200 times, read through sc
eral books written In decayed la
guages, and figure out a chubby W
ume Of trigonometry problems tn
look like airplane wrecks when tn
are put on the blackboard, the We
seems like a quartcr-section of ct,
nifty. But suddenly, just after you
made a lot of friendships, have
come a decided hit with number
girls, are rounding into good shape
the go squad, and have a dozen pla
for the enlivenment of the camp
well under way, you wake up to fl
that there is about a month left befC
commencement and that at the e
of that month the college will explo
and scatter your brand-new lifelo