Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1925-07-08
Chapter XXI

Throughout Dirk's Freshman year
there were, for him, no heartening,
informal, mellow talks before the
wood-t1re In the book-lined study of
| some professor whose wisdom was
such a mixture of classic lore and
modernism as to be an inspiration to
his listeners. Midwest professors de-
llvered their lectures in the classroom
as they had been delivering them In
the past ten or twenty years and as
they would deliver them until death
or a trustees meeting should remove
them. The younger professors and in
structors in natty gray suits and
brightly colored ties made a point Of
being unpedantic in the classroom and
rather overdid it. They posed as be-
ing one Of the fellows; would dashing-
ly use bit Of slang to create a laugh
from the boys and an adoring litter
from the girls. Dirk somehow pre-
ferred the pedants to these. When
these had to give an informal talk to
the men before some university event
they would start By saying, 'Now lis
ten, fellahs-" At the dances they
were not above rushing" the pretty
goods.
Two of Dirk's classes were con-
Quoted by women professors. They
were well on toward middle age, or
past it; desiccated women. Only their
eyes were alive. Their clothes were
of some indefinite dark stuff, brown or
drab- gray; their hair lifeless; their
hands long, bony, unvital. Thsy had
seen classes and classes and classes.
A roomful of fresh young faces that
appeared briefly only to be replaced
by another roomful of fresh young
faces like round white pencil marks
manipulated momentarily on a slate,
only to be sponged off to give way to
other round white marks. OF the two
women one-the elder-was occasion
ally likely to flare into sudden life (;
a flame in the ashes of a burned-out
CRATE. She had humor and a certain
caustic wit, qualities that had man
aged miraculously to survive even the
deadly and numbing effects of thirty
years in the classroom. A fine mind,
and inoclastic, hampered by the re-
strlctions OF conventional community
and the soul of congenital spinster
Under the guidance of these Dirk
chafed and grew restless. Miss Eu-
phemia Hollingswood had way of
emphasizing every third or fifth sylla-
BILE, bringing her voice down hard on
it.
He found himself waiting for that
emphasis and shrinking from 1t as
from a sledge-hammer blow. 1t hurt
his head.
Miss Lodge droned. She approached
word with a maddening uh-uh-uh-uh.
In the uh-uh-uh-uh face of the uh-uh-
uh-uh geometrical situation of the uh-
uh-un- uh-
He shifted restlessly In his chair,
found his hands clenched into fists,
and took refuge in watching the shad-
ow cast by an oak branch outside the
window on a patch of sunlight against
the blackboard behind her.
During the early spring Dirk and
Selma talked things over again, seated
before their own flrepE ce in the High
Prairie farmhouse. Selma had had
that fireplace built five years before
and her love of 1t amounted to worship.
She had 1t lighted always on winter
evenings and In the spring when the
nights were sharp. In Dirk's absence
she would sit before 1t at night long
after the rest of the weary household
had gone to bed. High Prairie never
knew how many guests Selma enter
tanned there before her fire those win
ter evenings-old friends and new. So
big was there, the plump earth-grimed
baby who rolled and tumbled in the
fields while his young mother wiped
the sweat from her face to look at him
with fond eyes. Dirk DeJong Of ten