Stanford Stories Tales of a Young University   By: Charles K. (Charles Kellogg) Field (1873-)

TALES OF A YOUNG UNIVERSITY

BY

CHARLES K. FIELD [CAROLUS AGER]

AND

WILL H. IRWIN

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1900

Copyright, 1900, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

BLANCHARD PRESS, NEW YORK.

DEDICATION.

"To the newest born of the Sisters, At the end of the race's march, In her quaint, old Spanish garment, Pillar and tile and arch; Awaiting the age that hallows, Her face to the coming morn Whose scholars still walk in her cloisters, Whose martyrs are yet unborn."

"We scatter down the four wide ways, Clasp hands and part, but keep The power of the golden days To lull our care asleep, And dream, while our new years we fill With sweetness from those four, That we are known and loved there still, Though we come back no more."

PREFATORY NOTE.

These are stories of the University as it was before the era of new buildings. While the attempt has been made to create, in character, incident and atmosphere, a picture of Stanford life, the stories, as stories, are fiction, with the exception of "Pocahontas, Freshman," and "Boggs' Election Feed," which were suggested by local occurrences, and "One Commencement," which is mainly fact. The original draft of "His Uncle's Will" was printed in The Sequoia with the title "The Fate of Freshman Hatch."

It may be necessary to add that, in the endeavor to present the actual life of the University, it has seemed quite inadvisable to edit the conversation of the characters from the standpoint of the English purist. Since, however, those readers who boggle over slang could hardly be much interested in the Undergraduate, it is sufficient merely to call attention to the point.

CONTENTS.

PAGE A Midwinter Madness, 3

Pocahontas, Freshman, 29

His Uncle's Will, 55

The Initiation of Dromio, 77

The Substituted Fullback, 91

Two Pioneers and an Audience, 119

For the Sake of Argument, 135

An Alumni Dinner, 171

Boggs' Election Feed, 185

In the Dark Days, 207

Crossroads, 223

A Song Cycle and a Puncture, 249

One Commencement, 265

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAST THE LONELY REDWOOD TREE TO THE UNIVERSITY, Frontispiece

... TOWARD THE LA HONDA REDWOODS, Facing page 148

A STROLL IN THE MOONLIT QUAD, PLANNED TO INTEREST THE CROWD AT THE TUESDAY EVENING LECTURE, Facing page 154

... THEN THE LULL DURING CLASS, Facing page 200

A MIDWINTER MADNESS.

STANFORD STORIES.

A Midwinter Madness.

Genius has been defined as a capacity for taking pains.

When a college man's good fairy makes her first call at his cradle, she may bestow upon him the football instinct, with muscles to match; no fairy could do more. But if she bumps up against Heredity, and is powerless to give him the supreme gift, she may compensate for it in a degree by leaving the kind of larynx and tympanum used in the Glee Club. Failing this, she may render next best service by throwing a mandolin in his way and bewitching his parents into paying for lessons. Some twenty years later, behind the enchanted scenes of a specially hired theater, or on the polished floor of society's inner temple, he may think of the fairy kindly.