share its luxuries, it proved rather a pleasant
break in the routine of class-room and study-hall. In fact, a late
epidemic of measles that filled every bed had been a "lark" beyond Brother
Timothy's suppression. But the infirmary in vacation, with no chance for
the pillow fights that had made the "measles" so hilarious, with no boy in
the next bed to exchange confidences and reminiscences, with no cheery
shouts from the playground and quadrangle, with only the long stretch of
bare, spotless rooms, white cots, and Brother Timothy rolling pills in the
"doctor shop," the infirmary was dull and dreary indeed.

"Can't I get up to-day, Brother?" asked Freddy on the third morning, as
Brother Timothy took away a breakfast tray cleared to the last crumb of
toast.

"No," replied the Brother, who from long dealing with small boys had
acquired the stony calm of a desert sphinx. Beneath it he was a gentle,
patient, wise old saint, who watched and prayed over his patients in a way
they little guessed. "No, you can't."

"Gee!" said Freddy, with a rebellious kick at the counterpane. "The bump
on my head is gone and I'm not sick at all."

"We're not so sure of that," answered Brother Tim. "You've had
temperature."

"What's 'temperature'?" asked Freddy, roused with interest.

"Never mind what it is, but you'll have to stay here till it goes,"
answered Brother Tim, with decision.

And Freddy could only lay back on his pillows in hopeless gloom, watching
the shadows of the big elm by his window flickering over curtain and
coverlet. The great elm--or "Old Top," as it had been affectionately
called by generations of students--was the pride of the college grounds.
Many a newcomer felt his heart warm to his strange surroundings when he
found the name of father or grandfather cut into the rough bark, where men
who had made later marks on history's page had left youthful sign manual.
More than once the growth of the college buildings had threatened to
encroach upon Old Top; but the big elm held its prior claim, and new
dormitory or infirmary was set back that it might rule with kingly right
in its historic place.

Many were the stories and legends of which Old Top was the hero. In the
"great fire" its boughs had proven a ladder of safety before modern
"escapes" were known. Civil-War veterans told of hunted scouts hiding, all
unknown to the Fathers, in its spreading branches; while the students'
larks and frolics to which it had lent in