s and sang a few
lines by way of getting ready to go upstairs and chink a little assorted
learning into our headpieces, Keg cried for pure joy. He buckled down to
work the way a dog takes hold of a root, and inside of a week he
couldn't remember a time in his young existence when he had been
unhappy. He was tossing out Greek declensions to the prof. like a
geyser, and Conny Matthews, our champion Livy unraveler, had shown him
how to hold a Latin verb in his teeth while he broke open the rest of
the sentence. And, besides that, we had introduced him to all the
nicest girls in the college and had assisted the glee club coach to
discover that he had a fine tenor voice. He was a sure-enough find, and
fitted into college life as if it had been made to measure for him.

Of course all this pleasantness had to have a gloom spot in it
somewhere. Rearick's father furnished the gloom. He was certainly the
most rambunctious, most unreconstructed and most egregious Pa that ever
tried to turn the sunshine off of a bright young college career.
Regularly once a week a letter would come to Keg from him. It always
began "When I was in college," and it always wound up by ordering Keg to
eat a few assorted lemons for the good of his future. He was to go to
morning prayer, regularly--there hadn't been any for twenty years. He
was to become as well acquainted as possible with his professors,
because of the inspiration it would give him--fancy snuggling up to old
Grubb. He was to take a Sunday-school class at once. He was to remember
above all things that though it was a disgrace to waste a minute of the
precious college years it was equally a disgrace to go through college
without being self-supporting. He should by all means learn to milk at
once. He, Keg's father, had been valet to a couple of very fine Holstein
cows while he was in college, and he attributed much of his success to
this fact. He would of course pay Keg's expenses while he had to, but he
would hold it to his discredit. He must at once begin to find work.

This last command impressed Keg deeply, for he had been sailing along
with us without a cent. He'd been earning his board and room, of course,
but that was already paid for for a month out on the edge of the planet;
and as it was the first time the family that owned the house had ever
got a student boarder they firmly declined to rebate. It's pretty hard
to butterfly joyously along with the fancy-vest gang without any othe