The Student Vagabond

While the Vagabond surveyed the tranquil skeletons of forthcoming buildings in the CRIMSON precinct from the gold, blue, and pink effulgence of Lowell House tower late last night he contemplated the work before him on the morrow. Too long, he mused, had he postponed the struggle with the broken pens, the clotted ink, the sartorial, laundry, and periodical soliciters which awaited him in his old haunts at Memorial Hall and its surrounding greensward. Now he would be pushed and jostled by his late fellow arrivals intent on registering before the Bursar demanded an extra check for $5 from his already depleted bank deposit.

Greenland and the last rose of summer seemed far away from all this unsettled space beneath him where the constant passing and repassing of a new generation spun the unconscious tale of a Harvard that is swiftly changing. The poet Lowell beneath him facing the fresh quadrangle seemed to him a brother dreamer. Those two, alone, experienced bewilderment in the contemplation of these marks of modern education--the dadoes, the stippled floors of battleship linoleum, the Revolutionary tapestry, the purple paint and high table. Even the Georgian windows appeared unfamiliar in their rows six high and forty long. He took some comfort in the thought that perhaps the change would be only a physical one. If that was so he could learn to like the solid brick of the new courtyards almost as well as had liked the weathered dormitories of the Yard. He could only hope.

He puffed his pipe reminiscently, a quaint gargoyle in a roseate paradise, which betrayed the artistic aspiration of the nouvenu riche. Then he tapped the ashes reflectively on the white arch and set his alarm clock for an early rising hour in order that he might enjoy his soft boiled eggs in the dining room at breakfast, before the strike of nine sounded the liberation of the chickens from their daily toil.