or Bowdoin or some other of its New England neighbors, it may be well to
tell something about it. Erskine College is still in its infancy, as New
England universities go, with its centennial yet eight years distant.
But it has its own share of historic associations, and although the big
elm in the center of the campus was not planted until 1812 it has shaded
many youths who in later years have by good deeds and great
accomplishments endeared themselves to country and alma mater.

In the middle of the last century, when Erskine was little more than an
academy, it was often called "the little green school at Centerport." It
is not so little now, but it's greener than ever. Wide-spreading elms
grow everywhere; in serried ranks within the college grounds, in smaller
detachments throughout the village, in picket lines along the river and
out into the country. The grass grows lush wherever it can gain hold,
and, not content with having its own way on green and campus, is forever
attempting the conquest of path and road. The warm red bricks of the
college buildings are well-nigh hidden by ivy, which, too, is an ardent
expansionist. And where neither grass nor ivy can subjugate, soft,
velvety moss reigns humbly.

In the year 1901, which is the period of this story, the enrolment in
all departments at Erskine was close to six hundred students. The
freshman class, as had been the case for many years past, was the
largest in the history of the college. It numbered 180; but of this
number we are at present chiefly interested in only two; and these two,
at the moment when this chapter begins--which, to be exact, is eight
o'clock of the evening of the twenty-fourth day of September in the year
above mentioned--were busily at work in a first-floor study in the
boarding-house of Mrs. Curtis on Elm Street.