mother, this scene came last; and his final words to them were a
blessing that they had made him one of this company of young men.




VI


The lad could not study eternally. The change from a toiling body
and idle mind to an idle body and toiling mind requires time to
make the latter condition unirksome. Happily there was small need
to delve at learning. His brain was like that of a healthy wild
animal freshly captured from nature. And as such an animal learns
to snap at flung bits of food, springing to meet them and sinking
back on his haunches keen-eyed for more; so mentally he caught at
the lessons prepared for him by his professors: every faculty asked
only to be fed--and remained hungry after the feeding.

Of afternoons, therefore, when recitations were over and his
muscles ached for exercise, he donned his old farm hat and went,
stepping in his high, awkward, investigating way around the town--
unaware of himself, unaware of the light-minded who often turned
to smile at that great gawk in grotesque garments, with his face
full of beatitudes and his pockets full of apples. For apples were
beginning to come in from the frosty orchards; and the fruit
dealers along the streets piled them into pyramids of temptation.
It seemed a hardship to him to have to spend priceless money for a
thing like apples, which had always been as cheap and plentiful as
spring water. But those evening suppers in the dormitory with the