The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
because there are so many different things we _can_ do with this human
race.... The defeat of death; the life period advancing to ten-score
years all crowded with happy activity. The solution of labor's
problem; increasing safety and decreasing hours of toil, and a way out
for the unhappy consumer who is ground between labor and capital. A
real democracy and the love of work that shall come when work is not
relegated to wage-slaves, but joyously shared in a community inclusive
of the living beings of all nations. France and Germany uniting
precisely as Saxony and Prussia and Bavaria have united. And, most of
all, a general realization that the fact that we cannot accomplish all
these things at once does not indicate that they are hopeless; an
understanding that one of the wonders of the future is the fact that
we shall _always_, in all ages, have improvements to look forward to.
"Fellow-students, object as strongly as you wish to the petty
narrowness and vituperation of certain street-corner ranters, but do
not be petty and narrow and vituperative in doing it!
"Now, to relate all this to the plays of Bernard Shaw. When he
says----"
* * * * *
Professor Frazer's utterances seem tamely conservative nowadays; but
this was in 1905, in a small, intensely religious college among the
furrows. Imagine a devout pastor when his son kicks the family Bible
and you have the mental state of half the students of Plato upon
hearing a defense of socialism. Carl, catching echoes of his own talks
with Bone Stillman in the lecture, exultantly glanced about, and found
the class staring at one another with frightened anxiety. He saw the
grim Plain Smith, not so much angry as ill. He saw two class clowns
snickering at the ecstasy in the eyes of Genie Linderbeck.
* * * * *
In the corner drug-store, popularly known as "The Club," where all
the college bloods gather to drink lemon phosphate, an excited old
man, whose tieless collar was almost concealed by his tobacco-stained
beard, pushed back his black slouch-hat with the G. A. R. cord, and
banged his fist on the prescription-counter, shouting, half at the
clerk and half at the students matching pennies on the soda-counter,
"I've lived in Plato, man and boy, for forty-seven years--ever since
it wa'n't nothing but a frontier trading-post. I packed logs on my
back and I tramped fifty-three miles to get me a yoke of oxen. I
remember when the Indians went raiding during the war and the cavalry
rode here from St. Paul. And this town has always stood for decency
and law and order. But when things come to such a pass that this
fellow Frazer or any of the rest of these infidels from one of these
here Eastern colleges is allowed to stand up on his hind legs in a
college building and bray about anarchism and tell us to trample on
the old flag that we fought for, and none of these professors that
call themselves 'reverends' step in and stop him, then let me tell you
I'm about ready to pull up stakes and go out West, where there's
patriotism and decency still, and where they'd hang one of these
foreign anarchists to the nearest lamp-post, yes, sir, and this fellow
Frazer, too, if he encouraged them in their crank notions. Got no
right in the country, anyway. Better deport 'em if they ain't
satisfied with the way we run things. I won't stand for preaching
anarchism, and never knew any decent place that would, never since I
was a baby in Canada. Yes, sir, I mean it; I'm an old man, but I'd
pull up stakes and go plugging down the Santa Fe trail first, and I
mean it."
"Here's your Bog Bitters, Mr. Goff," said the clerk, hastily, as a
passer-by was drawn into the store by the old man's tirade.
Mr. Goff stalked out, muttering, and the college sports at the
soda-counter grinned at one another. But Gus Osberg, of the junior
class, remarked to Carl Ericson: "At that, though, there's a good
deal to what old Goff says. Bet a hat Prexy won't stand for Prof
Frazer's talking anarchy. Fellow in the class told me it was fierce
stuff he was talking. Reg'lar anarchy."
"Rats! It wasn't anything of the kind," protested Carl. "I was there
and I heard the whole thing. He just explained what this Bernard Shaw
that writes plays meant by socialism."
"Well, even so, don't you think it's kind of unnecessary to talk
publicly, right out in a college lecture-room, about socialism?"
inquired a senior who was high up in the debating society.
"Well, thunder----!" was all Carl said, as the whole group stared at
him. He felt ridiculous; he was afraid of seeming to be a "crank." He
escaped from the drug-store.
When he arrived at Mrs. Henkel's boarding-house for supper the next
evening he found the students passing from hand to hand a copy of the
town paper, the _Plato Weekly Times_, which bore on the front page
what the town regarded as a red-hot news story:
PLATO PROFESSOR
TALKS SEDITIOUSLY
As we go to press we learn that rumors are flying about the
campus that the "powers that be" are highly incensed by the
remarks of a well-known member of the local faculty praising
Socialism and other form of anarchy. It is said that one of
the older members of the faculty will demand from the erring
teacher an explanation of his remarks which are alleged to
have taken the form of a defense of the English anarchist
Bernhard Shaw. Those on the que vive are expecting
sensational developments and campus talk is so extensively
occupied with discussions of the affair that the important
coming game with St. John's college is almost forgotten.
While the TIMES has always supported Plato College as one of
the chief glories in the proud crown of Minnesota learning,
we can but illy stomach such news. It goes without saying
that we cannot too strongly disapprove express our
disapproval of such incendiary utterances and we shall
fearlessly report the whole of this fair let the chips fall
where they may.
"There, Mr. Ericson," said Mrs. Henkel, a plump, decent, disapproving
person, who had known too many generations of great Platonians to be
impressed by anything, "you see what the public thinks of your
Professor Frazer. I told you people wouldn't stomach such news, and I
wouldn't wonder if they strongly disapproved."
"This ain't anything but gossip," said Carl, feebly; but as he read
the account in the _Weekly Times_ he was sick and frightened, such was
his youthful awe of print. He wanted to beat the mossy-whiskered
editor of the _Times_, who always had white food-stains on his lapels.
When he raised his eyes the coquette Mae Thurston tried to cheer him:
"It 'll all come out in the wash, Eric; don't worry. These editors
have to have something to write about or they couldn't fill up the
paper."
He pressed her foot under the table. He was chatty, and helped to keep
the general conversation away from the Frazer affair; but he was
growing more and more angry, with a desire for effective action which
expressed itself within him only by, "I'll show 'em! Makes me so
_sore_!"
* * * * *
Everywhere they discussed and rediscussed Professor Frazer: in the
dressing-room of the gymnasium, where the football squad dressed in
the sweat-reeking air and shouted at one another, balancing each on
one leg before small lockers, and rubbing themselves with brown,
unclean Turkish towels; in the neat rooms of girl co-eds with their
banners and cushions and pink comforters and chafing-dishes of nut
fudge and photographic postal-cards showing the folks at home; in the
close, horse-smelling, lap-robe and whip scattered office of the town
livery-stable, where Mr. Goff droned with the editor of the _Times_.
Everywhere Carl heard the echoes, and resolved, "I've got to _do_
something!"
CHAPTER IX
The day of Professor Frazer's next lecture, a rain-sodden day at the
end of October, with the stubble-fields bleakly shelterless beyond the
campus. The rain splashed up from pools on the worn brick walks and
dripped from trees and whipped about buildings, soaking the legs and
leaving them itchingly wet and the feet sloshily uncomfortable. Carl
returned to his room at one; talked to the Turk, his feet thrust
against the side of their rusty stove. He wanted to keep three
o'clock, the hour of Frazer's lecture, from coming. "I feel as if I
was in for a fight and scared to death about it. Listen to that rain
outside. Gee! but the old dame keeps these windows dirty. I hope
Frazer will give it to them good and hard. I wish we could applaud
him. I do feel funny, like something tragic was going to happen."
"Oh, tie that dog outside," yawned the Turk, stanch adherent of Carl,
and therefore of Professor Frazer, but not imaginative. "Come on,
young Kerl; I'll play you a slick little piece on the mouth-organ.
Heh?"
"Oh, thunder! I'm too restless to listen to anything except a cannon."
Carl stumped to the window and pondered on the pool of water flooding
the graying grass stems in the shabby yard.
When it was time to start for Professor Frazer's lecture the Turk
blurted: "Why don't we stay away and forget about it? Get her off your
nerves. Let's go down to the bowling-alley and work up a sweat."
"Not a chance, Turk. He'll want all the supporters he's got. And you'd
hate to stay away as much as I would. I feel cheered up now; all
ready for the scrap. Yip! Come on!"
"All right, governor. I like the scrap, all right, but I don't want to
see you get all worked up."
Through the rain, across the campus, an unusual number of students in
shining, cheap, black raincoats were hastening to the three o'clock
classes, clattering up the stone steps of the Academic Building,
talking excitedly, glancing up at the arched door as though they
expected to see something startling. Dozens stared at Carl. He felt
rather important. It was plain that he was known as a belligerent, a
supporter of Professor Frazer. As he came to the door of Lecture-room
A he found that many of the crowd were deserting their proper classes
to attend the Frazer event. He bumped down into his own seat, gazing
back superciliously at the outsiders who were edging into unclaimed
seats at the back of the room or standing about the door--students
from other classes, town girls, the young instructor in French,
German, and music; a couple of town club-women in glasses and galoshes
and woolen stockings bunchy at the ankles. Every one was rapidly
whispering, watching every one else, peeping often at the platform and
the small door beside it through which Professor Frazer would enter.
Carl had a smile ready for him. But there was no chance that the smile
would be seen. There must have been a hundred and fifty in the room,
seated and standing, though there were but seventy in the course, and
but two hundred and fifty-six students in the whole college that year.
Carl looked back. He clenched his fist and pounded the soft side of it
on his thigh, drawing in his breath, puffing it out with a long
exasperated "Hellll!" For the Greek professor, the comma-sized,
sandy-whiskered martinet, to whom nothing that was new was moral and
nothing that was old was to be questioned by any undergraduate,
stalked into the room like indignant Napoleon posing before two guards
and a penguin at St. Helena. A student in the back row thriftily gave
the Greek god his seat. The god sat down, with a precise nod.
Instantly a straggly man with a celluloid collar left the group by the
door, whisked over to the Greek professor, and fawned upon him. It was
the fearless editor and owner (also part-time type-setter) of the
_Plato Weekly Times_, who dated back to the days of Washington