letters. He looked forward to college in the fall. Then he received a letter from Anna saying that she was going to marry a man she had met and known for three weeks. It was a broken, gasping, apologetic letter. Every one was outraged at Anna and astounded that Hugo bore the shock so courageously.

The upshot of that summer was to fill his mind with fetid memories, which abated slowly, to make him disgusted with himself and tired of Indian Creek. He decided to go to a different college, one far away from the scene of his painful youth and his disillusioned maturity. He chose Webster University because of the greatness of its name. If Abednego Danner was hurt at his son's defection from his own college, he said nothing. And Mrs. Danner, grown more silent and reserved, yielded to her son's unexpected decision.

Hugo packed his bags one September afternoon, with a feeling of dreaminess. He bade farewell to his family. He boarded the train. His mind was opaque. The spark burning in it was one of dawning adventure buried in a mass of detail. He had never been far from his native soil. Now he was going to see cities and people who were almost foreign, in the sophisticated East. But all he could dwell on was a swift cinema of a defeated little boy, a strong man who could never be strong, a surfeited love, a truant and dimly comprehensible blonde girl, a muddy street and a red station, a clapboard house, a sonorous church with hushed puppets in the pews, fudge parties, boats on the little river, cold winter, and ice over the mountains, and a fortress where once upon a time he had felt mightier than the universe.

VI

The short branch line to which Hugo changed brought him to the fringe of the campus. The cars were full of boys, so many of them that he was embarrassed. They all appeared to know each other, and no one spoke to him. His dreams on the train were culminated. He had decided to become a great athlete. With his mind's eye, he played the football he would play—and the baseball. Ninety-yard runs, homers hit over the fence into oblivion. Seeing the boys and feeling their lack of notice of him redoubled the force of that decision. Then he stepped on to the station platform and stood facing the campus. He could not escape a rush of reverence and of awe; it was so wide, so green and beautiful. Far away towered the giant arches of the stadium. Near by were the sharp Gothic points of the chapel and the graduate college. Between them a score or more of buildings rambled in and out through the trees.

"Hey!"

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