A Master's Degree Read online

  The Dean's eyes were fixed on a tiny shaft of blue smoke rising steadily from the rough country in the valley beyond Lagonda Ledge, but his mind was still on his brother.

  "Dr. Joshua Wream, D.D., Litt.D., LL.D., etc.! He has taken all the degrees conferable, except the degree of human insight." Something behind the strong face sent a line of pathos into it with the thought. "He has piled up enough for me to look after this fall, anyhow. It was bad enough for that niece of ours to be left a penniless orphan with only the two uncles to look after her and both of us bachelors. And now, after he has been shaping Elinor Wream's life until she is ready for college, he sends her out here to me, frankly declaring that she is too much for him. She always was."

  He turned to a letter lying on the table beside him, a smile playing about the frown on his countenance.

  "He hopes I can do better by Elinor than he has been able to do, because he's never had a wife nor child to teach him," he continued, giving word to his thought. "A fine time for me to begin! No wife nor child has ever taught me anything. He says she is a good girl, a beautiful girl with only two great faults. Only two! She's lucky. `One' "--Fenneben glanced more closely at the letter--" `is her self-will.' I never knew a Wream that didn't have that fault. `And the other' "--the frown drove back the smile now--" `is her notion of wealth. Nobody but a rich man could ever win her hand.' She who has been simply reared, with all the Wream creed that higher education is the final end of man, is set with a Wream-like firmness in her hatred of poverty, her eagerness for riches and luxury. And to add to all this responsibility he must send me his pet Greek scholar, Vincent Burgess, to try out as a professor in Sunrise. A Burgess, of all men in the world, to be sent to me! Of course this young man knows nothing of my affairs but is my brother too old and too scholarly to remember what I've tried a thousand times to forget? I thought the old wound had healed by this time."

  A wave of sadness swept the strong man's face. "I've asked Burgess to come up at three. I must find out what material is sent here for my shaping. It is a president's business to shape well, and I must do my best, God help me!"

  A shadow darkened Lloyd Fenneben's face, and his black eyes held a strange light. He stared vacantly at the landscape until he suddenly noted the slender wavering pillar of smoke beyond the Walnut.

  "There are no houses in those glens and hidden places," he thought. "I wonder what fire is under that smoke on a day like this. It is a far cry from the top of this ridge to the bottom of that half-tamed region down there. One may see into three counties here, but it is rough traveling across the river by day, and worse by night."

  The bell above the south turret chimed the hour of three as Vincent Burgess entered the study.

  "Take this seat by the window," Dr. Fenneben said with a genial smile and a handclasp worth remembering. "You can see an Empire from this point, if you care to look out."

  Vincent Burgess sat at ease in any presence. He had the face of a scholar, and the manners of a gentleman. But he gave no sign that he cared to view the empire that lay beyond the window.

  "We are to be co-workers for some time, Burgess. May I ask you why you chose to come to Kansas?"

  Fenneben came straight to the purpose of the interview. This keen-eyed, business-like man seemed to Burgess very unlike old Dr. Wream, whom everybody at Harvard loved and anybody could deceive. But to the direct question he answered directly and concisely.

  "I came to study types, to acquire geographical breadth, to have seclusion, that I may pursue more profound research."

  There was a play of light in Dr. Fenneben's eyes.

  "You must judge for yourself of the value of Sunrise and Lagonda Ledge for seclusion. But we make a specialty of geographical breadth out here. As to types, they assay fairly well to the ton, these Jayhawkers do."

  "What are Jayhawkers, Doctor?" Burgess queried.

  "Yonder is one specimen," Fenneben answered, pointing toward the window.

  Vincent Burgess, looking out, saw Vic Burleigh leaping up the broad steps from the level campus, a giant fellow, fully six feet tall. The swing of strength, void of grace, was in his motion. His face was gypsy-brown under a crop of sunburned auburn hair. A stiff new derby hat was set bashfully on a head set unabashed on broad shoulders. The store-mark of the ready-made was on his clothing, and it was clear that he was less accustomed to cut stone steps than to springing prairie sod. Clearly he was a real product of the soil.

  "Why, that is the young bumpkin I came in with this morning. I thought I was striding alongside an elephant in bulk and wild horse in speed," Burgess said with a smile.

  "You will have a share in taming him, doubtless," Dr. Fenneben replied. "He looks hardly bridle-wise yet. Enter him among your types. I didn't get his name this morning, but he interested me at once, as a fellow of good blood if not of good manners, and I have asked him to come in here later. Some boys must be met on the very threshold of a college if they are to run safely along the four years."

  "His name is Burleigh, Victor Burleigh. I remember it because it is not a new name to me. Picture him in a cap and gown at home in a library, or standing up to receive a Master's Degree from a university! His kind leave about the middle of the second semester and revert to the soil, don't they?"

  Burgess laughed pleasantly, and leaned forward to get one more look at the country boy, disappearing behind a group of evergreens in the north angle of the building.

  "They do not always leave so soon as that. You can't tell the grade of timber every time by the bark outside." There was a deeper tone in Dr. Fenneben's voice now. "But as to yourself, you had a motive in coming to Kansas, I judge. You can study types anywhere."

  Whether the young man liked this or not, he answered evenly:

  "I am to give instruction in Greek here at Lagonda Ledge. Beastly name, isn't it? Suggestive of rattlesnakes, somehow! I shall spend much time in study, for I am preparing a comprehensive thesis for my Master's Degree. The very barrenness of these dull prairies will keep me close to my library for a couple of years."

  "Oh, you will do your work well anywhere," Dr. Fenneben declared. "You need not put walls of distances about you for that. I thought you might have a more definite purpose in choosing this state, of all places."

  Fenneben's mind was running back to the days of his own first struggle for existence in the West, and his heart went out in sympathy to the undisciplined young professor.

  "I have a reason, but it is entirely a personal matter." Burgess was looking at the floor now. "Did you know I had a sister once?"

  "Yes, I know," Dr. Fenneben said.

  "She was married and came to Kansas. That was after you left Cambridge, I suppose. She and her husband are both dead, leaving no children. My father was bitterly opposed to her coming out here, and never forgave her for it. He died recently, making me his heir. I've always thought I'd like to see the state where my sister lived. She died young. She could not have been as old as you are, and you are a young man yet, Doctor. In addition, my father left in my care some trust funds for a claimant who also lived in Kansas. He is dead now, but I want to find out something more definite concerning him. Outside of this, I hope to do well here and to succeed to higher places elsewhere, soon. All this personal to myself, and worthy, I hope."

  He looked at Fenneben, who was leaning forward with his elbow on the table and his head bowed. His face was hidden and his white fingers were thrust through the heavy masses of black hair.

  "You will find a great field here in which to work out your success," the Dean said at length. "But I must give a word of warning. I tried once to reproduce the eastern university here. I learned better. If Kansas is to be your training ground, may I say that the man who opens his front door for the first time on the green prairies of the West has no less to learn than the man who first pitches his tent beside the blue Atlantic? Don't say I didn't show you where to find the blazed trail if you get lost from it for a little while."

  Dr. Fenneben's face was charmi
ng when he smiled.

  "One other thing I may mention. You know my niece, Elinor? I've been out here so long, I may need your help in making her feel at home at first."

  There was a new light in Burgess's eyes at the mention of Elinor Wream's name.

  "Oh, yes, I know Miss Elinor very well. I shall need her more to make me feel at home than she will need me."

  Somehow the answer was a trifle too quick and smooth to ring right. Dr. Fenneben forgot it in an instant, however, for Elinor Wream herself came suddenly into the room, a tall, slender girl, with a face so full of sunshiny charm that no great defect of character had yet made its mark there.

  "I beg your pardon, Uncle Lloyd; I thought you were alone. How do you do, Professor Burgess." She came forward smilingly and offered her hand. "Makes me homesick for old Cambridge and Uncle Joshua when I see you. I want to go down to Lagonda Ledge, and I don't know the streets at all. Don't you want to show me the way?"

  "Can't you wait for me to do that, Norrie? I have only one more engagement for the afternoon, and Miss Saxon will be wanting to dust in here soon." Dr. Fenneben looked fondly at his niece, a man to make other men jealous, if occasion offered.

  "Please don't, Miss Elinor," Vincent Burgess urged. "I shall be delighted to explore darkest Kansas with you at any time."

  "There is no mistaking that look in a man's eyes," Dr. Fenneben thought as he watched the two pass through the rotunda and out of the great front door. "I have guessed Joshua's plan easily enough, but I've only half guessed him out. Why did he mention his money matters to me? There is enough merit in him worth the shaping Sunrise will give him, however, and I must do a man's part, anyhow. As for Elinor, there's a ready-made missionary field in her, so Joshua warns me. But he is a poor judge sometimes. I wish I might have begun with her sooner. I cannot think she is quite as mercenary as he represents her to be."

  Through the window he saw a pretty picture. Outlined against the dark green cedars of the north angle was Professor Burgess, tall, slender, fair of face, faultless in dress. Beside him was Elinor Wream, all dainty and sweet and white, from the broad-brimmed hat set jauntily on her dark hair to the white bows on the instep of her neat little canvas shoes. A wave of loneliness swept over Dr. Fenneben's soul as he looked.

  "It must have been a thousand years ago that I was in love and walked in my Eden. There are no serpents here as there were in mine."

  Just then his eyes fell upon the wide stone landing of the campus steps. At the same moment Elinor gave a scream of fright. A bull snake, big and ugly, had crawled half out of the burned grasses of the slope and stretched itself lazily in the sunshine along the warm stone. It roused itself at the scream, emitting its hoarse hiss, after the manner of bull snakes. Elinor clutched at her companion's arm, pale with fear.

  "Kill it! Kill it!" she cried, trying to force her slender white parasol into his hand.

  Before he could move, Vic Burleigh leaped out from behind the cedars, and, picking up a sharp-edged bit of limestone, tipped his hand dexterously and sent it clean as a knife cut across the space. It struck the snake just below the head, half severing it from the body. Another leap and Burleigh had kicked the whole writhing mass--it would have measured five feet--off the stone into the sunflower stalks and long grasses of the steep slope.

  "How did you ever dare?" Elinor asked.

  "Oh, he's not poison; he just doesn't belong up here."

  The bluntness of timidity was in Vic's answer, but the strength and musical depth of his resonant voice was almost startling.

  "There is no Eden without a serpent, Miss Elinor," Professor Burgess said lightly.

  "Nor a serpent without some sort of Eden built around it. The thing's mate will be along after it pretty soon. Look out for it down there. The best place to catch it is right behind its ears," came the boy's quick response.

  Burleigh looked back defiantly at Burgess as he disappeared indoors. And the antagonism born in the meeting of these two men in the morning took on a tiny degree of strength in the afternoon.

  "What a wonderful voice, Vincent. It makes one want to hear it again," Elinor exclaimed.

  "Yes, and what an overgrown pile of awkwardness. It makes one hope never to see it again," her companion responded.

  "But he killed that snake in a way that looked expert to me," Elinor insisted.

  "My dear Miss Elinor, he was probably born in some Kansas cabin and has practiced killing snakes all his life. Not a very elevating feat. Let's go down and explore Lagonda Ledge now before the other snake comes in for the coroner's inquest."

  And the two passed down the stone steps to the shady level campus and on to the town beyond it.

  "You are hard on snakes, Burleigh," Dr. Fenneben said as he welcomed the country boy into his study. "A bull snake is a harmless creature, and he is the farmer's friend."

  "Let him stay on the farm then. I hate him. He's no friend of mine," Vic replied.

  He was overflowing the chair recently graced by Professor Burgess and clutching his derby as if it might escape and leave him bareheaded forever. His face had a dogged expression and his glance was stern. Yet his direct words and the deep richness of his voice put him outside of the class of commonplace beginners.

  "Are you fond of killing things?" the Dean asked.

  The ruddy color deepened in Vic Burleigh's brown cheek, but the steadfast gaze of his eyes and the firm lines of his mouth told the head of Sunrise something of what he would find in the sturdy young Jayhawker.

  "Sometimes," came the blunt answer. "I've always lived on a Kansas claim. Unless you know what that means you might not understand--how hard a life"--Vic stopped abruptly and squeezed the rim of his derby.

  "Never mind. We take only face value here. Fine view from that window," and Lloyd Fenneben's genial smile began to win the heart of the country boy as most young hearts were won to him.

  Burleigh leaned toward the window, forgetful of the chair arms he had striven to subdue, the late afternoon sunlight falling on his brown face and glinting in his auburn hair.

  "It's as pretty as paradise," he said, simply. "There's nothing like our Kansas prairies."

  "You come from the plains out west, I hear. How long do you plan to stay here, Burleigh?" Dr. Fenneben asked.

  "Four years if I can make it go. I've got a little schooling and I know how to herd cattle. I need more than this, if I am only a country boy."

  "Who pays for your schooling, yourself, or your father?" Fenneben queried.

  "I have no father nor mother now."

  "You are willing to work four years to get a diploma from Sunrise? It is hard work; all the harder if you have not had much schooling before it."

  "I'm willing to work, and I'd like to have the diploma for it," Vic answered.

  "Burleigh, did you notice the letter S carved in the stone above the door?"

  "Yes, sir; I suppose it stands for Sunrise?"

  "It does. But with the years it will take on new meanings for you. When you have learned all these meanings you will be ready for your diploma--and more. You will be far on your way to the winning of a Master's Degree."

  Vic's eyes widened with a sort of child-like simplicity. He forgot his hat and the chair arms, and Dr. Fenneben noted for the first time that his golden-brown eyes matching his auburn hair were shaded by long black lashes, the kind artists rave about, and arched over with black brows.

  "His eyes and voice are all right," was the Dean's mental comment. "There's good blood in his veins, I'll wager."

  But before he could speak further the shrill scream of a frightened child came from the campus below the ridge. At the cry Vic Burleigh sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair, and without stopping to pick it up, he rushed from the building.

  As he tore down the long flight of steps, Lloyd Fenneben caught sight of a child on the level campus running toward him as fast as its fat little legs could toddle. Two minutes later Vic Burleigh was back in the study, panting and hot, with the little one clingin
g to his neck.

  "Excuse me, please," Vic said as he lifted the fallen chair. "I forgot all about Bug down there, and the widow Bull"--he gave a half-smile--"was wriggling around trying to find her mate, and scared him. He's too little to be left alone, anyhow."

  Bug was a sturdy, stubby three-year-old, or less, dimpled and brown, with big dark eyes and a tangle of soft little red-brown ringlets. As Vic seated himself, Bug perched on the arm of the chair inside of the big boy's encircling arm.

  "Who is your friend? Is he your brother?" asked the Dean.

  "No. He's no relation. I don't know anything about him, except that his name is Buler. Bug Buler, he says."

  Little Bug put up a chubby brown hand loving-wise to Vic Burleigh's brown cheek, and, looking straight at Dr. Fenneben with wide serious eyes, he asked,

  "Is you dood to Vic?"

  "Yes, indeed," replied the Dean.

  "Nen, I like you fornever," Bug declared, shutting his lips so tightly that his checks puffed.

  "How do you happen to have this child here, Burleigh?" questioned Fenneben.

  "Because he's got nobody else to look after him," answered Vic.

  "How about an orphan asylum?

  Vic looked down at the little fellow cuddled against his arm, and every feature of his stern face softened.

  "Will it make any difference about him if I get my lessons, sir? I can't let Bug go now. We are the limit for each other--neither of us got anybody else. I take care of him, but he keeps me from getting too coarse and rough. Every fellow needs something innocent and good about him sometimes."

  "Oh, no! Keep him if you want him. But would you mind telling me about him?"

  "I'd rather not now," Burleigh said, quietly, and Lloyd Fenneben knew when to drop a subject.