A Master's Degree [14]
old Corral.
"Come, Vic Burleigh, help me to start this fire for supper," Dennie Saxon called. "We won't get our coffee and ham and eggs ready before midnight."
"Here, Trench, or some of you fellows, get busy," Vic called back to the big right guard of the Sunrise football squad. "Elinor and I are going to climb the west bluff to see what's the matter with the sun. It looks sick. I've been hired man all day; carried nineteen girls across the shallows, packed all the lunch-baskets, toted all the wood, built all the fires, washed all the dishes--"
"Ate all the dinner, drank all the grape juice, stepped on all the custard pies, upset all the cream bottles. Oh, you piker, get out!" Trench aimed an empty lunch-basket at Vic's head with the words.
Being a chaperon was a pleasant office to Professor Burgess today but for the task of throwing a barrier about Elinor every time Vic Burleigh came near. And Burleigh, lacking many other things more than insight, kept him busy at barrier building.
"Miss Wream, you can't think of climbing that rough place," Burgess protested, with a sharp glance of resentment at the big young fellow who dared to call her Elinor.
The tiger-light blazed in the eyes that flashed back at him, as Vic cried daringly.
"Oh, come on, Elinor; be a good Indian!"
"Don't do it, Miss Wream," Vincent Burgess pleaded.
Elinor looked from the one to the other, and the very magnetism of power called her.
"I mean to try, anyhow," she declared. "Will you pick me up if I fall, Victor?"
"Well, I wouldn't hardly go away and leave you to perish miserably," Vic assured her, and they were off together.
The Wream men were slender, and all of them, except Lloyd Fenneben, the stepbrother, wore nose glasses and drank hot water at breakfast, and ate predigested foods, and talked of acids and carbons, and took prescribed gestures for exercise. The joyousness of perfect health was in every motion of this young man. His brown sweater showed a hard white throat. He planted his feet firmly. And he leaped up the bluffside easily. If Elinor slipped, the strength of his grip on her arm reassured her, until climbing beside him became a joy.
The bluff was less surly than it appeared to be down in the Corral, and the benediction of autumn was in the view from its crest. They sat down on the stone ledge crowning it, and Elinor threw aside her jaunty scarlet outing cap. The breezes played in her dark hair, and her cheeks were pink from the exercise. Victor Burleigh looked at her with frank, wide-open eyes.
"What's the matter? Is my hair a fright?" she murmured.
"A fright!" Burleigh flung off his cap and ran his fingers through his own hair. "Not what I call a fright," he asserted in an even tone.
"What's that scar on your left arm? It looks like a little hole dug out," Elinor declared.
Vic's brown sweater sleeve was pushed up to the elbow.
"It is a little hole I put in where I dug out the flesh with a pocket knife," he replied, carelessly.
"Did you do that yourself?" Elinor cried. "What made you be so cruel?"
"I wasn't so cruel. `I seen my duty and I done it noble,' as the essay runs. I made that vacancy to get ahead of a rattlesnake that got me there, a venomous big one with nine police calls on its tail, and that's no snake story, either. I cut the flesh out to get rid of the poison. I was n't in a college laboratory and I had to work fast and use what tools I had with me. I killed the gentleman that did the mischief, though," Vic added carelessly, deftly slipping down his sleeve as if to change the subject.
"Oh, tell me about it, do," Elinor urged. "You were killing a snake the first time I saw you."
How dainty and sweet she was sitting there in her neat-fitting outing suit of dark gray with scarlet pipings and buttons and pocket flaps, and the scarlet of her full lips, and the coral tint of her cheeks, the white hands and white throat and brow, the dark eyes and finely shaped head with abundant beautiful hair.
Vic Burleigh sat looking straight at her and the
"Come, Vic Burleigh, help me to start this fire for supper," Dennie Saxon called. "We won't get our coffee and ham and eggs ready before midnight."
"Here, Trench, or some of you fellows, get busy," Vic called back to the big right guard of the Sunrise football squad. "Elinor and I are going to climb the west bluff to see what's the matter with the sun. It looks sick. I've been hired man all day; carried nineteen girls across the shallows, packed all the lunch-baskets, toted all the wood, built all the fires, washed all the dishes--"
"Ate all the dinner, drank all the grape juice, stepped on all the custard pies, upset all the cream bottles. Oh, you piker, get out!" Trench aimed an empty lunch-basket at Vic's head with the words.
Being a chaperon was a pleasant office to Professor Burgess today but for the task of throwing a barrier about Elinor every time Vic Burleigh came near. And Burleigh, lacking many other things more than insight, kept him busy at barrier building.
"Miss Wream, you can't think of climbing that rough place," Burgess protested, with a sharp glance of resentment at the big young fellow who dared to call her Elinor.
The tiger-light blazed in the eyes that flashed back at him, as Vic cried daringly.
"Oh, come on, Elinor; be a good Indian!"
"Don't do it, Miss Wream," Vincent Burgess pleaded.
Elinor looked from the one to the other, and the very magnetism of power called her.
"I mean to try, anyhow," she declared. "Will you pick me up if I fall, Victor?"
"Well, I wouldn't hardly go away and leave you to perish miserably," Vic assured her, and they were off together.
The Wream men were slender, and all of them, except Lloyd Fenneben, the stepbrother, wore nose glasses and drank hot water at breakfast, and ate predigested foods, and talked of acids and carbons, and took prescribed gestures for exercise. The joyousness of perfect health was in every motion of this young man. His brown sweater showed a hard white throat. He planted his feet firmly. And he leaped up the bluffside easily. If Elinor slipped, the strength of his grip on her arm reassured her, until climbing beside him became a joy.
The bluff was less surly than it appeared to be down in the Corral, and the benediction of autumn was in the view from its crest. They sat down on the stone ledge crowning it, and Elinor threw aside her jaunty scarlet outing cap. The breezes played in her dark hair, and her cheeks were pink from the exercise. Victor Burleigh looked at her with frank, wide-open eyes.
"What's the matter? Is my hair a fright?" she murmured.
"A fright!" Burleigh flung off his cap and ran his fingers through his own hair. "Not what I call a fright," he asserted in an even tone.
"What's that scar on your left arm? It looks like a little hole dug out," Elinor declared.
Vic's brown sweater sleeve was pushed up to the elbow.
"It is a little hole I put in where I dug out the flesh with a pocket knife," he replied, carelessly.
"Did you do that yourself?" Elinor cried. "What made you be so cruel?"
"I wasn't so cruel. `I seen my duty and I done it noble,' as the essay runs. I made that vacancy to get ahead of a rattlesnake that got me there, a venomous big one with nine police calls on its tail, and that's no snake story, either. I cut the flesh out to get rid of the poison. I was n't in a college laboratory and I had to work fast and use what tools I had with me. I killed the gentleman that did the mischief, though," Vic added carelessly, deftly slipping down his sleeve as if to change the subject.
"Oh, tell me about it, do," Elinor urged. "You were killing a snake the first time I saw you."
How dainty and sweet she was sitting there in her neat-fitting outing suit of dark gray with scarlet pipings and buttons and pocket flaps, and the scarlet of her full lips, and the coral tint of her cheeks, the white hands and white throat and brow, the dark eyes and finely shaped head with abundant beautiful hair.
Vic Burleigh sat looking straight at her and the