THE MEETING
. . . There is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
—KIPLING
IT happened by mere chance that the September day on which Professor
Vincent Burgess, A.B., from Boston, first entered Sunrise College as
instructor in Greek, was the same day on which Vic Burleigh, overgrown
country boy from a Kansas claim out beyond the Walnut River, signed up
with the secretary of the College Board and paid the entrance fee for
his freshman year. And further, by chance, it happened that the two
young men had first met at the gateway to the campus, one coming from
the East and the other from the West, and having exchanged the
courtesies of stranger greeting, they had walked, side by side, up the
long
avenue to the foot of the slope. Together, they had climbed the broad
flight of steps leading up to the imposing doorway of Sunrise, with the
great letter S carved in stone relief above it; and, after pausing a
moment to take in the matchless wonder of the landscape over which old
Sunrise keeps watch, the college portal had swung open, and the two had
entered at the same time.
Inside the doorway the Professor and the country boy were
impressed, though in differing degrees, with the massive beauty of the
rotunda over which the stained glass of the dome hangs a halo of mellow
radiance. Involuntarily they lifted their eyes toward this crown of
light and saw far above them, wrought in dainty coloring, the design of
the great State Seal of Kansas, with its inscription
They saw something more in that upward glance. On the stairway of
the rotunda, Elinor Wream, the niece of the president of Sunrise
College, was leaning over the balustrade, looking at them with curious
eyes. Her smile of recognition as she caught sight of Professor Burgess,
gave place to an expression of half-concealed ridicule, as she glanced
down at Vic Burleigh, the big, heavy-boned young fellow, so grotesquely
impossible to the harmony of the place.
As the two men dropped their eyes, they encountered the upturned
face of a plainly dressed girl coming up the stairs from the basement,
with a big feather duster in her hand. It was old Bond Saxon's daughter
Dennie, who was earning her tuition by keeping the library and offices
in order. As if to even matters, it was Vic Burleigh who caught a token
of recognition now, while the young Professor was surveyed with fearless
disapproval.
All this took only a moment of time. Long afterward these two
men knew that in that moment an antagonism was born between them that
must fight itself out through the length of days. But now, Dr. Lloyd
Fenneben, Dean of Sunrise, known to students and alumni alike as "Dean
Funnybone," was grasping each man's hand with a cordial grip and
measuring each with a keen glance from piercing black eyes, as he bade
them equal welcome.
And here all likeness of conditions ends for these two. Days come
and go, moons wax and wane, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer
and winter glide fourfold through their appointed seasons, before the
two young men stand side by side on a common level again. And the events
of these changing seasons ring in so rapidly, and in so inevitable a
fashion, that the whole cycle runs like a real story along the page.
[Description:
Drawing of the state seal of Kansas with the inscription "AS ASTRA PER
ASPERA."
]