A Hoosier Chronicle | Page 2

natural gas threatened to boom the town into cityhood, changed
Buckeye Lane to University Avenue, but the community refused to
countenance any such impious trifling with tradition. And besides,
Madison prided herself then as now on being a college that taught the
humanities in all soberness, according to ideals brought out of New
England by its founders. The proposed change caused an historic clash
between town and gown in which the gown triumphed. University
forsooth!
Professor Kelton's house was guarded on all sides by trees and
shrubbery, and a tall privet hedge shut it off from the Lane. He tended
with his own hands a flower garden whose roses were the despair of all
the women of the community. The clapboards of the simple
story-and-a-half cottage had faded to a dull gray, but the little plot of
ground in which the house stood was cultivated with scrupulous care.
The lawn was always fresh and crisp, the borders of privet were neatly
trimmed and the flower beds disposed effectively. A woman would
have seen at once that this was a man's work; it was all a little too
regular, suggesting engineering methods rather than polite gardening.
Once you had stepped inside the cottage the absence of the feminine
touch was even more strikingly apparent. Book shelves crowded to the
door,--open shelves, that had the effect of pressing at once upon the
visitor the most formidable of dingy volumes, signifying that such
things were of moment to the master of the house. There was no parlor,
for the room that had originally been used as such was now shelf-hung
and book-lined, and served as an approach to the study into which it
opened. The furniture was old and frayed as to upholstery, and the
bric-à-brac on an old-fashioned what-not was faintly murmurous of

some long-vanished feminine hand. The scant lares and penates were
sufficient to explain something of this shiplike trimness of the
housekeeping. The broken half of a ship's wheel clung to the wall
above the narrow grate, and the white marble mantel supported a
sextant, a binocular, and other incidentals of a shipmaster's profession.
An engraving of the battle of Trafalgar and a portrait of Farragut spoke
further of the sea. If we take a liberty and run our eyes over the
bookshelves we find many volumes relating to the development of sea
power and textbooks of an old vintage on the sailing of ships and like
matters. And if we were to pry into the drawers of an old walnut
cabinet in the study we should find illuminative data touching the life
of Andrew Kelton. It is well for us to know that he was born in Indiana,
as far as possible from salt water; and that, after being graduated from
Annapolis, he served his country until retired for disabilities due to a
wound received at Mobile Bay. He thereafter became and continued for
fifteen years the professor of mathematics and astronomy at Madison
College, in his native state; and it is there that we find him, living
peacefully with his granddaughter Sylvia in the shadow of the college.
Comfort had set its seal everywhere, but it was keyed to male ideals of
ease and convenience; the thousand and one things in which women
express themselves were absent. The eye was everywhere struck by the
strict order of the immaculate small rooms and the snugness with which
every article had been fitted to its place. The professor's broad desk was
free of litter; his tobacco jar neighbored his inkstand on a clean, fresh
blotter. It is a bit significant that Sylvia, in putting down her book to
answer the bell, marked her place carefully with an envelope, for Sylvia,
we may say at once, was a young person disciplined to careful habits.
"Is this Professor Kelton's? I should like very much to see him," said
the young man to whom she opened.
"I'm sorry, but he isn't at home," replied Sylvia, with that directness
which, we shall find, characterized her speech.
The visitor was neither a member of the faculty nor a student, and as
her grandfather was particularly wary of agents she was on guard
against the stranger.

"It is important for me to see him. If he will be back later I can come
again."
The young man did not look like an agent; he carried no telltale
insignia. He was tall and straight and decidedly blond, and he smiled
pleasantly as he fanned himself with his straw hat. Where his brown
hair parted there was a cowlick that flung an untamable bang upon his
forehead, giving him a combative look that his smile belied. He was a
trifle too old for a senior, Sylvia reflected, soberly studying his lean,
smooth-shaven face, but not nearly old enough to be