A Hoosier Chronicle | Page 3

a professor; and
except the pastor of the church which she attended, and the physician
who had been called to see her in her childish ailments, all men in her
world were either students or teachers. The town men were strange
beings, whom Professor Kelton darkly called Philistines, and their
ways and interests were beyond her comprehension.
"If you will wait I think I may be able to find him. He may have gone
to the library or to the observatory, or for a walk. Won't you please
come in?"
Her gravity amused the young man, who did not think it so serious a
matter to gain an interview with a retired professor in a small college.
They debated, with much formality on both sides, whether Sylvia
should seek her grandfather or merely direct the visitor to places where
he would be likely to find him; but as the stranger had never seen
Professor Kelton, they concluded that it would be wiser for Sylvia to do
the seeking.
She ushered the visitor into the library, where it was cooler than on the
doorstep, and turned toward the campus. It is to be noted that Sylvia
moves with the buoyant ease of youth. She crosses the Lane and is on
her own ground now as she follows the familiar walks that link the
college buildings together. The students who pass her grin cheerfully
and tug at their caps; several, from a distance, wave a hand at her. One
young gentleman, leaning from the upper window of the chemical
laboratory, calls, "Hello, Sylvia," and jerks his head out of sight.
Sylvia's chin lifts a trifle, disdainful of the impudence of sophomores.
She has recognized the culprit's voice, and will deal with him later in

her own fashion.
Sylvia is olive-skinned and dark of eye. And they are interesting
eyes--those of Sylvia, luminous and eager--and not fully taken in at a
glance. They call us back for further parley by reason of their grave and
steady gaze. There is something appealing in her that takes hold of the
heart, and we remember her after she has passed us by. We shall not
pretend that her features are perfect, but their trifling irregularities
contribute to an impression of individuality and character. Her mouth,
for example, is a bit large, but it speaks for good humor. Even at fifteen,
her lips suggest firmness and decision. Her forehead is high and broad,
and her head is well set on straight shoulders. Her dark hair is combed
back smoothly and braided and the braid is doubled and tied with a red
ribbon. The same color flashes in a flowing bow at her throat. These
notes will serve to identify Sylvia as she crosses the campus of this
honorable seat of learning on a June afternoon.
This particular June afternoon fell somewhat later than the second
consulship of Grover Cleveland and well within the ensuing period of
radicalism. The Hoosiers with whom we shall have to do are not those
set forth by Eggleston, but the breed visible to-day in urban
marketplaces, who submit themselves meekly to tailors and
schoolmasters. There is always corn in their Egypt, and no village is so
small but it lifts a smokestack toward a sky that yields nothing to Italy's.
The heavens are a soundingboard devised for the sole purpose of
throwing back the mellifluous voices of native orators. At the
cross-roads store, philosophers, perched upon barrel and soap-box (note
the soap-box), clinch in endless argument. Every county has its
Theocritus who sings the nearest creek, the bloom of the may-apple, the
squirrel on the stake-and-rider fence, the rabbit in the corn, the
paw-paw thicket where fruit for the gods lures farm boys on frosty
mornings in golden autumn. In olden times the French _voyageur_,
paddling his canoe from Montreal to New Orleans, sang cheerily
through the Hoosier wilderness, little knowing that one day men should
stand all night before bulletin boards in New York and Boston awaiting
the judgment of citizens of the Wabash country upon the issues of
national campaigns. The Hoosier, pondering all things himself, cares

little what Ohio or Illinois may think or do. He ventures eastward to
Broadway only to deepen his satisfaction in the lights of Washington or
Main Street at home. He is satisfied to live upon a soil more truly
blessed than any that lies beyond the borders of his own
commonwealth. No wonder Ben Parker, of Henry County, born in a log
cabin, attuned his lyre to the note of the first blue-bird and sang,--
'Tis morning and the days are long.
It is always morning and all the days are long in Indiana.
Sylvia was three years old when she came to her grandfather's. This she
knew from the old servant; but where her