Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska | Page 2

flying,
shouts rent the air; familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved
benedictions from all points of the compass; while the gladness and the
sadness of the hour were perpetuated by the aid of instantaneous
photography. The enterprising kodaker caught us on the fly, just as the
special train was leaving South Bend for Chicago; a train that was not
to be dismembered or its exclusiveness violated until it had been run
into the station at Denver.
After this last negative attack we were set free. Vacation had begun in
good earnest. What followed, think you? Mutual congratulations,
flirtations and fumigations without ceasing; for there was much lost
time to be made up, and here was a golden opportunity. O you who
have been a schoolboy and lived for months and months in a pent-up
Utica, where the glimpse of a girl is as welcome and as rare as a
sunbeam in a cellar, you can imagine how the two hours and forty-five
minutes were improved--and Chicago eighty miles away. It is true we
all turned for a moment to catch a last glimpse of the University dome,
towering over the treetops; and we felt very tenderly toward everyone
there. But there were "sweet girl graduates" on board; and, as you know
well enough, it required no laureate to sing their praises, though he has
done so with all the gush and fervor of youth.
It was summer. "It is always summer where they are," some youngster

was heard to murmur. But it was really the summer solstice, or very
near it. The pond-lilies were ripe; bushels of them were heaped upon
the platforms at every station we came to; and before the first stage of
our journey was far advanced the girls were sighing over lapfuls of
lilies, and the lads tottering under the weight of stupendous
boutonnières.
As we drew near the Lake City, the excitement visibly increased. Here,
there were partings, and such sweet sorrow as poets love to sing. It
were vain to tell how many promises were then and there made, and of
course destined to be broken; how everybody was to go and spend a
happy season with everybody or at least somebody else, and to write
meanwhile without fail. There were good-byes again and again, and yet
again; and, with much mingled emotion, we settled ourselves in
luxurious seats and began to look dreamily toward Denver.
In the mazes of the wonderful city of Chicago we saw the warp of that
endless steel web over which we flew like spiders possessed. The
sunken switches took our eye and held it for a time. But a greater
marvel was the man with the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of
iron, who sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played
with trainfuls of his fellowmen--a mere question of life or death to be
answered over and over again; played with them as the conjurer tosses
his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one
click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction; the
perfect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little world,
but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it every
moment in the hour, and every hour in the day, and every day in the
year.
It did not take us long to discover the advantages of our special-car
system. There were nigh fifty of us housed in a brace of excursion cars.
In one of these--the parlor--the only stationary seats were at the two
ends, while the whole floor was covered with easy-chairs of every
conceivable pattern. The dining car was in reality a cardroom between
meals--and such meals, for we had stocked the larder ourselves.
Everywhere the agents of the several lines made their appearance and

greeted us cordially; they were closeted for a few moments with the
shepherd of our flock, Father Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame,
Indiana; then they would take a bite with us--a dish of berries or an
ice,--for they invariably accompanied us down the road a few miles;
and at last would bid us farewell with a flattering figure of speech,
which is infinitely preferable to the traditional "Tickets, please;
tickets!"
At every town and village crowds came down to see us. We were
evidently objects of interest. Even the nimble reporter was on hand, and
looked with a not unkindly eye upon the lads who were celebrating the
first hours of the vacation with an enthusiasm which had been
generating for some weeks. There was such a making up of beds when,
at dark, the parlor and dining cars were transformed into long, narrow
dormitories, and the boys paired off, two and