The Courage of the Commonplace | Page 3

Johnny McLean. I hope he'll be taken--he's
the nicest boy in the whole junior class--but I'm afraid. He hasn't done
anything in particular."
With that, a thrill caught the most callous of the hundreds of spectators;
a stillness fixed the shifting crowd; from the tower of Battell chapel,
close by, the college bell clanged the stroke of five; before it stopped
striking the first two juniors would be tapped.
The dominating, unhurried note rang, echoed, and began to die away as
they saw Brant's hand fall on Bob Floyd's shoulder. The crew captain
whirled and leaped, unseeing, through the crowd. A great shout rose;
all over the campus the people surged like a wind-driven wave toward
the two rushing figures, and everywhere some one cried, "Floyd has
gone Bones!" and the exciting business had begun.
One looks at the smooth faces of boys of twenty and wonders what the
sculptor Life is going to make of them. Those who have known his
work know what sharp tools are in his kit; they know the tragic
possibilities as well as the happy ones of those inevitable strokes; they
shrink a bit as they look at the smooth faces of the boys and realize
how that clay must be moulded in the workshop--how the strong lines
which ought to be there some day must come from the cutting of pain

and the grinding of care and the push and weight of responsibility. Yet
there is service and love, too, and happiness and the slippery bright
blade of success in the kit of Life the sculptor; so they stand and watch,
a bit pitifully but hopefully, as the work begins, and cannot guide the
chisel but a little way, yet would not, if they could, stop it, for the
finished job is going to be, they trust, a man, and only the sculptor Life
can make such.
The boy called Johnny McLean glanced up at the window in Durfee; he
met the girl's eyes, and the girl smiled back and made a gay motion
with her hand as if to say, "Keep up your pluck; you'll be taken." And
wished she felt sure of it. For, as Mrs. Anderson had said, he had done
nothing in particular. His marks were good, he was a fair athlete; good
at rowing, good at track work; he had "heeled" the News for a year, but
had not made the board. A gift of music, which bubbled without effort,
had put him on the Glee Club. Yet that had come to him; it was not a
thing he had done; boys are critical of such distinctions. It is said that
Skull and Bones aims at setting its seal above all else on character. This
boy had sailed buoyantly from term to term delighted with the honors
which came to his friends, friends with the men who carried off honors,
with the best and strongest men in his class, yet never quite arriving for
himself. As the bright, anxious young face looked up at the window
where the women sat, the older one thought she could read the future in
it, and she sighed. It was a face which attracted, broad-browed,
clear-eyed, and honest, but not a strong face--yet. John McLean had
only made beginnings; he had accomplished nothing. Mrs. Anderson,
out of an older experience, sighed, because she had seen just such
winning, lovable boys before, and had seen them grow into saddened,
unsuccessful men. Yet he was full of possibility; the girl was hoping
against hope that Brant and the fourteen other seniors of Skull and
Bones would see it so and take him on that promise. She was not
pretending to herself that anything but Johnny McLean's fate in it was
the point of this Tap Day to her. She was very young, only twenty also,
but there was a maturity in her to which the boy made an appeal. She
felt a strength which others missed; she wanted him to find it; she
wanted passionately to see him take his place where she felt he
belonged, with the men who counted.
The play was in full action. Grave and responsible seniors worked

swiftly here and there through the tight mass, searching each one his
man; every two or three minutes a man was found and felt that thrilling
touch and heard the order, "Go to your room." Each time there was a
shout of applause; each time the campus rushed in a wave. And still the
three hundred stood packed, waiting-- thinning a little, but so little.
About thirty had been taken now, and the black senior hats were visibly
fewer, but the upturned boy faces seemed exactly the same. Only they
grew more anxious minute by minute; minute by minute they turned
more nervously this