The Plastic Age

Plastic Age, The

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plastic Age, by Percy Marks This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Plastic Age
Author: Percy Marks
Release Date: August 15, 2005 [EBook #16532]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PLASTIC AGE
BY
PERCY MARKS
ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTOPLAY A PREFERRED PICTURE
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
[Illustration: "SHE'S MY GIRL! HANDS OFF!"]
Made in the United States of America
1924 THE CENTURY Co. PRINTED IN U. S. A.
To MY MOTHER

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"SHE'S MY GIRL! HANDS OFF!" "LOOK! FLANNELS FOR MAMMA'S BOY!" "COME ON--I KNOW WHERE THERE'S LIQUID REFRESHMENT!" "THAT'S CYNTHIA DAY--A REAL HOTSY-TOTSY!" "DANCE, SALOME!" HUGH'S POPULARITY IS ESTABLISHED AFTER THE FIRST ATHLETIC TRY-OUTS. "ONE TURN, HUGH, AND WE'LL QUIT THESE JOINTS FOR GOOD!" CARL FORGETS HIS ANIMOSITY IN HONEST ADMIRATION FOR HUGH.

THE PLASTIC AGE
CHAPTER I
When an American sets out to found a college, he hunts first for a hill. John Harvard was an Englishman and indifferent to high places. The result is that Harvard has become a university of vast proportions and no color. Yale flounders about among the New Haven shops, trying to rise above them. The Harkness Memorial tower is successful; otherwise the university smells of trade. If Yale had been built on a hill, it would probably be far less important and much more interesting.
Hezekiah Sanford was wise; he found first his hill and then founded his college, believing probably that any one ambitious enough to climb the hill was a man fit to wrestle with learning and, if need be, with Satan himself. Satan was ever before Hezekiah, and he fought him valiantly, exorcising him every morning in chapel and every evening at prayers. The first students of Sanford College learned Latin and Greek and to fear the devil. There are some who declare that their successors learn less.
Hezekiah built Sanford Hall, a fine Georgian building, performed the duties of trustees, president, dean, and faculty for thirty years, and then passed to his reward, leaving three thousand acres, his library of five hundred books, mostly sermons, Sanford Hall, and a charter that opened the gates of Sanford to all men so that they might "find the true light of God and the glory of Jesus in the halls of this most liberal college."
More than a century had passed since Hezekiah was laid to rest in Haydensville's cemetery. The college had grown miraculously and changed even more miraculously. Only the hill and its beautiful surroundings remained the same. Indian Lake, on the south of the campus, still sparkled in the sunlight; on the east the woods were as virgin as they had been a hundred and fifty years before. Haydensville, still only a village, surrounded the college on the west and north.
Hezekiah's successors had done strange things to his campus. There were dozens of buildings now surrounding Sanford Hall, and they revealed all the types of architecture popular since Hezekiah had thundered his last defiance at Satan. There were fine old colonial buildings, their windows outlined by English ivy; ponderous Romanesque buildings made of stone, grotesque and hideous; a pseudo-Gothic chapel with a tower of surpassing loveliness; and four laboratories of the purest factory design. But despite the conglomerate and sometimes absurd architecture--a Doric temple neighbored a Byzantine mosque--the campus was beautiful. Lawns, often terraced, stretched everywhere, and the great elms lent a dignity to Sanford College that no architect, however stupid, could quite efface.
This first day of the new college year was glorious in the golden haze of Indian summer. The lake was silver blue, the long reflections of the trees twisting and bending as a soft breeze ruffled the surface into tiny waves. The hills already brilliant with color--scarlet, burnt orange, mauve, and purple--flamed up to meet the clear blue sky; the elms softly rustled their drying leaves; the white houses of the village retreated coyly behind maples and firs and elms: everywhere there was peace, the peace that comes with strength that has been stronger than time.
As Hugh Carver hastened up the hill from the station, his two suit-cases banged his legs and tripped him. He could hardly wait to reach the campus. The journey had been intolerably long--Haydensville was more than three hundred miles from Merrytown, his home--and he was wild to find his room in Surrey Hall. He wondered how he would like his room-mate, Peters.... What's his name? Oh, yes, Carl.... The registrar had written that Peters had gone to Kane School.... Must be pretty fine. Ought to be