A Tramp Abroad - The Original Classic Edition. Twain Mark
the upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself black in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little thing.
When he got through he walks to the hole and looks in again for half a minute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and
a mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, and
I'm damned if I DON'T fill you, if it takes a hundred years!'
"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns
into that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most exciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to take a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at
last he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes
a-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his acorn in and says, 'NOW I guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!'
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So he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his head come up again he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough
in there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one
of 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two minutes!'
"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and
begun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for profanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.
"Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops to inquire what was up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance, and says, 'Now yonder's the hole, and if you don't believe me, go and look for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and says, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less than
two tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He couldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays come. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell
it over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many
leather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could have done.
"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this
whole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have been five thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to
the hole and delivered a more chuckleheaded opinion about the mystery than the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all
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over, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay happened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the mystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all
over the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'
he says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying to fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took his place and done the same.
"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know
better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United
States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other birds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too."
CHAPTER IV
Student Life
[The Laborious Beer King]
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The summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequent figure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students were Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands
were very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--for instruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The
Anglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had
twenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw
from.
Nine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform; the other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social organizations called "corps." There were five corps, each with a color of its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green ones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the "corps" boys. The
"KNEIP" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and then, to celebrate great occasions, like the election of a beer king,
for instance. The solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night,
and at a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer, out
of pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own
count--usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug he empties.
The election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, a count is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of pints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king elected
by the corps--or by his own capabilities--emptied his mug seventy-five
times. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, of
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course--but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which those who have been much at sea will understand.
One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins
to wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, some of them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or play; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have
no restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but hires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his
meals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and does not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the university for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change about. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays
a trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to
the privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now ready for business--or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to
work, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the
subjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; but he can skip attendance.
The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialties of an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences,
while those upon more practical and every-day matters of education are delivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day,
the lecturer's audience consisted of three students--and always the
same three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began as usual--
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"Gentlemen," --then, without a smile, he corrected himself, saying--
"Sir," --and went on with his discourse.