A Breath of Prairie and other stories. Will Lillibridge
a word of comment, and on the instant the peaceful scratching of fountain pens on notebooks replaced the clamors of war.
The lecture was about half over when there was a tap on the entrance door; and the white-haired dean, answering, stepped out into the hall. In a second he returned carrying a thin, yellow envelope.
“A message for––,” he studied the writing with near-sighted eyes, “––for Guy Landers,” he announced slowly.
The message went up the incline, hand over 52 hand toward the top row, and the boy who waited felt the room growing gradually close and dark. To him a telegram could mean but one thing.
The class sat watching silently until they saw him take the paper from his neighbor; then in kindness they turned away at the look on his face. In the pit below the mild old dean began talking absently.
Landers tried to open the envelope, but his nervous hands rebelled. He laid the broad side firmly against his knee and tore open the end raggedly, drawing out the inclosed sheet with a trembling rustle that could be heard all over the room.
The open page was before him; but the letters only danced before his eyes. He spread the paper as before, flat upon his knee, ere he could read.
The one short line, the line of which every word was as he expected, stood clear before him. He felt now a vague sort of wonder that the brief, picked sentences should have affected him as they had. He had already known what they told for so long––ever since his name was 53 spoken at the door––ages ago. He looked hesitatingly around the room. Several students were scrutinizing him curiously, as though expecting something. Oh, yes––that recalled him. He must go––home. He hated to interrupt the lecture, but he must. He got up unsteadily, and started down the stair, groping his way uncertainly, as a man walks in the dark.
The kind old dean waited in silence until Landers had passed hesitatingly through the door; then followed him out into the hall. A moment, and he returned, standing abstractedly by the lecture table. He picked up his scattered notes absently, shaking the ends even with a painstaking hand; then as carefully scattered them as before. He looked up at the silent, waiting class, and those who were near saw the tears sparkling in the mild old eyes.
“Landers’ father is dead,” came the simple, hushed announcement.
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