The Heart of the Hills eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 340 pages of information about The Heart of the Hills.

The Heart of the Hills eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 340 pages of information about The Heart of the Hills.
see another similar sign, and somehow he began wondering why Steve Hawn had talked so much about the troubles that were coming over tobacco, and seemed to care so little about the election troubles that had put the whole State on the wire edge of quivering suspense.  Half an hour passed and Jason was getting restless again, when he saw an old negro shuffling down the stone walk with a bucket in one hand, a mop in the other, and trailing one leg like a bird with a broken wing.

“Good-mornin’, son.”

“Do you know whar John Burnham is?”

“Whut’s dat—­whut’s dat?”

“I’m a-lookin’ fer John Burnham.”

“Look hyeh, chile, is you referrin’ to Perfesser Burnham?”

“I reckon that’s him.”

“Well, if you is, you better axe fer him jes’ that-a-way—­ PerFESser PERfesser—­Burnham.  Well, Perfesser Burnham won’t sanctify dis hall wid his presence fer quite a long while—­quite a long while.  May I inquire, son, if yo’ purpose is to attend dis place o’ learnin’?”

“I come to go to college.”

“Yassuh, yassuh,” said the old negro, and with no insolence whatever he guffawed loudly.

“Well, suh, looks lak you come a long way, an’ you sutinly got hyeh on time—­you sho did.  Well, son, you jes’ set hyeh as long as you please an’, walk aroun’ an’ come back an’ den ef you set hyeh long enough agin, you’se a-gwine to see Perfesser Burnham come right up dese steps.”

So Jason took the old man’s advice, and strolled around the grounds.  A big pond caught his eye, and he walked along its grassy bank and under the thick willows that fringed it.  He pulled himself to the top of a high board fence at the upper end of it, peered over at a broad, smooth athletic-field, and he wondered what the two poles that stood at each end with a cross-bar between them could be, and why that tall fence ran all around it.  He stared at the big chimney of the powerhouse, as tall as the trunk of a poplar in a “deadening” at home, and covered with vines to the top, and he wondered what on earth that could be.  He looked over the gate at the president’s house.  Through the windows of one building he saw hanging rings and all sorts of strange paraphernalia, and he wondered about them, and, peering through one ground-floor window, he saw three beds piled one on top of the other, each separated from the other by the length of its legs.  It would take a step-ladder to get into the top bed—­good Lord, did people sleep that way in this college?  Suppose the top boy rolled out!  And every building was covered with vines, and it was funny that vines grew on houses, and why in the world didn’t folks cut ’em off?  It was all wonder—­nothing but wonder—­and he got tired of wondering and went back to his steps and sat patiently down again.  It was not long now before windows began to bang up and down in the dormitory near him.  Cries and whistles began to emanate from the rooms, and now and then a head would protrude, and its eyes

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Project Gutenberg
The Heart of the Hills from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.