ed to me to be the embodiment
of Comanche cruelty and cunning. We talked of Hogboom all the way to the
corner. Wonderful how deeply the Faculty loved the boy; and with what
Spartan firmness they had concealed all indications of it through his
career!

When Monday night came we began to breathe more easily. Of course there
was some kind of a deluge coming when Hogboom appeared, but that was
his affair. We didn't propose to monkey with the resurrection at all. He
could do his own explaining. To tell the truth, we were pretty sore at
Hogboom. He was making a regular Roman holiday out of his demise. It
kept four men busy running errands for him. We had to retail him every
compliment that we had heard during the day, especially if it came from
the Faculty. We had to describe in detail the effect of the news upon
six or seven girls, for all of whom Hogboom had a tender regard. He
insisted upon arranging the funeral and vetoed our plans as fast as we
made them. He was as domineering and ugly as if he was the only man who
had ever met a tragic end. He acted as if he had a monopoly. We hated
him cordially by Monday night, but we were helpless. Hoggy claimed that
being dead was a nerve-wearing and exhausting business, and that if he
didn't get the respect due to him as a corpse he would put on his plug
hat and a plush curtain and walk up the main street of Jonesville. And
as he was a football man and a blamed fool combined we didn't see any
way of preventing him.

However, everything looked promising. We had made all the necessary
arrangements. The students were to meet in chapel at nine o'clock in the
morning and eulogize Hogboom for an hour, after which college was to be
dismissed for the day in order that unlimited mourning could be indulged
in. There were to be speeches by the Faculty and by students. Maxfield,
the human textbook, was to make the address for the Senior class. We
chuckled when we thought how he was toiling over it. Noddy Pierce, of
our crowd, was to talk about Hogboom as a brother; Rogers, of the
football team, was to make a few grief-saturated remarks. So was
Perkins. Every one was confidently expecting Perkins to make the effort
of his life and swamp the chapel in sorrow. He was in the secret and he
afterward said that he would rather try to write a Shakespearean tragedy
offhand than to write another funeral oration about a man who he knew
was at that moment sitting in a pair of pajamas in an upper room hal