nted to become interested in the stories when
they appeared in the _Saturday Evening Post_. Siwash isn't Michigan in
disguise. It isn't Kansas. It isn't Knox. It isn't Minnesota. It isn't
Tuskegee, Texas, or Tufts. It is just Siwash College. I built it myself
with a typewriter out of memories, legends, and contributed tales from a
score of colleges. I have tried to locate it myself a dozen times, but I
can't. I have tried to place my thumb on it firmly and say, "There, darn
you, stay put." But no halfback was ever so elusive as this infernal
college. Just as I have it definitely located on the Knox College
campus, which I myself once infested, I look up to find it on the Kansas
prairies. I surround it with infinite caution and attempt to nail it
down there. Instead, I find it in Minnesota with a strong Norwegian
accent running through the course of study. Worse than that, I often
find it in two or three places at once. It is harder to corner than a
flea. I never saw such a peripatetic school.

That is only the least of my troubles, too. The college itself is never
twice the same. Sometimes I am amazed at its size and perfection, by the
grandeur of its gymnasium and the colossal lines of its stadium. But at
other times I cannot find the stadium at all, and the gymnasium has
shrunk until it looks amazingly like the old wooden barn in which we
once built up Sandow biceps at Knox. I never saw such a college to get
lost in, either. I know as well as anything that to get to the Eta Bita
Pie house, you go north from the old bricks, past the new science hall
and past Browning Hall. But often when I start north from the campus, I
find my way blocked by the stadium, and when I try to dodge it, I run
into the Alfalfa Delt House, and the Eatemalive boarding club, and other
places which belong properly to the south. And when I go south I
frequently lose sight of the college altogether, and can't for the life
of me remember what the library tower looks like or whether the
theological school is just falling down, or is to be built next year; or
whether I ought to turn to my right, and ask for directions at Prexie's
house, or turn to my left and crawl under a freight train which blocks a
crossing on the Hither, Yonder and Elsewhere Railroad. If you think it
is an easy task to carry a whole college in your head without getting it
jumbled, just try it a while.

Then, again, the Siwash people puzzle me. Professor Grubb is always a
trial.