come perfect,
remained stationary in charm like the blessed Greeks in the
asphodel-fields of Hades.

About the time Eric Rudd outgrew the public schools of Hillsdale and
graduated from the high school with a wonderful oration of his own
writing called "Night Brings Out the Stars," Kittredge announced that
his eldest son would go to Harvard in the fall. Rudd determined that
Eric should go to Yale. He even sent for catalogues. Rudd was appalled
to see how much a person had to know before he could even get into
college. And then, this nearly omniscient intellect was called a
Freshman!

The prices of rooms, of meals, of books, of extra fees, the estimated
allowances for clothing and spending-money dazed the poor shoe clerk and
nearly sent Eric into business. But, fortunately, the brier pipe came to
the rescue with an unexpected legacy from an unsuspected uncle.

The four years of college life were imagined with a good deal of
elision and an amount of guesswork that would have amused a janitor. But
Rudd and Martha were chiefly interested in the boy's vacations at home,
and their own trips to New Haven, and the letters of approval from the
professors.

Eric had an athletic career seldom equaled since the days of Hercules.
For Eric was a champion tennis-player, hockey-player, baseballist,
boxer, swimmer, runner, jumper, shot-putter. And he was the best
quoit-thrower in the New Haven town square. Rudd had rather dim notions
of some of the games, so that Eric was established both as center rush
of the football team and the cockswain in the crew.

He was also a member of all the best fraternities. He was a "Bones" man
in his Freshman year, and in his Sophomore year added the other Senior
societies. And, of course, he stood at the head of all his
classes--though he never condescended to take a single red apple to a
professor.

The boy's college life lasted Rudd a thousand and one evenings. It was
in beautiful contrast with the career of Kittredge's children, some of
whom were forever flunking their examinations, slipping back a year,
requiring expensive tutors, acquiring bad habits, and getting into debt.
Almost the only joy Kittredge had of them was in telegraphing them money
in response to their telegrams for money--they never wrote. Their
vacations either sent them scurrying on house parties or other
excursions. Or if they came home they were discontented with house and
parents. They corrected Kittredge's grammar, thoug