I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a
raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my
father took me from the service.

For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished,
alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart.
Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over,
but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of
pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students
plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on
the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us.

In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to
pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in
Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final
examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until,
as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little
of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong
sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private
examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him
about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned
for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in
copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden
in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said:
"That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to
his walnuts and his wine.

The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing
engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he
asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers
were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won.

We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our
"mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_"
conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired
here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from
this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away
forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that
in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned
furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full
assurance that

There lies in the centre of each man's heart
A longing and love for the good and pu