Barefoot Boy with Cheek

by Max Shulman

  “Nothing,” they gum innocently.

  Less refined cheaters resort to the primitive practice of opening a textbook on the floor beneath their feet. To insure any success for this method the cheater must have an accomplice to blindfold or anesthetize the proctors.

  Girls who cheat—and I regret to say there are those who do—use an old but effective method. They insert a crib in the top of their sheer silk stockings and hike up their dirndls for a peek when the going gets tough. I remember a girl named Consuela who did that in one test. She must have been exceedingly uninformed because she kept her skirt up through the whole examination. The proctor saw her all right, but he wasn’t going to stop her.

  Then, of course, there are the more pedestrian ways of cheating—looking over the shoulder of the one in front of you, talking out of the corner of your mouth to the student beside you, making a crib on your cuff, writing the answers on the classroom wall the day before the test and sitting next to the wall on the day of the test, and bringing a loaf of French bread to class with the answers written on it in poppy seeds.

  Needless to say I took my finals honestly, relying solely on what I had learned. The results of the tests were mailed to me several weeks later. I was not to know until the middle of July that I had flunked everything.

  CHAPTER XX

  Le potage est très chaud. —DALADIER

  “Graduating seniors, members of the faculty, guests, ladies and gentlemen,” said the speaker at the commencement exercises which I attended before I went home for the summer, “as I look out over your faces I am reminded of a story. It seems that three Hawaiians went into a music store. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’ asked the proprietor.

  “‘I want a ukulele,’ said the first.

  “‘And what are you going to do with a ukulele?’ asked the proprietor.

  “‘I’m going to serenade my girl,’ answered the first.

  “‘I see,’ said the proprietor. He turned to the second. ‘What do you want?’ he said.

  “‘I want a guitar,’ said the second.

  “‘And what are you going to do with a guitar?’

  “‘I’m going to serenade my girl.’

  “‘I see,’ said the proprietor. He turned to the third. ‘What do you want?’

  “‘I want a bass drum,’ said the third.

  “‘And what are you going to do with a bass drum?” asked the proprietor.

  “‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I—I—I—’

  “Can you beat that? I’ve forgotten what he said. That’ll teach me to make notes. Oh, well, it wasn’t really very appropriate anyway. Let’s get on with it.

  “This night is a happy occasion, happy but at the same time solemn, know what I mean? It is happy because you who are graduating tonight have completed a long and difficult job. It is solemn because now you get to take your places in the world.

  “You have a special obligation to the world because you are, like we say, the cream of society. The world is looking to you for leadership. You are going out in the world and make your marks, some of you in business, some in law, some in medicine, some in engineering, some in the arts, and some in business. But all of you are facing the future with the confidence of youth and the comforting knowledge that you are prepared.

  “For the Unversity has tried to prepare you. Here the people of the state of Minnesota have provided you with the facilities to partake of the wisdom of the ages. Here, under the good old American horse-sense guidance of the Board of Regents, you have been able to take advantage of one of the finest courses of studies in the country. Here, in addition to your formal education, you have learned something of life—how to make friends, how to deport yourselves, and what decocracy really means.

  “The University has been for the last few years your alma mater, your adopted mother. But I wonder how much you really know about the University. You have been so busy with your studies and your activities that you probably have not found time to familiarize yourselves with the glorious history and traditions of the University. I think it fitting then that I should use your last hours here to tell you something of the background of the University.

  “The University was founded in 1855. That much is certain. Who founded it is a matter for conjecture. One version has it that the University was founded by an Atlanta textbook salesman named Rhett Fink. It seems that Fink had exhausted the market of Southern colleges, and he was in financial straits. A friend is supposed to have asked him where he intended to sell books now. According to the story, Fink replied, ‘I guess I’ll have to start a college up North.’

  “A brief examination shows that this explanation is apocryphal. In 1855 Fink could not have said, ‘I guess I’ll have to start a college up North,’ because there was no North at that time. North did not come into being until 1908.

  “In the spring of 1908 a crazed ptarmigan swooped down on a Long Island estate and carried off in its bill an infant named John Ringling North. The child’s father, Cedric (Freckles) North, was frantic with grief. He offered a reward of one million dollars for the return of the boy.

  “Everybody on the Atlantic seaboard went out to hunt for the baby. It became a quip of the day to say when someone asked where you were going, ‘After North.’

  “Later this was shortened to simply ‘North,’ and that is how the direction got its name.

  Another theory about the founding of the University is concerned with Dred Scott. In 1855 Dred Scott came to Minnesota. He took a house in the bend of the Mississippi River where the University now stands and proceeded to write his immortal Ivanhoe. One night Scott became involved in a fracas in a Minneapolis rib joint. A quadroon named Joe Riposte was stabbed to death, and Scott was accused of the murder. He was given a summary trial, during the course of which he made his famous ‘J’accuse’ speech. The jury was unmoved, however, and sentenced him to be hanged.

  “Legend has it that after his execution the ghost of Dred Scott returned to haunt the house on the riverbank. On moonless nights it is supposed to have lurked outside the house dismally howling, ‘J’accuse.’

  “Now, it seems that a St. Paul launderer named Jack Hughes had moved into Scott’s house after his (Scott’s) execution. One night when Jack Hughes heard the ghost howling ‘J’accuse’ he thought someone was calling him. He went out to see who it was. In the dark he slipped and fell into the river where he got caught in a strong undertow and drowned.

  “Shortly thereafter an itinerant Boston educator named Cotton Mouth drifted by. He saw that the house was vacant and started a little school. That little school, my friends, later became the University of Minnesota, according to the story.

  “However it may have begun, Minnesota found itself with a university. But the legislature, except for one member, was singularly unimpressed. That member was William Jennings Bryan. He introduced a bill for funds for the University into the legislature. The solons were apathetic. Then Bryan made his famous ‘Cross of Gold’ speech. ‘What will it be, gentlemen,’ he concluded, ‘rum, romanism, or rebellion?’

  “The legislature was stirred to action. They not only passed the appropriation, but they also lifted Bryan on their shoulders and carried him around the Statehouse. This, however, was not too difficult because Bryan was only six years old at the time and puny for his age.

  “Now began a period of expansion. As the campus grew, enrollment figures advanced steadily. More and more farmers, in town for the State Fair, mistook the campus for the fairgrounds, and were seized and pledged into fraternities as they wandered about.

  “But physically the campus was still small. Then in 1908 a curious chain of circumstances increased the size of the campus to its present spacious dimensions. Before 1908 the land adjoining the campus belonged to a family called the Chalmers. Perhaps I should not say ‘family’; they were more a nation than a family. They were all related. They had an unbreakable custom which allowed only first cousins to marry. Moreover, a woman who was neither pregnant nor nursin
g was considered something of a pariah.

  “You can imagine what their settlement looked like. It was probably the most densely populated place on the whole earth. Every inch of space was occupied by Chalmers—drooling, examining their fingers, snarling over bones, or just staring dully at the ground.

  “Curiously enough they had a sort of democracy. One day a year was set aside for elections. On election day they held a monster demonstration. After the monsters were demonstrated the candidates for office made their speeches. Then the elections were conducted.

  “But the man who got the least number of votes was awarded the office. The theory was that the man who polled the smallest number of votes had the fewest friends, was obligated to the least number of people, and would conduct the least corrupt administration. The funny thing is that the system functioned excellently. The Chalmers enjoyed good government, replete with tax reductions and river and harbor improvement.

  “The Chalmers’ religion was of the most primitive. From somewhere they had acquired a huge hollow brass statue of Franklin Pierce, an obscure political figure of the last century, I believe. This statue they called Mechel-Dundik and worshiped assiduously. Each evening at nightfall they gathered in front of the statue and stared at it reverently for thirty-five minutes.

  “One day in 1908—it was about dusk—two children were playing in front of the statue. They were a brother and sister named Benny and Consuela Chalmers. Benny, who was an adventurous lad for a Chalmers, discovered a crack in the idol and crept inside. His sister was horrified. ‘Benny,’ she cried, ‘you come right out of there.’

  “‘No,’ said Benny.

  “‘You come right out of there,’ she repeated, ‘or I’ll tell Ma.’

  “‘Aw, go jump in the lake,’ said Benny.

  “Meanwhile, the Chalmers had gathered in front of the statue for their evening worship. They heard Benny’s command to jump in the lake come out as if from the mouth of Mechel-Dundik. Without a word the whole Chalmers tribe marched off to Lake Calhoun, a short distance away, and jumped in. Unable to swim, they all drowned.

  “Benny came out of the idol and found nobody around. He wandered about absently for several days and was finally dispatched by an excitable moccasin snake.

  “The land, now ownerless and uninhabited, was given to the University.

  “And that, my friends, is a brief background of the glorious institution from which you are graduating tonight. Those are the traditions that lie behind you as you go out into the world to make your marks, some of you in business, some in law, some in medicine, some in engineering, some in the arts, and some in business.

  “You must always bear in mind that because you are University graduates you are the leaders of your communities. It is a responsibility, I will not deny. You will soon learn what it is to have people constantly looking up to you. You will say, ‘I would like to trade places with Bill Jones, the welder, or with John Smith, the plumber.’ But you really would not. No matter how much more money they make than you, you have advantages that they will never realize.

  “For a university is more than just a school. It is a molder of men. And it is more than just a molder of men. It is a molder of ideas. And it is more than just a molder of ideas. It teaches its students not only to think, but to think alike. I am proud to say that wherever you go in this country you find college students holding identical opinions. Often, as a matter of fact, they express them in the same words.

  “And when you leave here tonight to go out and make your marks I know that you will not forget your adopted mother any more than you would forget your real mothers. I know that the memory of the University will always remain fresh in your hearts. And I feel sure that all of you, each and every one of you, will join the alumni association and pay your dues promptly. I am positive, too, that each and every one of you will find time to return to the campus occasionally and participate in our reasonably priced reunions. I am certain that you will join wholeheartedly in our new alumni project to subsidize high-school football players in United States territorial possessions like the Hawaiian Islands and Cuba—a vertible gold mine of material, my friends, and completely untouched.

  “But it is getting late, and I know you would like to get through here so you can spend this solemn evening among your loved ones. I’ll conclude now, and you can get your diplomas.

  “Just a word about the diplomas. You get small paper diplomas here tonight, but for another ten dollars you can turn these diplomas in for large, genuine sheepskin reproductions. Naturally, you want a real, long-lasting sheepskin. After all these long and difficult years of going to school you want something more permanent than paper to show for it.

  “And in addition to being a thing of beauty, a sheepskin diploma can come in mighty handy sometime. Let me tell you about Mary Ellen N., a girl who graduated from the University a few years ago.

  “She graduated in winter. After the commencement exercises a party of her classmates invited her to come on a toboggan party. She tucked her sheepskin diploma in her tunic and accompanied them. It was a dark night and a perilous toboggan slide. The toboggan turned over, and Mary Ellen slid down 1,500 feet of rocky crag. She lost a lot of skin.

  “Fortunately, there was a doctor in the party. He saw that quick action was imperative. Quickly he grafted Mary Ellen’s diploma on to her skinned member. He saved her life.

  “Today Mary Ellen is married to an upholsterer of Rye, New York. She has two lovely children and is prominent in Rye society. Her life is full and perfectly normal except that every time she sits down, she bleats.

  “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  Il n’y a que deux livres sur la table. —JEANNE D’ARC

  The engineer courteously slowed down to sixty miles an hour to allow me to get off at Whistlestop. Lovable old Father was waiting for me on the platform. “Father!” I cried, and ran to him, tripping in my excitement over Seth Inertia who had been lying since 1905 on the station platform living precariously off of dropped coins.

  “My boy,” said Father. We embraced in a manly manner. “But you must tell me about yourself. I haven’t heard from you in almost a year,” he said as we started to walk home.

  “You haven’t?” I said in amazement. “I wrote you every day.”

  “Yes, but you see we don’t get mail delivered to our house any more,” Father explained.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, the postman, Bert Epistle, won’t come to our house ever since your sister Morningstar broke off their engagement.”

  “Bert? Morningstar? What’s all this? When I left home Morningstar was keeping company with a railroad man.”

  “Yes. That was Tom Trestle. He threw Morningstar over in favor of a lady banjoist who captivated him playing ‘Alabama Bound.’ Then Morningstar took up with Bert. They got engaged, and it looked like your sister was going to settle down at last.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, one morning a Realsilk man came to the house and asked Morningstar did she want any stockings. She said she didn’t rightly know. He said he would try a few pair on her and she could see if she liked them. Well, sir, that fellow was all day putting stockings on Morningstar and taking them off. About nightfall they went away together, and that’s the last we ever heard of them.”

  “I see,” I said. “Well, how’s Mother? She’s still around, I trust.”

  “It’s a funny thing, son,” Father answered. “She’s disappeared too.”

  “My God! How did that happen?”

  “Strangest think you ever heard of,” said Father. “I better start at the beginning. It seems that an Englishman, one Neville O.T.W. (for Oliver Toliver Woliver) Cheyne-Stokes took a trip to Quebec to visit his brother, one Albermarle (Alby) Cheyne-Stokes, a sheep-dip actuary of Montreal. After spending a few weeks in Montreal, Neville Cheyne-Stokes expressed a desire to visit the United States, of which he had heard considerable back home in England. Alby Cheyne-Stokes said that it
was a capital idea and that the nicest way to go was by boat across Lake Superior. So bright and early one morning they boarded a Lake Superior excursion boat for the United States.

  “It happened that the captain of the boat, a chap named Harris or Benuti, complained of feeling poorly before they embarked. He thought it would be wiser to postpone the trip until he felt better. But the passengers jollied him out of it, saying that he would feel like a new man once he got out on the water and felt the fresh breeze in his face.

  “The captain, however, did not feel better. As a matter of fact, he dropped dead about twenty miles out. The boat was left without a pilot. The passengers began to get panicky as they saw the boat tossed this way and that. ‘Can anybody here steer a ship?’ someone asked.

  “The Cheyne-Stokes brothers were below playing Authors at this time, and they did not hear the question clearly. Alby thought someone had asked whether anybody could ship a steer. ‘I can,’ he called, for he had had considerable experience shipping steers as a cattle dealer in Winnipeg in 1923–25.

  “When he was led to the pilothouse and told to take over, he was aghast, for he knew nothing whatever about navigation. But looking over the terror-stricken faces of the passengers, he decided that he had better bluff it out. He proceeded to steer the ship.

  “Within five minutes he had ripped off the bottom on one of the many coral reefs that abound in Lake Superior. The ship went down with all hands except Neville Cheyne-Stokes who, fearing sea voyages, had concealed an inflated inner tube in his tunic.

  “For twenty-nine days and twenty-nine nights Cheyne-Stokes floated on Lake Superior. All he had to eat was a lone guppy that he deftly trapped while the guppy was playing beneath his (Cheyne-Stokes’) armpit. Baked all day by the merciless sun, drenched at night by the sudden tropical rain, dismally lonely in the vast wastes of water, Cheyne-Stokes was quite mad when he was finally washed ashore by a capricious tide.