The Professor's House

by Willa Cather

Spanish Adventurers.

  When he had almost reached his old house and his study, the Professor

  remembered that he really must have an understanding with his landlord,

  or the place would be rented over his head. He turned and went down into

  another part of the city, by the car shops, where only workmen lived,

  and found his landlord's little toy house, set on a hillside, over a

  basement faced up with red brick and covered with hop vines. Old

  Appelhoff was sitting on a bench before his door, making a broom.

  Raising broom corn was one of his economies. Beside him was his

  dachshund bitch, Minna.

  St. Peter explained that he wanted to stay on in the empty house, and

  would pay the full rent each month. So irregular a project annoyed

  Appelhoff. "I like fine to oblige you, Professor, but dey is several

  parties looking at de house already, an' I don't like to lose a year's

  rent for maybe a few months."

  "Oh, that's all right, Fred. I'll take it for the year, to simplify

  matters. I want to finish my new book before I move."

  Fred still looked uneasy. "I better see de insurance man, eh? It says

  for purposes of domestic dwelling."

  "He won't object. Let's have a look at your garden. What a fine crop of

  apples and sickle pears you have!"

  "I don't like dem trees what don't bear not'ing," said the old man with

  sly humour, remembering the Professor's glistening, barren shrubs and

  the good ground wasted behind his stucco wall.

  "How about your linden-trees?"

  "Oh, dem flowers is awful good for de headache!"

  "You don't look as if you were subject to it, Fred."

  "Not me, but my woman always had."

  "Pretty lonesome without her, Appelhoff?"

  "I miss her, Professor, but I ain't just lonesome." The old man rubbed

  his bristly chin. "My Minna here is most like a person, and den I got so

  many t'ings to t'ink about."

  "Have you? Pleasant things, I hope?"

  "Well, all kinds. When I was young, in de old country, I had it hard to

  git my wife at all, an' I never had time to t'ink. When I come to dis

  country I had to work so turrible hard on dat farm to make crops an' pay

  debts, dat I was like a horse. Now I have it easy, an' I take time to

  t'ink about all dem t'ings."

  St. Peter laughed. "We all come to it, Applehoff. That's one thing I'm

  renting your house for, to have room to think. Good morning."

  Crossing the public park, on his way back to the old house, he espied

  his professional rival and enemy, Professor Horace Langtry, taking a

  Sunday morning stroll--very well got up in English clothes he had

  brought back from his customary summer in London, with a bowler hat of

  unusual block and a horn-handled walking-stick. In twenty years the two

  men had scarcely had speech with each other beyond a stiff "good

  morning." When Langtry first came to the university he looked hardly

  more than a boy, with curly brown hair and such a fresh complexion that

  the students called him Lily Langtry. His round pink cheeks and round

  eyes and round chin made him look rather like a baby grown big. All

  these years had made little difference, except that his curls were now

  quite grey, his rosy cheeks even rosier, and his mouth dropped a little

  at the corners, so that he looked like a baby suddenly grown old and

  rather cross about it.

  Seeing St. Peter, the younger man turned abruptly into a side alley, but

  the Professor overtook him.

  "Good morning, Langtry. These elms are becoming real trees at last.

  They've changed a good deal since we first came here."

  Doctor Langtry moved his rosy chin sidewise over his high double collar.

  "Good morning, Doctor St. Peter. I really don't remember much about the

  trees. They seem to be doing well now."

  St. Peter stepped abreast of him. "There have been many changes,

  Langtry, and not all of them are good. Don't you notice a great

  difference in the student body as a whole, in the new crop that comes

  along every year now--how different they are from the ones of our early

  years here?"

  The smooth chin turned again, and the other professor of European

  history blinked. "In just what respect?"

  "Oh, in the all-embracing respect of quality! We have hosts of students,

  but they're a common sort."

  "Perhaps. I can't say I've noticed it." The air between the two

  colleagues was not thawing out any. A church-bell rang. Langtry started

  hopefully. "You must excuse me, Doctor St. Peter, I am on my way to

  service."

  The Professor gave it up with a shrug. "All right, all right, Langtry,

  as you will. Quelle folie!"

  Langtry half turned back, hesitated on the ball of his suddenly speeding

  foot, and said with faultless politeness: "I beg your pardon?"

  St. Peter waved his hand with a gesture of negation, and detained the

  church-goer no longer. He sauntered along slackly through the hot

  September sunshine, wondering why Langtry didn't see the absurdity of

  their long grudge. They had always been directly opposed in matters of

  university policy, until it had almost become a part of their

  professional duties to outwit and cramp each other.

  When young Langtry first came there, his specialty was supposed to be

  American history. His uncle was president of the board of regents, and

  very influential in State politics; the institution had to look to him,

  indeed, to get its financial appropriations passed by the Legislature.

  Langtry was a Tory in his point of view, and was considered very English

  in his tone and manner. His lectures were dull, and the students didn't

  like him. Every inducement was offered to make his courses popular.

  Liberal credits were given for collateral reading. A student could read

  almost anything that had ever been written in the United States and get

  credit for it in American history. He could charge up the time spent in

  perusing "The Scarlet Letter" to Colonial history, and "Tom Sawyer" to

  the Missouri Compromise, it was said. St. Peter openly criticized these

  lax methods, both to the faculty and to the regents. Naturally, "Madame

  Langtry" paid him out. During the Professor's second Sabbatical year in

  Spain, Horace and his uncle together very nearly got his department away

  from him. They worked so quietly that it was only at the eleventh hour

  that St. Peter's old students throughout the State got wind of what was

  going on, dropped their various businesses and professions for a few

  days, and came up to the capital in dozens and saved his place for him.

  The opposition had been so formidable that when it came time for his

  third year away, the Professor had not dared ask for it, but had taken

  an extension of his summer vacation instead. The fact that he was

  carrying on another line of work than his lectures, and was publishing

  books that weren't strictly text-books, had been used against him by

  Langtry's uncle.

  As Langtry felt that the unpopularity of his course was due to his

  subject, a new chair was created for him. There couldn't be two heads in

  European history, so the board of regents made for him a chair of


  Renaissance history, or, as St. Peter said, a Renaissance chair of

  history. Of late years, for reasons that had not much to do with his

  lectures, Langtry had prospered better. To the new generations of

  country and village boys now pouring into the university in such large

  numbers, Langtry had become, in a curious way, an instructor in

  manners,--what is called an "influence." To the football-playing farmer

  boy who had a good allowance but didn't know how to dress or what to

  say, Langtry looked like a short cut. He had several times taken parties

  of undergraduates to London for the summer, and they had come back

  wonderfully brushed up. He introduced a very popular fraternity into the

  university, and its members looked after his interests, as did its

  affiliated sorority. His standing on the faculty was now quite as good

  as St. Peter's own, and the Professor wondered what Langtry still had to

  be sore about.

  What was the use of keeping up the feud? They had both come there young

  men, fighting for their places and their lives; now they were not very

  young any more; they would neither of them, probably, ever hold a better

  position. Couldn't Langtry see it was a draw, that they had both been

  beaten?

  Chapter 4

  On Monday afternoon St. Peter mounted to his study and lay down on the

  box-couch, tired out with his day at the university. The first few weeks

  of the year were very fatiguing for him; there were so many exhausting

  things besides his lectures and all the new students; long faculty

  meetings in which almost no one was ever frank, and always the old fight

  to keep up the standard of scholarship, to prevent the younger

  professors, who had a sharp eye to their own interests, from farming the

  whole institution out to athletics, and to the agricultural and

  commercial schools favoured and fostered by the State Legislature.

  The September heat, too, was hard on him. He wanted to be out at the

  lake every day--it was never so fine as in late September. He was lying

  with closed eyes, resting his mind on the picture of intense autumn-blue

  water, when he heard a tap at the door and his daughter Rosamond

  entered, very handsome in a silk suit of a vivid shade of lilac,

  admirably suited to her complexion and showing that in the colour of her

  cheeks there was actually a tone of warm lavender. In that low room she

  seemed very tall indeed, a little out of drawing, as, to her father's

  eye, she so often did. Usually, however, people were aware only of her

  rich complexion, her curving, unresisting mouth and mysterious eyes. Tom

  Outland had seen nothing else, and he was a young man who saw a great

  deal.

  "Am I interrupting something important, Papa?"

  "No, not at all, my dear. Sit down."

  On his writing-table she caught a glimpse of pages in a handwriting not

  his--a script she knew very well.

  "Not much choice of chairs, is there?" she smiled. "Papa, I don't like

  to have you working in a place like this. It's not fitting."

  "Much easier than to break in a new room, Rosie. A work-room should be

  like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one."

  "That's really what I came to see you about." Rosamond traced the edge

  of a hole in the matting with the tip of her lilac sunshade. "Won't you

  let me build you a little study in the back yard of the new house? I

  have such good ideas for it, and you would have no bother about it at

  all."

  "Oh, thank you, Rosamond. It's most awfully nice of you to think of it.

  But keep it just an idea--it's better so. Lots of things are. For the

  present I'll plod on here. It's absurd, but it suits me. Habit is such a

  big part of work."

  "With Augusta's old things lying about, and those dusty old forms? Why

  didn't she at least get those out of your way?"

  "Oh, they have a right here, by long tenure. It's their room, too. I

  don't want to come upon them lying in some dump-heap on the road to the

  lake. They remind me of the times when you were little girls, and your

  first party frocks used to hang on them at night, when I worked."

  Rosamond smiled, unconvinced. "Papa, don't joke with me. I've come to

  talk about something serious, and it's very difficult. You know I'm a

  little afraid of you." She dropped her shadowy, bewitching eyes.

  "Afraid of me? Never!"

  "Oh, yes, I am when you're sarcastic. You mustn't be to-day, please.

  Louie and I have often talked this over. We feel strongly about it. He's

  often been on the point of blurting out with it, but I've curbed him.

  You don't always approve of Louie and me. Of course it was only Louie's

  energy and technical knowledge that ever made Tom's discovery succeed

  commercially, but we don't feel that we ought to have all the returns

  from it. We think you ought to let us settle an income on you, so that

  you could give up your university work and devote all your time to

  writing and research. That is what Tom would have wanted."

  St. Peter rose quickly, with the light, supple spring he had when he was

  very nervous, crossed to the window, wide on its hook, and half closed

  it. "My dear daughter," he said decisively, when he had turned round to

  her, "I couldn't possibly take any of Outland's money."

  "But why not? You were the best friend he had in the world, he owed more

  to you than to anyone else, and he hated having you hampered by

  teaching. He admired your mind, and nothing would have pleased him more

  than helping you to do the work you do better than anyone else. If he

  were alive, that would be one of the first things he would use this

  money for."

  "But he is not alive, and there was no word about me in his will, and so

  there is nothing to build your pretty theory upon. It's wonderfully nice

  of you and Louie, and I'm very pleased, you know."

  "But Tom was so impractical, Father. He never thought it would mean more

  than a liberal dress allowance for me, if he thought at all. I don't

  know--he never spoke to me about it."

  St. Peter smiled quizzically. "I'm not so sure about his

  impracticalness. When he was working on that gas, he once remarked to me

  that there might be a fortune in it. To be sure he didn't wait to find

  out whether there was a fortune, but that had to do with quite another

  side of him. Yes, I think he knew his idea would make money and he

  wanted you to have it, with him or without him."

  The young woman's face grew troubled. "Even if I married?"

  "He wanted you to have whatever would make you happy."

  She sighed luxuriously. "Louie has done that. The only thing that

  troubles me is, I feel you ought to have some of this money, that he

  would wish it. He was so full of gratitude, felt that he owed you so

  much."

  Her father again rose, with that guarded, nervous movement. "Once and

  for all, Rosamond, understand that he owed me no more than I owed him.

  Nothing hurts me so much as to have any member of my family talk as if

  we had done something fine for that young man, brought him out, produced

  him. In a lifetime of teaching, I've encountered just one
remarkable

  mind; but for that, I'd consider my good years largely wasted. And there

  can be no question of money between me and Tom Outland. I can't explain

  just how I feel about it, but it would somehow damage my recollections

  of him, would make that episode in my life commonplace like everything

  else. And that would be a great loss to me. I'm purely selfish in

  refusing your offer; my friendship with Outland is the one thing I will

  not have translated into the vulgar tongue."

  His daughter looked perplexed and a little resentful.

  "Sometimes," she murmured, "I think you feel I oughtn't to have taken

  it, either."

  "You had no choice. For you it was settled by his own hand. Your bond

  with him was social, and it follows the laws of society, and they are

  based on property. Mine wasn't, and there was no material clause in it.

  He empowered you to carry out all his wishes, and I realize that you

  have responsibilities--but none toward me. There is Rodney Blake, of

  course, if he should ever turn up. You keep up some search for him?"

  "Louie attends to it. He has investigated and rejected several

  impostors."

  "Then, of course, there are other friends of Tom's. The Cranes, for

  instance?"

  Rosamond's face grew hard. "I won't bother you about the Cranes, Papa.

  We will attend to them. Mrs. Crane is a common creature, and she is

  advised by that dreadful shyster brother of hers, Homer Bright. You know

  what he is."

  "Oh, yes! He was about the greatest bluffer I ever had in my classes."

  Rosamond had risen to go. "I want you to be awfully happy, daughter,"

  St. Peter went on, "and Tom did. It's only young people like you and

  Louie who can get any fun out of money. And there is enough to cover the

  fine, the almost imaginary obligations. You won't be sorry if you are

  generous with people like the Cranes."

  "Thank you, Papa. I shan't forget." Rosamond went down the narrow

  stairway, leaving behind her a faint, fresh odour of lavender and

  orrisroot, and her father lay down again on the box-couch. "A hint

  about the Cranes will be enough," he was thinking.

  He didn't in the least understand his older daughter. Not that he

  pretended to understand Kathleen, either; but he usually knew how she

  would feel about things, and she had always seemed to need his

  protection more than Rosamond. When she was a student at the university,

  he used sometimes to see her crossing the campus alone, her head and

  shoulders lowered against the wind, her muff beside her face, her narrow

  skirt clinging close. There was something too plucky, too

  "I-can-go-it-alone," about her quick step and jaunty little head; he

  didn't like it, it gave him a sudden pang. He would always call to her

  and catch up with her, and make her take his arm and be docile.

  She had been much quicker at her lessons than Rosie, and very clever at

  water-colour portrait sketches. She had done several really good

  likenesses of her father--one, at least, was the man himself. With her

  mother she had no luck. She tried again and again, but the face was

  always hard, the upper lip longer than it seemed in life, the nose long

  and severed, and she made something cold and plaster-like of Lillian's

  beautiful complexion.

  "No, I don't see Mamma like that," she used to say, throwing out her

  chin. "Of course I don't! It just comes like that." She had done many

  heads of her sister, all very sentimental and curiously false, though

  Louie Marsellus protested to them. Her drawing-teacher at the university

  had urged Kathleen to go to Chicago and study in the life classes at the

  Art Institute, but she said resolutely: "No, I can't really do anybody

  but Papa, and I can't make a living painting him."

  "The only unusual thing about Kitty," her father used to tell his