Whispering Tongues

One moonlight evening in the early spring, under a cloudless sky, a party of twelve Concord College Sophomores sang these lines as they marched up the street toward the college grounds. They were young, all in a happy mood; they kept step to the strokes of their canes on the pavement, and swung along with vigor and elasticity, making the air throb with their rollicking songs.

Parmenter was with them. His was the tenor voice that rang out with such strength and clearness above the others. He was the leader of his class; in favor with the faculty, popular with his fellows, a welcome guest at any gathering.

The last words were hardly out of the mouths of the singers before the door of the house was opened, and from the square of light thus made, the old professor himself stepped out upon the porch.

“Thank you, young gentlemen,” he said, pleasantly. “This is a glorious night for a song. I’ve heard students sing along this terrace for twenty years and more, and I never liked their songs better than I do to-night. The music of them grows upon me always. Thank you again, gentlemen, and good-night!”

“You’re welcome, Sammy!” shouted one irrepressible from the group, while all the rest responded with a hearty “Good-night!”

No one intended to be disrespectful to Professor Lee. The use of his nickname was meant as a mark of affection, and he understood it so. But in the classroom his dignity was never trespassed upon. There were one or two good stories handed down from class to class, narrating the just fate that befell audacious students of the past who had ventured to be rude to “Sammy.” These possibly apocryphal incidents made him more popular, and in private he was the trusted friend of every student at Concord College.

Besides that, he had a boy of his own—an only child, with whom he kept in close sympathy, and in whom the best and brightest of all his hopes were centered. This boy, Charley, was a member of the Sophomore Class. He was a bright, lovable, popular fellow, impetuous, perhaps somewhat lacking in stability, but likely to become a worthy if not a brilliant man.