Page:So Big (1924).djvu/250



hroughout Dirk’s Freshman year there were, for him, no heartening, informal, mellow talks before the wood-fire in the booklined study of some professor whose wisdom was such a mixture of classic lore and modernism as to be an inspiration to his listeners. Midwest professors delivered their lectures in the classroom as they had been delivering them in the past ten or twenty years and as they would deliver them until death or a trustees’ meeting should remove them. The younger professors and instructors in natty gray suits and bright-coloured ties made a point of being unpedantic in the classroom and rather overdid it. They posed as being one of the fellows; would dashingly use a bit of slang to create a laugh from the boys and an adoring titter from the girls. Dirk somehow preferred the pedants to these. When these had to give an informal talk to the men before some university event they would start by saying, “Now listen, fellahs” At the dances they were not above “rushing” the pretty co-eds.

Two of Dirk’s classes were conducted by women professors. “They were well on toward middle age, or past it; desiccated women. Only their eyes were alive. Their clothes were of some indefinite dark