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[bold] NATURE STUDY [bold]
Throughout all Canada I've been The grass of all its plains I've seen Our poets sing its beauty rare, Because its color here and there To brilliant green.
But go a thousand miles or two, Where murders happen - quite a few, Kentucky grass will meet your eyes, And give you quite a sharp surprise It's looking blue.
But Norman Grass is still ahead Of all that so far has been said. This fact is known to me and you - He is'nt [isn't] green - he's never blue, He's just well 'read'
[bold] AUCTION SALE [bold]
[Image book with THE on the front of it] writer being a freshman cannot remember the auctioneers of former times. Nor will he permit himself to judge of them from the boastful bluster of sophomores and others still highter up. All that he can say is that Hawkins was a good one, worthy of '09, and up to the traditions of so famous a name of old Devon.
I have found out that the auctioneer of last year was an ex-reacher, one who forsook the cat o'nine tails for the cassock. So is Hawkins. Why was he chosen to the great position? When I am a senior and have learned some metaphysics I may try to work out the converging and collusive forces
which determine the election of an auctioneer.
The auction did not seem to me to be nearly so successful as the auctioneer Mr. Hawkins took occasion to rebuke the people more than once for their ignorant indifference and want of enterprise and I think I have heard auctioneers talk that way before. But it was indeed a dumb crowd, unresponsive, sluggish as a snake that has just eaten its fill. A senior told me that last year a fellow called Kirkrapine used to break into the library at nights and take the magazines, sometimes even snatching them from the postman's mittens when he came in and never giving them up. They say he had a special taste for the Argosy,
the Cosmopolitan, the Black Cat, and other cheap compilations of low class stories, specially prohibited by the Rhetoric professor. Altogether he must have been a very unpleasant churl and no gentleman for freshment to copy.
Mr. Hawkins, calculating that his position called for more than nicety, put on a wide smile as he took his stand amidst great plaudits, rubbed his hands, and out of the fulness of his cheek commanded the venerable senior of No. 6 to act as he clerk. Ah the braw lassie! You couldn't have hit the crowd in a weaker place. They simply choked and froze in their book as the clerk elect went forward with a dazed look to do the tyrant's will.
The Mr. Hawkins threw himself into the work. My memory fails me for all the clever things he said. But he did nearly everything that auctioneers always do, except lie. He was patriotic in selling the Canadian, and just as unpatriotic when it came to getting rid of the American publications.
Two ladies went out as Mr. Hawkins held up the Ladies Home Journal. "it makes me feel like Home Sweet Home myself" said the auctioneer. Just after that there was a long pause and hush, while the man behind the hammer waited rigid and alert for a bidder. "He's a little tiresome, ain't he?" said Mr. Millar, taking advantage of the lull to be-little a really brillian performance. The remark