Harper's Round Table, February 11, 1896

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL VALENTINE.

BY RICHARD BARRY.

A very strange old room it was, in a very strange old house, part of which was brick, and part of which was wood. The wood had been cut from the neighboring hill-sides, and the brick had traversed many thousands of miles from across the Atlantic in a little ship with a strange Dutch name. There was but one older house in the street, and from the corner window of the room one could just catch a glimpse of the spires of the college chapel; on winter days when the leaves were off the trees the college buildings could be seen.

The Professor, when he came in, announced his arrival by noisily scraping the soles of his boots against the metal foot-scraper that had been worn down to a thin blade, like an aged razor. The Professor was tall and angular, but it was impossible to tell his age within a dozen years, for his thin hair was very dark, and his face was always very smooth shaven. His position in college was a most peculiar one. He had an endowed professorship, which, odd to relate, he had endowed himself, and there was a term in college parlance that was often applied to the Professor's course in the electives (Sanscrit and archæology), it was known as a "snap." But the Professor was a very interesting and well-liked man. He had taken honors at Oxford in the early fifties, and had spent a great deal of money making deep researches into the great libraries of Europe.

But to come back to the room.

It was not dark or dingy, as one might suppose the room of a student would be, but was very bright, with a number of windows. The pattern of the oil-cloth that covered the floor was worn out in regular paths before the big shelves that reached up to the ceiling. There were two large oaken cupboards and a long desk. The only thing that could be called an attempt at ornament was a china figure on the top of one of the cupboards. The Professor had picked this up in France. It was an unmistakable likeness to Benjamin Franklin, but, nevertheless, it had the name "George Washington" on it in gold lettering. The Professor had bought it as an example of humor in French pottery, which showed that he had a sense of humor himself.

A fat old negro woman was dusting off the table. As she lifted anything--a paper, or a book, or an inkstand, for instance--she would replace it exactly on the same spot. In fact, the desk was a perpetual tableau, and the Professor never got the mucilage and the inkstand mixed up; he could have found anything on that table in the dark.

Hearing the sound of prolonged scraping at the front door, the old colored woman knew two things. First, that the Professor had arrived, and, secondly, that it was a muddy day. She dusted off Benjamin Franklin Washington, and opened the door in time to meet the Professor at the head of the stairs.

"Do you think, Hannah," began the Professor, "that the spare room could be kept warm in cold weather?"

Hannah looked quite frightened; no one had slept in the spare room since the Professor had been in the house.

"I never heerd no one complain, sir," she said, which was non-committal in Hannah.

"Make up the bed to-night there," said the Professor. "I'll sleep in it myself." It struck him this was a brilliant way to find out.

"Youse spectin' some folks, sir?"

"Yes, Hannah," returned the Professor. "My two nephews are going to spend a fortnight with me."

"Is dey youn' gen'lemen?" inquired the old negress.

"I hope so," answered the Professor, with a smile.

"I means is dey youn'?" corrected Hannah.

"Let me see. Upon my soul, I have forgotten." The Professor wrinkled his forehead. "One's twelve, and one's thirteen years of age," he said, after a mental calculation.

Hannah left the room, and the Professor seated himself at the desk.

"I reckin we's gwine hab some trubble," said the old woman, as she waddled into the kitchen. "Twelve and thirteen is a rampanxious age for boys."

On the second day of February Bill Alton and Todd, his younger brother, were met by the Professor at the station. They had seen him only once or twice before, but seeing they were the Professor's only nephews, their mother had insisted upon their making this long-promised visit, frankly to state, much to their disgust.

The Professor had decided, after his trial of the spare bedchamber, that it would be very cold; so when the youngsters arrived at their room, they found it presided over by a very small and very hot stove that ticked and snapped like a hard-worked bit of machinery.

Much to their agreeable surprise, the two Alton boys now for the first time found themselves enjoying absolute freedom. In the first place, they had succeeded in getting into the attic, where they had found an old single-barrelled fowling-piece. They had asked the Professor if they could have it to "play with," and, upon his acquiescence, had purchased powder and shot at the hardware-store, and had gone out and bagged a rabbit and a hen in one afternoon. It was well known that the rabbit was tame, and the hen might not have been free from suspicion, as they had stalked her close to Farmer Belknap's chicken-yard back on the hill.

The Professor met the boys at breakfast and at supper. His mid-day meal was generally neglected; he carried it off with him to the college building in a tin box, like a school-boy.

At the end of the first week two rainy days came in succession. Billy and Todd were in the Professor's attic. That morning, for the first time, the Professor had taken the boys into his study. He knew so little about youths of this age in general that he was quite embarrassed. He thought they were very well behaved youngsters, because they apparently gave him no trouble, and the story of the hen and the rabbit, and several escapades of like character, had never reached his ears, but he felt it incumbent upon himself to make up for the lack of attention to his guests.

"Now, boys," he said, opening one of the cupboards, "I am going to show you some very wonderful things. This is an illuminated MS. of the fourteenth century, very rare and fine, done by the Franciscan monks, you see." The Professor read the Latin inscription with an air of triumph. "And this is an old cryptogram. This is an old copy of one of the early saint's lives in Hebrew, and here is another--both very old and very valuable."

It was not very interesting, but the boys listened politely. The college bell ringing at this moment, their uncle closed a most interesting description of how one of the valuable parchments had come into his possession, shut the cupboard, locked the door of the study, and left the boys to play in the attic.

"I say, Todd," remarked the elder Alton, "let's see if there's anything in here." He lifted the lid of an aged trunk and disclosed a lot of papers and old worn books that filled the garret with a musty odor. It was a collection of stuff that the Professor had designated as "rubbish," but yet had been loath to feed into the fire. There's not a professor's attic in the world that does not possess this same sort of a trunk, I verily believe. None of the books appeared very interesting, and a great many of the papers were very commonplace in appearance.

Todd picked up a tightly rolled bit of very aged vellum, and spreading it out, looked over an imaginary pair of spectacles at his brother, and began:

"This is a very old and rare specimen of a kickograph. You can see how beautiful it is."

As there was nothing apparent on the blank sheet of parchment, his brother burst into mock rhapsodies.

"How much will you take for it?" he inquired.

"One million dollars," said Todd.

The idea seemed to take, and he sold the rest of the contents of the trunk at fabulous prices, an old copy of Fox's Christian Martyrs going at enough to pay the national debt, for the simple reason that it had pictures in it.

"Hold on," said Billy at last; "let's stop this. I have an idea."

"What is it?" said Todd.

"Let's send Uncle Passmore" (the Professor's name was Passmore Webster Bibby) "a valentine. To-morrow's Valentine day, you know. Let's write him out a kickogram."

"Kickograph," corrected the other.

"Do you know he says he can read all those things?" said Todd. "So let's make him a 'sticker.'"

"And here's the very thing to write it on," exclaimed Billy, flourishing the roll of parchment.