Michiganensian. [1900]

' Ann Arbor wouldn't be worth all the trouble we take to go to college if it were not for the little things, the little tag ends of the life that
make it worth the living. When the perverse winds of the future shall
have blown us far apart on the ocean of existence (without seeming prolix, Bob, this will assuredly happen), we shall forget, no doubt, our Law
and Economy and History and Greek and Horner's Method and all the rest
of it; but those other things, those little bright spots of our career in Ann
Arbor will remain with us, eh, Bob? Next month we pack up our cigarette
boxes, our mandolins and our books to bid farewell to alma mater. Don't
you fancy we'll take a last look- a lingering glance-at the match boy
Jimmy, whom we always worshipped from afar and from whom we never
bought? No, matches haven't been a part of our curriculum ---we always
borrowed them or stole them, which was much the same, didn't we Bob?
But we liked Jimmy none the less, and it was comforting to know that he
was near with plenty of matches, though we still lit our pipes over the
gas."
" And it wasn't Jimmy alone, you know; there was that other torture
of days gone by-Sailor Jack, who sold matches and occasionally pencils
and beguiled us with his stories of the deep blue sea, the Spanish Main,
and the Roaring Crags of Caledon, where Sailor
Jack wandered in the days of his boyhood lonoago. At least so he said, you know, Bob. But
college hasn't been all matches and the lighting
of cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and the stub ends of
all three. There have been clothes that we wore,
and worse -- clothes we couldn't wear, and
sold. When these come to mind in after
years, out of the misty past into startling reality
will come, no doubt, 'any ole close,'
with the face of Ikey beaming as it
beamed for us in '96, 7, 8 and 9-Ikey,
the buyer of our worn purple and fine
linen, that harbinger of spring and fall
alike, the friend of the needy."
For a few moments the two did not
MI imove or speak. The rich, blue-gray
clouds were gradually filling the room
as both silently and sorrowfully re