Batching It in Provo

Batching it" in Provo BY LEE R. TAYLOR, A STUDENT OF PROF. N. L. NELSON, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY "Three more days before Christmas vacation," yawned Bob Hazel, as he lay sprawled out on the bed. "If I could take a Rip Van ^sleep until Thursday morning I might stay her out." "Don't blame you a bit. I'd start for home tonight, if I could get rates," added his room mate. Three months seemed interminable for Bob and Will to be away from home. Batching it had probably intensified their homesickness. Fall work had made the boys a month late for school. Room- ing places in Provo having been in great demand that year, they considered themselves very fortunate in having secured a place only three blocks from the University. The L-shaped house which they occupied sat well back from the only entrance on the east, and served as part of the fence on the south side of the block. Except for a high aperture which had probably been used for a window at one time, the adobe wall on the street side had no openings. Only the large room on the east, which formed the stem of the L, was in a usable condition. The other room was minus window-panes and a door-panel, and had also the ugly hole facing the street ; but it came in handy for storage purposes. This pigeon hole was found especially convenient for the baker to drop in his three loaves each dav. Several times he had craned his neck to see if there was a receptacle below ; but his curiosity had never been gratified. He intended to satisfy himself on this point but the boys were never at home when he called. The milkman had complained about the inconvenience of having to go around by the gate, so a board was arranged just below the pigeon hole on the inside, and in this the bovs placed a small milk pan each morning. Thereafter about ten o'clock every day the giraffe-like milkman stretched himself to his greatest per- pendicularity in an effort to locate with his long arm the strainer which was to receive the cmart of milk. When the long-wished-for Thursdav arrived, so uncontrolla- ble were the emotions of the boys, so eager were thev for a taste of mother's cooking, that thev made for the depot as if in a panic. The bachelor quarters they left behind baffle description. Dirty

1086 IMPROVEMENT ERA dishes were left on the table, old clothes kicked into corners, chairs were upset, and the rickety stove seemed to be bursting with a^hes and clinkers. But what matter? The only way time can torture a lusty youth or anyone else for that matter is through memory. At nine o'clock Robert and Will were hurrying off. And as to the trouble- some faculty, trust a pair of freshmen, released for Christmas vacation, to find ways and means of stimulating their forgetteries. Eighteen days later — alas for the inexorableness of retribu- tion ! the same two boys, jaded with eleven vacation dances, and six socials, came slowly up the street, carrying four large grips. As they approached their den, memory was beginning to assert herself at its threshold. Both paused overcome with the disgust a spirit is said to feel on contemplating the necessity of going back into its mortal body. "My! but I'd rather be whipped than go in !" blurted Bob. "No wonder," soothed Will, "it was your turn to wash dishes, and you cut it tight. I see the table now — the potato jackets, that mush pot, that plate of bacon grease, that—" "Oh, switch off ! Think of the stove, the floor, the bed ! It was your turn to straighten up !" retorted Bob. "Well, what can't be chucked, has got to be did," concluded Will whose age had given him the office of senior, and with this sentiment they went in. The weather being below zero, the first thing to be done was to start a fire. By a common impulse both moved toward the store room for kindlings. As they opened the door, they gave way in chorus to another common impulse — a prolonged whistle. "Whew!— we forgot!" There on the floor before them was a pyramid made up of fifty-four loaves of bread, walled up by the congealed mortar of eighteen quarts of milk ! Needless to add that the baker did not call again for some time ; nor that bread and milk, bread-pudding, bread and milk toast, milk and bread — heaven save the mark ! figured daily in the new year's menu for a fortnight, and was present nightly in the boys' dreams ! PROVO, UTAH