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                            THE LAND OF JOY




                              THE LAND OF
                                  JOY


                                 _By_
                          RALPH HENRY BARBOUR


          Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way;
          The land of joy lies all before his eyes.――_Butler._


                            [Illustration]


                               NEW YORK
                       DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
                                 1903




                          Copyright, 1903, by
                       Curtis Publishing Company

                          Copyright, 1903, by
                       Doubleday, Page & Company

                          Published May, 1903




                              For My Wife




CONTENTS


                        PAGE
  CHAPTER I                3
  CHAPTER II              18
  CHAPTER III             33
  CHAPTER IV              49
  CHAPTER V               66
  CHAPTER VI              86
  CHAPTER VII            103
  CHAPTER VIII           114
  CHAPTER IX             131
  CHAPTER X              149
  CHAPTER XI             163
  CHAPTER XII            185
  CHAPTER XIII           198
  CHAPTER XIV            216
  CHAPTER XV             235
  CHAPTER XVI            247
  CHAPTER XVII           263
  CHAPTER XVIII          280
  CHAPTER XIX            300
  CHAPTER XX             315
  CHAPTER XXI            332
  CHAPTER XXII           351
  CHAPTER XXIII          367
  CHAPTER XXIV           376
  CHAPTER XXV            396
  CHAPTER XXVI           408




THE LAND OF JOY




CHAPTER I


John North unlocked the door and threw it open. The study was in
semi-darkness and filled with the accumulated heat and fust of the
summer. Ghostlike objects took shape before him and resolved themselves
into chairs and couches and tables draped with sheets or, as in the
case of the low book-shelves, hidden beneath yellowing folds of
newspapers. The windows were closed and the shades drawn. At the side
casements the afternoon sunlight made hot, buff oblongs on the curtains.

He crossed the room impatiently, overturning on the way a waste-basket
and sending its contents――old books, battered golf-balls, brass
curtain-rings, a broken meerschaum pipe, crumpled letters and
invitations dating back to class day――rolling over the rug and beneath
the big table. With mutterings of disgust he sent the front windows
crashing upward, letting in a rush of fresher air, moist from the
newly sprinkled pavement below. At the side casements, however, he drew
down the shades again, for Dunster Street was as full of heat and glare
as an Arizona cañon.

Laying aside coat and vest, he stretched his arms luxuriously, and,
thrusting big, brown hands into trousers pockets, looked disconsolately
from a window. Cambridge was sweltering. Although it was late September
summer had returned in the night, unexpected and unwelcome, and had
wrapped the city in a smothering blanket of heat and humidity. The
square was a broad desert of arid, shimmering, sun-smitten pavement
that radiated heat like the bed-plate of a furnace. The trees across
the way looked wilted, dusty and discouraged. The Yard, which he could
glimpse here and there around the corners of the buildings, appeared
cool and inviting, but instead of bringing comfort, only increased
his longing for the breezy Adirondack lake which he had left the
day before. The cumbersome crimson cars buzzed to and fro with much
clanging of bell and gong, interspersed with impatient shrillings from
the whistle of the starter in front of the waiting station. From the
outbound cars men with suit cases slid dejectedly to the pavement and
wandered away toward all points of the compass, seeking their rooms.
College would begin again on the morrow.

John’s thoughts went back to the day three years before when from this
very window he had watched, as he was watching now, the scene beneath.
Then he had been filled with the keenest interest, even excitement; had
been impatient for the morrow and the real commencement of his college
life. His mind had been charged with thoughts of the great things he
was going to do. Well, that had been three years ago, he reflected;
to-day his thoughts were somewhat soberer. In the three years he
had seen many illusions fade and had stored by a certain amount of
practical common sense. As for the great things, some few of them had
come to pass; unfortunately, seen in retrospect they were shrunken out
of all similitude to the glorious subjects of his early dreams.

It must not be thought, however, that disillusionment had soured him.
At twenty-four, given a sane mind and a healthy body, one can bear
with equanimity more disenchantment than had fallen to the lot of John
North. And John, being the possessor of twenty-four years, sanity and
health, dismissed memories of the olden visions with a sigh, shrugged
his very broad shoulders and looked about for a pipe.

It was necessary to uncover most of the furniture before the pipe
was found. And then he remembered that his tobacco pouch was in his
kit-bag, that his kit-bag was outside the door, and that the door was
twenty feet away. So after a moment of hesitation he