Classic Audiobook Collection - The Courage of the Commonplace by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

The Courage of the Commonplace by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews audiobook. Genre: drama Set against the pageantry and pressure-cooker rituals of early-20th-century Yale, The Courage of the Commonplace follows Johnny McLean, a likable, athletic junior who discovers that the verdict of his classmates can feel like a verdict on his whole life. As Tap Day approaches - the moment when a select few are chosen for the elite senior societies - Johnny measures himself against rivals who seem effortlessly destined for honor, and against a family legacy that leaves little room for ordinary outcomes. When the campus celebration turns into a private reckoning, Johnny must decide whether to keep chasing approval or to rebuild his sense of worth from the inside out. Pushing himself into demanding work and tougher standards than he has ever lived by, he carries those hard-won habits beyond New Haven and into the industrial world, where status means nothing and responsibility can be immediate and unforgiving. In a community shaped by engines, ore, and risk, Johnny is tested by leadership, loyalty, and fear - and learns what kind of bravery lasts when the cheering stops. A poignant coming-of-age story, it asks what success really is, and whether quiet, daily discipline can be its own form of heroism. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:24:40) Chapter 02 (00:42:58) Chapter 03 (01:02:59) Chapter 04 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the courage of the commonplace by mary raymond shipman andrews section one the girl and her chaperone had been deposited early in the desirable second-story window in durfie looking down on the tree brant was a senior and a bones man and so had a leading part to play in the afternoon's drama he must get the girl and the chaperon off his hands and be at his business this was tap-day It is perhaps well to explain what Tap Day means. There are people who have not been at Yale or had sons or sweethearts there. In New Haven, on the last Thursday of May, toward five in the afternoon, one becomes aware that the sea of boys which ripples always over the little city has condensed into a river flowing into the campus. There the flood divides and redivides,

the junior class is separating and gathering from all directions into a solid mass about the nucleus of a large low-hanging oak tree inside the college fence in front of dervey hall the three senior societies of yale skull and bones scroll and key and wolf's head choose to-day fifteen members each from the junior class the fifteen members of the outgoing senior class making the choice each senior is allotted his man of the juniors and must find him in the crowd at the tree and tap him on the shoulder and give him the order to go to his room followed by his sponsor he obeys and what happens at the room no one but the men of the society know with shining face the lad comes back later and is slapped on the shoulder and told good work old man cordially and whole-heartedly by every friend and acquaintance by lads who have made every honor possible by lads who have made nothing just as heartily for that is the spirit of yale only junior's room in durfee hall on tap-day an outsider is lucky who has a friend there for a window is a window is a man a proscenium box for the play the play which is a tragedy to all but forty-five of the three hundred and odd juniors the windows of every story of the gray stone faade are crowded with a deeply interested audience grizzled heads of old graduates mix with flowery hats of women everyone is watching every detail every arrival in front of the hall is a drive and room for perhaps a dozen carriages next the fence, the famous fence of Yale, which rails the campus round.

Just inside it, at the northeast corner, rises the tree. People stand up in the carriages, women and men. The fence is loaded with people, often standing too, to see that tree. All over the campus surges a crowd, students of the other classes, seniors who last year stood in the compact gathering at the tree and left it sore-hearted not having been taken sophomores who will stand there next year who already are hoping for and dreading their tap day little freshmen each one sure that he at least will be of the elect and again the iron-gray heads the interested faces of old yale men and the gay spring hats like bouquets of four flowers. It is perhaps the most critical single day of the four-year's course at the university. It shows to the world whether or no, a boy, after three years of college life, has in the eyes of

the student body made good. It is a crucial test, a heart-rending test for a boy of 20 years. The girl sitting in the window of Durfee understood thoroughly the character and the chances of the day. The seniors at the tree wear derby hats, the juniors, none at all. It is easier by this sign to distinguish the classmen and to keep track of the tapping. The girl knew of what society was each black-hatted man who twisted through the bare-headed throng. In that sea of tense faces she recognized many. She could find a familiar head almost anywhere in the mass and tell as much as an outsider might what hope was hovering over it. She came of Yale people.

Brant, her brother, would graduate this year. She was staying at the house of a Yale professor. She was in the atmosphere. There, near the edge of the pack, was Bob Floyd, captain of the crew, a fair, square face with quiet blue eyes, whose tranquil gaze was characteristic. to day it was not tranquil it flashed anxiously here and there and the girl smiled she knew as certainly as if the fifteen seniors had told her that floyd would be tapped for bones the crew captain and the football captain are almost inevitably taken for skull and bones yet five years before jack emmett captain of the crew had not been taken

only two years back bert connolly captain of the football team had not been taken the girl watching the big chap's unconscious face knew well what was in his mind what chance have i got against all these bully fellows he was saying to himself in his soul even if i do happen to be crew captain connolly was a mutt couldn't take him but jack emmett there wasn't any reason to be seen for that And it's just muscles I've got. I'm not clever. I don't hit it off with the crowd. I've done nothing for Yale, but just for the crew. Why the dickens should they take me? But the girl knew.

The great height and refined supercilious face of another boy towered near, Lionel Arnold, a born literateur, and an artist. He looked more confident than most. it seemed to the girl he felt sure of being taken sure that his name and position and more than all his developed finished personality must count as much as that and the girl knew that in the direct unsophisticated judgments of the judges these things did not count at all so she gunned over the swarm which gathered to the oak tree as bees to a hive able to tell often what was to happen even to her young eyes all these anxious upturned faces watching silently with throbbing pulses for the first vital decision of their lives was a stirring sight i can't bear it for the ones who aren't taken she cried out and the chaperone did not smile i know she said each year i think i'll never come again it's too heart-rending it means so much to them and only forty-five can go away happy.

Numbers are just broken-hearted. I don't like it. It's brutal. Yes, but it's an incentive to the underclassman. It holds them to the mark and gives them ambition, doesn't it? The girl argued doubtfully. The older woman agreed. I suppose on the whole it's a good institution.

And it's wonderful what wisdom the boys show. Of course they make mistakes, but on the whole they pick the best man astonishingly. So many times they hit the ones who come to be distinguished. But so many times they don't, the girl followed her words. Her father and Brant were bonesmen. Why was the girl arguing against senior societies? So many, Mrs. Anderson. Uncle Ted's friend, the president of Hardrington College,

was in Yale in the 80s and made no senior society. Judge Marston of the Supreme Court dined with us the other night. He didn't make anything. Dr. Hamlin, who is certainly one of the great physicians of the country, wasn't taken. I know a lot more. And look at some who've made things. Look at my cousin, Gus Vanderpool. He made keys twenty years ago and has never done a thing since. and that fat Mr. Hoff, who's so rich and dull, he's bones.

You've got statistics at your fingers' ends, haven't you? said Mrs. Anderson. Anybody might think you had a brother among the juniors who you weren't hopeful about. She looked at the girl curiously. Then, they must be about all there, she spoke, leaning out. A full fifty feet square of dear frightened laddies. There's Brandt coming across the campus. He looks as if he was going to make someone president. I suppose he feels so.

There's Johnny McLean. I hope he'll be taken. He's the nicest boy in the whole junior class. But I'm afraid. He hasn't done anything in particular. With that, a thrill caught the most callous of the hundreds of spectators. A stillness fixed the shifting course. crowd. From the tower of Batel Chapel, close by, the college bell clanged the stroke of five.

Before it stopped striking the first, two juniors would be tapped. The dominating, unhurried note rang, echoed, and began to die away as they saw Brant's hand fall on Bob Floyd's shoulder. The crew captain whirled and leaped unseeing through the crowd. A great shout rose. All over the campus the people surged like a wind-driven wave toward the two rushing figures, and everywhere someone cried, Floyd has gone bones! And the exciting business had begun. One looks at the smooth faces of boys of twenty and wonders what the sculptor life is going to make of them. Those who have known his work know what sharp tools are in his kit, and they know the tragic possibilities, as well as the happy ones, of those inevitable strokes. They shrink a bit as they look at the smooth

faces of the boys, and realize how that clay must be molded in the workshop, how the strong lines which ought to be there some day must come from the cutting of pain and the grinding of care and the push and weight of responsibility. Yet there is service and love, too, and happiness, and the slippery bright blade of success in the kit of life the sculptor. So they stand and watch, a bit pitifully, but hopefully, as the work begins,

and cannot guide the chisel but a little way, yet would not, if they could, stop it. For the finished job is going to be, they trust, a man, and only the sculptor life can make such the boy called johnny mclean glanced up at the window in durfie he met the girl's eyes and the girl smiled back and made a gay motion with her hand as if to say keep up your pluck you'll be taken and wished she felt sure of it for as mrs anderson had said he had done nothing in particular his marks were good he was a fair athlete good at rowing good at track work he had healed the news for a year but had not made the board a gift of music which bubbled without effort had put him on the glee club yet that had come to him it was not a thing he had done boys are critical of such distinctions it is said that skull and bones aims at setting its seal above all else on character this boy had sailed buoyantly from term to term delighted with the honors which came to his friends friends with the men who carried off honors with the best and strongest men in this class yet never quite arriving for himself

as the bright anxious young face looked up at the window where the women sat the older one thought she could read the future in it and she sighed it was a face which attracted broad-browed clear-eyed and honest but not a strong face yet john mclean had only made beginnings he had accomplished in nothing mrs anderson out of an older experience sighed because she had seen just such winning lovable boys before and had seen them grow into saddened unsuccessful men yet he was full of possibility the girl was hoping against hope that brant and the fourteen other seniors of skull and bones would see it so and take him on that promise she was not pretending to herself that anything but johnny mclean's fate in it was the point of this tap day to her she was very young only twenty also but there was a maturity in her to which the boy made an appeal she felt a strength which others missed She wanted him to find it. She wanted passionately to see him take his place where she felt he belonged with the men who counted.

The play was in full action. Grave and responsible seniors worked swiftly here and there through the tight mass, searching each one his man. Every two or three minutes a man was found and felt that thrilling touch and heard the order, Go to your room! Each time there was a shout of applause, each time the campus rushed in a wave. And still the three hundred stood packed, waiting, thinning a little, but so little.

About thirty had been taken now, and the black senior hats were visibly fewer, but the upturned boy faces seemed exactly the same. Only they grew more anxious minute by minute. minute by minute they turned more nervously this way and that as the seniors worked through the mass and as another and another crashed from among them blind and solemn and happy with his guardian senior close after the ones who were left seemed to drop into deeper quiet and now there were only two black hats in the throng the girl looking down saw john mclean standing stiffly his gray eyes fixed, his face pale and set. At that moment the two seniors found their men together. It was all over. He had not been taken. Slowly the two hundred and fifty-odd men who had not been good enough dispersed,

pluckily laughing and talking together. All of them, it is safe to say, with heavy hearts. For tap day counts as much as that at Yale. john mclean swung across the diagonal of the campus toward welch hall where he lived he saw the girl and her chaperon come out of durfie and he lingered to meet them two days ago he had met the girl here with brant and she had stopped and shaken hands it seemed to him it would help if that should happen to-day she might say a word anything at all to show that she was friends all the same with a fellow who wasn't good enough he longed for that with a sick chaos of pain pounding at what seemed to be his lungs he met her mrs anderson was between them putting out a quick hand the boy hardly saw her as he took it he saw the girl and the girl did not look at him with her head up and her brown eyes fixed on phelps gateway she hurried along and did not look at him he could not believe it that girl the girl but she was gone she had not looked at him like a shot animal he suddenly began to run he got to his rooms they were empty baby thomas his wife known as archibald babington thomas on the catalogue but not elsewhere had been taken for scroll and key

he was off with the others who were worth while this boy went into his tiny bedroom and threw himself down with his face in his pillow and lay still men and women learn sometimes as they grow older how to shut the doors against disappointments so that only the vital ones cut through but at twenty all doors are open the iron had come into his soul and the girl had given it a twist which had taken his last ounce of courage he lay still a long time enduring all he could manage at first it might have been an hour later that he got up and went to his desk and sat down in the fading light his hands deep in his trousers pockets his athletic young figure dropped together listlessly his eyes staring at the desk where he had worked away so many cheerful hours pictures hung around it there was a group taken last summer of girls and boys at his home in the country the girl was in it he did not look at her his father's portrait stood on the desk and a painting of his long-dead mother he thought to himself hotly that it was good that she was dead rather than see him shamed for the wound was throbbing with a fever and the boy had not got to a sense of proportion his future seemed blackened his father's picture stabbed him he was a bones man all of his family his grandfather and the older brother's picture stabbed him he was a bones man all of his family his grandfather and the older brother brothers who had graduated four and six years ago, all of them, except himself.

The girl had thought it such a disgrace that she would not look at him. Then he grew angry. It wasn't decent to hit a man when he was down. A woman ought to be gentle. If his mother had been alive, but then he was glad she wasn't. With that a sob shook him, startled him angrily he stood up and glared about the place this wouldn't do he must pull himself together he walked up and down the little living-room bright with boys belongings with fraternity shields and flags and fencing foils and paddles and pictures he walked up and down and he whistled dunderbeck which somehow was in his head then he was singing it oh dunderbeck oh dunderbeck how could you be so mean as even to have thought of such a terrible machine for bob-tailed rats and pussy-cats shall never more be seen they'll all be ground to sausage meat in dunderbeck's machine there are times when camember cheese is a steadying thing to think of or golf balls dunderbeck answered for john mclean it appeared difficult to sing however he harked back to whistling then the clear piping broke suddenly he bit his lower lip and went and sat down before the desk again and turned on the electric reading lamp now he had given in long enough

now he must face the situation now was the time to find if there was any backbone in him to buck up to fool those chaps by amounting to something there was good stuff in this boy that he applied this caustic and not a salve his buoyant light-heartedness whispered that the fellows made mistakes that he was only one of many good chaps left that dick harding had a pull and jim stanton had an older brother excuses came but the boy checked them that's not the point i didn't make it i didn't deserve it i've been easy on myself i've got to change so some day my people won't be ashamed of me Maybe. Slowly, painfully, he fought his way to a tentative self-respect. He might not ever be anything big, a power as his father was, but he could be a hard worker. He could make a place. A few days before, a famous speaker had given an address on an ethical subject at Yale. A sentence of it came to the boy's struggling mind. The courage of the commonplace is greater, than the courage of the crisis, the orator had said.

That was his chance. The courage of the commonplace. No fireworks for him, perhaps, ever, but, by Joe, work and will could do a lot, and he could prove himself worthy. I'm not through yet, by Ginger, he said out loud. I can do my best anyhow, and I'll show if I'm not fit. The energetic tone trailed off.

He was only a boy of twenty. Not fit to be looked at, he finished brokenly. It came to him in a vague, comforting way that probably the best game a man could play with his life would be to use it as a tool to do work with, to keep it at its brightest, cleanest, most efficient for the sake of the work. This boy, of no phenomenal sort,

had one marked quality. When he had made a decision, he acted on it. Tonight, through the soreness of a bitter disappointment, he put his finger on the highest note of his character and resolved. All unknown to himself, it was a crisis. It was long past dinner time, but he dashed out now and got food, and when Baby Thomas came in,

he found his roommate sleepy, but quite himself. quite steady in his congratulations as well as normal in his abuse for keeping a decent white man await to this hour end of section one recording by roger maline section two of the courage of the commonplace this libervox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the courage of the commonplace by mary raymond shipman andrews section two Three years later, the boy graduated from the Boston Tech. As his class poured from Huntington Hall, he saw his father waiting for him. He noted with pride, as he always did, the tall figure, topped with a wonderful head. A mane of gray hair, a face carved in iron, squared and cut down to the marrow of brains and force. A man to be seen in any crowd.

with that as his own met the keen eyes behind the spectacles he was aware of a look which startled him the boy had graduated at the very head of his class that light in his father's eyes all at once made two years of work a small thing i didn't know you were coming sir that's mighty nice of you he said as they walked down boylston street together and his father waited a moment and then spoke in his usual incisive tone i wouldn't have liked to miss it johnny he said i don't remember that anything in my life has ever made me as satisfied as you have to-day with a gasp of astonishment the young man looked at him looked away looked at the tops of the houses and did not find a word anywhere his father had never spoken to him so never before perhaps had he said anything as intimate to any of his sons they knew that the cold manner of the great engineer covered depths but they never expected to see the depths uncovered but here he was talking of what he felt of character and honor and effort i've appreciated what you've been doing the even voice went on i talk little about personal affairs but i'm not uninterested i watch i was anxious about you you were a more uncertain quantity than ted and harry your first three years at yale were not satisfactory i was afraid you lacked manliness then came a disappointment It was a blow to us, to family pride.

I watched you more closely, and I saw before that year ended that you were taking your medicine rightly. I wanted to tell you of my contentment, but being slow of speech, I couldn't. So—' The iron face broke for a second into a whimsical grin. So I offered you a motor.

And you wouldn't take it. i knew though you didn't explain that you feared it would interfere with your studies i was right johnny nodded yes and your last year at college was-was all i could wish i see now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up and you got it and you waked the great engineer smiled with clean pleasure i have had he hesitated i have had always a feeling of responsibility to your mother for you more than for the others you were so young when she died that you seem more her child i was afraid i had not treated you well that it was my fault if you failed the boy made a gesture he could not very well speak his father went on so when you refused the motor when you went into engineers camp that first summer instead of going abroad i was pleased your course here has been a satisfaction without a drawback keener certainly because i am an engineer and could appreciate step by step how well you were doing how much you were giving up to do it how much power you were gaining by that long time you were gaining by that long time you were doing how much you were giving up to do it how much power you were gaining by that long sacrifice. I've respected you through these years of commonplace, and I've known how much more

courage it meant in a pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would have meant in a serious person such as I am, such as Ted and Harry are, to an extent also. The older man, proud and strong and reserved, turned on his son such a shining face as the boy had never seen. That boyish failure isn't wiped out, Johnny, for I shall remember it as the cornerstone of your career, already built over with an honorable record. You've made good. I congratulate you, and I honor you. The boy never knew how he got home. He knocked his shins badly on a quite visible railing, and it was out of the question to say a single word. But if he staggered, it was with an overload of happiness, and if he was speechless,

and blind, the stricken faculties were paralyzed with joy. His father walked beside him, and they understood each other. He reeled up the streets contented. That night there was a family dinner, and with the coffee, his father turned and ordered fresh champagne open. We must have a new explosion to drink to the new superintendent of the Oriole mine, he said. Johnny looked at him surprised, and then at the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something which they knew and he did not.

"'What's up?' asked Johnny. "'Who's the superintendent of the Oriole Mine? "'Why do we drink to him? "'What are you all grinning about, anyway?' The cork flew up to the ceiling, and the butler poured gold bubbles into the glasses, all but his own. can't i drink to the beggar too whoever he is asked johnny and moved his glass and glanced up at mullins but his father was beaming at mullens in a most unusual way and johnny got no wine with that ted the oldest brother pushed back his chair and stood and lifted his glass we'll drink he said and bowed formally to johnny

to the gentleman who is covering us all with glory to the new superintendent of the orio mine mr john archer mclean and they stood and drank the toast johnny more or less dizzy more or less scarlet crammed his hands in his pockets and started and turned redder and brought out interrogations in the nervous english which is acquired at our great institutions of learning gosh are you all gone doddy he asked and is this a merry jape and why for cat's sake can't you tell a fellow what's up your sleeve while the family sipped champagne and regarded him now if i've squirmed for you enough i wish you'd explain father tell me the boy begged and the tale was told by the family in chorus without politeness interrupting freely. It seemed that the president of the big mine needed a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas had written to the head

of the mining department in the school of technology to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in the graduating class. A man to be relied on for character as much as brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at their head, almost more. than a scientist. Was there such a combination to be found, he asked, in a youngster of 23 or 24, such as would be graduating

from the tech? If possible, he wanted a very young man, he wanted the enthusiasm, he wanted the athletic tendency, he wanted the plus strength, he wanted the unmade reputation which would look for its making to hard work in the mind. The letter was produced and read to the shamefaced Johnny. Gosh, he remarked at intervals and remarked practically nothing else. There was no need. They were so proud and so glad that it was almost too much for the boy who had been a failure three years ago.

On the urgent insistence of everyone, he made a speech. He got to his six feet too slowly, and his hands went into his trousers' pockets as usual. "'Holy mackerel!' he began. "'I don't call it decent to knock the wind out of a man "'and then hold him up for remarks. "'They all said in college that I talk the darnest hash in the class anyway. "'But you will have it, will you?' "'I haven't got anything to say, so as you notice it,

"'except that I'll be blamed if I see how this is true. "'Of course I'm keen for it. "'Kean! I should say I was. And what makes me keenest, I believe, is that I know it's satisfactory to Henry MacLean. He turned his bright face to his father. Any little plugging I've done seems like thirty cents compared to that.

You're all peaches to take such an interest, and I thank you a lot. Me, the superintendent of the Oriole Mine! "'Holy mackerel!' gasped Johnny, and sat down. "'The proportion of fighting in the Battle of Life "'outweighs the beer and skittles, as does the interest. "'Johnny McLean found interest in masses "'in the drab and Dunn Village on the prairie. "'He found pleasure, too,

"'and as far as he could reach, he tried to share it. "'Boyancy and generosity were born in him, strenuousness he had painfully acquired and like most converts was a fanatic about it he was splendidly fit he was the best and last output of the best institution in the country he went at his work like a joyful locomotive yet more goes to explain what he was and what he did he developed a faculty for leading men the cold bath of failure the fire of the fire of of success had tempered the young steel of him to an excellent quality. Bright and sharp, it cut cobwebs in the Oriole mine where cobwebs had been thickening for months. The boy, normal enough, quite unphenomenal, was growing strong by virtue of his one strong quality. He did what he resolved to do. For such a character to make a vital decision rightly is a career.

on the night of the tap day which had so shaken him he had struck the keynote he had resolved to use his life as if it were a tool in his hand to do work and he had so used it the habit of bigness once caught possessed one as quickly as the habit of drink johnny mclean was as unhampered by the net of smallnesses which tangled most of us as a hermit the first of a hermit the first one was as a freedom gave him a power which was fast making a marked man of him there was dissatisfaction among the miners a strike was probable the popularity of the new superintendent warded it off from month to month which counted unto him for righteousness in the mind of the president of which johnny himself was unaware yet the cobwebs grew there was an element not reached by resentful of the atmosphere of johnny's friendliness terence o'hara's gang by the old road of music he had found his way to the hearts of many there were good voices among the thousand-odd workmen and johnny mcclaine could not well live without music he heard dennis mulligan's lovely baritone and jack dennison's rolling bass as they sang at work in the dim tunnels of the coal mine and it seemed quite simple to him that they and he and others should meet when work hours were over and do some singing soon it was a club then a big club it kept men out of saloons which johnny was glad of but had not planned a small kindliness seems often to be watered and fertilized by magic johnny's music club grew to be a spell to quiet wild beasts

yet terence o'hara and his gang had a stronghold there was storm in the air and the distant thunder was heard almost continually johnny as he swung up the main street of the flat little town the brick schoolhouse and the two churches at one end many saloons on route and the gray rock dump and the chimneys and shaft towers of the mine at the other carried a ribbon of brightness through the sordid place women came to the doors to smile at the handsome young gentleman who took his hat off as if they were ladies children ran by his side and he knocked their caps over their eyes and talked nonsense to them and swung on whistling but at night alone in his room he was serious how to keep the men patient how to use his influence with them how to advise the president for young as he was he had to do this because of the hold he had gained on the situation what concessions were wise the young face fell into grave lines as he sat hands deep in his pockets as usual and considered these questions already the sculptor life was chiseling away the easy curves with the tool of responsibility he thought of other things sometimes as he sat before the wood fire in his old morris chair his college desk was in the corner by the window and around it hung photographs ordered much as they had been in new haven the portrait of his father on the desk the painting of his mother and above them among the boys faces

the group of boys and girls of whom she was one the girl whom he had not forgotten he had not seen her since that tap day she had written him soon after an invitation for a weekend at her mother's camp in the woods. But he would not go. He sat in the big chair, staring at the fire, this small room in the west, and thought about it. No, he could not have gone to her house party. How could he? He had thought, poor lunatic, that there was an unspoken word between them, that she was different to him from what she was to the others. Then she had failed him at the moment of need. He would not be taken back half-way with the crowd. He could not.

So he had civilly ignored the hand which had held out several times in several ways. Hurt and proud, yet without conceit, he believed that she kept him at a distance and would not risk coming too near, and so stayed altogether away. It happens at times that a big, attractive, self-possessed man is secretly as shy, as fanciful, as the shyest girl, if he cares. Once and again, indeed, the idea flashed into the mind of Johnny McLean that perhaps she had been so sorry that she did not dare look at him. But he flung that aside with a savage half-thought.

What rot! It's probable that I was important enough. for that isn't it you fool and about then he was likely to get up with a spring and attack a new book on pillar and shaft versus the block system of mining coal the busy days went on and the work grew more absorbing the atmosphere more charged with an electricity which foretold tempest the president knew that the personality of the young superintendent almost alone held the electricity in salisks that for months he and his little musical club and his large popularity had kept off the strike till at last a day came in early may end of section two recording by roger maline section three of the courage of the commonplace this librovoc's recording is in the public domain recording by roger the courage of the commonplace by mary raymond shipman andrews section three we sit at the ends of the earth and sew on buttons and play cards while fate wipes from existence the thing dearest to us johnny's father that afternoon mounted his new saddle-horse and rode through the afternoon lights and shadows of spring the girl who had not forgotten either went to a luncheon and the theatre after and it was not till next morning that brant her brother called to her as she went upstairs after breakfast in a voice which brought her running back he had a paper in his hand and he held it to her

what is it brant something bad yes he said breathing fast awful it's going to make you feel badly for you liked him poor old johnny mcclaine johnny mclean she repeated brant went on yesterday a mine accident he went down after the entombed men not a chance brant's mouth worked he died like a hero you know the girl stared died is johnny mcclaine dead she did not fall down or cry out but then brant knew swiftly he came up and put his big brotherly arm around her wait my dear he said there's a ray of hope not really hope you know it was certain death he went to but yet they haven't found they don't know absolutely that he's dead five minutes later the girl was locked in her room with the paper his name was in large letters in the headlines she read the account over many times with painstaking effort to understand that this meant johnny mclean that he was down there now while she breathed pure air many times she read it dazed suddenly she flashed to the window and threw it open and beat on the stone sill and dragged her hands across it then in a turn she felt this to be worse than useless and dropped on her knees and found out what prayer is she read the paper again then and faced things it was the oft-repeated incredible story of men so accustomed to danger that they throw away their lives in sheer carelessness

A fire down in the third level, five hundred feet underground, delay in putting it out, shifting of responsibility of one to another, mistakes and stupidity, then the sudden discovering that they were all but cut off, the panic and the crowding for the shaft, and scenes of terror and selfishness and heroism, down in the darkness and smothering smoke. The newspaper story told how McLean, the young superintendent, had come running down the street, bareheaded with his light,

great pace of an athlete. How, just as he got there, the cage of six men, which had gone down to the third level, had been drawn up after vague wild signaling, filled with six corpses. How, when the crowd had seen that he meant to go down, a storm of appeal had broken that he should not throw his life away. How the very women whose husbands and sons were below had clung to him.

Then the paper told of how he had turned at the mouth of the shaft. The girl could see him standing there, tall and broad, with the light on his boyish blonde head. He had snatched a paper from his pocket and waved it at arm's length so that everyone could see. The map of the mine. Gallery 57, on the second level, where the men now below had been working was close to gallery nine entered from the other shaft a quarter of a mile away the two galleries did not communicate but only six feet of earth divided them the men might chop through to nine and reach the other shaft and be saved but the men did not know it he explained shortly that he must get to them and tell them he would go to the second level and with an oxygen helmet would reach possible air before he was caught quickly with an unhesitating decision he talked and his buoyancy put courage into the stricken crowd with that a woman's voice lifted don't go don't ye go darlin it screamed tis no friends down there tis terence o'hara and his gang tis the strike makers don't be throwing away your sweet young life for him

the boy laughed that's all right terence has a right to his chance he went on rapidly i want five volunteers quick a one-man chance isn't enough to take help Quick! Five! And twenty men pushed to the boy to follow him into hell? Swiftly he picked five. They put on the heavy oxygen helmets. There was a deep silence as the six stepped into the cage, and McLean rang the bell that signaled the engineer to let them down. That was all.

They were the last rescuers to go down, and the cage had been drawn up, empty. That was all, the newspaper said. the girl read it all and his father racing across the continent to stand with the shawled women at the head of the shaft and she in the far-off city going through the motions of living the papers told of the crowds gathering of the red cross of the experts come to consider the situation of the line of patient women with shawls over their heads waiting always there at the first grey light, there when night fell. The girl, grasping at her window, would have given years of her life to have stood with those women. The second day she read that they had closed the mouth of the shaft.

It was considered that the one chance for life below lay in smothering the flames. When the girl read that, a madness came to her. The shawled women felt that same madness. If the inspectors and the company officials had insisted they could not have kept the mine closed long, the people would have opened it by force. It was felt unendurable to seal their men below. The shaft was unsealed in 24 hours. But the smoke came out, and then the watchers realized that a wall of flame was worse than a wall of planks and sand,

and the shaft was closed again. for days there was no news then the first fruitless descent then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women and each morning the red cross president lifting the curtain of the car where he slept would see at first light the still rows of those muffled figures waiting in the hopeless daybreak not yet had the body of the young superintendent been found yet one might not hope because of that but when one afternoon the headlines of the paper blazed with the huge rescued she could not read it and she knew that she had hoped it was true eighteen men had been brought up alive and johnny mclean was one johnny mclean carried out senseless with an arm broken with a gash in his forehead done by a falling beam as he crawled to hail the rescuers. But Johnny McLean alive. He was very ill,

yet the girl had not a minute's doubt that he would get well. And while he lay unconscious, the papers of the country rang with the story of what he had done, and his father, sitting by his bed, read it through unashamed tears. But Johnny took no interest.

Breathing satisfied him pretty well for a while. there is no need to tell over what the papers told how he had taken the leadership of the demoralized band how when he found them cut off from the escape which he had planned he had set them to work building a barrier across a passage where the air was fresher how behind this barrier they had lived for six days by the faith and courage of johnny mcclaine how he had kept them busy playing games telling stories had taught them music and put heart into them to sing glees down in their tomb how he had stood guard over the pitiful supply of water which dripped from the rock walls and found ways of saving every drop and made each man take his turn how when tom's steel went mad and tried to break out of the barrier on the fifth day it was mcclaine who fought him and kept him from the act which would have let in the black dead and tried to break out of the barrier on the fifth day it was mclean who fought him and kept him from the act which would have let in the black dead damp to kill all of them how it was the fall in the slippery darkness of that struggle which had broken his arm the eighteen told the story bit by bit as the men grew strong enough to talk and the record rounded out of life and reason saved by a boy who had risen out of the gray of commonplace into the red light of heroism the men who came out of that burial spoke afterward of mcclain as of an inspired being at all events the strike question was settled in that week below and johnny mcclaine held the ringleaders now in the hollow of his hand terence o'hara opened his eyes and delivered a dictum two hours after he was carried home tell them boys he growled in weak jerks that if any one of them says strike till that if any one of them says strike till that

that McLean child drops the hat, they'll fight O'Hara. Day after day, while the country was in an uproar of enthusiasm, Johnny lay unconscious, breathing, and doing no more. And large engineering affairs were allowed to go and rack and ruin while Henry MacLean watched his son. On a hot morning such as comes in May, a veteran fly of the year before buzzed about the dim window of the sick room and banged against the half-closed shutters.

Half-conscious of the sound, the boy's father read near it, while another sound made his pulse jump. "'Chase him out!' came from the bed in a weak, cheerful voice. "'Don't want any more things. Shut up for a spell!' An hour later, the older man stood over the boy. "'Do you know your next job, Johnny?' he said. you've got to get well in three weeks your triennial in new haven is then holy mackerel exploded the feeble tones all right henry i'll do it somewhere in the last days of june new england is at its loveliest and it is commencement time at yale under the tall elms stretch the shady streets alive eternally with the ever new youth of

ever-coming hundreds of boys. But at commencement the pleasant, drowsy ways take on an astonishing character. It is as if the little city had gone joyfully mad. Hordes of men of all ages, in startling clothes, appear in all quarters. Under Phelps' gateway, one meets pirates with long hair, with earrings, with red sashes. Crossing the campus comes a band of high, in front of the new haven house are stray dutchmen and japanese and punchinello's and other flotsam not expected in a decorous town down college street a group of men and gowns of white swing away through the dappled shadows the atmosphere is enchanted it is full of greetings and reunions and new beginnings and of old friendship with the everyday clothes the boys of old have shed receipts responsibilities and dignities and are once more irresponsibly the boys of old from california and florida even from china and france they come swarming into the puritan place while in and out through the light-hearted kaleidoscope crowd hurry slim youngsters in floating black gown and scholars cap the text of all this celebration the graduating class

because of them it is commencement it is they who step now over the threshold and carry yale's honor in their young hands into the world but small attention do they get the graduating class at commencement the classic note of their grave youthfulness is drowned in the joyful uproar in the clamor of a thousand greetings one does not listen to these voices which say farewell from the nucleus of these busy black-clad young fellows the folds of their gowns billowing about light strong figures the stern lines of the oxford cap graciously at odds with the fresh modeling of their faces down from these lads in black the largest class of all taper the classes fewer grayer as the date is older till a placard on a tree in the campus tells that the class of fifty-one it may be has its headquarters at such a place a handful of men with white hair are lunching together and that is a reunion in the afternoon of commencement day there is a baseball game at yale field to that the returning classes go in costume mostly marching out afoot each with its band of music through the gay dusty street by the side of the gay crowded trolley cars loaded to the last inch of the last step with a holiday crowd good-natured sympathetic full of humor as an american crowd is always the men march laughing talking nodding to friends in the cars in the motors in the carriages which fly past them the bands play the houses are faced with people come to see the show the amphitheater of yale field is packed with more than ten thousand the seniors are there with their mothers and

fathers, their pretty little sisters, and their proud little brothers, the flower of the country. One looks about and sees everywhere high-bred faces, strong faces, open-eyed, drinking in this extraordinary scene, for there is nothing just like it elsewhere. Across the field, where hundreds of automobiles and carriages are drawn close, beyond that is a gateway, and through this, three o'clock or so comes pouring a rainbow. A gigantic, light-filled, motion-swept rainbow of men. The first rays of vivid color resolve into a hundred Japanese gaseas. They come dancing, waving paper umbrellas down Yale field. On their heels press Dutch Kitty, wooden shod, in scarlet and white, with wigs of peroxide hair.

Then sailors, some of them twirling oars, the famous victorious crew of fifteen years back. With these march a dozen lads from fourteen to eight, the sons of the class, sailor-clad too. Up from their midst as they reach the center of the field, drifts a flight of blue balloons of all sizes. Then come the men of twenty years ago, stately in white gowns and mortar, boards, then the triennial, with a class boy of two years, costumed in miniature, and trundled in a go-card by a nervous father. The Highlanders stalked by to the scurl of bagpipes with their contingent of tall boys, the coming sons of Alma Mater.

The thirty-five-year graduates, eighty strong, the men who are handling the nation, wear a unanimous sudden growth of rolling gray beard. Class after class they come till over a thousand men have marched out to the music of bands, down Yale Field, and past the great circle of the seats, and have settled in brilliant masses of color on the bleachers. Then from across the field rise men's voices, singing. They sing the college songs which their fathers sang,

which their sons and great-grandsons will sing the rhythm rolls forward steadily in all those deep voices nor time nor change can aught avail the words come to break the friendships formed at yale there is many a breath caught in the crowded multitude to hear the men sing that then the game and yale wins the class is poor on the the field in a stormy sea of color and dance quadrilles and form long lines hand in hand which sway and cross and play fantastically in a dizzying tremendous jubilation which fills all of yale field the people standing up to go cannot go but stay and watch them these thousand children of many ages this marvelous show of light-heartedness and loyalty till at last the costumes drift together in platoons and disappear slowly. And the crowd thins and the last and most stirring act of the commencement day drama is at hand. End of Section 3. Recording by Roger Maline. Section 4 of the Courage of the Commonplace.

This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Malene. The Courage of the Commonplace by Mary, Raymond Shipman Andrews. Section 4. It has come to be an institution that after the game, the old graduate should go, class by class, to the House of the President of Yale, to renew allegiance. It has come to be an institution that he, standing on the steps of his house,

should make a short speech to each class. The rainbow of men, sweeping gloriously down the city streets with their bands, dissolves into a whirlwind at the sight of that well-known slight dignified figure on the doorstep of the modest house this is a thing which one who has seen it does not forget the three-minute speeches each apt to its audience each pointed with a dart straight to the heart of class pride and sentiment these are a marvel few men living could come out of such a test creditably only this master of men and of boys could do it as he does for each class goes away confident that the president at least shares its conviction that it is the best class ever graduated life might well be worth living it would seem to a man who should hear every year hundreds of men's voices thundering his name as these men behind the class banners six weeks after the disaster of the Oriole mine, it was commencement day in New Haven, and Johnny McLean, his broken arm in a sling, a square of adhesive plaster on his forehead, was back for his triennial. He was mightily astonished

at the greeting he got. Classmates came up to him and shook his hand and said half a sentence and stopped with an arm around his shoulder. People treated him in a remarkable way as if he had done something unheard of. It gratified him, after a fashion, yet it more than half annoyed him. He mentioned over and over again in protest that he had done nothing which, Every one of you fellows wouldn't have done just the same, but they laughed at that and stood staring in a most embarrassing way. "'Gosh, Johnny McLean,' Tim Irwin remarked finally. "'Wake up and hear the birdie sing.

do you mean to tell me you don't know you're the hero of the whole blamed nation and johnny mclean turned scarlet and replied that he didn't think it so particularly funny to guy a man who had attended strictly to his business and walked off while irwin and the others regarded him astounded well if that isn't too much gasped tim he actually doesn't know he's likely to find out before we get through nettie haines of denver jerked out naisily and they laughed as if at a secret known together so johnny pursued his way through the two or three days before commencement absorbed in meeting friends embarrassed at times by their manner but taking obstinate but taking obstinate the modest place in the class which he had filled in college it did not enter his mind that anything he had done could alter his standing with the fellows moreover he did not spend time considering that so he was one of two hundred buster browns who marched a yale field in white russian blouses with shiny blue belts in sailor hats with blue ribbons and when the triennials rushed tempestuously down trumbull street and the triennial's rushed tempestuously down trumbull street and the the tracks of the graybeards of thirty-five years before, Johnny found himself carried forward so that he stood close to the iron fence which guards the little yard from the street. There is always an afternoon tea at the President's House after the game to let people see

the classes make their call on the head of the university. The house was full of people. The yard was filled with gay dresses and men gathered to see the parade. on the high stone steps under the arch of the doorway stood the president and close by him the white light figure of a little girl her black hair tied with a big blue bow clustered in the shadow behind them were other figures johnny mcclain saw the little maid and then his gaze was riveted on the president it surely was good to see him again this man who knew how to make them all swear by him what will he have to say to us johnny wondered something that will please the whole bunch i'll bet he always hits it men of the class of the president began in his deep characteristic intonations i know that there is only one name you want to hear me speak only one thought in all the minds of your class a hoarse murmur which a second's growth would have made into a wild shout started in the throats of the masked men behind the class banner the president held up his hand wait a minute we want that cheer we'll have it but i've got a word first a great speaker who talked to you boys in your college course said a thing that came to my mind to-day the courage of the commonplace he said is to-a good speaker who talked to you boys in your college course said a thing that came to my mind to-day the courage of the commonplace he said is

greater than the courage of the crisis. Again, that throaty, threatening growl, and again the president's hand went up. The boys were hard to hold. I see a man among you whose life has added a line to that saying, who has shown to the world that it is the courage of the commonplace which trains for the courage of the crisis. And that's all I've got to say,

for the nation is saying, the rest except three times three for the glory of the class of the newest name on the honor roll of yale mcclaine of the oriel mine it is probably a dizzying thing to be snatched into the seventh heaven johnny mcclain standing scarlet stunned his eyes glued on the iron fence between him and the president knew nothing except a whirling of his brain and an earnest man prayer that he might not make a fool of himself with that even as the thunder of voices began he felt himself lifted swung to men's shoulders carried forward and there he sat in his foolish buster brown costume with his broken arm in its sling with a white patch on his forehead above his roaring classmates there he sat perspiring and ashamed and faced the head of the university, who, it must be said, appeared not to miss the humor of the situation, for he laughed consumedly. And still they cheered, and still his name rang again and again. Johnny, hot and squirming under the merry presidential eye, wondered if they were going to

cheer all night. And suddenly everything, classmates, president, roaring voices, died away. There was just one thing on earth. In the doorway, in the group behind the president, a girl stood with her head against the wall and cried as if her heart would break. Cried frankly, openly, mopping away tears with a whole-hearted pocket-handkerchief, and cried more to mop away,

as if there were no afternoon tea, no mob of Yale men in the street, No world full of people who might, if they pleased, see those tears and understand. The girl, herself, crying. In a flash, by the light of the happiness that was overwhelming, he found this other happiness. He understood, the mad idea which had come back and back to him out there in the West,

which he had put down firmly, the idea that she had cared too much, and not too little on that tap day four years ago that idea was true she did care she cared still he knew it without a doubt he sat on the men's shoulders in his ridiculous clothes and the heavens opened then the tumult and the shouting died and they let the hero down and to the rapid succession of strong emotions came as a relief another motion. Enthusiasm. They were cheering the president, on the point of bursting themselves into fragments to do it, it seemed. There were two hundred men behind the class banner, and each one was converting what was convertible of his being into noise. Johnny McLean turned to with a will and thundered into the volume of tone which sounded over and over the two short syllables of a name

which to a Yale man's idea fits a cheer better than most. The president stood quiet under the heaped up honors of a brilliant career, smiling and steady under that delirious music of his own name rising, winged with men's hearts to the skies. Then the band was playing again, and they were marching off down the street together, this wonderful class that knew how to turn earth into heaven for a fellow who hadn't done much of a stunt anyhow,

this grand, glorious, big-hearted lot of chaps who would have done much more in his place, every soul of them. So Johnny McLean's thoughts leaped in time with his steps as they marched away. And once or twice a terror seized him, for he was weak yet from his illness, that he was going to make a fool of himself. He remembered how the girl had cried. he thought of the way the boys had loaded him with honor and affection he heard the president's voice speaking those impossible words about him about him

and he would have given a large sum of money at one or two junctures to bolt and get behind a locked door alone where he might cry as the girl had but the unsentimental hilarity all around saved him and brought him through without a stain on his behavior only he could not bolt he could not get a moment to himself for love or money it was for love he wanted it he must find her he could not wait now but he had to wait he had to go into the country to dinner with them all and be lionized and made speeches at and made fun of and treated as the darling child and the pride and joy and what was harder to bear as the hero and the great man of the class, all the time growing madder with restlessness, for who could tell if she might not be leaving town? A remnant of the class ahead crossed them. And there was Brandt, her brother.

Diplomacy was not for Johnny McLean. He was much too anxious. "'Brand, look here!' And he drew him into a comparative corner. "'Where is she?' brant did not pretend not to understand but he grinned at the anderson's of course now yes i think so fellows said johnny mclean i am sorry but i've got to sneak i'm going back to town sentences and scraps of sentences came flying at him from all over hold em down chain em up going tommy rot can't go you'll be game for the round-up at eleven you've got to be our darling boy he's got to be and more language all right for eleven johnny agreed i'll be at headquarters then but i'm going now and he went

he found her in a garden which is the best place to make love each place is the best and in some mystical manner all the doubt and unhappiness which had been gone over in labored volumes of thoughts by each alone melted to nothing at two or three broken sentences there seemed to be nothing to say for everything was said in a wordless clear mode of understanding which lovers and saints know There was little plot to it, yet there was no lack of interest. In fact, so light-footed were the swift moments in the rose-scented dark garden that Johnny McLean forgot, as others have forgotten before him, that time was. He forgot that magnificent lot of fellows, his classmates. There was not a circumstance outside of the shadowy garden which he did not wholeheartedly forget. till a shock brought him to the town was alive with bands and cheers and shouts and marching the distant noises rose and fell and fused and separated but kept their distance

when one body of sound which unnoticed by the lovers had been growing less vague more compact broke all at once into loud proximity men marching men shouting men shouting men singing. The two, hand-tight in hand, started, looked at each other, listened, and then a name came in a dozen sonorous voices, as they used to shout it in college days across the Berkeley Oval. McLean! McLean! they called. Oh, Johnny McLean! And, come out there, oh, Johnny McLean! that was baby Thomas. By Jove, they've trapped me, he said, smiling in the dark and holding the hand tighter as the swinging steps stopped in front of the house of the garden.

Brandt must have told. They've certainly found you, the girl said. Her arms, lifted slowly, went about his neck swiftly. You're mine, but you're theirs tonight. i haven't a right to so much of you even you're theirs go and she held him but in a second she had pushed him away go she said you're theirs bless every one of them she was standing alone in the dark sweet garden and there was a roar in the street which meant that he had opened the door and they had seen him and with that there were shouts of put him up carry him carry the boy and laughter and shouting and then again the measured tread of many men retreating down the street and men's voices singing together the girl in the dark garden stood laughing crying and listened mother of men the deep voices sang mother of men groaned strong and giving honor to him thy light

have led, rich in the toil of thousands living, proud of the deeds of thousands dead, we who have felt thy power and known thee, we in whose lives thy lights avail, high in our hearts enshrined and shron thee, mother of men, old Yale. End of Section 4. End of the Courage of the Commonplace by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews.