before ten o'clock at the earliest. So here are three good hours for
me to dispose of; and I am the sole arbiter in the matter of
disposing of them. My neighbor John has a cow, and he is applying
the efficiency test to her. He charges her with every pound of corn,
bran, fodder, and hay that she eats, and doctor's bills, too, I
suppose, if there are any. Then he credits her with all the milk she
furnishes. There is quite a book-account in her name, and John has a
good time figuring out whether, judged by net results, she is a
consumer or a producer. If I can resurrect sufficient mathematical
lore, I think I shall try to apply this efficiency test to my three
hours just to see if I can prove that hours are as important as cows.
I ought to be able, somehow, to determine whether these hours are
consumers or producers.
I read a book the other evening whose title is "Stories of Thrift for
Young Americans," and it made me feel that I ought to apply the
efficiency test to myself, and repeat the process every waking hour
of the day. But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these
three hours. In my dreamy moods, I like to personify an Hour and
spell it with a capital. I like to think of an hour as the singular
of Houri which the Mohammedans call nymphs of paradise, because they
were, or are, beautiful-eyed. My Hour then becomes a goddess walking
through my life, and, as the poet says, _et vera incessu patuit dea_.
If I show her that I appreciate her she comes again just after the
clock strikes, in form even more winsome than before, and smiles upon
me as only a goddess can. Once, in a sullen mood, I looked upon her
as if she were a hag. When she returned she was a hag; and not till
after I had done full penance did she become my beautiful goddess
again.
A young man who had been spending the evening in the home of a
neighbor complained that they did not play any games, and did nothing
but talk. I could not ask what games he meant, fearing that I might
smile in his face if he should say crokinole, tiddledy-winks, or
button-button. Later on I learned that much of the talking was done
that evening by a very cultivated man who has travelled widely and
intelligently, and has a most engaging manner in his fluent
discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, places,
and peoples. I was sorry to miss such an evening, and think I could
forego tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I
could hear such a man talk. I have seen people yawn in an art
gallery. I fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour may resume the
guise of a hag. But that makes me think of Atropos again, and the
joke I am planning to play on her. Still, I see that I shall not
soon get around to that joke if I persist in these dim generalities,
as a schoolmaster is so apt to do.
Well, as I was saying, these three hours are at my disposal, and I
must decide what to do with them here and now. In deciding
concerning hours I must sit in the judgment-seat whether I like it or
not. Tomorrow evening I shall have other three hours to dispose of
the same as these, and the next evening three others, and my decision
to-night may be far-reaching. In six days I shall have eighteen such
hours, and in fifty weeks nine hundred. I suppose that a generous
estimate of a college year would be ten hours a day for one hundred
and eighty days, or eighteen hundred hours in all. I am quite aware
that some college boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount
to this estimate, but I am not considering those fellows who try to
do a month's work in the week of examination, and spend their