"God, what a glorious country!... no wonder Walt loved America ... in
spite of the abuses capital has perpetrated in it."
"Walt Mason?" I enquired, mischievously....
"No," he responded, seriously, "Walt Whitman."
"But our poet laureate to-day is Walt Mason ... and our State
philosopher, the sage of Potato Hill, Ed Howe, is an honest-to-God
stand-patter ... that's Kansas to-day for you, in spite of her wide,
scenic vistas....
"Nevertheless," I went on, "Kansas does develop marvellous people ... we
have Carrie Nation--"
"And Johnnie Gregory!" put in Baxter.
"I don't want just to belong to Kansas."
It was I who was humourless now, "I'm sick of its corn-fed bourgeois
ideals ... I want to belong to the world--as--you do!"
We trudged back to town.
"What a site for a university!... the men who put those buildings up
there on the Hill must have dreamed greatly ... look at the sun!... the
buildings are transfigured into a fairy city!"
* * * * *
My office as social manager for Baxter during his stay I conducted
badly. I was so excited and flattered by the visit of one whom I
considered one of the first geniuses of the world, that I hardly knew
what I was doing. I listened to all he said as if an oracle spoke.
I asked him if he would like to meet some of the professors on the
Hill.... I hurriedly gathered together a small group of them and Baxter
gave a talk to them in one of the unoccupied recitation rooms.
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