The Sunday Eight O'Clock/Mac
WHEN "Mac", the janitor of the gymnasium, died all college exercises were suspended, and students and Faculty filled the Auditorium to show their respect for the simple-minded man, and to do honor to his memory.
Mac was a Civil War veteran who had settled down to a quiet life on the farm after he had left the ranks. Later he had moved into town, and picked up a job as general care taker at the gymnasium. He proved himself a faithful, unselfish laborer, who did his work well, and who came at the call of every student and instructor.
He met the exigencies of broken shoe strings and forgotten locker keys and torn paraphernalia with a quick and interested willingness that made him a necessity at evening practice, or when the fellows were preparing for a game; and he bore the overbearing treatment of the freshmen with the utmost patience. The long shrill whistle or the well-known cry of "Hey, Mac," would bring him running from the remotest corner of the gymnasium to any one in trouble.
But notwithstanding the fact that he was only a servant, when a jealous quarrel grew up between Roberts and Wilson, which threatened to disrupt the team, it was Mac who brought the fellows together. It was Mac who "discovered" Austen, the shy country boy who broke the intercollegiate record in the quarter mile; and when young Rockwood was fast going to the bad it was the quiet word that Mac spoke that brought him to his senses, and made him think. When Colvin was getting hopelessly down in his studies, it was Mac who put ambition into him, and got him to work. A look or a word from the old man would stop the loud talking, or stifle the coarse jest in the dressing rooms. He watched the games always on the home grounds and his encouragement in defeat, or his praise in victory, came to mean as much to the fellows as the words of the coach. In a thousand ways his influence was felt for good scholarship, and clean sport, and a clean life.
Even the young instructors respected his opinions, and told him their troubles, and asked his advice as they were getting into their gymnasium suits, or their tennis clothes, in the locker rooms. During the sixteen years that he had been about he had come to be looked upon as one of the college traditions, so that when strangers Visited the college no one felt that everything worth while had been seen until Mac had been pointed out.
His death came unexpectedly at the end of a hard day's work, and we were wholly unprepared for the shock. After the funeral ceremonies were over a number of us gathered in Fred Bernard's room in one of the dormitories to talk it over. We dwelt tenderly on his humble virtues, and a lump came into our throats as we thought of his willing services. Then Fred spoke—Fred who was senior society president; and the most influential man in college. "It isn't so much what a man's work is as what he is. It isn't a man's position, it's his influence that makes him great. What we get out of books is all right, but it's men that count, and Mac was a man."
January