mash feeder? What would he do then? How was it possible to know what Hjalmar would ever do at any time?
Shandy tried to remind himself that Birgit and Hjalmar were by no means the only ones involved in the Viggies movement At least a dozen other granola-breathing firebrands had tackled him only the previous week to see if he would support their campaign to get research funds for Professor Stott’s projects shut off.
Birgit had not been among them. She at least had sense enough to realize that Professor Shandy was not the sort to stab a respected colleague in the back.
Neither had Hjalmar. The young man was not opposed to Stott’s getting the money; he simply wanted the research directed into new channels, such as training pigs to be potato diggers, security guards, seeing-eye guides, and such, where their natural talents and sagacity could be utilized on a continuing basis rather than their natural succulence exploited as a one-shot deal. He had written a brilliant and persuasive paper on the subject. Professor Stott was said to be giving his arguments careful thought.
Knowing the rate at which Professor Stott’s thought processes worked, though, Hjalmar might have reasoned that a little gingering-up mightn’t hurt. Perhaps he’d intended to keep Belinda in some secret place pending her confinement, train the piglets according to his own enlightened methods, then parade them through the campus bearing placards with the message, EDUCATION, NOT ASSIMILATION .
Shandy was momentarily intrigued by the notion, then rejected it. Olafssen simply wouldn’t have the time, for one thing. He was carrying a stiff academic schedule, doing an elaborate and potentially important research project of his own on cucumber scab, and participating in practically every extracurricular activity on campus, from chess to horseshoe pitching; not to mention fighting off rival claimants for the favor of Birgit Svenson, which in itself would be a full-time occupation for the average male.
But Hjalmar wouldn’t have been attempting this alone; that was the crux of the matter. What if he had in fact bumped against Miss Flackley and thought he’d only knocked her out? Might not some other member of the party have said, “You go ahead and get the pig away. I’ll attend to her,” or words to that effect? What if the other student then realized Miss Flackley was dead and jumped to the erroneous conclusion that it would be a noble act to conceal Hjalmar’s crime? The handsome senior was a hero of sorts around Balaclava, and he was also one on whom many were pinning their hopes of winning the Competition. It was not impossible to suppose that some other student would take such an insane risk to protect him from the consequences of what he’d done.
Especially if that student was a young woman who was not Birgit Svenson. It was well known that many females were eating their hearts out over Hjalmar, just as the males yearned in vain after Birgit. But there was the problem of Miss Flackley’s cut throat. The female of the species might be deadlier than the male, as Kipling claimed, but would any of them go that far?
There must be some other explanation for the sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, Shandy could think of one. Professor Stott’s compassionate interest in the Paridae and Fringillidae was well known and Professor Stott was an absent-minded sort of man. If one happened to have a pocketful of birdseed and a handkerchief about one’s person, and if one should reach into the pocket to get the handkerchief to mop one’s brow during a particularly harrowing adventure, one would be likelier than not to scatter a fair number, such as twenty-six, of the seeds over the seat and floor of the van without noticing what one was doing.
If one couldn’t think straighter than this, one had better stop trying to think at all. Shandy got busy helping to search the area around the van. Nowhere did he or anybody else turn up any more sunflower seeds, nor
Shandy tried to remind himself that Birgit and Hjalmar were by no means the only ones involved in the Viggies movement At least a dozen other granola-breathing firebrands had tackled him only the previous week to see if he would support their campaign to get research funds for Professor Stott’s projects shut off.
Birgit had not been among them. She at least had sense enough to realize that Professor Shandy was not the sort to stab a respected colleague in the back.
Neither had Hjalmar. The young man was not opposed to Stott’s getting the money; he simply wanted the research directed into new channels, such as training pigs to be potato diggers, security guards, seeing-eye guides, and such, where their natural talents and sagacity could be utilized on a continuing basis rather than their natural succulence exploited as a one-shot deal. He had written a brilliant and persuasive paper on the subject. Professor Stott was said to be giving his arguments careful thought.
Knowing the rate at which Professor Stott’s thought processes worked, though, Hjalmar might have reasoned that a little gingering-up mightn’t hurt. Perhaps he’d intended to keep Belinda in some secret place pending her confinement, train the piglets according to his own enlightened methods, then parade them through the campus bearing placards with the message, EDUCATION, NOT ASSIMILATION .
Shandy was momentarily intrigued by the notion, then rejected it. Olafssen simply wouldn’t have the time, for one thing. He was carrying a stiff academic schedule, doing an elaborate and potentially important research project of his own on cucumber scab, and participating in practically every extracurricular activity on campus, from chess to horseshoe pitching; not to mention fighting off rival claimants for the favor of Birgit Svenson, which in itself would be a full-time occupation for the average male.
But Hjalmar wouldn’t have been attempting this alone; that was the crux of the matter. What if he had in fact bumped against Miss Flackley and thought he’d only knocked her out? Might not some other member of the party have said, “You go ahead and get the pig away. I’ll attend to her,” or words to that effect? What if the other student then realized Miss Flackley was dead and jumped to the erroneous conclusion that it would be a noble act to conceal Hjalmar’s crime? The handsome senior was a hero of sorts around Balaclava, and he was also one on whom many were pinning their hopes of winning the Competition. It was not impossible to suppose that some other student would take such an insane risk to protect him from the consequences of what he’d done.
Especially if that student was a young woman who was not Birgit Svenson. It was well known that many females were eating their hearts out over Hjalmar, just as the males yearned in vain after Birgit. But there was the problem of Miss Flackley’s cut throat. The female of the species might be deadlier than the male, as Kipling claimed, but would any of them go that far?
There must be some other explanation for the sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, Shandy could think of one. Professor Stott’s compassionate interest in the Paridae and Fringillidae was well known and Professor Stott was an absent-minded sort of man. If one happened to have a pocketful of birdseed and a handkerchief about one’s person, and if one should reach into the pocket to get the handkerchief to mop one’s brow during a particularly harrowing adventure, one would be likelier than not to scatter a fair number, such as twenty-six, of the seeds over the seat and floor of the van without noticing what one was doing.
If one couldn’t think straighter than this, one had better stop trying to think at all. Shandy got busy helping to search the area around the van. Nowhere did he or anybody else turn up any more sunflower seeds, nor
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