 From Hollywood the CBS radio workshop dedicated to man's imagination the theater of the mind On college campuses across the nation from Bowdoin in Maine to Occidental in California this Indian summer afternoon the freshman class is anxiously settling down to the first of its bright college years for them we have a story it is a tender legend of the Yale of yesteryear young man written by Sinclair Lewis Yale class of 1907 and dramatized for the workshop and directed by William N. Robeson class of 1928 narrated by John Hoysrott class of 1926 at most particularly dedicated to the Yale class of 1961 young man Axel Brogd it was a September afternoon in one of the years between the two world wars the great elms of the old campus war the last of summer's greenery the warm sun caressed the gothic crag of harkness and spread a golden sheen on the weathered bricks of Connecticut Hall before which Nathan Hale class of 1773 forever stands in bronze despairing that he has but one life to give for his country into this timeless scene through the entry between Osborne and Vanderbilt Halls strode in a necronistic figure a rugged white bearded old man wearing a neatly pressed black broadclothed suit and celluloid collar Knut Axel Brod retired Minnesota farmer a man with a destination the office of the Dean of Yale College come in excuse me you are the Dean of the college yes I am Knut Axel Brod yes mr. Axel Brod what can I do for you I am here about the entering college see and where is the young man the young man yes your son or perhaps your grandson oh no sir it's me it is I you well I must say this is rather irregular no sir everything is regular I pass all the examinations it wasn't easy but I pass yes yes so I see yes here's your name Knut Axel Brod yeah that's me everything seems to be in order but mr. Axel Brod yeah please pardon me for saying this but you are not well not exactly the usual age of our beginning students oh yeah I know but what well there's a fellow said once youth is so wonderful it is a shame it must be wasted under very young but I feel still young oh yes yes I'm sure you do but I'm still curious about what Dean why Yale why did you want to come to Yale well how could I say that yeah all my life I work hard I farm my land I raise my family I get up with the son I go to bed with the son and always I say that is not enough always I say Knut you are a dummy I say what good is a man without education and then when my last son is grown man I quit I give him the farm and I say Knut now you can get the education so I read all day long I read sometimes after night I read almost all the books in the public library back home in your element then one day I read the book about Yale and I say by golly I got to go there and and learn some more what book did you read Stover at Yale yes but mr. Axel Brod you understand that Yale has changed a lot since that book was written Yale is Yale I believe that oh so do I sir but Yale is for well what I mean to say is what you mean to say is maybe Yale is for the learning of beauty yes yes I suppose that is what I meant to say and so Knut Axel Brod was duly registered as a freshman in Yale College and assigned a room not in Berkeley over where the cream boys of the prep school cliques lulled in comparative luxury but in a grubby frame building far down high street where were large the unplaced freshman the scrub seniors and assorted grinds and self-help students here he met his roommate Ray Gribble come in the doors open are you mr. Gribble yeah I am mr. Axel Brod and whatever you're selling I don't want any oh but I'm not selling anything I am your new roommate you're what your roommate who said so the fella at the registrar's office he said to come here roommate team and he say my roommate will be mr. Gribble well beggars can't be choosers please and nothing you can have that bed over in the corner got a couple of broken springs I'm afraid you know how it is first come first served oh sure sure thank you mr. Gribble Knut Axel Brod set out to savor the college he had learned from a book he sat on the Yale fence in what he felt was an appropriate pose not knowing that this was no longer done not realizing why the undergraduates snickered as they passed he went out to Yale field to watch the football tryouts but when he tried to get acquainted with the beefy candidates they clearly indicated they thought he was crazy everywhere his warm overtures of friendship were met with the cruel cold disinterest of youth he was not a campus character he was the class freak it was brilliant and the slide he told us that guy and gimbal in the wave all mimsy where they bore a grove hey Axel Brod pipe down I got a math assignment to finish oh I'm sorry Gribble you know but this this book by golly it is so funny what book Allison Wonderland Allison what is that your English assignment don't know well and why are you wasting your time on it it's funny by golly I don't understand you Axel Brod I just don't understand you why I'm a simple fellow well it strikes me a man of your years ought to be thinking about saving his soul instead of reading children's books oh I don't think Allison Wonderland is very much for children it says some pretty deep things in the funny way rubbish and my soul's in pretty good hands I go to chapel every morning it's compulsory Axel Brod what is your purpose in life what do you hope to get out of Yale I can't say it very well but there was a fellow once maybe said it better he said truth is beauty and beauty truth that's all you know on earth and all you need to know you try to buy a meal with truth and try paying the rent with beauty the same fella said a thing of beauty is a joy forever its loveliness increases it will never pass into nothingness yes but remember longfellow's exhortation and let us then be up and doing with a heart for any fate still achieving still pursuing learn to labor yeah but another fella said the world is too much with us late and soon getting and spending we lay waste our powers oh you are a hopeless romantic Axel Brod and I doubt if you will ever amount to a hill of beans hi Gribble hi Atchison well well how's old man Axel Brod tonight good evening Atchison I think our bearded wonders in his second childhood I just caught him reading Allison Wonderland you do better to work I'm at English assignment for tomorrow that merchant of Venice I can't make head and a tail out of Shakespeare the quality of mercy is not strained it dropeth like a gentle rain from heaven it is twice blessed it blessed him that gives you know it by heart I learned it a long time ago yeah but do you know what it means I think so that beats me listen what is that the whiffing poofs over at Maurice whiffing poofs what is with them poofs a whiffing poof is an undergraduate with a rich father in a so-called singing voice he's got nothing to worry about he can afford to hang around Maury's and drink beer and sing every night his old man pays the bills he doesn't have to work for his education the way fellows like Atchison and I do but if it weren't for us they never get through college we wait tables for them we tutor them I think it's not so bad to enjoy life when you're young there is such a long long time afterwards when there is nothing but work I say the time to learn proper work habits is when you're young yeah that's right Gribble these rich kids couldn't get their first base without their old man's money behind them take Washburn for instance no don't talk to me about Washburn oh what's the method with Washburn is he a whiffing poof not even that he doesn't do anything he's a disgrace to the class media doesn't go out for anything yeah he claims he's a poet but he doesn't even heal the lid he's a bloody snob he seems like a nice young fella how would you know you ever talk to him no but I seen him in class when he cuts most of him well that's one consolation he'll probably flunk out at midterm no not him he gets on the Dean's list his old man will throw the university another million-dollar endowment that's the way these bright boys get through you know what you fennel sound like what a bunch of hired hands talking behind the barn at harvest time what's that mean they don't own the farm they don't like the farmer and they can be replaced anytime look here Axel brought I don't think I like that remorse all be quiet little boy and listen to the written poofs earth is earth wherever one walks upon it be at Camelot or Minnesota or on the Yale campus possibly even in the Harvard yard the building ceased to be temples to Knut Axel brought they became structures of brick and stone many of them beautiful some of them excessively ugly the young men ceased to be young gods but individuals many of them pleasant hedonists some of them excessively rude even the professors ceased to resemble that are day Socrates and so gentlemen there was no doubt in the mind of the mystic leads he and only he was certain of the meaning of the oracles words your safety lies in wooden walls well then what she said what could she say considering the circumstances one of the professors don't pipe down whiskers maybe I pipe you down anytime pop anytime that is all good day gentlemen say professor yes Axel brought I'd like to speak to you one minute yes what is it you a fine fellow professor I'd like to hear what you say well thank you and I'm pretty strong fellow and I do something for you what are you driving at but these fellas in the class they don't pay attention you just call on me I spank the son of a guns for you thanks so much Axel brought but I don't fancy that will be necessary after all they're not schoolboys they're young gentlemen well then why don't they act like it speaking of behavior Axel brought there's something I've been wanting to mention to you oh yes professor I do wish you wouldn't show off so much when I call upon you during quizzes show off yes you answer at such needless length and you smile as though you find something highly amusing about me oh no professor no I don't know I smile if I do I I guess it's just because I am so glad when my stupid old head gets the lesson good yes well that must be very gratifying I'm sure but in the future let's be more careful shall we hmm yes sir good day Axel brought down from the Harkness Tower floated the chimes of noon unheeded by the busy undergraduates piling out of classes Chris crossing the campus as they dashed for eating clubs and fraternity houses but not unheeded by the old man with bowed head and no place to go and no one to go with going home the chimes sang to Knut Axel brought going home and before his misty eyes the flaring red and orange of the autumn trees and the yellowing ivy covered walls seemed to give way to the rolling gray stubble of his Minnesota farm he had to get away from the campus from the students he had to get away by himself somewhere anywhere where he would not be reminded how alone he was he walked slowly out Whitney Avenue toward the butte-like hill of East Rock and they're sitting atop the rock at last he found a friend that's quite a view isn't it Axel brought mm-hmm oh I'm sorry I startled you oh no that's all right you're washburn aren't you that's right I don't think we ever met officially but I know who you were of course yeah I guess everybody knows who I am mind if I share the bench with you no no go ahead yeah you're cutting classes too yeah today I cut classes you know Axel brought I'm glad they're running to you you are why well I've been thinking quite a lot about you lately and it seems to me we have a lot in common you and me mm-hmm where the class scantles you know we came here to dream if these busy little goats like Atchison and giblets or whatever your roommates name is think we're fools not to buck for grades I guess you're right now that they are so serious about everything grades the football team burning their way they never laugh or sometimes I think they are older than me exactly that is a pretty book you have there oh this is the poems of Alfred do must say you like to look at it yeah I never see such a book that there is so soft printing is in gold it's a foreign book I can't read that but you know that is the kind of book I always wanted to hold in my hands would you like to hear a little of it yeah yeah please Salivre toute ma jeunesse je l'ai fait sans presse qui sont j'ai les pareils je le confesse et j'aurais pu le corriger by godly that is pretty well it means no I don't care what it means it is like music like music I never heard before music must say that reminds me shernstein is playing lalo tonight oh I thought the game was tomorrow oh no no no shernstein is a violinist lalo is a composer I've got a couple of tickets now maybe you'd like to go with me oh sure I like to hear fellow play fiddle you know we got the fellow back home early Hansen he can play turkey in the straw faster than anyone in cottonwood county shernstein isn't exactly that kind of fiddler but I think you might enjoy it sure I will buy golly this was fiddling such as can do to never dreamed of this was more than music to the old man it was beauty beyond bearing the rapier flashes of the violin tore jagged wounds in his soul and in the next phrase soothed them bowled them and healed them with the heavenly unguent of melody clute did not listen he felt the music submerged himself in it and sank slowly into its all enveloping on long after the last note died away the music played on includes memory as he sat in the room of his new friend having a midnight snack there we are teas brewed nicely sugar lemon freight I have no queen just tea please right I'll do try some of this party before God what's that you try it you'll like it thank you what do you call it party before God that tastes like the liver sausage we got back home well yes I suppose it does that well that's what it is really it's goose liver oh well then why don't they call it goose liver well you see that's the French name aha you've you've been to France oh yes a matter of fact I spent all last year in Paris you did yes but what is it like Paris well it's women are the most beautiful in the world it's men the wisest it's food the finest it's boulevards the grandest and it's monuments the most well monumental Paris is beauty and maybe it's a good thing I never go there why well that's the way I thought about Yale before I come here oh well yes I I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder yeah maybe you see different things when you are an old man oh come on now now you're not an old man that's what they call me old man Axel broad nonsense to me a young man Axel broad I am why certainly people like you and I don't go the talk went on and on good talk of books and philosophy and beauty the talk Knute Axel broad had thirsted for all his life but at last the fire had burned to ashes the candles were guttering in the window was a gray rectangle of twilight dawn look by gully's daylight so it is well I go to bed now I think well I suppose that's about all that's left to do I I don't have the right words maybe but I want to say thanks thanks for what for this night I think this night is what I came to college for this one night well we must do it again sometime real soon yeah we do that well I well look here newt take this will you put the pretty little poetry book yes but no I want you to have it please thank you thank you but life cannot be only good talk before a crackling fire dawn comes cold dawn comes gray dawn brings reality as Knute Axel broad walked across the morning empty campus he knew what he must do age and youth they just don't mix this beautiful place belongs to the young man not to me and that boy if I saw him again it would not be the same I tell him all I got to say tonight next time I wouldn't be young man Axel broad I'd just be an old bore I live 65 years for tonight it was worth it that afternoon in the day coach of a westbound train an old man sat smiling a look of great content in his eyes and in his hands a small book in French though the curious fact is that this old man couldn't read one single word of French you have listened to the CBS radio workshop production of young man Axel broad by Sinclair Lewis adapted for radio and directed and produced by William and Robeson John Hoyt was the narrator Carl Swenson played young man Axel broad and others in the cast included John Daner Dick Crenna Jackie Kelk then Wright and Frank McDonald the chorus was under the direction of a marigomarino with this program we conclude the current series of workshop productions we wish to thank the many many loyal listeners whose constructive and intelligent letters have encouraged inspired and directed our efforts in presenting plays in the theater of your mind we look forward to resuming this rewarding task in the not too distant future until then thanks and goodbye this is the CBS radio network