Silas Timberman by Howard Fast

box, asking him to stop by the president’s office at one-fifteen, if he could manage it, and since the time coincided with the beginning of a two-hour break in his classes, he felt it was a little more than a casual matter. If a summons from Cabot was not too usual, it was nevertheless not a singular matter, and in a routine sense not a disturbing one. The fact that it disturbed Silas meant simply that he was in a condition to be disturbed by any number of things. Yet whenever he attempted to pin down the source of this condition and analyze it, he came to a dead end in his thinking and resorted to a variety of rationalization. He knew that things were changing; he knew that people were becoming different; he knew that he himself was becoming different; yet he could not successfully articulate a definition of that difference.
    Whereupon, he was nervous and ill at ease as he entered the Main Building and climbed the arched marble stairs to President Cabot’s office. The Main Building , which dated from the immediate post-Civil War period, was magnificent in an ornate and thoughtless manner, and this mahogany and marble decor carried into the office of the president. Silas had imagined that Cabot enjoyed its similarity with the old government office buildings in Washington, and indeed the red carpeting, the over-sized desks and over-stuffed black leather chairs made a good setting for a man like Cabot.
    In the waiting room, a secretary nodded at Silas, smiled, and said, “Dr. Cabot is waiting for you, Professor Timberman. Won’t you go in.”
    As Silas entered, Cabot got up from behind his desk and walked forward and shook hands with him. “Glad you came, Professor Timberman. Suppose we sit here,” indicating the oval conference table that stood at one side of the large room. “I hate these front and back desk affairs. It’s one part of management I could never get used to.” He led Silas over to the table, pulled out two chairs, and produced cigars, cigarettes and a manila folder of papers. “Which will you have?” he asked Silas. “I don’t remember your preference.”
    â€œMostly a pipe,” Silas answered.
    â€œWell, light up if you want to, and make yourself comfortable. I think a good talk between us is overdue, and something we should have gotten to long ago. The trouble is that Clemington is a big place, too big, I sometimes think.”
    Silas stuffed his pipe and waited. He had to wait. Cabot was being delicate and enticing, and there was nothing else that Silas could do but wait. He waited while Cabot lit a cigar, puffed gently on it, and examined Silas with curiosity but with no animosity. Silas was surprised when he said.
    â€œA name’s a private matter entirely, but I must admit I’m fascinated by yours. You don’t mind?”
    â€œNot at all,” Silas said. “It’s a very ordinary name.”
    â€œIn some places. Quite extraordinary in others. You’re from Minnesota, aren’t you, Timberman?”
    â€œOriginally—yes.”
    â€œFather in the wood business?”
    â€œNothing as exalted as that. He worked in a sawmill.”
    â€œForgive me. I didn’t mean to pry, but genealogy is a hobby of mine. Some day, if I find the time, I’ll do a book on American names. Take a name like Timberman. The few times I’ve run into it, it’s always stemmed from Minnesota. Nothing so unusual about that and hardly even a scientific observation. But why Minnesota? Well, it could be a family name—one family settled and spread out—but why Timberman? Does it mean that these people were woodsmen in whatever land they stemmed from, or did they take the name working in the forests of Minnesota? And if they did, why? Or is it an Anglicization of a foreign name with a similar sound?”
    Silas wondered whether this unexpected and rather remarkable dissertation on his name was an oblique attempt by