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or none, or to turn against one another.
    Pity, the one professor whom Matha and her cohorts could not count on to betray either the administration or his colleagues was the same Professor Porterfield to whom the salvation of Beet College had been entrusted. That dismayed Matha. In seeking to close Beet down, she was in reality on the side of the trustees, who, the natural businesswoman in her surmised, would rather dump Beet and cut their losses than keep it going. If Peace Porterfield saved the college, said Matha, the radical movement would be no more, since closing the college was their one true cause.
    â€œSo let’s take Porterfield’s office,” said Bagtoothian, who merely wanted to push someone down a flight of stairs.
    â€œNo. He’s too well-liked,” Matha said. “It’s not a matter of singling out an individual. We have to occupy something that is central to Beet, and better still, central to a liberal arts education in general, so when the rest of the country sees what we’ve done, they will know that not just Beet College but higher learning itself has been brought to its knees.”
    â€œLet’s take the Free Speech Zone,” said Goldvasser. Everyone chortled.
    The Free Speech Zone, a twelve-by-twelve-foot plot of lawn at the far west end of the campus, was the area in which anyone connected with the college could voice an opinion. It was created in response to complaints, mainly from faculty members, that things were being said in the dorms and the classrooms, on the pathways, and in the bathrooms as well, that offended some people, or could be construed as offending some people, or might have offended some people had the remarks been heard. The first speaker to make use of the new area was a sophomore from Pennsylvania who stood dead center in the grassy square, cupped her hands to her mouth, and shouted that she had mixed feelings about the Quakers.
    The students considered, then all five said it at once. “The library! Let’s take Bacon Library!”
    â€œThe library!” said Dickie.
    â€œThe library!” said Betsy.
    â€œThe library!” said Bagtoothian, who had not yet set foot in one, but looked forward to the adventure.
    â€œThe library?” asked Jamie, who anticipated he would be ill the night of the takeover.
    â€œSo it’s the library,” said Matha.
    It was an impeccable choice. How better to put an end to institutions of higher learning—perhaps even to learning itself—than to pull down the very warehouse of learning, the time-honored repository of the best that was ever thought or felt, and keep it from future generations? Bacon Library was the lifeblood of the college. Matha and her comrades had hit upon a course of action at last, and yet an action that would effect inaction, the great work stoppage of the mind.
    Not only that: the library displayed the Mayflower Compact—a document, in terms of pure rarity, even more valuable than the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Though the original compact did not exist, the William Bradford copy in Bacon was a treasure in part because Mayflower passenger Bradford was the first governor of the Plymouth Colony. The document, dated 1630, was signed by John Alden and Miles Standish, among other notables, and was the first written American expression of the intent to “combine together in a civil body politic.”
    â€œDamn!” said Matha. “We bring down the library, we bring down the college, we bring down the country!”
    â€œIs that like a good thing?” said Goldvasser.
    They looked to one another, but no one knew for sure.
    â€œWhen do we go? Tonight?” asked Bagtoothian.
    â€œNo,” said Matha. “It’s got to be planned out. I think we should wait till Porterfield’s committee is about to make its report to the faculty. There’s a meeting on December nineteenth, which is probably when they’ll do