AFTER THE RUSH.AFTER THE RUSH.In walked ... the little Sophomore, and behind him a very big Sophomore. Young recognized him as the one....
Meanwhile some of the other Sophomores had zealously rushed some of the other Freshmen off the quadrangle and were shouting themselves hoarse fortheirvictory down by Clio Hall, but the Freshmen had thecannon. That was what they were after all this time, as Young now learned.
"It's all over now. Go home, you fellows," said the hoarse-voiced Juniors, silencing the exuberant Freshmen.
"We rushed them, though, didn't we?" eagerly asked a Freshman with necktie gone and coat torn half off. Young saw it was his small comrade.
"'Course you did," said Jack Stehman, his voice sounding gruff and authoritative. "Go to your rooms as fast as you can; Sophs'll haze tar out of you if they catch you to-night. They expected to have an easy thing of it."
The little fellow had spied Young. "Good-night," he said, holding out his hand, "much obliged for what you did. My name's Lee."
"Young is my name." They shook hands. "Hope you aren't hurt," Young added, smiling.
"Nope; see you again. Good-night."
The Freshmen now began to scatter in all directions in the darkness, some of themlimping and some of them going slowly because out of breath; and some had fewer garments than when they left their rooms. But all had a great deal more class spirit, and that is the object of the cannon rush. There was not one among them who would have missed it for anything.
Young reached his room without adventure. He limped a little as he went upstairs, but he did not know it.
He had been in his room but a few moments when a knock came at the door. He had had no callers before this.
"Come in," said Young, cheerfully. He thought perhaps it was Lee.
In walked Channing, the little Sophomore, and behind him a very big Sophomore, dressed in a football suit. Young recognized him as the one that struck little Lee, and he seemed to recognize Young; at least he grinned and showed the place where a front tooth was gone.
And Channing wore Young's hat.
Suppose you were a Freshman and hazing were still in vogue, and the first callers in your college course were two Sophomores, and each of them had reasons for wanting to humiliate you, and one of the fellows was a football player with muscles larger than your own; how would you feel if they strode into your room, looking arrogant?
You, possibly, might not mind it. If so, Will Young was different from you, for he felt very queer as he arose from his chair.
Channing said, "How do you do, Mr. Young?" Then, closing the door so the landlady might not hear, "Well, Deacon," with his sarcastic smile, "we've come for you."
Young said nothing. Instinctively he offered chairs.
"This is Deacon Young of Squeedunk, the freshest man in the class, Bally. Bow, Freshman, to Mr. Ballard, of whom you have doubtless heard—the famous centre rush of the famous Sophomore football eleven that will do your futile Freshman team up so badly you can't see, later in the term."
"No, thanks," said the big fellow to Young, in a very big voice, "never sit on chairs." He had seated himself on Young's table, with one foot on a chair, and was looking around the room as Channing went on:
"We secured several of your charming classmates on the campus. They aren't far away from here now." Ballard chuckled at this. "But we missed you on the campus, Deacon. You must have run home after the rush."
The Sophomores both laughed at this, but Young said nothing, and wondered how Channing had found out where he roomed.
"You have given us some trouble. That is unfortunate for you. But you were kind enough yesterday to oblige me with your name; so I went to the registrar's office andasked where my dear old friend Willie Young roomed. I told them I wanted to look you up and take care of you. We'll take care of you, all right—eh, Bally?"
Ballard laughed his loud laugh at this way of talking. He thought Channing very witty, and so did Channing.
Young was leaning against the mantelpiece.
"But we mustn't waste time here," Channing went on; "pick up your hat and come on like a good little boy; we're all going for a nice little stroll to the canal together."
Young had heard, since he last saw Channing, what the Sophomores did with Freshmen at the canal. He did not move.
"Oh, I forgot," said Channing, "you have no hat; you lost yours in the rush this evening, didn't you? Well, well, that was too bad. You will have to go bareheaded. However, Freshman," he added, patronizingly stern, "this will teach you a good lesson—two good lessons. In the first place, little Willie must wear a cap and not a big felt hat like this." He took Young's hat off his own head andlooked at it critically. "I suppose this is the latest thing out at Squeedunkville."
Ballard grinned. Young flushed and bit his lip.
"In the second place, you must always take it off when you meet your superiors and thus save us the trouble of taking it off for you; and," he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the canal, "and so save yourself some trouble also."
Ballard was now beginning to look interested. "I guess the Freshman's got another hat in his closet," he said, gruffly. Then he commanded, "Go get it, Freshman, and come on." Ballard was standing now.
Young did have a hat—a derby hat, the one he wore on the train and when he first arrived—in his closet, but he did not go and get it, and he did not come on.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" growled Ballard. "Come on." He let Channing do the guying, but he liked to take a hand in the bossing himself.
Apparently Young heard nothing; he had not said a word, and he was quietly lookingdown at the carpet, but his heart was beating fast.
"Now, see here, Deacon," said Channing, "we don't want to have any trouble with you. Are you going to come along peacefully and have an easy time of it, or are you going to make a little trouble for us and a lot for yourself?"
Young did not speak or look up. He seemed to be moving his tongue about in his cheek.
Ballard approached him. "You won't come, eh?" he said, angrily. And with that he took him by the shoulder.
"Take your hands off me," said the Freshman, shrilly, and wrenched quickly away, backing up against the wall. He stood there breathing hard, and he glanced from one Sophomore to the other.
Now, it is not the easiest thing in the world for a big man and a little man to drag out of a room one very good-sized man who looks as if he had made up his mind to stay in it. At any rate, to do it without considerable noise is impossible. Therefore Channingstepped across to the open window, stuck his head out, and gave a long, peculiar whistle. He waited a moment and then repeated it Then an answer came back from the distance.
"We'll soon fixyou, Deacon," he remarked, nodding his head, as he returned from the window.
Young was still standing backed up against the wall. Ballard, braced against the door opposite to prevent the Freshman's escape, was scowling.
"They'll be here in a minute," said Channing.
He referred to the classmates he had signalled to. You see if they had all come in together it would have aroused the landlady's suspicions. As it was, Channing had been obliged to tell her that Ballard and himself represented the college Y. M. C. A., and that they wanted to ask Mr. Young to join it.
"When they whistle I'll tip-toe down and let them in," said Channing. "Listen! What's that?"
Footsteps were heard coming up the stairs.
"They couldn't have gotten here so soon," said Ballard.
"I didn't hear any whistle," said Channing.
The footsteps came nearer.
"Is this the room?" said a voice just outside the door.
"Yes, that's the one," came the reassuring tones of the landlady below.
The Sophomores had stopped talking.
A knock.
No reply.
Another knock.
"Come in," said Young, defiantly.
Ballard stepped to one side.
The door opened.
"Is this Mr. Young?"
"That's my name," said Young. "Come in." He was still standing by the mantelpiece.
A dark-eyed, strong-faced, matured-looking man with rather long hair stood in the doorway. "I am Nolan," he said, "of the Junior class, and this is Mr. Linton," turning to a man behind him.
"Hello there, Ballard," Nolan said, casually then suddenly taking in the situation and smiling, "sorry to spoil your fun," he said. "Hello, where's your young friend going in such a hurry?"
Channing was seen slipping out of the still open door. "I'll be right back," he said, grinning. The whistle had sounded while Nolan and Linton were entering the room, and Channing wanted to get down in time to—but it was too late. The Juniors had left the front door open when they entered, and now the other Sophomores were on the way up the second flight of stairs. "Where's the Freshman's room, Chan?" they said, in a loud whisper.
"Wait, there's no use coming now," began Channing.
But Linton was now at the head of the stairs saying, in an amused tone: "Oh, come right up; don't mind us." So, rather than seem afraid of the Juniors they trooped in, all six of them looking as if caught at something they were ashamed of.
Linton smiled drolly at one of the Sophomoreshe happened to know personally. "Hard luck, Valentine," he said.
Nolan nodded gravely to one or two of them, and they said, "How do you do?" very respectfully.
No one said anything else for a moment.
"Don't let us interrupt you," said Channing, grinning.
"We had no intention of being interrupted," said Linton, without looking up. And Freshman Young noticed that the others seemed to consider this a good joke on Channing, and Channing noticed that Young noticed it, and this was one thing more to remember against Young.
"By the way," Linton went on in a lazy, matter-of-fact way, as he began filling a pipe, "perhaps it would be just as well if you fellows all got up and got out of here now. Billy and I came here to talk hall to this Freshman, and we have a number of others to call on, and Billy mustn't stay up late these days, you know."
"Billy" meant Nolan, the one with longhair, and he was a university football man, and the training season had begun.
Linton made this remark in an ordinary tone, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to request seven or eight men to leave a room. He struck a match for his pipe as he finished speaking, and then lifted his feet up on the table and leaned back without looking at the under-classmen.
The Sophomores said, "All right," meekly arose, murmured, "Good-night," and smiling rather sheepishly departed.
Young looked on with mingled feelings. They outnumbered the Juniors seven to two, and yet the arrogant Sophomores did not even question the Junior's power. He was learning something about these traditions and customs; evidently the authority was not in bodily strength.
But the two upper-classmen, without waiting to see what became of the Sophomores, began forthwith to tell Young how different were the two secret literary societies, whose mysterious, Greek temples looked so much alike there side by side on the campus, andto point out how superior was their own "hall," as they called it.
Nolan, who was a famous orator in this hall, did most of the talking. Linton only put in a word now and then, but he kept glancing at the Freshman in a queer, quizzical way as he blew smoke. When they arose to go Linton said, in a pleasant tone:
"I suppose the Sophomores are bothering you a good deal?"
Young wondered what made Linton say so. "No," he replied; "they tried to make me take off my hat yesterday, but I wouldn't do it."
He thought that would impress these upper-classmen.
Linton glanced at Nolan, who smiled.
"Say, Young," said Linton, kindly, "of course it's none of my business, but—well, I'd take off my hat if I were you."
"Why?"
"Oh, well, because you're a Freshman."
"But what right have they to make me take off my hat to them? They aren't any better than——"
"Because they're Sophomores. Come on, Billy." He opened the door. "You think it over, Young. Good-night. Glad to have met you, Young."
Then on his way downstairs he added to his friend Billy Nolan, "I like that big, green Freshman, but he needs hazing."
"Heisrather fresh. Do you think we'll secure him, Jim?"
"But you can hardly blame him for taking himself so seriously," Linton went on as they gained the street "You see he has always lived at home, didn't go away to prep. school, was never guyed or anything of that sort in all his innocent life, and he doesn't know how to take it. He was an important person at home—probably led his class at the High School—has a lot of little brothers and sisters that bow down to him; and they've told him that he is a great man so often that he thinks there must be something in it. His hands show he has worked on a farm, but the palms are soft now—I noticed that shaking hands—so he's probably clerked in a store or taught school; yes, he's probably taught school."
Linton considered himself a student of human nature, and he did guess pretty well this time, though Young had no sisters and had never taught school.
"Anyway," he concluded, and in this he was right, perhaps, "college will be a great thing for him. No one ever made him realize his relative unimportance in the world."
"As we made big Bally realize it last year," interposed Nolan, smiling.
"Yes, and as we, too, were made to realize it the year before. My, what a big chump you'd have been, Billy, if you hadn't been hazed."
"And, oh, what a supercilious ass you'd have made, Jim. Do you remember that time——"
And these two walked on toward the campus with arms thrown carelessly about each others' shoulders, reminiscencing about days which, to hear them talk, you would have thought were half a generation ago; and so they were—half a college generation.
Meanwhile Young was doing what Linton had told him to do, thinking over what hadbeen said to him. Also he thought over what he had observed when the Juniors and Sophomores were in the room together, and he came to certain conclusions. Then he went to bed.
The very next evening, as Young and a classmate named Barrows were on the way from supper, someone stepped out from behind a tree-box and said, "Here he is, fellows," and the next moment the two Freshmen, surrounded by a dozen Sophomores, were on their way to the canal.
Channing acted as ringmaster, as usual. To his surprise and, perhaps, disappointment, Young was not sullen or stubborn; he seemed rather good-natured about it.
"Take off your hat, Deacon."
"All right," said Young, smiling cheerfully, and lifted his hat.
"Do it again and don't smile."
He did it again and did not smile.
"Who said you could put it back on your head? Take it off and keep it off."
Young held it in his hand.
"Put it on again," shouted Channing. And so it went.
"Now, Deacon, since you have taken off your cap and have shown how low you can bow, show us how the prairie-dogs run, out home on the farm." The group was getting beyond the houses now.
"But there aren't any prairie-dogs where I live in Illinois," returned Young, smiling.
"That doesn't matter," growled Ballard; "do it anyway."
So William Young, thinking of how the people out home were in awe of him because he had gone East to college, got down on all fours and ambled along the dusty road.
"Now you do it, you little Freshman with the big head."
Barrows gave his version of a prairie-dog's method of progress, laughing as if it were a good joke.
"Now both do it at once," said Channing.
The Sophomores laughed gleefully, especially at Young, he was so big and awkward.
HAZING.HAZING."Now both sit up on your haunches and chatter awhile."
"That's pretty good," said Channing, as ifhe were the exhibitor of trained animals. "Now both sit up on your haunches and chatter awhile."
Everybody laughed, Young included.
"Don't laugh," said Channing.
"Cork up your laughter," said Ballard.
Then they were made to crow like roosters and bark like dogs, and give other imitations, until they reached the tow-path of the canal. Here they were made to strip.
"Can you swim?" one of the fellows asked.
Both said they could.
"Then jump in and swim across. Be quick about it."
The water was cool, but it did not hurt them.
"Now swim back and get your clothes."
While dressing they were made to sing "Home, Sweet Home"—"in order to keep warm," Channing said.
"Now cheer for the illustrious class above you. Are you ready?—Hip—Hip!"
The college cheer was given with the Sophomore class numerals on the end.
"I don't think I heard your sweet voice, Deacon Young," said one of the Sophs, a tall fellow with glasses. "Suppose you give us one all alone. Now then, Hip—Hip!"
Young kept silent.
"See here, you cheer, Deacon. Do as we tell you." This from Ballard, who bellowed.
Young looked around at the Sophomores—there were twelve of them—and then glanced at the canal; he did not want to go in there again; he was shivering already.
"Hip—Hip!" said Ballard. Young gave a feeble cheer.
The man with the glasses said: "H'm, you'll have to do better than that. Now then, a loud one."
Young cleared his throat and gave a loud, full cheer.
"That's the way to talk," they said, encouragingly.
"It won't hurt you, you see," said one of them, rather kindly, in a low voice.
"You are improving, Deacon Young," said Channing, patronizingly. "We'll make a man of you yet."
Thus began a new epoch in the life of William Young. During the next week or so of his college course he was hazed perhaps more than anyone in his class, although from that first time he no longer resisted or tried to maintain his superiority.
Undoubtedly hazing, as Linton, the Junior, said, was a good thing for his system, as it is for any young man, but Young certainly did not need such severe doses nor so many of them.
Some of the fellows said so the third time he was taken to the canal. "The old Deacon is all right now," they said; "why d'you give it to him so hard?"
But Channing was one of these small men that love to get power over big men; he loved to haze and he hated to have anyone call him little or mouthy, and Young had called him both. The next night he and Ballard, who, as will be seen later, had much of the bully in him, would bring around a different crowd and Channing would take out his pipe, shake it at Young and say to the others, "Now this old jay Deacon isinnocent and meek enough to look at, but he is atrociously fresh at bottom—isn't he, Bally, you old horse?"
Young said nothing and took his hazing cheerfully and patiently, hoping they would soon get tired of it.
"I suppose," he said to himself, as he hurried back to his room to work until past midnight, in order to make up for lost time. "I suppose I must be very fresh, or they would not keep it up so long. I did not know I was so fresh."
But he told himself that if he were only well liked by his own classmates as he had expected to be, he would not care what his enemies thought of him. That he had not sprung into popularity, he decided, was due to that painful occurrence at his first recitation. It made him flush to think of it even now.
It was on the morning after the rush and after the Sophomores had been turned out of his room. He went in to the Livy recitation for which he had prepared himself so thoroughly—he went over it four and a half times, you may remember—and took hisseat, feeling strong and confident, and, "Mr. Young, please to translate," said the professor, before the class was hardly settled in its seats.
It was in a low voice. Young was in the back of the room. He was not dreaming of being called upon first anyway, and he wondered why the fellow next to him was nudging him with an elbow. Young turned and looked at him inquiringly.
"Get up," whispered the man.
"What for?" whispered Young.
"Isn't Mr. Young present?" said the professor in a tone loud and clear, and Young fairly jumped out of his seat, exclaiming, "Yes, marm—yes, sir, I mean."
He added it quickly but it was too late. Everyone had heard and everyone was laughing, and even the professor joined in, though he did not mean it unkindly, and then they all laughed still more. The walls fairly echoed with it. Even after the professor had rapped for order and the laughter had quieted down, someone in the front row tittered and that set them all off again. Anew class is always somewhat hysterical. Some of those in the front rows turned and stared at him in their laughter.
It was a natural mistake. This freshman had prepared for college at a high school, and most of the High School teachers were women. Young should have joined in the laughter, but he only stood there, scarlet and serious-looking and wishing he could disappear forever.
Finally the professor said, kindly, "Now then, Mr. Young."
But Mr. Young was confused, and though he had been over the passage until he had it nearly by heart, he now became all tangled up and excited and finally took his seat dripping with perspiration and wishing he had never come to college. Instead of being perfect his first college recitation was a flat failure. But the professor did not count this failure against him because he saw that the fellow was rattled and because the next time he came in he made the best recitation of the day.
But that was not the trouble. The fellowswould not forget it and would not let up on it. "Thank you, marm," they whispered as he arose to recite, and "Thank you, marm," they shouted to him on the crowded campus. The Sophomores took it up. It became a second nick-name.
The worst of it was—in fact the reason of it all was—that he took this as he did himself and everything else, with entirely too much self-importance. Instead of laughing or answering back he looked sullen and sedate when they said, "Thank you, marm," and naturally they said it then all the more.
It cut and hurt to have his own classmates—the men with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder in the rush and at the class meeting—treat him thus. If they had known that he was taking it so seriously, they would have stopped. But they did not know it. How should they? Most people have to suffer before they learn to be sympathetic.
So, altogether, with the Sophomores who hazed and the classmates who guyed, Will Young decided that college life was not allit was cracked up to be. But you may be sure he did not let this opinion get into the letters he wrote home. Because he was discouraged was no reason for making his mother discouraged too. But, oh, it would have helped a lot, if he had only somebody to talk to about it all. He did not know how to make friends with the others, and the others did not seem to care to make friends, thank you, marm, with the sober-faced old Deacon.
It was all very well for a fellow like Linton to say that something of this sort was a good thing for a fellow like Young. But Linton was a Junior, with friends that loved him; and Juniors forget. Besides, sometimes we get too much of a good thing, and then it becomes a bad thing. If it had kept on this way Young might have become meek and backboneless, and such an extreme would be even worse than that of self-importance.
But it did not keep on. It all stopped one day quite suddenly.
"Princeton, N. J., Sunday.
"Dear Mother: Yes, the Sophomoreshavehazed me a good many times since I first wrote about it, but I do not mind it much now. Honestly I do not. They mean it all in joke. You must not worry. I ought not to have told you anything about it. I am seldom homesick, and am very happy here at college."
"Dear Mother: Yes, the Sophomoreshavehazed me a good many times since I first wrote about it, but I do not mind it much now. Honestly I do not. They mean it all in joke. You must not worry. I ought not to have told you anything about it. I am seldom homesick, and am very happy here at college."
And so he was. For each hour of discomfort there were many other hours that were exceedingly comfortable and satisfactory, for he was working with all his might at what he had always wanted to work—he was getting a college education. And when all is said and done there is nothing like hard work and a good digestion to make a fellow happy. That is if the work is congenial and the food is good; and they were.
His work was so congenial that his recitationssometimes made the fellows in the front rows turn and look at him, the same fellows that had turned and looked at him during that first frightful recitation; but their faces wore different expressions now. He was getting a reputation for being one of the "keeners" of his division.
And as for his food, it was good—and so were the table-mates, for now that the shyness was rubbing off he was beginning to enjoy meeting and sitting down at the table with those dozen classmates more than any part of the day, if only that long, thin fellow who was studying for the ministry would not say, solemnly, after Young had handed the bread, "Thank you, marm." However, he did not mind even that quite so much as at first, because he was learning how to take good-natured chaff now, and, more than that, to answer it. And that is something one is likely to be taught at college if he learns nothing else.
The letter continued:
"A Junior manages, or runs, our club; that is, he gathered in us twelve Freshmen during the first day ortwo of the term, and brought us to Mrs. Brown's table. I told you how several club managers asked me to join their clubs the first day? Most of them were too expensive, though. This boarding system is a good bargain for the ladies who supply the tables, for they cannot collect the students themselves, and a good bargain for the managers, for they get their board free, and so save the largest item of expense at college."
"A Junior manages, or runs, our club; that is, he gathered in us twelve Freshmen during the first day ortwo of the term, and brought us to Mrs. Brown's table. I told you how several club managers asked me to join their clubs the first day? Most of them were too expensive, though. This boarding system is a good bargain for the ladies who supply the tables, for they cannot collect the students themselves, and a good bargain for the managers, for they get their board free, and so save the largest item of expense at college."
Young was finding out that there were, as the minister had told him, a great many fellows at college who had to consider items of expense seriously, but he was surprised to find it so hard to tell which ones did and which did not.
"Everybody talks as if he were 'dead broke' all the time, and you would think all were, to look at them. It is not the thing to dress well here. A student is made fun of if he tries it. I wear the black cut-away coat only on Sundays, as I used to, instead of every day, as you thought I should have to do. I did not have to buy a new hat. I bought a flannel cap instead, such as all the fellows wear."
"Everybody talks as if he were 'dead broke' all the time, and you would think all were, to look at them. It is not the thing to dress well here. A student is made fun of if he tries it. I wear the black cut-away coat only on Sundays, as I used to, instead of every day, as you thought I should have to do. I did not have to buy a new hat. I bought a flannel cap instead, such as all the fellows wear."
At first Young was rather shocked at the slouchy way these college men dressed, and he made up his mind that he would not wear corduroy trousers when he became an upper-classman.But there were not only many long months, but a very serious problem to go through with, before he became an upper-classman, or even a Sophomore. However, he had money enough in the bank to scrape along for awhile; the term was only just begun, and things might turn up before it ended, and meanwhile he did not want to think about that, because it always reminded him of his father's attitude in the matter. "Huh! We'll see how long you stay there with those dudes."
A fellow does not like to feel that he is doing something his father does not approve of, no matter how old or independent he is. Mr. Young had not once written a line to Will at college, and through Mrs. Young had only sent the most formal messages. The Freshman concluded that his father hated him. There came a time when he found how mistaken he was.
One day, about a week after college opened—though it seemed to Young more like seven weeks than seven days, because hehad seen and felt so many new things and, though he was not aware of it perhaps, because he had developed so much—at any rate, one afternoon just one week from the time he had first met Channing and his crew, Young heard about another new thing. This, too, resulted in developing him a good deal.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and he was on the way across the quadrangle after "English," no longer feeling lost or out of place on the campus, for he knew by this time nearly all its nooks and crannies and the names of most of the buildings. "There are 225 acres in the grounds," he had written home to Charlie in another cheerful sounding letter, "and we have over thirty buildings." And he told with pride something of the Revolutionary history of Nassau Hall, "the venerable brown building they called 'Old North,' once the largest building in this hemisphere and for a time the most important." But that was not the reason he felt so proud just now. It was because he was walking beside little "Lucky" Lee.
THE HERO OF THE BELL-CLAPPER.THE HERO OF THE BELL-CLAPPER.Lee was one of the most prominent and popular men in the class.
Lee was the class secretary and treasurer, and one of the most prominent and most popular men in the class. He had sprung into considerable class prominence when he sprang upon Young's shoulders that night in the rush. But the next night he climbed still higher and into greater fame by scaling the belfry of Old North at dead of night, where, with the aid of Stevens, his room-mate, he carried off the bell-clapper, "and that was a great thing, I tell you," Young wrote home.
"Of course, no Freshman class would be respected," Linton, the Junior, had explained the next time he and Nolan had come to "talk hall" with Will—who explained it to Charlie—"they'd be disgraced if they didn't steal the bell-clapper. The college authorities expect it to be done. They have a barrelful of new ones down in the cellar. When the rope is pulled and they find the bell doesn't ring, they simply fork out a new clapper and climb up and fasten it on, and then start in to ringing as though nothing unusual had happened."
None the less it was a daring deed, and Lee and Stevens had come within a small margin of getting caught by stealthy Matt Goldie, the chief proctor. But they weren't, and the big heavy clapper was now in the city of Trenton, being melted down into many diminutive souvenir clappers (to be worn as watch-charms by the whole class) at this very moment, while Lee was walking across the campus and Young beside him was hoping that the fellows who called him "Thank you, marm!" could see him now.
Just then "Minerva" Powelton, the recently chosen captain of the class baseball team, joined Lee and Young, or rather he joined Lee; he paid little attention to Young. He had been brought up to keep away from boys whose family he knew nothing of, and he considered Young beneath him in every way. He got over it in time.
"Say, Lucky," he said in a low tone, putting his arm fawningly around little Lee, "the Sophs will be getting out the procs pretty soon. We'd better watch out."
"Naw," said Lucky, with the convictionof superior knowledge. "Not till after Saturday's game, at the earliest. Why, in my brother's Freshman year they did not do it till after cane-spree."
"Well, we'd better keep our eyes peeled, all the same," said Captain Powelton.
Young looked sober and said nothing. To tell the truth, he did not know what they were talking about. Was it that the Sophs were going to turn the college proctors against them in some cowardly way? But what Saturday's baseball game between the two classes had to do with it he knew no more than what a cane-spree might be; and he walked home wondering.
That evening at the club one of the fellows—who, perhaps, had also overheard a conversation—said, in a pause, "I understand the Sophs will bring out the procs pretty soon."
Young was not so shy before his own crowd. "No, they won't," said he. "Not until after Saturday's baseball game."
"Why not, Young?" he was asked.
"What are the procs, anyway?" inquiredBarrows, at the foot of the table, who had been Young's champion on the first trip to the canal. He was a small, ingenuous fellow with a big head, and had taken a prize for passing the best entrance examinations from his State.
Young was about to laugh and own up that he did not know, when the Junior who ran the club cleared his throat and explained. He was fond of instructing these Freshmen. He had been very green himself two years before, and he knew how it felt. He also knew how impressive an upper-classman seems to the entering student.
"The two lower classes," he said, with a great deal of Junior dignity, "always get out proclamations on each other. It is one of the customs. The Sophs generally bring theirs out first; they are like big bill posters."
"What's on them?" asked Barrows.
"On them is printed a lot of nonsense in green type. They cast aspersions on you, call you fresh and green and heap ignominy on your prominent men and deride your eccentric characters."
"Well, where do they put them?" asked the one who brought up the subject.
"All over the State."
"What!"
"They paste them all over this town and its environs, on the blank walls and the sidewalks, and on every barn in the county, on wagons, on telegraph-poles, on freight-cars—not only that, but they go off to Trenton and New Brunswick and paste them all over the town and on freight-trains about to pull out."
"Well! what do we do all this time?" asked Young. Everyone was listening now.
"Pull them down," said the Junior, simply, "and soon afterward you get out a proc saying sarcastic things aboutthem, which they pull down, feeling very indignant, and then they haze you worse than ever. Please hand me the butter."
"But I still don't see," said Barrows, the small fellow with the big head, "what Saturday's baseball game has to do with it?"
"They wait until after that," replied the Junior, smiling, "in order to write verses onthe score and jeer you on being so badly beaten."
"Maybe we won't be beaten," said Barrows.
"I sincerely hope you won't," said the Junior, benignantly.
The series of inter-class baseball games lasting a week had begun as usual on the Monday previous. They are played so early in the term because football soon absorbs all athletic interest of the fall.
The Freshman class, which was large and had had many aspirants to athletic honors, had barely had time to pick out its nine, who were, so said the Junior class baseball captain who was coaching the players, unusually good material, but quite lacking in team play. This was only natural, as only three of them had ever seen each other a week before.
However, they made a very good showing against the Juniors on Tuesday, and by Thursday they had improved so much that they beat the lazy Seniors. To tell the truth the latter had not put a very ambitious team in the field, and played horse throughout thegame. But this encouraged the Freshmen wonderfully, and confidence was just what they needed. After the practice on Friday afternoon the Junior coach said, "I think you fellows will win to-morrow—ifyou don't get rattled," he added, shaking his head and thinking of his own Freshman year.
The Sophomore-Freshman game is the concluding match of the week, and is always the special event of the series, owing to the intense rivalry between the two lower classes. It is advertised in the bill-posters in letters twice as large as the other games, and many alumni gather from New York and Philadelphia to witness it, which makes the two lower classes feel quite important.
Great was the excitement in the Freshman class, and great was the hope of victory. The Sophomores, though they did not show it, were also excited, but they were blatantly confident of winning. It would be a terrible disgrace if they lost to the Freshmen.
Soon after the mid-day meal on Saturday the Freshman class marched down to University Field in a body, and sat there cheeringfor itself and its team all the afternoon.
Just before the game began the Sophomores, in a solid mass of orange and black, making a deafening lot of noise with college songs on kazoos, led by a big brass band, entered the field with banners waving, took possession of a solid section of the bleachers, derided the Freshmen, drowned out their cheers, guyed their batters, rattled their pitcher, and won the game by a score of 18 to 7. That night the country for miles round was scoured by faithful Freshmen. Not a proclamation was found.
The next night still a larger number of Freshmen lost half of their eight hours' sleep in the cause, and in vain.
The next afternoon Lucky Lee whispered to Young, coming out of mathematics: "The Sophomores get out their procs to-night, sure; they are being printed in Trenton—I have a detective down there who found out all about it. I want you to come up to my room in University Hall this evening after you have finished your 'poling'—I mean studying.Wear your old clothes. You'll come, won't you?"
Young had not been engaged in the previous nightly searches, and he had not intended to join in this one. But it was Lee. "I'll come," said Young—"soon's I get through 'poling,'" he added, for he wanted young Lee to know that he too understood college slang, even though he was a quiet Freshman. There was something fascinating to Young about that bright-faced little fellow. Everybody liked him.
The territory to be covered and the men to cover it had been divided up beforehand among a number of leaders, and when Lee had said, in talking it over in Powelton's room, "I'm going to get that man Young, he's a big, strong fellow," Powelton had said, "What, that big, awkward poler from the backwoods?—the man everybody guys? Bah! he hasn't any more class spirit than my pipe."
Everyone at college is called a student, but a poler is one who studies to excess.
"Poler or no poler," answered Lee, "he'sgot muscle all right, and he stood by me in the rush in great shape!"
Promptly at ten o'clock Young slammed shut his Homer and the Greek lexicon and started for University Hall, a big rambling place full of noisy, whistling students that scrape their feet along the wide carpetless corridors. He had done a good evening's work for himself; now he was going to work for Lee and for the class.
Some Sophomores at the foot of the third flight of stairs said, "Quack! quack! Freshmen!" as Young went by, but he did not mind that, and they did not dare do more because Sam, the night watchman, was downstairs in the main hall.
"Wasn't that Deacon Young?" said a man joining the group. "What did you let him go by for?"
It was Channing, of course, and he went hurrying upstairs after Young, to show off how bold he was.
"Channing certainly has nerve," said one of them.
By the time Channing caught up, Younghad turned down the narrow corridor which led to Lee's room.
"You'll have to come back," said Channing, in a matter-of-fact way, which made it all the more irritating. "Here! I said, 'come back.'"
Young might have done it ordinarily, but he had promised Lee to come to his room at ten o'clock and he was accustomed to keep his word; he did not even look around.
Channing, catching up with him, laid a hand on his arm, and said, sneeringly, "Come back, or it'll be worse for you," and called Young a name that he should have known better than to call anyone unless willing to fight in consequence.
For answer Young turned promptly about, grabbed the little Sophomore by the shoulders, then taking both wrists in one of his strong hands and shaking the other fist in his face, said, "You little reptile, you're too small for me to hurt, but I'll give you what I wanted to give you since I first laid eyes on you."
With that he quietly picked up the smallSophomore, turned him over his left knee and gave him a good sound spanking with his big right hand.
"There," he said, holding Channing upon his knee a moment. "That's what I think of you. Now run and tell everybody." And he gave him a gentle push which was not as gentle as he meant it to be.
Channing got up from the floor hastily, looked about, saw that no one was near, and then sneaked around the corner in a hurry toward the stairs. He hadn't said another word. As he drew near his friends he slackened up and began to whistle carelessly. "Couldn't find him," he said, "the old cow must have heard me coming, and scooted into some room." Inwardly he was thanking his stars he had not been seen.
But he had been seen. The door of one of the rooms along the hall had been ajar; two upper-classmen within had just put out their lights to go to bed, the whole scene had been enjoyed, and before Channing was many days older the whole college was to know the story.
Meanwhile Young had gone on to Lee's room, where he said nothing about what had happened. The room was full of Freshmen and when the door opened they were talking at a great rate about football in loud voices; but as soon as they saw it was not a Sophomore they began to talk in low tones about the procs again.
Lee said, "I don't know whether you know all these fellows," and began to introduce him in an informal way.
"Oh, yes, I know Young," said one of them. It was the football man who had been next to him in the rush. Others said, "I know your face—how are you, Young?" Some only nodded and then seemed to ignore him.
He felt a little constraint at first; some of these were prominent members of the class, and he felt that they had a poor opinion of him, but presently they all fell to talking about their plans so earnestly—and included Young in their glances occasionally—that soon he too began to get excited like the rest of them. He felt the thrill of a conspirator.
But they did not talk much longer, for Lee said: "Young and I are going to bed. You fellows had better sneak off and get some sleep too." He had already begun to undress. "You are to sleep here, Young," he added; "my room-mate has gone to Trenton to start out early from there."
The others were leaving—not all at once, for that would excite suspicion if any Sophomores might be passing by. They left in ones and twos.
"Good-night, Lucky, we'll see you later, good-night." Some of them remembered to say good-night to Young, too. "Good-night, old man," said one of them, a jolly fat fellow.
Young did not sleep very much, but Lucky was quite worn out and dropped off immediately, and then sprang half out of bed when the muffled alarm clock went off under his pillow. It was four o'clock. They were to meet the others at a spot on the Theological Seminary grounds at 4.30. From there they were to work their way down toward Trenton on the old stagecoachhighway and meet Stevens (Lee's room-mate) and the others coming up.
It did not take long to slip out of the room and into the silent corridor. The lights were all out. It was dead dark.
"Take hold of my arm," said Lee, "I know these corridors as well as our own house at home."
Their footsteps seemed to echo and re-echo as they went down the three flights of stairs.
The big clock in the hall ticking loudly showed thirteen minutes after four. "We have plenty of time," whispered Young, as Lee opened the front door.
The outside air was cold and damp; Young shivered as it struck his face. He was glad he had put on his blue flannel shirt, the one he used to plough corn in. It was black outside except for a symptom of dawn in the East, which made the darkness even more ghastly. Someone was walking somewhere. They could hear the footsteps on the pavement.
They reached the corner.
"What's that?" said Young.
"Where?" exclaimed Lee, in a whisper. He was one of the pluckiest men in the class, yet he jumped back a little.
"There," said Young, "on that tree-box. It's a proc."
"By George, you're right—the sneaks! They must have begun early."
It was too dark to make out anything but the first three lines in big letters:
"It hasn't been up long," said Young. "The paste is still wet." He began to tear it down.
"They must be near here," whispered Lee. "We'd better first go and meet——"
"Sist! who's that?" said a low voice in the darkness.
The two Freshmen stood motionless.
The voice now whispered, "Ninety-blank this way." It sounded friendly, but the thing for Young and Lee to do was not to waitto see whether it was friend or foe but turn, and run in opposite directions and then bring up afterward at their appointed meeting-place where the others were. That indeed was Lee's impulse, but, "Wait, it's one of our fellows," said Young, innocently, and just then several figures darted in at them and before Young or Lee could do anything more they were surrounded on all sides, seized by the arms and held tight.
"No use scrapping, fellows," said one of them in Young's ear, triumphantly. "We've got you, we've got you."
Just then the first figure walked close up to Young, turned the slide of a detective's dark-lantern, and remarked, calmly, as the dazzling light shone on Young's blinking eyes: "Yes, this is the old Deacon; well, well, that's good! that's good!"
It wasn't necessary to see the face. Young recognized the disagreeable, sneering voice.
It was all Young's fault that his little friend Lee was, like himself, in the embarrassing embrace of these Sophomores, and he knew it; and that worried him more than anything they might do to himself. This was a fine way to repay Lee for his kindness!
Channing was still sticking the lantern up close to Young's blinking eyes, and saying, mockingly, "Well, well, you poor old fool of a Deacon! you poor old pathetic fool."
If Young could only jerk himself free he thought he could snatch Lee away from the two Sophomores holding him and then in the darkness they could surely escape. There was everything to gain and nothing to lose in the attempt.
"Now," said Channing, "let's see who the other foolish Freshman is."
Then through Young's mind there darted the thought: "Now's the time! Their attention is diverted." The dazzling light had been taken off his eyes. At the same instant, and as quick as the flash of the lantern, he neatly whisked his arms out of the hands that held them, sprang backward, throwing, as he did so, the two startled Sophomores forward by the shoulders, and wheeled around toward Lee.
Now little Lee, you may be sure, was watching for a chance to make a dash for liberty. Hearing the scuffle of feet in front of him he tried a similar trick. But his captors also had heard the scuffle; instinctively they tightened their grasps. Lee shook off but one of them, whirled around, and started off; the smaller of the two Sophomores was hanging like a bull-dog to his left arm.
Young, half-blinded in the change to darkness from dazzling light, bumped into Lucky, hurriedly grabbed him by the free hand and away they dashed. It was not quite two seconds from when Young made his first jump to the time he was going down NassauStreet and making good speed considering that he was pulling Lee by the left hand, who in turn dragged unwillingly with the other hand the Sophomore whose knees were scraping the flagstones.
Of course, by this time the other Sophomores were after them—were now only a few yards behind and were gaining at every stride.
For about forty yards Young ran as he never ran before. The only hope was that the clinging Sophomore would get tired of sweeping Princeton pavements with his knees; a moment more and he would surely drop. "Stick to him," the other Sophomores were shouting in the dark. Two of the pursuers were almost up to them. Lee gave a furious wrench. It was a little too furious. He tripped and fell. Young slackened up and tried to pull Lee to his feet, but Lee purposely loosed his hand and cried, "I'm a goner, run!" At that instant two Sophomores dropped on him as they would on a rolling football and cut off his wind.
But Young did not run—he turned around to try and free his friend—a third Sophomore running at full speed tackled him furiously, as football players tackle. They both tripped over the bodies on the ground. Lee felt two more men come tumbling down in a tangle upon those already on him.
"We got 'em both, fellows," screamed one of the Sophomores in the darkness to the others behind.
"Are you hurt, Lee?" asked a voice near the back of his neck.
"How'd you—get—in this?" Lee panted. "Thought you were—block 'way by—this time."
Young was panting, too, so he only said, "No—still here." He had got Lee into this mess and he meant to stick by him.
The Sophomores, keeping tight hold of Lee and tighter hold of Young, slowly arose, allowing their recaptured prisoners to stand up.
"I hope you're not hurt, Lee?" asked one of them in a somewhat sympathetic voice. He still kept tight hold of the Freshman, however.
"Nope, I reckon not," said Lee, who hadn't been playing football since the age of twelve for nothing.
They all leaned against the fence and panted for a moment
Young made out nearly a dozen Sophomores in the half-dark.
Lee stopped panting and smiled. "Well, what are you going to do with us?" he asked, grimly.
"Shut up, Freshman, that's our business," said one of them. It was the same man that had asked Lee if he was hurt a moment before.
"So, Deacon," said Channing, "youwouldn'tcome back when we told you to, you old hay-seed Deacon!"
Young knew what he referred to, but only looked sober and said nothing, as usual.
"Well, well," went on Channing, "so you two proc.-hunters thought you'd get away, didn't you? Too bad, too bad; teaches Freshmen a good lesson: little boys must not be out at night. It's not nice."
"Well, Channing, where shall we put thesetwo foolish virgins?" asked a gruff voice. The dawn was coming in and Young and Lee saw that it was that big Ballard.
Now, it was customary on occasions of this sort to take all prisoners to some room, generally right there in University Hall, and lock them up for the rest of the night, and that's what the Sophomores would have done in this case but for Channing. "Put them!" replied Channing, indignantly, "we sha'n't put them anywhere until we have dealt out due chastisement for their rash impudence in trying to escape from their lawful lords and masters. Am I not right? They should make recompense for the trouble they have given us." It was Channing's usual vein.
"Aw, see here, Chan," said one of the others, "we've got a lot of work still to do and it's getting light already. We can't stop to do any hazing. Let's lock them up in George Black's room."
But Channing was not going to let this opportunity slip by for getting square for what Young had done only a few hours previous.He did not know that there had been witnesses to the spanking—as yet. "Let the prisoners follow," he said, and he led the way back to the corner where the two parties had met.
Near by, on the ground beside the iron fence, stood a bucket of paste, a big brush, and a roll of proclamations. Young and Lee had not seen them before.
"Here are paste and proclamations," said Channing, "and here are strong hands and willing. What is to hinder the strong hands being set to work? Arise, Freshmen, gird up your loins and paste procs, for the day soon cometh when no man can paste."
"Right," said the others, smiling. "Kill two birds with one stone."
Little Lee fairly gasped to himself: "Going to make us paste procs—procs against our own class!"
Ballard, who had apparently just got the idea through his head, began to laugh, and said, "That's a good scheme, Chan, haw, haw, haw!"
"Don't laugh so loud," said Channing."Come on, Freshmen, that blank wall across the street is a good place to begin."
They were led across the street to the corner grocery store. A tight hold was kept on Young and Lee this time.
"Now, this is the way it is done." Channing quickly and rather daintily pasted up a proclamation.
By this time it was light enough for the letters to show green, and the Freshmen read the thing.
Up near the top Lee, the class secretary, was called "a puppy drum major" and "Mamma's blue-eyed baby boy, the little toy secretary." In the portion in finer type, beneath the slurs on the baseball team and the arrogant prohibitions against the wearing of the college colors and silk-hats and the smoking of pipes and carrying of canes, Young spied his own name.
"Next in the line of freaks," it said, "will amble that poor, meek butt of all classes, Deacon Young, the overgrown baby of Squeedunk, who always does everything you tell him to, and says 'Thank you, marm!'"
"That means me," thought Young, scowling, as he remembered how important he had always been considered by everyone out at home. "What would they think of me now, I wonder?"
Channing had finished his work.
"Now then," he said, and unfolded another proc and advanced toward the Freshmen. "Don't all speak at once, children; will Little Willie Young show us how they handle the brush when they whitewash the fences on the farm?"
"Naw, let the class secretary do it first," interrupted Ballard, in his rough voice.
Though the crowd had often hazed Lee they had always found him such a bright, good-natured little chap that Ballard was never allowed to humble him as much as since the rush he had always wanted to. Here was a fine chance. Young could wait; it was not much fun to haze Young, anyway, he was so meek.
"Get to work there now, Secretary," Ballard shouted in his loud voice. He did not have brains enough, Young thought, to besarcastic, but he had plenty of lungs. "Close in around them, fellows."
Of course the Freshmen required the use of their hands if they were to paste procs, so the two were shoved in toward the wall and the dozen Sophomores with locked arms formed a semi-circle about them. It would be out of the question for the two to try and escape now.
Young and Lee were standing by the paste-bucket with their backs to the Sophomores, who were about twelve feet away from them.
"Come, get to work there, little boys," said Channing. "You and Young have nearly fifty more to paste before breakfast."
"Hurry up there," Ballard echoed, shouting in a tone to wake the neighborhood.
Just then a lazy voice was heard. "Heads out! Sophomores are making Freshmen paste procs! heads out—, everybody look!" It was a Senior leaning from an upstairs window of University Hall. He was in his pajamas.
Meantime, Ballard, who loved to show hispower, had stepped arrogantly into the ring saying, "Do you hear what I say, you little fool! Pick up that brush and get to work."
"Heads out, everybody, heads out! Lots of fun," cried the sleepy-looking Senior.
Windows began to open and frowsy heads and yawning faces to stick out from all over the University Place side of the big building.
Lee thought, with true loyal horror, of how, if he should do as Ballard said, the Sophomores would taunt him forever afterward. He fancied how his own classmates would feel about it when they heard that their secretary had aided in posting those scurrilous proclamations. But what was there to do? He had only one classmate with him and there were a dozen Sophomores about him—no, eleven, for the twelfth was now standing close beside him, shaking a big fist in his face and saying, "See here, you little fool, are you going to do what I tell you or not?"
Little Lee calmly looked up into Ballard's face and said, "No, and you can't make me."
"You'll see whether I can make you or not," returned Ballard, and with that he grabbed the little fellow by the coat-collar and shaking him back and forth roared, "Now, you little fool, you paste that proc or I'll paste you on the jaw with this fist." Possibly he really meant to do it, but, at any rate, he did not, for just then Young cried: "No, you won't, Ballard! No, you won't! Don't you shake him that way; don't you lay hands on him; don't you touch him." The voice was very high and earnest.
"Yea-a. Good enough for you, big Freshman." The upper-classmen were becoming interested. By this time in the windows across the street were about twenty lookers-on. Ballard knew that, and he was a Sophomore. Young was a Freshman. He laughed scornfully. "What have you got to do with it, you big, overgrown baby?"
"I'll show you what I've got to do with, you big bully." Young's voice trembled. "Let go that boy," and much to everyone's astonishment the Freshman took hold of theSophomore very much as Ballard had hold of Lee.
At this, Ballard, in sheer astonishment that any Freshman should have the audacity to touch him, Ballard, the centre rush of the Sophomore team, dropped Lee, wrenched away from Young and whirled around toward him with fist drawn up in fighting position, dancing up and down, and saying, "You impudent pup of a Freshman, you impudent pup!"
["Yea-a! big scrap!" shouted those upstairs—"Aw! Freshman's afraid."]
Now, Young considered himself the better man, but all he wanted was to make Ballard let go of Lee, and he had succeeded.
["Aw! Freshman's bluffed out—too bad!"]
Ballard had turned once more toward Lee. "Get to work," he bawled.
Lee stood still.
Ballard drew back as if to demolish the little fellow. "Now," he began—but just then in ran Young. His unclenched hands were stuck out awkwardly in front of him;it made the upper-classmen in the windows shout with laughter; some of the Sophomores in the ring giggled excitedly. Young did not hear it. He guarded off one blow, was struck on the chest by the second, dodged the third—and as he ducked, he plunged in and grappled.
They clinched and began to wrench and twist and scuffle about the ring; the rest of the Sophomores falling back to keep out of the way whenever the two big fellows came over too near the edge.
Now, Young was no boxer, but he had, like many another country boy, wrestled ever since he first put on trousers, and he had not forgotten all his tricks. He made a feint as if to try a hip throw, then slipped his arms down on Ballard, twisted his feet around, threw his chin and his weight forward, and down they both came, Young on top, while the voices up in University Hall yelled approvingly: "The Freshman is doing him! the Freshman is doing him!" This made Ballard beside himself with rage.
But Young having proved himself the betterman, released Ballard quickly, jumped up, stepped across to Lee, and in a sober manner was saying, "Now, Lee, I think——" when a staggering blow from Ballard's fist on the half-turned face nearly upset Young, who was entirely unprepared for this unexpected attack; he might have fallen but for Lee.
Up to this point Young, though very much in earnest, had been quite cool and deliberate. But now, with the cowardly blow stinging on his face, he became infuriated. He turned and charged at Ballard like one of the bulls on his father's farm, with his head down and regardless of consequences. His eyes were wide open and teeth set. His fury gave him double strength.
Paying no more attention to Ballard's blows than to so many raindrops, he dived down and grasped him around the middle, lifted him up, got him on the right hip, and whirled him over and down upon the ground between the sidewalk and the curbstone, a full, clean throw.
The men up in the windows were nowreally excited, "Good enough, Freshman! good enough! Served him right! Do it again!"