WORK—PLAY—"PROCS"
"Princeton, N. J., Sunday.
"Dear Mother: Yes, the Sophomores have hazed 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 recitations sometimes 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 or two 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."
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 he had 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.
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 conviction of 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?" inquired Barrows, 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 about them, 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 on the 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 the game. 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—if you 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 cheering for 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's got 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, Young had 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 small Sophomore, 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 stagecoach highway 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.
"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:
"ATTENTION!
YE FOUL AND FOOLISH FREAKS
OF FRESHMEN!"
"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 wait to 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.