Someone started a song, and they had another drink to punctuate the pause between verses. A ruddier shade was creeping towards the roots of Pellams' hair; Lyman, who smiled but seldom, was grinning across the table at a Sophomore trying to flip cracker crumbs into his mouth.
"This is a tryout," said Pellams. "The first man that balks at his beer will drink raspberry chasers for a month. Hey! look at 'Nosey' Marion trying to shirk!"
Sure enough, Marion, who tried to keep up a reputation for capacity with a naturally slim endowment, was slyly pouring his last potion into an empty beer-case behind him. They fell upon the offender forthwith, whipped him into the ranks again, and resumed their seats, laughing and panting.
"And now that our erring brother is punished and forgiven—that's as good a phrase as I ever saw—punished and forgiven—stick that in the Sequoia, Pegasus"—Pellams rambled on, "we've got to have the motif. I move from the chair that the guest of the evening gives us 'My Old Kentucky Home!' Punish your glass and tune up, Jimmie!"
The cry went on until Jimmie had to respond. He began with the intention of singing it quite carelessly, because there was much in his soul that night that he dared not show before them all; but Jimmie had the gift of song in his heart as in his voice, and he threw himself into the music before the first stanza was half done. Only once before had he sung the song as he did to-night; it was at last Commencement, when he sang it for the Seniors going out on their adventures, and when he was done they had all been still and quiet like men who have seen ghosts—as perhaps they had, that night, the phantoms of men and times haunting certain low, arched buildings they were to see no more.
"Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"
Jimmie's tender baritone floated up from the table wistfully sweet, and shaken a little with feeling, for the trouble of the week just past was sweeping into it. Lyman, listening, knew of what place the boy was singing, and mentally noted that he had better be thoughtful of the youngster during the rest of the term.
The fellows were quiet for a moment after they had droned out the chorus, each one putting his own meaning into that sweet old song of farewell, and then, to break the charm, a small voice with a Spanish roll in it, piped "Tamales!" at the crack in the door.
"Hey!—Lupe!—make him sing!"
They raided the stock first, and rendered happy with the jingle of silver the quaint little remnant of the race who named their valley for the blessed Santa Clara. Then, when he had counted it and put it safely away with the officious assistance of Pellams Rex, they set him on the table in his blue overalls and over-sized hat and made him sing for them in his pathetic treble, "La Paloma," and for encore, "Two Leetle Girl een Bloo." Pellams removed him after that, claiming that Langdon was about to tell the story of his life, which could not be published in the Sequoia.