"Harry, do you remember our serenade at the residence, after they returned from Washington the first time?"
"No," answered Rice, "I remember, but I wasn't there. We played a game somewhere that day and I stayed over and missed the fun."
"Tell us about it, Ralph," said Duncan, as he emptied the cubes of cheese into the chafing-dish.
"Well, you see," said Shirlock, unbraiding himself from two affectionate under-classmen on the couch and sitting up in the light, "the story really begins with the first football game, which came off in the spring of '92, and was ours, as every Freshman can tell you, even though he doesn't know just what is meant by 'Pioneers.' The day of the game, Whittemore, the captain, got a telegram from Washington wishing us luck in our first encounter, and that afternoon we sent back answer in much the same style that Cæsar used on one occasion—I suppose the little man to my left here can give me the Latin words?" he added, rumpling the hair of a horizontal Freshman.
"Not long afterward the Senator and Mrs. Stanford came back from the East and someone over in the Hall proposed that we give them a welcome home. We could get a bigger demonstration there in those days than you can now, I'll bet; you know everybody who was anybody at all lived in Encina then; that was the center of the College life, politics began and grew up there, and it was over there in the old lobby that we started the Stanford spirit. Things were great, that first year. It's all right enough here by our own fireside, with our own little gang, but I tell you honestly if things could have lasted as they were that first year, I wouldn't have wanted to come over here. We were all together, right in line for everything, wise or foolish."
"It was the student body then, all right," put in Rice, "and we had the Faculty with us too whether we were around the gridiron, where they first had it, east of the cinder path, you know, learning the yell and incidentally getting the team into condition for that 14-10, or whether we were crawling by our lonelies through the fence over in the vineyard."
"The days of grapes,
The days of scrapes,"
sang Pellams from the piano.
"Were there any profs on that flat-car?" interrupted Duncan. He had come into College while a memory of that pioneer adventure yet lingered.
"It's unkind to remind us of that affair! No, I don't think there were. The Faculty had their fun later, and we put mourning wreaths on several chairs in the dining-room."