In your first day at school you will be shown your room; in your room you will find a sad-eyed fat girl. You will be told that this will be your room mate for the year. You will find that you have drawn a blank, that she comes from Topeka, Kan., that her paw made his money in oil, and that she is religious. You will be nice to her for the first week, because you aren’t taking any chances at the start; you will tolerate her for the rest of the year, because she will do your lessons for you every night.
Across the hall from you there will be two older girls who are back for their second year. One of them will remind you of the angel painted on the ceiling of the Victory Theatre back home, until she starts telling about her summer at Narragansett; from the other you will learn how to inhale.
A VISITOR FROM PRINCETON
About the middle of the first term your cousin Charley Waldron, that freshman at Princeton, will write and say that he would like to come up and see you. You go to Miss French and ask her if you can have your cousin visit you. She sniffs at the “cousin” and tell’s you that she must have a letter from Charley’s father, one from Charley’s minister, one from the governor of your state, and one from some disinterested party certifying that Charley has never been in the penitentiary, has never committed arson, and is a legitimate child. After you have secured these letters, Miss French will tell you that Charley will be allowed to see you next Saturday from four till five.
Charley will come and will be ushered into the reception room. While he is sitting there alone, the entire school will walk slowly, one by one, past the open door and look in at him. This will cause Charley to perspire freely and to wish to God he had worn his dark suit.
It is not at all likely that you will be allowed to go to New Haven during your first year, which is quite a pity, as this city, founded in 1638, is rich in historical interest. It was here, for example, in 1893, that Yale defeated Harvard at football, and the historic Pigskin which was used that day is still preserved intact. Many other quaint relics are to be seen in and around the city of elms, mementos of the past which bring to the younger generation a knowledge and respect for things gone. In the month of June, for example, there is really nothing which quite conjures up for the college youth of today a sense of the mutability and impermanence of this mortal life so much as the sight of a member of the class of 1875 after three days’ intensive drinking. Eheu fugaces!
“Who shall write first?” is a question that has perplexed many a lady or gentleman who is anxious to do the correct thing under any circumstances. A lady who has left town may send a brief note or a “P. P. C.” (“pour prendre congé,” i.e., “to take leave”) card to a gentleman who remains at home, if the gentleman is her husband and if she has left town with his business partner. Neither the note nor the card requires an acknowledgment, but many a husband takes pleasure in penning his congratulations to the lady, concluding with an expression of gratitude to his friend.