“O, O, O! Dear, dear old days, love!”
the clanging of a hand bell and intermittent revolver shots. These were only a few of all the riot of sounds spreading through the night air, over the campus and bursting out of the dormitory windows on every side of me. While I sat wondering how a hundred or so of faculty could ever bring seriousness out of such a chaos of youthful energy, I heard a chug underneath my window as a truckman hurled a trunk to the sidewalk: my trunk. Immediately I went on the campus, discovered two Freshmen, and with all the abandon of a Junior that I could muster for the occasion, I coolly invited them to assist me in carrying the heavily loaded trunk up the three flights of stairs. So conformed to the fagging custom were the Freshmen, that when one of them unfortunately sliced his finger on a loose nail and I commiserated him on it, he said, keeping his grip on the trunk, meanwhile,
“Nothing at all, sir. Nothing at all.”
Next morning the trio of bell chimes, in the tower of the college chapel, hurled clanging, throbbing scales-of-three over the quiet campus. Immediately from the doorways of dormitories, boarding clubs, and the Commons, appeared chatting groups of students who took the paths across the campus towards the first chapel service. From the North, the South, the East and the West they hurried; hundreds and hundreds of well-dressed youths, arm in arm or four and five abreast as they walked.
The choir, transepts and gallery were soon crowded, almost to suffocation. The morning sun in trying to break through the windows into the dimness merely glorified the pictured saints, and prophets, shepherds and sheep. The gowned organist played a part of the grand finale of The Pilgrim’s Chorus. The gowned figure of the President arose and stood silent a second while a wave of reverent stillness swept through the chapel. Scripture followed hymn, and a simple prayer was followed by a general confession. Then the organ burst into a triumphant recessional, and the students noisily crowded down the aisles into the open air. The day’s work was begun, having had invoked on it the blessing from the Author of all Truth, and the Creator of that World which throughout the days and years, has had such fascination for students and professors, of Science, of Art and Faith.
In the confusion of the multitude of students, most of them strangers to me, I felt the futility of my social ambitions. In Evangelical University and in the theological seminary I had been in the midst of small groups of students, whose names, characteristics and acquaintance could be compassed in a few short weeks. But the vast procession of young men which blackened the greensward of the campus that morning dismayed me. It seemed that mere hand-shaking and saying to each individual member of it, “I am glad to know you!” would demand months and months of time. It was a new experience, too, after the simple democracy in my previous schools, to have those who were my classmates and college associates, pass me without a word of morning greeting, without a lift of the eyes.
But that was only the first day!
The second morning, as I sat in the chapel, I chanced to have my attention attracted by a curious fingering of paper. It was the student next to me who had some blank sheets of paper in his hands which he shuffled intermittently and over which he kept passing the ball of his forefinger. The organ had not ceased its prelude, and the students had not ceased entering the chapel, so I paid a stricter attention to the strange recreation of my companion. Though he shuffled his blank papers with great skill and fingered their surfaces with scientific regularity, his eyes—wide, staring ones,—were kept fixed on the President’s pulpit—never once did they turn on my inquisitiveness or towards the papers.
One of the students then slipped by me and took a vacant seat next to this shuffler of papers. As soon as he was seated, however, he bent forward and said, to me,
“Your name’s Priddy, isn’t it? I’m Sanderson, the monitor who keeps the attendance of this section. By the way, have you met Quarles? Quarles,” he said to the student who was shuffling the papers, “meet Priddy, your classmate!” Quarles, without taking his eyes from their fixed stare on the President’s pulpit, extended me his hand, and said, in a very quiet voice,