Princeton Stories

by Jesse Lynch Williams

But there were some fellows who could do both. Some fellows stood high in the class and were in with everybody besides. Why could not he be like that? This question came to him quite suddenly in junior year, and he tipped his head to one side and began to think about it. He kept on thinking.

He was still thinking about it one Sunday afternoon in chapel when big Jack Stehman, the tackle, came stalking down the aisles and threw himself down beside Stacy, and the oak creaked. He was fresh and clean and rosy from a long 'cross country tramp, and he said, "Hello, Stace," in a hearty whisper. It was not from policy like the smiling hello of a man a few pews in front, but because he felt like it. Stacy enjoyed being saluted in that way, and if the big fellow grabbed and pinched his thin leg he would beam for the rest of the hour, even though he found a blue spot there at night when he undressed in Edwards Hall.

It was because of his way of saying hello, as much as his great football record, that Stehman was one of the most popular men in college, and nobody worshipped him more than did Stacy, not even the freshman who gazed across the pews and wondered what it would be like to be on familiar terms with a man of that sort. Stacy had at one time feared that there was something sinful in his own admiration; Stehman was a fourth-group man.

He was thinking that his big class-mate looked just as strong and clean and good as during the season. Just then Timberly, in the pew behind, lay hold of Stehman's hair, drew his head back against the rail, and then rubbed his own vigorously against Stehman's. "Little Jackie's had his long locks cut, hasn't he?" he said. His teeth were gritted and there was a sweet caress in his Southern voice, for he loved his good pal Jack Stehman, though he would have called you profane things if you had accused him of it. Stehman smiled, and said, "Let go, Timber, you ass, the organ has stopped."

Little Stacy, watching this out of the corner of his glasses, said, solemnly, "I'd give my first group for that," and then bowed his head in prayer. He thought about it all through the service instead of listening as he should have done to a returned missionary who told how many widows there were in India under thirteen years of age, and other interesting things.

The next day, when he walked with Stehman from a lecture by the Dean on Robert Southey, he tried to catch his friend's tone of hello. Jack said it to about fifty men between Dickinson Hall and Reunion, and it sounded as though he were glad to see everyone of them, and he was. Stacy liked to be seen with the big fellow. But he did not blush and keep silent as in sophomore year when he was first permitted to walk with him. He tried to show everyone that he was used to it.

This time something happened. When they reached the place where the stone walks meet, in front of South Reunion, Stehman put a big hand on his shoulder, and said, "Stace, will you dine with me this evening?—Oh, yes, you can. I have an engagement in Dougal's room now. I'll yell for you on the way to the club. So long." Stacy opened his mouth and gazed after him until out of sight. Then he shut it and started for his room. This was unexpected.

He had often thought about these large swell clubs with their elective membership, and he had walked by the houses when the members were lounging out in front. He had heard snatches of songs and the click of billiard-balls from within, and he wondered what they did and said and how it looked inside. And now he was going to see one of them, the one he admired the most of all.

At his own little eating club, he and the others said that many of the club men were snobs, and declared that they would have nothing to do with them. He wondered if his friends envied them in secret, as he did. At any rate he would not dread answering them the next morning when they asked, "Where were you for dinner?"

When he reached his room he changed his necktie for a more becoming one. At least he thought it was. And he put on his new, heavy, tan shoes, like those Stehman and so many fellows wore. He would show them that he knew things. Then he sat down and wrote to his sister Fannie about it, as he did once before with a trembling hand, when he won that essay prize in Hall and came late to dinner in consequence, and all the fellows cried, "Yea-a, Stacy, Sophomore essay prize!" He had pointed out that club to Fannie when she and his mother came over at Commencement, and he had told her that Stehman was in that one. She knew who Stehman was.