Along both sides of the streets walked a crowd of onlookers: upper-classmen in flannel clothes seeming mildly interested in what was to them an old story; little town boys in short trousers shouting "Ray for de Freshmans!" and looking forward with excitement to what was never an old story to them. The shopkeepers were standing in their doors to see them pass. Upstairs windows opened and heads stuck out.
In a pause between the verses of a song Young heard, far off in the distance, the quick eager: "Ray! Ray! Ray! Tiger, siss, boom, ah!" of the short cheer. It was much more sharply and crisply given than the cheers he had joined in, and on the end of it came the numerals of the Sophomore class.
Now, he had understood vaguely that there was to be some sort of contest between his class and the Sophomores, but this blatant, confident cheer away off somewhere in the distant, indefinite darkness, gave him a start; just for a moment he felt frightened. He was not the only one.
"Oh, we'll do 'em," said the man next to Young.
"Dead easy!" said Young, this time.
They had passed the first gate by the Dean's house and were marching in good order down the broad old street.
"Column right—wheel!" said the Junior in front, and they turned in at the carriage entrance.
Before he quite realized it Young found himself walking on the soft, green turf of the campus itself.
The singing had ceased. The talking stopped now. Nothing could be heard but the "tr'm, tr'm, tr'm," of many feet taking many steps at the same instant.
"Halt!" said one of the Juniors in a whisper. "Form close ranks—lock step." The long line began to concentrate.