While the upper-classmen were singing the last stanza the freshmen slowly closed in on the dying fire. At the first word of the cheer, they stopped, turned toward the grand stand, and joined the cheering. That over, they broke and ran for the bleachers, scrambling up the wooden stands, shoving each other out of the way, laughing and shouting.
The football captain usually made a short and very awkward speech, which was madly applauded; perhaps the coach said a few words; two or three cheers were given; and finally every one rose, took off his hat if he wore one—nearly every one but the freshmen went bareheaded—and sang the college hymn, simply and religiously. Then the crowd broke, straggling in groups across the campus, chatting, singing, shouting to each other. Suddenly lights began to flash in the dormitory windows. In less than an hour after the first cry of "Peerade!" the men were back in their rooms, once more studying, talking, or playing cards.
It was the smoker rallies, though, that Hugh found the most thrilling, especially the last one before the final game of the season, the "big game" with Raleigh College. There were 1123 students in Sanford, and more than 1000 were at the rally. A rough platform had been built at one end of the gymnasium. On one side of it sat the band, on the other side the Glee Club—and before it the mass of students, smoking cigarettes, corn-cob pipes, and, occasionally, a cigar. The "smokes" had been furnished free by a local tobacconist; so everybody smoked violently and too much. In half an hour it was almost impossible to see the ceiling through the dull blue haze, and the men in the rear of the gymnasium saw the speakers on the platform dimly through a wavering mist.
The band played various Sanford songs, and everybody sang. Occasionally Wayne Gifford, the cheer-leader, leaped upon the platform, raised a megaphone to his mouth, and shouted, "A regular cheer for Sanford—a regular cheer for Sanford." Then he lifted his arms above his head, flinging the megaphone aside with the same motion, and waited tense and rigid until the students were on their feet. Suddenly he turned into a mad dervish, twisting, bending, gesticulating, leaping, running back and forth across the platform, shouting, and finally throwing his hands above his head and springing high into the air at the concluding "San—FORD!"
The Glee Club sang to mad applause; a tenor twanged a ukulele and moaned various blues; a popular professor told stories, some of them funny, most of them slightly off color; a former cheer-leader told of the triumphs of former Sanford teams—and the atmosphere grew denser and denser, bluer and bluer, as the smoke wreathed upward. The thousand boys leaned intently forward, occasionally jumping to their feet to shout and cheer, and then sinking back into their chairs, tense and excited. As each speaker mounted the platform they shouted: "Off with your coat! Off with your coat!" And the speakers, even the professor, had to shed their coats before they were permitted to say a word.
When the team entered, bedlam broke loose. Every student stood on his chair, waved his arms, slapped his neighbor on the back or hugged him wildly, threw his hat in the air, if he had one—and, so great was his training, keeping an eye on the cheer-leader, who was on the platform going through a series of indescribable contortions. Suddenly he straightened up, held his hands above his head again, and shouted through his megaphone: "A regular cheer for the team—a regular cheer for the team. Make it big—BIG! Ready—!" Away whirled the megaphone, and he went through exactly the same performance that he had used before in conducting the regular cheer. Gifford looked like an inspired madman, but he knew exactly what he was doing. The students cheered lustily, so lustily that some of them were hoarse the next day. They continued to yell after the cheer was completed, ceasing only when Gifford signaled for silence.
Then there were speeches by each member of the team, all enthusiastically applauded, and finally the speech of the evening, that of the coach, Jack Price. He was a big, compactly built man with regular features, heavy blond hair, and pale, cold blue eyes. He threw off his coat with a belligerent gesture, stuck his hands into his trousers pockets, and waited rigidly until the cheering had subsided. Then he began:
"Go ahead and yell. It's easy as hell to cheer here in the gym; but what are you going to do Saturday afternoon?"
His voice was sharp with sarcasm, and to the shouts of "Yell! Fight!" that came from all over the gymnasium, he answered, "Yeah, maybe—maybe." He shifted his position, stepping toward the front of the platform, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.
"I've seen a lot of football games, and I've seen lots of rooters, but this is the goddamndest gang of yellow-bellied quitters that I've ever seen. What happened last Saturday when we were behind? I'm asking you; what happened? You quit! Quit like a bunch of whipped curs. God! you're yellow, yellow as hell. But the team went on fighting—and it won, won in spite of you, won for a bunch of yellow pups. And why? Because the team's got guts. And when it was all over, you cheered and howled and serpentined and felt big as hell. Lord Almighty! you acted as if you'd done something."