Phillip looked frightened.
“I reckon you’d better let me have that end seat,” he said dejectedly. “I don’t know how to talk about Emerson or Thoreau. I didn’t even know he pronounced his name that way—Thoreau, I mean. They’ll think I’m an awful fool, won’t they?”
“Cheer up!” laughed Kingsford. “Maybe they won’t guess it. Anyhow, I promise not to tell.”
On the Tuesday evening preceding the game Phillip went with Chester and Guy to the Union and fought his way with them to seats in the rear of the Common Room, denuded of its rugs and tables and easy-chairs for the occasion. The room was crowded to suffocation long before the meeting was to begin, and the air was blue with tobacco smoke that wreathed and eddied fantastically about the big chandelier of spreading antlers. The enthusiasm was already bubbling, and the fellows were whistling softly and talking and rustling the slips on which were printed the words of the songs they were to practise. A platform had been erected at one end of the room, in front of the big fireplace and under the bust of John Harvard, and onto it there presently filed the speakers and an assortment of coaches. The Senior Class President, as master of ceremonies, led the cheering that thundered up against the paneled walls and ceiling: first for the President of the University; then for a well-loved and kindly faced man whose generosity had made possible the building of the Union; then for another who had given liberally; and then for the coaches, one after another, and the team, and, lastly, for “Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!”
The speakers spoke, the band played, and 1,400 men cheered joyously. Phillip looked about him at the earnest faces bent forward in close attention to the speakers or thrown slightly back to give vent to the deep-voiced cheers and felt an odd, unaccustomed warming at the heart and a sort of tingling in his veins. There was an atmosphere of comradeship there that was good to feel. He wondered if the others were experiencing the same glow of good-fellowship and patriotism that he was. He was certain Chester was. As to Guy he could not be so sure. He was leaning back with half-closed eyes, puffing hard on a little blackened briar pipe. For awhile Phillip forgot the speaker and his eyes ranged about the room, seeking out the panels which, here and there, were carved with the names of men whom their alma mater was proud to so honour. Perhaps, he dreamed, some day his own name would stand out from one of the oaken panels. He picked one out, modestly choosing one far up in a corner, and tried to picture the words “Phillip Scott Ryerson” thereon, and wondered whether the decorations would be of oak leaves or laurel or what.
His musings were suddenly interrupted by a burst of long-drawn “A-a-ays,” that soft, exhaled applause peculiar to college men. Then the cheers burst forth again, and the fellow on his left, a fellow whom he had never seen before, brought his hand down with a resounding smack on Phillip’s knee; and then, instead of apologizing, only smiled and nodded; and Phillip smiled back as though it was quite the most natural thing in the world. After the speeches were finished the band had its innings, and the junior who had borne the crimson megaphone in the march to the field climbed onto the platform and told them earnestly that the singing had got to be improved and that they would start off with “Glory for the Crimson,” and please wouldn’t every fellow learn all the songs by heart? And every fellow declared loudly that he would; and the band struck up, the leader waved his hands and the assembly broke forth into:
“Raise the Crimson ensign to the place it held of yore!
In the loyal spirit that shall live forevermore!
The sun will set in Crimson as the sun has set before!
For this is Harvard’s day!”
After it was all over, after they had stood and sung “Fair Harvard” through—most of them repeating the words of the first verse over and over, for the reason that it is a matter of precedent never to know anything but the first verse—after he had dropped Guy in the square, Phillip went home and, seizing pen and paper impatiently, told “Dear little Mamma and Margey” all about it.