Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

by Waldron Kintzing Post

After this broadside Rivers went on with his rowing in a better spirit than he had shown during that year. Before long he was immensely cheered up also by the promise of a position with a good salary and chance of advancement, that was to be ready for him right after the boat-race. Jack Rattleton, through his father, had succeeded in getting this for him. His absorbing devotion to his rowing fortunately did not prevent him from getting his degree but he lost a cum laude and had to "take his A.B. straight," as Burleigh said, "without any green leaves or nutmeg in it."

There was another piece of parchment made out for Commencement Day, that was a surprise to every one. It was marked Johannes Rattleton.

II.

Class Day and Commencement were over, and every one was now bound for New London to attend the post-Commencement carnival that, for the undergraduate at least, really winds up the college year. The crew had gone down to their quarters at Gale's Ferry two weeks before; there had been no Class Day for them. The faithful flocked to the Thames' mouth in squads and divisions, and by all sorts of methods, some in big yachts, some in cat-boats, others on coaches, but most by train at special rates, for the undergraduate is usually not rolling in wealth, particularly at the end of June. The fresh graduate who has just paid his Commencement bills is still less apt to do any coaching or yachting except by invitation.

Dick Stoughton however had a small sloop, and he and his friends had decided that the cruise would not "break" them, and at any rate that they would make it whether it broke them or not. It would be cheaper to live aboard, they argued very plausibly, than to get swindled by New London hotel-keepers. They would refrain from betting on the race; then if Yale won they would be no worse off financially, and if the Crimson went to the front they would not spend twice their winnings on the spot, as they would be sure to do if they bet. This was a highly praiseworthy resolution, and of course the most sensible way of looking at the folly of betting. Burleigh said it was easy enough to look at anything sensibly. They would go, then, on Dick's sloop, and they would not bet a cent. They went on the sloop. The party was made up of Stoughton, Hudson, Randolph, Burleigh, and Gray. Holworthy did not go; he had taken a room in New London at the Pequot House, and went there immediately after Class Day, as he wanted to see all he could of Rivers at the quarters. Strange to say, Jack Rattleton also refused all persuasion to join his friends on the cruise. In vain did Ned Burleigh, with tears in his eyes, assure him that it would be the last and most beautiful "toot" of his college course. Jack advanced several good but utterly insufficient and unnatural reasons for "shaking the gang." Ned exhorted him more in sorrow than in anger.

"What has got into you lately?" he asked anxiously. "That sheepskin seems to have ruined you. I actually believe you have reformed, or have caught a premature aim in life, or some such fatal disease. You were a great deal better fellow when you were Lazy Jack and didn't amount to a row of pins; John Rattleton, Esq., A.B., is a bore. You strained yourself badly for those letters, and are run down in consequence. Hang it all, Jack, come along, it will do you good."

But Rattleton did not go along. He hung around Cambridge until the day before the race, and then joined Hollis at the Pequot House. Capt. Stoughton's craft had arrived safely, notwithstanding her crew, and was anchored in the river with the rest of the fleet in front of the hotel, when Rattleton got there.

The night before the boat-race at New London is one that bears recollection better than description. The Pequot House is usually the centre of ceremonies. Crowds of men are down from Cambridge, and there are a few of the advance-guard from New Haven, although most of the Yale men come next morning. Lectures and examinations are behind them, the long vacation is ahead; it is the last spree of the year, the last gathering of the four years for the Seniors,—and full justice is usually done the occasion. Many a grad., too, runs away from his office to the Connecticut town, or comes ashore there from his yacht, to renew his youth on the eve of battle and to shout at the struggle on the morrow.

Of course on that evening the party from Stoughton's boat were ashore, and in the thick of it. Ned Burleigh was master of ceremonies, and organized a band of "cheerful workers." Holworthy, however, kept out of it. He was thinking of eight men up the river, five or six miles away from all this roystering, and of one big man in particular, whose whole soul, like his muscles, was strung up for the next day. He wondered whether Rivers was getting any sleep, and the anxiety about his best friend left him little heart to rollick with the others. He was surprised to find Rattleton in much the same mood, for notwithstanding the recent change in that young gentleman, it seemed hardly possible that Jack could sulk in his tent at such a time as this. The two, with the dog Blathers, walked out together on the piazza.

As they turned a corner of the veranda they saw sitting in the light of a window two feminine figures, one of which Holworthy at once recognized.