Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

by Waldron Kintzing Post

This man[oe]uvre was successfully executed at Springfield, and Stoughton secured the last room at the Massasoit House.

The Glee Club concert in the evening was a great success, and after it was over the respectable element, consisting of Gray and Holworthy, passed a very delightful evening at the Assembly ball. So, I grieve to record, did the low-toned members of "the gang" at the other ball. At the soirée of the Social Club, Ned Burleigh obtained control of the cotillion early in the evening. With Rattleton and Stoughton as right hand men, he introduced many new and pleasing figures of his own invention. In some way these three got unto themselves huge and gorgeous badges, labelled "Floor Committee," and managed the whole affair with wild success. Randolph, who came from the Sunny South, and "Colonel" Dixey, of Kentucky, picked up one or two Yale men from their section of the country, and organized an extempore Southern Club. If the governors of the Carolinas had been with them, those celebrated dignitaries, I suspect, would have experienced none of their proverbial trouble. As the evening wore on, the Southern Club, in a true brotherly spirit, extended its privileges to all the states and territories of the Union, and initiated each new member. Hudson, at first, was disconsolate, for he was on the shooting-club team that next day was to shoot a clay-pigeon match against Yale before the game. He had strict orders to go to bed early, and keep his eye clear for the next morning. At Dick Stoughton's able suggestion, however, he hunted up a member of the Yale shooting-team, and agreed to pair off with him. The excellence of this fair parliamentary procedure forcibly struck all the representative shots of both universities, except the captains. The captains of both teams at first stormed, and swore that none of their men who stayed up late or indulged in other startling innovations on the eve of battle, should be allowed to shoot on the morrow. When they found, however, that all their substitutes had "paired" also, they went off arm in arm, and were found later in a corner with a large earnest bottle between them. Altogether, as Burleigh said, "it was a very enjoyable occasion."

Next morning the clay-pigeon match came off, as usual, on the grounds of the Springfield Gun Club. It resulted in a close and glorious victory for Harvard, as the Yale team shot a little bit worse. It was a rather costly triumph, however, for both teams with their supporters drove back in a barge to the Massasoit House, and there had another meeting at the expense of the victors. Those Harvard-Yale shooting-matches are a very pleasant sport, and prolific of the best of feeling.

Before it was time to start for the battle-ground at Hampden Park, certain financial transactions took place at the hotel. The slender balance at the Cambridge National Bank, standing in the name of John Rattleton, had been wiped out on the previous day, and most of it was now deposited at the office of the Massasoit House in the joint names of J. Rattleton and a man from New Haven, to become later the sole property of one or the other. As Jack turned away from the clerk's desk, he met the steady Holworthy face to face, and looked guilty.

"Have you been betting all your quarter's income as usual, you jackass?" demanded Holworthy.

"No, only what is left of it," said Rattleton. "Might as well. If I didn't bet it, I should have to lend it all to the rest of the gang, if we get beaten. And suppose we win, as we are almost sure to, and I hadn't taken a blue cent out of New Haven, and had to pay for my own celebration; how should I feel then?" he demanded, triumphantly.

"Will you ever grow up?" asked Holworthy, shaking his head. "Don't come running to me if we get thrashed, that is all. I hope you have kept your return ticket to Cambridge."

"Oh, yes, I have that," answered Rattleton, reassuringly; "and I have twenty-five dollars that I sha'n't put up unless I can get it up even. These fellows want odds here, but I think I can find even money on the field."

The Yale men are prudent bettors, however, and Jack did not "find even money" at Hampden Park. In fact, at the last minute he could not get a taker at any odds that even he was willing to offer. So he kept his last twenty-five dollars, and took his seat with his friends, feeling that he had not done his full duty.

All the morning the trains from New Haven, from Boston, from New York, from everywhere within a six-hour radius, had been pouring their heavy loads into Springfield. The north side of Hampden Park was a crimson-dotted mass, nearly ten thousand strong; the south side was equally banked up with blue, and the two colors ran into each other at the ends. It is never weary waiting for the foot-ball game to begin, when the weather is good. It is amusing to see the grads come swarming to the standard. Familiar and popular faces turn up, that have been out of college only a year or two, and their owners are greeted enthusiastically by their late companions. There, too, come numbers of faces far more widely known, those of governors, congressmen, judges, architects, and clergymen. Other faces, not so conspicuous, are apparently equally interesting over the top of glowing bunches of Jacqueminots, or of violets, as the case may be. Jack Rattleton's terrier Blathers, who was rarely separated from his master on any occasion, took more interest in a big dog with a blue blanket on the other side of the field, a familiar figure at recent foot-ball games.