JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

Author of "Princeton Stories" and "The

Stolen Story and other Newspaper Stories"

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

153-157 Fifth Avenue :: New York

Copyright, 1899, by

Charles Scribner's Sons

To

HENRY MEADE WILLIAMS

A SUB-FRESHMAN

ILLUSTRATIONS

From drawings by Fletcher Ransom

The First Encounter with the Sophomores

"You big, green Freshman from Squeedunk.... We'll give you just five seconds to take off that ugly hat, and if you don't——"

After the Rush

In walked ... the little Sophomore, and behind him a very big Sophomore. Young recognised him as the one....

Hazing

"Now both sit up on your haunches and chatter awhile."

The Hero of the Bell-Clapper

Lee was one of the most prominent and popular men in the class.

"Meek Butt of all Classes!"

Before curfew rang in Old North at the close of that day, the whole college was talking about it.

"The Invincibles"

They had a dignified negro waiter, and they dined in the evening and it all seemed very fine and luxurious.

2 a.m.

However, after saying good night ... he would sneak off to his room, tie a wet towel around his head, and pole....

The Meeting

"I don't know, mother," he said slowly, "I don't know...."

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I

THE FIRST DAY AT COLLEGE

"Hi, there! you big Freshman, take off your hat—yes, we're talking to you—take off your hat to the class above you—stop, don't try to get by, my sober-faced young friend. That would not be nice of you."

At first the Freshman did not understand that he was the one addressed, and, when he did, his first startled impulse was to hurry by and pretend not to notice them.

But he could not now; the walk was blocked by this group of four fellows who were now calmly smiling at him in an amused way, as if he were a curious child,[Pg 2] though really he was as old as any of them. The only way he could avoid them was by turning back toward the street, and this he would not do. So he stood his ground and looked straight back at them.

"Well, you seem to enjoy looking; how do you like us, Freshman?" asked one of the Sophomores, taking his pipe out of his mouth. Three of them were smoking pipes and all four wore those queer striped-flannel coats of broad orange and black that had attracted his attention when he first got off the train. Afterward he learned that they were called blazers.

They were close beside him now and they were looking him up and down. One of them remarked to the others, "O, ye shades of Aaron Burr, but this is a green one. What's your name, Freshman?"

Then one of the others interrupted in a loud tone, "Take off your hat, Freshman."

It was the same high voice that had broken in upon him at the first. Its owner was the shortest of the lot, but he smoked the longest pipe.[Pg 3]

"Take off your hat," he commanded, "and don't look so sober. We aren't going to hurt you."

They were all looking at him. The Freshman felt himself blushing; he smiled and tried to look good-natured.

"I wouldn't smile if I were you," put in one of the others; "your teeth aren't even."

The others laughed at this, but the small Sophomore said, "Come, wipe away that smile and take off your hat, I tell you."

The Freshman stopped smiling and looked up across the campus instead. Two men were entering an old brown building, busily talking, their arms about each other's shoulders; they seemed very happy. He shifted from one foot to the other.

"See here, Freshman," cried the little Sophomore, in an amazed tone, "didn't you hear me tell you to take off your hat?" He had a large, sneering mouth, and he constantly tried to say sarcastic things. He held his chin elevated, as if to make himself a little taller, and the big Freshman, looking[Pg 4] down at him, thought how he would like to pick him up and spank him. The Freshman had no intention of taking off his hat.

Perhaps the Sophomore knew what he was thinking; at any rate, he stepped up close to him, and shaking a finger under his face, he snarled out, "You big, green Freshman from Squeedunk, you're the freshest one I've seen yet. We'll give you just five seconds to take off that ugly hat, and if you don't——"

"Look out—look out! there comes Matt," in a quick, scared voice, one of the others interrupted.

Matthew Goldie, the famous old proctor, was sauntering down the walk wriggling his fingers, as was his habit, and looking apparently in the other direction. This was also his habit.

Even in those days, before hazing was abolished by the undergraduate vote, when it was thought, even by the Faculty, that hazing had its redeeming features, it was a rather reckless proceeding for a crowd of Sophomores to take a Freshman in hand on[Pg 5] the front campus in broad daylight and in plain sight of the Dean's house.

The small Sophomore's pipe was not two inches from the Freshman's face when the warning was sounded and Matt Goldie was coming straight down the walk toward him, and yet, to the surprise of all, he went on in the same earnest manner, only now he was saying:

"I tell you, my dear sir, you will thank me all your life if you join Whig Hall. Why, there is no comparing the two literary societies. Now, just look at the records of the past years: In the first place, Whig Hall was founded by President James Madison when he was a student here"——and then the small Sophomore went glibly on with the arguments the Whig men usually employ when claiming superiority to their rival society, Clio Hall.

Matthew Goldie had approached, come even with the group and passed by, oblivious of its existence, apparently. But the Sophomores knew he was not so oblivious as he looked, so they began to move off.[Pg 6]

"Good-by, Freshman," they said, laughingly, "sorry we have to leave you so soon. Come on, Channing."

But Channing lingered a moment. "What's your name?" he demanded

The Freshman thought it was none of this fellow's business, but he wanted to show he was not afraid. "Young," he said.

"Your initials?"

"My name is William Young, if you want to know," answered the Freshman, decisively.

"Willie, eh?"

Those of the others who were near enough to hear laughed at this.

"Well, you are rather old to be called Young—Willie Young, especially. Hereafter you shall be known as 'Deacon Young.'"

"Aw, come on, Chan," called the others.

"All right," said Channing, but he turned to the Freshman as he started off and remarked, threateningly, "We'll meet again, you big, green Freshman."

"I hope so," promptly returned Young, "you little, mouthy Sophomore."

And this was the very worst thing he could[Pg 7] have said, as he was afterward taught, if he had wanted to avoid hazing. He did not know that the best way to get along with the Sophomores was to take their initiating—not humbly, which was almost worse than getting mad about it—but laughingly and good-naturedly, for as soon as he acknowledged the fact that he was only a Freshman and recognized that he belonged to the lowest of four grades of college importance, they would let him alone.

But Young was not of a sort readily to acknowledge subordination to anybody, and he had never been hazed and he knew very little about college custom and all that, because he had been a college man less than twenty-four hours and the tray of his trunk was still unpacked.

It was Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the term, and he was on his way to chapel to attend the opening exercises of the college year, the first real college duty of his life, and he had almost reached the quadrangle when he was interrupted by the Sophomores and the disagreeable voice which[Pg 8] called, "Hi, there, Freshman," at him, and which he thought he would never forget.

And now he went on up the stone walk under the tall elms, wiping his brow and telling himself that he was not homesick, but that he did not propose to let anybody talk to him that way, even if he was green and from the country, and he would show them.

He was from the country, to be sure, but that had nothing to do with it. He was guyed because he was a Freshman.

He was from the country, and he had come here to get a college education, and he had worked hard to come. He meant to make the best of his opportunities, and you could see that by the energetic way he strode through the quadrangle and up the broad path to chapel and took his place with two hundred others, who also were Freshmen and as green, many of them, as he was, and trying just as hard not to show it, though he did not know that. He thought they were upper-classmen and knew ever so much, and were looking at him.[Pg 9]

CHAPTER II

THE "BIG, GREEN FRESHMAN FROM SQUEEDUNK"

There were very important reasons why this particular Freshman had made up his mind to do well at college. He had done very well at the High School out at home, and it was one of the best in all Illinois. But that was not the reason, nor had he graduated first in his class, indeed; one of the girls did, as usual, though, to be sure, Young had done outside studying with the minister and that was a handicap. He had a different sort of reason for wanting to do well, now he was here at last.

He could recall, as vividly as though it were yesterday, how his father looked the time he said: "And I tell you now, once and forever, I ain't going to spend my hard-earned money making a dude of any son[Pg 10] of mine; and that's all I have to say about it. On the first of next month you're going to get to work in the bank; and you ought to be glad of it. Few farmers' sons have such chances."

Young remembered how sarcastic seemed his father's answer to the question, "Won't you just lend me the money, father? I'll pay it back with interest, in time?"

"Lend you money!—where's your collateral, hey?" and Mr. Young laughed.

"Then that is your final decision, father?"

"Final as I can make. If you go to college you pay your own way. Good-night. I guess that settles it."

Until this offer of the place in the bank came, just after Will's graduation from the High School, his father had only said, "What's the sense of going to college? You can't make any more money by it." And Will had quietly gone on with his Greek lessons, not doubting that his father would give his consent in the end. But now it was: "This is too good a chance to miss, Will—why, you'll soon make a rich[Pg 11] man of yourself. Of course, you must take it. What's the use of having your father a director of the Farmers' National Bank, any way? You'll soon get over your fool notions. Charlie hasn't any fool notions about 'higher education.' He's my right-hand man on the farm." And the farm was one of the most prosperous in the county.

Will knew his father and said nothing more, and on July 1st took the place in the bank and began to work at $5 a week. But he did not get over his fool notions.

You see, ever since Young could remember, he had dreamed and planned about going to college, and what is more he had put in a great many hours of good, solid study with the minister during the past years preparing himself for it, and in consequence it was often 'way after the dark by the time he had driven out home and had finished his "chores." And he did not propose to let all that work count for nothing. He had made up his mind to get a university education.

It was out of the question now to study all summer and enter the next fall, but the[Pg 12] minister told him he was still young; he could enter the following year.

"Your boy Will's catching on quicker than Henry Johnson or any of the young men that ever worked under me yet." That's what the cashier said to Mr. Young.

"That means he's getting over his fool notions," thought Mr. Young. Really it meant that he still had them. Will never mentioned the word college to his father again; and to those of his old friends who said, "Oh, so you aren't going East after all: why's that?" he merely replied in effect that that was his business, and bent over the ledger again.

He knew that most of the town was talking and laughing about him because from the time he first announced (with a somewhat superior air, perhaps) what he intended to do after leaving the High School, more than one of them thought, and said, that it was a queer idea for Will Young to go to college when he did not want to be a preacher or a professional man; not so very many[Pg 13] boys went to college from that part of the country.

But Will did not worry about that very much. He did not have time. He was working every day in the bank from eight o'clock in the morning until five or six in the evening—until nine or ten at night, sometimes, on the first of the month—and was besides doing all the chores for Miss Wilkins, with whom he boarded. And that was not all the work he did, either. Those who passed by Miss Wilkins's house late at night generally noticed a light in the little third-story window long after all the other boarders' rooms were dark. And the nights he was not studying in his room he was reciting at the minister's.

It is no easy thing to save money on $5 a week, and pay board and buy clothes and incidentals out of it besides. That was the reason he did the chores for Miss Wilkins. He got his board for that, and he earned it.

Out of the first month's salary Will saved $10. Fifty per cent of earnings saved is not[Pg 14] a bad proportion. Out of the second month's earnings he saved $25.

That may sound impossible, but you see they had raised his salary to $10 a week as they promised to do as soon as he had made himself worth it. Besides, Mr. Young was a director.

It was very slow and sometimes it seemed very discouraging, and he did not know how he could have succeeded if it had not been for the Sunday afternoon talks with his mother, who was with him from the start in the project; and for the minister, who used to say, "You seem to think a fellow must be a millionaire to go to college."

The minister had a frank, friendly unstilted manner of talking, that made some of the older people shake their heads and think him unclerical.

"Why, there are hundreds of fellows," the minister said, "paying their own way through every year, and if you can't do it I'm mistaken in you. That is one reason," the minister explained, "though not the most important one, why I advised you to go to a[Pg 15] large college. There are so many more ways of earning money. There are more eating-clubs to be managed (and all the manager has to do is collect a tableful of congenial fellows and then he gets his own board free). There are more men that want tutoring at a large institution, and the price of tutoring is better, too—(a man in my class in the seminary used to get $3 an hour); and there are more newspapers to correspond for and shoe-stores and steam-laundries and railroads to act as agents for—why, there are any number of ways to earn money if you only look out for them. And, as I told you before, the college authorities will remit your tuition if you show that it is necessary and if," said the minister, smiling, "if you can give testimonials of high moral character. All you have to do

this year is to make enough to get started on, and that's what you are rapidly doing."

One day after Will Young had been working in the bank for nearly a year his father burst into the kitchen. "Mother," he shouted to his wife, almost excitedly, "what[Pg 16] do you think? Will is going to resign from the bank! I just now heard it in town."

"Yes," said Mrs. Young, gently, "I know."

"What does he mean by it! He has had his salary raised twice inside of a year. He'll be made assistant cashier soon. Why, the boy's a fool. Does he expect to get a better place up in Chicago?"

"No," said Mrs. Young. "He only went to Chicago on his vacation to take his examinations for college and——"

"For college! Chicago!"

"And to buy his clothes—yes, they hold the examinations all over the country." Then she went on, "You remember, father, you said Will could go if he earned his own money, and now——"

"When did I say that?" thundered Mr. Young; and then the storm broke. It was rather severe while it lasted, but it did not last as long as she had feared it would. Mr. Young was just, and he had to acknowledge, inwardly, that Will was right from his standpoint, though it was a sore disappointment:[Pg 17] and he saw no reason why Will should be forgiven.

"We'll see how long you stay there," was what Mr. Young said in bidding Will good-by. He knew about how much his son had been able to save.

"All right, sir," said Will, feeling sorry his father would not give his approval even now. "Good-by, sir." And he glanced at his mother once more and then looked away again, and the train pulled out. A moment later he had a last, distant view of the straight white farmhouse, as the cars dashed by, and of the big red barn with white trimmings, and the wind-brake of tall, straight poplars, to the north, in even row, planted by his father's own hand before Will was born; he saw their tops waving in the breeze as they were cut off from view—and all that seemed years and years ago, though, in reality, it was only Monday, the day before yesterday, and here he was at last, actually at college and sitting in chapel listening to the President's kind words of welcome; and feeling somewhat important at being one of those particularly[Pg 18] addressed by such a famous and learned man and feeling very proud at the thought that he was part of such an ancient and mighty seat of learning—and hoping that the small account he had opened at the

Princeton Bank was going to tide him over till an opportunity for earning money turned up.

As he and his many classmates trooped forth into the sunny outdoors again some orange-and-black-bedecked Sophomores on the steps murmured, "right, left, right, left," in time to their footsteps, and then Will Young did not feel so proud and important.

But this big, green Freshman did not take off his hat to them as some of his classmates did. In fact his hat did not come off until the evening of the following day—and then not quite in the way you might expect.[Pg 19]

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT SOPHOMORE-FRESHMAN RUSH

Freshman Young had an experience on the second night of his college course that he was never to forget. And few of those who shared it with him forgot it, and not many of the hundreds of other men that have been in college before and since have forgotten similar experiences of their own on the second or third night of college existence. Not one of them would care to miss it if he had it to do over again.

He was in his room going over for the fifth time the Latin passages in Livy, Book I. The recitation came the first thing in the morning. That meant at half-past eight, immediately after chapel.

His room was on the third story, back, of a queer, old-fashioned house in a still queerer, old, crooked street called Canal[Pg 20] Street, because, he supposed, it led down to the canal. The little room seemed quite bare and cheerless, but he did not mind that. He had got down to work as a "college man."

That day, for the first time, he had met his professors in the classroom along with the other Freshmen of his division. He was the last man of the last division, because his last name began with Y. Later on in the term, when they were to be divided according to rank, he would not be in the last division; he had made up his mind to that. So he was going over the Livy lesson for the fifth time, although he had worked it all out during the afternoon.

Perhaps there was another reason for keeping his mind so busy. The old white farmhouse with the well-trimmed lawn and the evergreen trees in front and the tall, straight wind-pump to the west, and beyond that the long, level sweeps of rich prairie acres, all seemed very far away to-night. "I'm not homesick—of course not," he told himself, but all the same he thought he could[Pg 21] study better if he could hear the old wind-pump go "kitty-chunk, kitty-chunk," as when he was studying his High School lessons on windy winter nights, long ago; so long that it all seemed like a different existence.