Stanford Stories Part 5

She met him on Monday morning near the Chapel. He came loafing along the arcade one arm flung about "Pellams" Chase. He looked at her good-humoredly a second, then, without recognition, glanced over her head to the girl behind her.

Hannah's heart nearly choked her. His having forgotten her was so plain, that she had not dared to bow, though she had half done so. She hoped no one had noticed her face. She bit her lips. He had not meant to do it; on the bed in her room she told herself this over and over again. Their meeting in the gymnasium had lasted less than ten minutes. It was two days ago. She was not like the other college girls he knew. Why should he remember her, having seen her once? He had been very pleasant to her at the reception. She went resolutely down to luncheon. Cap. Smith was still her hero.

II.

One day when from the fences along the pastures exultant meadow-larks were shouting "April," trilling the "r" ecstatically, and mild-hearted people were out after golden poppies, the Encina Freshmen, dark-browed plotters every villain of them, met in Pete Halleck's room. There was trouble brewing. First, Pete counted them with an air of mystery; then he pulled down the window shades, shut the transoms, and drew from the wash-stand a tangled ma.s.s of rope, two cans of paint and a coil of wire.

With these beside him on the floor, he harangued the mob.

"We have got to get a rush out of 'em, fellows," he said, keeping his voice discreetly low, "and if they won't sc.r.a.p, we'll force 'em. How many of you remember how to tie a knot?"

"We've had experience enough," spoke up a roly-poly boy; "it's the Sophs who need a lesson in tying."

"And we'll give it!"

Halleck drew up and looked so melodramatically important that the meeting snickered behind their collective hands. Just then there came a knock at the door. Halleck put his fingers to his lips; the crowd sat as if petrified; the roly-poly conspirator felt his bravado oozing out in youthful perspiration. The knocking came again, more imperatively, then a voice.

"Let me in, you crazy Freshies."

Silence in the room.

"Let me in. I know about you. You're all in there, talking rush. Hang your little pink skins, let me in!"

Still no answer.

"Pete Halleck, unlock your door. It's I--it's Frank Lyman, and I've something to say to you babies. Open up!"

The composite face of the gathering fell. With Lyman against them, who could be for them?--Frank Lyman, oracle of Encina and father-confessor of Freshmen!

Pete threw the paraphernalia into his wardrobe.

"The game's up, fellows."

He opened the door, admitting the Senior, and with him, alas! Soph.o.m.ore Smith, President of his cla.s.s. The sight of the enemy stirred Halleck.

"Say, shall we tie up the two of them?" cried he, when he had locked the door.

"Key down, Freshie, key down," said the Senior. "You boys pain me to the limit. Aren't you satisfied with tying up the Soph.o.m.ores once without sc.r.a.pping the whole year through?"

"What do you know about our wanting to sc.r.a.p?"

"I'm on to you, Peter: You have a ton of rope and a barrel of paint somewhere about your den, and you're going out to-morrow to tie up the Sophs at the ball game. Now you fellows have had three rushes this year; when are you going to quit and give us a rest?"

Halleck held the position that delighted his soul,--center stage,--and he was a respecter of neither the Faculty nor his seniors.

"We're going to quit when we get even with you for pulling twenty-five lone Freshmen out of the Hall at night and making them rush against the whole Soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s; then's when we're going to quit. Observe?"

Halleck's shamefully fresh manner revived the drooping spirits of his men.

"See here, we'll call it off if you will," put in the Soph.o.m.ore president.

"Yes, I guess you will," drawled Halleck. The mob howled. Smith's cla.s.s was notoriously weaker at fighting than their own.

"We've rushed you three times," went on Cap; "you licked us the first time we fought; then you pulled us out in the mud the night after and did it again; but we got you the next week by strategy!"

"By a sneaking trick!"

"That's right!" chimed the Freshmen, "Pete's dead right!"

"Well, say," persisted Smith, "we're willing to quit as it is. The score stands two to one for you fellows, too."

"Two to nothing!" and again the infant cla.s.s shouted approval while Lyman, the Senior, looked on amused.

"I really have a chap for you children," he said. "Just because rushing happens to be your game, you run it to death. How do you suppose the Faculty are going to look at this thing? If you want rushing choked off entirely next year, just keep on."

Airily ignoring Lyman's speech, Pete Halleck put his chin out at the Soph.o.m.ore.

"Then you won't rush?"

"No," answered Cap, perfectly calm, "not even if you carry canes."

Halleck's face shone.

"Ai--i, boys, that's what we'll do! We'll get out there with canes to-morrow and we'll make 'em sc.r.a.p!"

"Yes, you will! I believe it," sneered Smith. "You fellows are just fresh enough to queer yourselves that way."

"We'll queer _you_!" cried a valiant youngster "if you don't rush to-morrow we'll tie up your baseball team and cart 'em off to Redwood."

"Yes, sir, and we'll show you how a cla.s.s president looks braided with bailing-rope,--we'll show you the pretty picture in a mirror, Mr.

President,--even if we have to haul you out of the arms of twenty Roble dames."

Pete had taken his cla.s.s-mates by storm and they piped acquiescence in thin Freshman voices. Smith flushed angrily.

Here Lyman interfered.

"All right, make joshes of yourselves if you want to," he said, not so good-natured as at first. "We have given you warning. Just open that door and you may go on with your little conspiracy."

"Come again when you can't stay so long," wittily yelled Pete down the hall. "I'll meet you on the field to-morrow."

"Oh, we'll be there," called back Lyman over his shoulder. "So will the Faculty," and with this covert hint the peacemakers turned the corner.

The sun shown brightly on the red-brown earth of the diamond when the Freshmen, the Soph.o.m.ores and the Faculty met, according to agreement.

The enterprising student-body management had chalked the Quad in conspicuous places:

RUSH of the YEAR, Soph.o.m.ore-Freshman Game.

Don't Miss It!

and the college responded. The co-eds were there, radiant in the snowiest of duck shirts, the gayest of shirt-waists. With them were "ladies' men," in variegated golf-stockings and gorgeous hat-bands. The Freshmen, gathered near first base, contrasted disreputably with this display; they wore old clothes, ragged hats, and they carried a miscellaneous collection of canes, borrowed from Juniors or stolen from Soph.o.m.ores.