The Adventures of a Freshman Part 8

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HERO OF THE BELL-CLAPPER.

Lee was one of the most prominent and popular men in the cla.s.s.]

Lee was the cla.s.s secretary and treasurer, and one of the most prominent and most popular men in the cla.s.s. He had sprung into considerable cla.s.s prominence when he sprang upon Young's shoulders that night in the rush.

But the next night he climbed still higher and into greater fame by scaling the belfry of Old North at dead of night, where, with the aid of Stevens, his room-mate, he carried off the bell-clapper, "and that was a great thing, I tell you," Young wrote home.

"Of course, no Freshman cla.s.s would be respected," Linton, the Junior, had explained the next time he and Nolan had come to "talk hall" with Will--who explained it to Charlie--"they'd be disgraced if they didn't steal the bell-clapper. The college authorities expect it to be done.

They have a barrelful of new ones down in the cellar. When the rope is pulled and they find the bell doesn't ring, they simply fork out a new clapper and climb up and fasten it on, and then start in to ringing as though nothing unusual had happened."

None the less it was a daring deed, and Lee and Stevens had come within a small margin of getting caught by stealthy Matt Goldie, the chief proctor. But they weren't, and the big heavy clapper was now in the city of Trenton, being melted down into many diminutive souvenir clappers (to be worn as watch-charms by the whole cla.s.s) at this very moment, while Lee was walking across the campus and Young beside him was hoping that the fellows who called him "Thank you, marm!" could see him now.

Just then "Minerva" Powelton, the recently chosen captain of the cla.s.s baseball team, joined Lee and Young, or rather he joined Lee; he paid little attention to Young. He had been brought up to keep away from boys whose family he knew nothing of, and he considered Young beneath him in every way. He got over it in time.

"Say, Lucky," he said in a low tone, putting his arm fawningly around little Lee, "the Sophs will be getting out the procs pretty soon. We'd better watch out."

"Naw," said Lucky, with the conviction of superior knowledge. "Not till after Sat.u.r.day's game, at the earliest. Why, in my brother's Freshman year they did not do it till after cane-spree."

"Well, we'd better keep our eyes peeled, all the same," said Captain Powelton.

Young looked sober and said nothing. To tell the truth, he did not know what they were talking about. Was it that the Sophs were going to turn the college proctors against them in some cowardly way? But what Sat.u.r.day's baseball game between the two cla.s.ses had to do with it he knew no more than what a cane-spree might be; and he walked home wondering.

That evening at the club one of the fellows--who, perhaps, had also overheard a conversation--said, in a pause, "I understand the Sophs will bring out the procs pretty soon."

Young was not so shy before his own crowd. "No, they won't," said he.

"Not until after Sat.u.r.day's baseball game."

"Why not, Young?" he was asked.

"What are the procs, anyway?" inquired Barrows, at the foot of the table, who had been Young's champion on the first trip to the ca.n.a.l. He was a small, ingenuous fellow with a big head, and had taken a prize for pa.s.sing the best entrance examinations from his State.

Young was about to laugh and own up that he did not know, when the Junior who ran the club cleared his throat and explained. He was fond of instructing these Freshmen. He had been very green himself two years before, and he knew how it felt. He also knew how impressive an upper-cla.s.sman seems to the entering student.

"The two lower cla.s.ses," he said, with a great deal of Junior dignity, "always get out proclamations on each other. It is one of the customs.

The Sophs generally bring theirs out first; they are like big bill posters."

"What's on them?" asked Barrows.

"On them is printed a lot of nonsense in green type. They cast aspersions on you, call you fresh and green and heap ignominy on your prominent men and deride your eccentric characters."

"Well, where do they put them?" asked the one who brought up the subject.

"All over the State."

"What!"

"They paste them all over this town and its environs, on the blank walls and the sidewalks, and on every barn in the county, on wagons, on telegraph-poles, on freight-cars--not only that, but they go off to Trenton and New Brunswick and paste them all over the town and on freight-trains about to pull out."

"Well! what do we do all this time?" asked Young. Everyone was listening now.

"Pull them down," said the Junior, simply, "and soon afterward you get out a proc saying sarcastic things about _them_, which they pull down, feeling very indignant, and then they haze you worse than ever. Please hand me the b.u.t.ter."

"But I still don't see," said Barrows, the small fellow with the big head, "what Sat.u.r.day's baseball game has to do with it?"

"They wait until after that," replied the Junior, smiling, "in order to write verses on the score and jeer you on being so badly beaten."

"Maybe we won't be beaten," said Barrows.

"I sincerely hope you won't," said the Junior, benignantly.

The series of inter-cla.s.s baseball games lasting a week had begun as usual on the Monday previous. They are played so early in the term because football soon absorbs all athletic interest of the fall.

The Freshman cla.s.s, which was large and had had many aspirants to athletic honors, had barely had time to pick out its nine, who were, so said the Junior cla.s.s baseball captain who was coaching the players, unusually good material, but quite lacking in team play. This was only natural, as only three of them had ever seen each other a week before.

However, they made a very good showing against the Juniors on Tuesday, and by Thursday they had improved so much that they beat the lazy Seniors. To tell the truth the latter had not put a very ambitious team in the field, and played horse throughout the game. But this encouraged the Freshmen wonderfully, and confidence was just what they needed.

After the practice on Friday afternoon the Junior coach said, "I think you fellows will win to-morrow--_if_ you don't get rattled," he added, shaking his head and thinking of his own Freshman year.

The Soph.o.m.ore-Freshman game is the concluding match of the week, and is always the special event of the series, owing to the intense rivalry between the two lower cla.s.ses. It is advertised in the bill-posters in letters twice as large as the other games, and many alumni gather from New York and Philadelphia to witness it, which makes the two lower cla.s.ses feel quite important.

Great was the excitement in the Freshman cla.s.s, and great was the hope of victory. The Soph.o.m.ores, though they did not show it, were also excited, but they were blatantly confident of winning. It would be a terrible disgrace if they lost to the Freshmen.

Soon after the mid-day meal on Sat.u.r.day the Freshman cla.s.s marched down to University Field in a body, and sat there cheering for itself and its team all the afternoon.

Just before the game began the Soph.o.m.ores, in a solid ma.s.s of orange and black, making a deafening lot of noise with college songs on kazoos, led by a big bra.s.s band, entered the field with banners waving, took possession of a solid section of the bleachers, derided the Freshmen, drowned out their cheers, guyed their batters, rattled their pitcher, and won the game by a score of 18 to 7. That night the country for miles round was scoured by faithful Freshmen. Not a proclamation was found.

The next night still a larger number of Freshmen lost half of their eight hours' sleep in the cause, and in vain.

The next afternoon Lucky Lee whispered to Young, coming out of mathematics: "The Soph.o.m.ores get out their procs to-night, sure; they are being printed in Trenton--I have a detective down there who found out all about it. I want you to come up to my room in University Hall this evening after you have finished your 'poling'--I mean studying.

Wear your old clothes. You'll come, won't you?"

Young had not been engaged in the previous nightly searches, and he had not intended to join in this one. But it was Lee. "I'll come," said Young--"soon's I get through 'poling,'" he added, for he wanted young Lee to know that he too understood college slang, even though he was a quiet Freshman. There was something fascinating to Young about that bright-faced little fellow. Everybody liked him.

The territory to be covered and the men to cover it had been divided up beforehand among a number of leaders, and when Lee had said, in talking it over in Powelton's room, "I'm going to get that man Young, he's a big, strong fellow," Powelton had said, "What, that big, awkward poler from the backwoods?--the man everybody guys? Bah! he hasn't any more cla.s.s spirit than my pipe."

Everyone at college is called a student, but a poler is one who studies to excess.

"Poler or no poler," answered Lee, "he's got muscle all right, and he stood by me in the rush in great shape!"

Promptly at ten o'clock Young slammed shut his Homer and the Greek lexicon and started for University Hall, a big rambling place full of noisy, whistling students that sc.r.a.pe their feet along the wide carpetless corridors. He had done a good evening's work for himself; now he was going to work for Lee and for the cla.s.s.

Some Soph.o.m.ores at the foot of the third flight of stairs said, "Quack!

quack! Freshmen!" as Young went by, but he did not mind that, and they did not dare do more because Sam, the night watchman, was downstairs in the main hall.

"Wasn't that Deacon Young?" said a man joining the group. "What did you let him go by for?"

It was Channing, of course, and he went hurrying upstairs after Young, to show off how bold he was.

"Channing certainly has nerve," said one of them.

By the time Channing caught up, Young had turned down the narrow corridor which led to Lee's room.