The Plastic Age Part 7

Hugh wasn't well informed; he was pathetically ignorant. Most of what he knew had come from the s.m.u.tty stories, and he often did not understand the stories that he laughed at most heartily. He was consumed with curiosity.

"If there is anything you want to know, don't hesitate to ask," his father continued. He had a moment of panic lest Hugh would ask something, but the boy merely shook his head--and pinched his leg.

Mr. Carver puffed his cigar in great relief. "Well," he continued, "I don't want to give you much advice, but your mother feels that I ought to tell you a little more about college before you leave. As I have told you before, Sanford is a splendid place, a--er, a splendid place. Fine old traditions and all that sort of thing. Splendid place. You will find a wonderful faculty, wonderful. Most of the professors I had are gone, but I am sure that the new ones are quite as good. Your opportunities will be enormous, and I am sure that you will take advantage of them. We have been very proud of your high school record, your mother and I, and we know that you will do quite as well in college. By the way, I hope you take a course in the eighteenth-century essayists; you will find them very stimulating--Addison especially.

"I--er, your mother feels that I ought to say something about the dissipations of college. I--I'm sure that I don't know what to say. I suppose that there are young men in college who dissipate--remember that I knew one or two--but certainly most of them are gentlemen. Crude men--vulgarians do not commonly go to college. Vulgarity has no place in college. You may, I presume, meet some men not altogether admirable, but it will not be necessary for you to know them. Now, as to the fraternity...."

Hugh forgot to pinch his leg and looked up with avid interest in his face. The Nu Deltas!

Mr. Carver leaned forward to stir the fire with a bra.s.s poker before he continued. Then he settled back in his chair and smoked comfortably. He was completely at ease now. The worst was over.

"I have written to the Nu Deltas about you and told them that I hoped that they would find you acceptable, as I am sure they will. As a legacy, you will be among the first considered." For an hour more he talked about the fraternity. Hugh, his embarra.s.sment swallowed by his interest, eagerly asking questions. His father's admiration for the fraternity was second only to his admiration for the college, and before the evening was over he had filled Hugh with an idolatry for both.

He left his father that night feeling closer to him than he ever had before. He was going to be a college man like his father--perhaps a Nu Delta, too. He wished that they had got chummy before. When he went to bed, he lay awake dreaming, thinking sometimes of Helen Simpson and of how he had kissed her that afternoon, but more often of Sanford and Nu Delta. He was so deeply grateful to his father for talking to him frankly and telling him everything about college. He was darned lucky to have a father who was a college grad and could put him wise. It was pretty tough on the fellows whose fathers had never been to college.

Poor fellows, they didn't know the ropes the way he did....

He finally fell off to sleep, picturing himself in the doorway of the Nu Delta house welcoming his father to a reunion.

That talk was returning to Hugh repeatedly. He wondered if Sanford had changed since his father's day or if his father had just forgotten what college was like. Everything seemed so different from what he had been told to expect. Perhaps he was just soft and some of the fellows weren't as crude as he thought they were.

CHAPTER IX

Hugh was by no means continuously depressed; as a matter of fact, most of the time he was agog with delight, especially over the rallies that were occurring with increasing frequency as the football season progressed. Sometimes the rallies were carefully prepared ceremonies held in the gymnasium; sometimes they were entirely spontaneous.

A group of men would rush out of a dormitory or fraternity house yelling, "Peerade, peerade!" Instantly every one within hearing would drop his books--or his cards--and rush to the yelling group, which would line up in fours and begin circling the campus, the line ever getting longer as more men came running out of the dormitories and fraternity houses. On, on they would go, arm in arm, dancing, singing Sanford songs, past every dormitory on the campus, past every fraternity house--pausing occasionally to give a cheer, always, however, keeping one goal in mind, the fraternity house where the team lived during the football season. Then when the cheer-leaders and the team were heading the procession, the mob would make for the football field, with the cry of "Wood, freshmen, wood!" ringing down the line.

Hugh was always one of the first freshmen to break from the line in his eagerness to get wood. In an incredibly short time he and his cla.s.smates had found a large quant.i.ty of old lumber, empty boxes, rotten planks, and not very rotten gates. When a light was applied to the clumsy pile of wood, the flames leaped up quickly--some one always seemed to have a supply of kerosene ready--and revealed the excited upper-cla.s.smen sitting on the bleachers.

"Dance, freshmen, dance!"

Then the freshmen danced around the fire, holding hands and spreading into an ever widening circle as the fire crackled and the flames leaped upward. Slowly, almost impressively, the upper-cla.s.smen chanted:

"Round the fire, the freshmen go, Freshmen go, Freshmen go; Round the fire the freshmen go To cheer Sanford."

The song had a dozen stanzas, only the last line of each being different. The freshmen danced until the last verse was sung, which ended with the Sanford cheer:

"Closer now the freshmen go, Freshmen go, Freshmen go; Closer now the freshmen go To cheer--

SANFORD!

Sanford! Rah, rah!

Sanford! Sanford!

San--San--San-- San--ford, San--ford--San--FORD!"

While the upper-cla.s.smen were singing the last stanza the freshmen slowly closed in on the dying fire. At the first word of the cheer, they stopped, turned toward the grand stand, and joined the cheering. That over, they broke and ran for the bleachers, scrambling up the wooden stands, shoving each other out of the way, laughing and shouting.

The football captain usually made a short and very awkward speech, which was madly applauded; perhaps the coach said a few words; two or three cheers were given; and finally every one rose, took off his hat if he wore one--nearly every one but the freshmen went bareheaded--and sang the college hymn, simply and religiously. Then the crowd broke, straggling in groups across the campus, chatting, singing, shouting to each other. Suddenly lights began to flash in the dormitory windows. In less than an hour after the first cry of "Peerade!" the men were back in their rooms, once more studying, talking, or playing cards.

It was the smoker rallies, though, that Hugh found the most thrilling, especially the last one before the final game of the season, the "big game" with Raleigh College. There were 1123 students in Sanford, and more than 1000 were at the rally. A rough platform had been built at one end of the gymnasium. On one side of it sat the band, on the other side the Glee Club--and before it the ma.s.s of students, smoking cigarettes, corn-cob pipes, and, occasionally, a cigar. The "smokes" had been furnished free by a local tobacconist; so everybody smoked violently and too much. In half an hour it was almost impossible to see the ceiling through the dull blue haze, and the men in the rear of the gymnasium saw the speakers on the platform dimly through a wavering mist.

The band played various Sanford songs, and everybody sang. Occasionally Wayne Gifford, the cheer-leader, leaped upon the platform, raised a megaphone to his mouth, and shouted, "A regular cheer for Sanford--a regular cheer for Sanford." Then he lifted his arms above his head, flinging the megaphone aside with the same motion, and waited tense and rigid until the students were on their feet. Suddenly he turned into a mad dervish, twisting, bending, gesticulating, leaping, running back and forth across the platform, shouting, and finally throwing his hands above his head and springing high into the air at the concluding "San--FORD!"

The Glee Club sang to mad applause; a tenor tw.a.n.ged a ukulele and moaned various blues; a popular professor told stories, some of them funny, most of them slightly off color; a former cheer-leader told of the triumphs of former Sanford teams--and the atmosphere grew denser and denser, bluer and bluer, as the smoke wreathed upward. The thousand boys leaned intently forward, occasionally jumping to their feet to shout and cheer, and then sinking back into their chairs, tense and excited. As each speaker mounted the platform they shouted: "Off with your coat! Off with your coat!" And the speakers, even the professor, had to shed their coats before they were permitted to say a word.

When the team entered, bedlam broke loose. Every student stood on his chair, waved his arms, slapped his neighbor on the back or hugged him wildly, threw his hat in the air, if he had one--and, so great was his training, keeping an eye on the cheer-leader, who was on the platform going through a series of indescribable contortions. Suddenly he straightened up, held his hands above his head again, and shouted through his megaphone: "A regular cheer for the team--a regular cheer for the team. Make it big--BIG! Ready--!" Away whirled the megaphone, and he went through exactly the same performance that he had used before in conducting the regular cheer. Gifford looked like an inspired madman, but he knew exactly what he was doing. The students cheered l.u.s.tily, so l.u.s.tily that some of them were hoa.r.s.e the next day. They continued to yell after the cheer was completed, ceasing only when Gifford signaled for silence.

Then there were speeches by each member of the team, all enthusiastically applauded, and finally the speech of the evening, that of the coach, Jack Price. He was a big, compactly built man with regular features, heavy blond hair, and pale, cold blue eyes. He threw off his coat with a belligerent gesture, stuck his hands into his trousers pockets, and waited rigidly until the cheering had subsided. Then he began:

"Go ahead and yell. It's easy as h.e.l.l to cheer here in the gym; but what are you going to do Sat.u.r.day afternoon?"

His voice was sharp with sarcasm, and to the shouts of "Yell! Fight!"

that came from all over the gymnasium, he answered, "Yeah, maybe--maybe." He s.h.i.+fted his position, stepping toward the front of the platform, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.

"I've seen a lot of football games, and I've seen lots of rooters, but this is the G.o.dd.a.m.ndest gang of yellow-bellied quitters that I've ever seen. What happened last Sat.u.r.day when we were behind? I'm asking you; what happened? You quit! Quit like a bunch of whipped curs. G.o.d! you're yellow, yellow as h.e.l.l. But the team went on fighting--and it won, won in spite of you, won for a bunch of yellow pups. And why? Because the team's got guts. And when it was all over, you cheered and howled and serpentined and felt big as h.e.l.l. Lord Almighty! you acted as if you'd done something."

His right hand came out of his pocket with a jerk, and he extended a fighting, clenched fist toward his breathless audience. "I'll tell you something," he said slowly, viciously; "the team can't win alone day after to-morrow. _It can't win alone!_ You've got to fight. d.a.m.n it!

_You've got to fight!_ Raleigh's good, d.a.m.n good; it hasn't lost a game this season--and we've got to win, _win_! Do you hear? We've got to win!

And there's only one way that we can win, and that's with every man back of the team. Every G.o.dd.a.m.ned mother's son of you. The team's good, but it can't win unless you fight--_fight_!"

Suddenly his voice grew softer, almost gentle. He held out both hands to the boys, who had become so tense that they had forgotten to smoke.

"We've got to win, fellows, for old Sanford. Are you back of us?"

"Yes!" The tension shattered into a thousand yells. The boys leaped on the chairs and shouted until they could shout no more. When Gifford called for "a regular cheer for Jack Price" and then one for the team--"Make it the biggest you ever gave"--they could respond with only a hoa.r.s.e croak.

Finally the hymn was sung--at least, the boys tried loyally to sing it--and they stood silent and almost reverent as the team filed out of the gymnasium.

Hugh walked back to Surrey Hall with several men. No one said a word except a quiet good night as they parted. Carl was in the room when he arrived. He sank into a chair and was silent for a few minutes.

Finally he said in a happy whisper, "Wasn't it wonderful, Carl?"

"Un-huh. d.a.m.n good."

"Gosh, I hope we win. We've _got_ to!"

Carl looked up, his cheeks redder than usual, his eyes glittering. "G.o.d, yes!" he breathed piously.

CHAPTER X