THE SOPHOMORES LOSE
There are several occasions when a young man can find no words in which
to express himself. One is when he meets a pretty girl for the first
time, and another is when his best chum has a great sorrow. There are
other occasions, but these are the chief ones. Thus it was with Tom and
Sid. For a few seconds after Phil's announcement they sat staring at the
floor. Their eyes took in the pattern of the faded rug, though little of
the original figure was to be seen because of the many spots. Then Tom
looked about the apartment, viewing the photographs of the two pretty
girls, the sporting implements massed in a corner, the table, with its
artistic confusion of books and papers. From these his gaze traveled
back to Phil.
As for Sid, he breathed heavily. If he had been a girl I would have said
that he sighed. Then, being a youth who did not shirk any duty, no
matter how hard, Sid asked:
"Is--is she any worse, Phil? Have you had bad news? Can't we--can't you
go down where she is?"
Phil shook his head.
"There's no specially bad news," he said, "but it's this way: She has a
malady which, sooner or later, unless it is conquered, will--will take
her away from me--and sis. Dad thinks an operation is the only hope, but
they keep putting it off from time to time, on a slim chance that she
may recover without it. For the operation is a desperate expedient at
best. And that's why I'm not myself. That's why I can't go into the
games with all my might. I expect any moment to be summoned to the
sidelines to get a telegram saying--saying----"
He choked up, and could not finish.
"Is it--is it as bad as that?" asked Tom huskily, and he put his arm
over Phil's shoulder, as his chum sat in the old easy chair.
"It's pretty bad," said Phil softly. Then, with a sudden change of
manner, he exclaimed: "But say, I didn't mean to tell you fellows that.
I don't believe in relating my troubles to every one," and he smiled,
though it was not like his usual cheery face that looked at his two
chums.
"Oh, come now!" cried Sid. "As if we didn't want to hear! And as if you
shouldn't tell us your troubles! Why, I expect to tell you fellows mine,
and I want to hear yours in return, eh, Tom."
"Of course," said the pitcher heartily.
"Well, that's mighty white of you chaps," went on Phil, swallowing a
lump in his throat. "But I'm not going to bother you any more, just now.
Only that's the reason I'm--well, that I can't play as I want to play.
But I'm going to try to forget it. I'm going into the next game, and
help rip their line to pieces. I'm going to pilot our fellows to a big
score or dislocate my other shoulder."
"Good!" cried Sid. "Now let's get to bed. It's almost morning."
The little talk among the three chums was productive of good. There was
a closer bond of union among them than there had ever been before. They
felt more like brothers, and Tom and Sid watched Phil for the next few
days as if he was a little chap, over whom they had been given charge.
"Oh, say!" the quarter-back exclaimed at length one afternoon, when they
had followed him to football practice, and walked home with him. "I'm
not so bad as all that, you know."
"Did you hear any news to-day?" asked Tom, ignoring the mild rebuke.
"Yes. Got a telegram from dad. Things look a little brighter, and
yet----" He paused. "Well," he continued, "I don't want to think too
much about it. We play Haddonfield to-morrow. I want to wipe up the
gridiron with them."
Which Phil and his chums pretty nearly did. Haddonfield Preparatory
School had the best eleven in years, but, even with a number of scrub
players on Randall, the score was forty-six to nothing. There was a
different air about the college team as the lads went singing from the
field that afternoon. There was confidence in their eyes.
It was a beautiful afternoon in October. Lectures were over and a throng
of students had strolled over the campus and down to the banks of Sunny
River. The stream flowed lazily along toward Lake Tonoka, winding in
and out, as though it had all the time it desired in which to make the
journey, and meant to take the full allowance. There was nothing rapid
or fussy about Sunny River. It was not one of those hurrying, bubbling,
frothy streams that make a great ado about going somewhere, and never
arrive. There was something soothing in walking along the banks that
bracing, fall day. There was just enough snap in the air to prevent one
from feeling enervated, yet there was hardly a hint of winter.
"Doesn't it make you feel as if you could stretch out on your back and
look up into the sky?" asked Phil of Tom as the three chums walked
along. Tom and the quarter-back had been to football practice, and still
had their togs on.
"Now hold on!" exclaimed Sid, before Tom could answer. "Is this going to
lead anywhere?"
"What do you mean?" asked Phil.
"I mean that poetical start on a talk-fest. Are you going to ring in
beautiful scenery, calm, peaceful atmosphere, a sense of loneliness, and
then switch off on to girls? Is that what you're driving at? Because if
it is I want to know, and I'm going back and read some psychology."
"You're up the wrong tree," declared Tom. "I don't know what Phil means,
but my answer to his question would be that to stretch out on the ground
for any length of time at this season would mean stiff muscles, not to
mention rheumatism."
"You fellows have no poetry in your nature," complained Phil. "Just look
there, where the river curves, how the trees lean over to be kissed by
the limpid water. Can't you fancy some one floating, floating down it in
a boat, with heart attuned----"
"It's too late for boating!" exclaimed a voice behind the trio. "My
uncle says----"
Phil turned quickly and tried to grab Ford Fenton. The youth with the
uncle jumped back.
"Why--what--what's the matter?" stammered Fenton.
"Matter!" cried Phil. "Why, you little shrimp, I've a good notion to
chuck you into the river!"
"Yes, the river--the beautiful, meandering, poetical river," added
Tom. "Quit it, Phil; you're getting on my nerves. I'm glad Fenton
interrupted you with a recollection of his uncle. What were you going
to say about your respected relative?" he asked.
But Fenton was going to take no chances with Phil, and, turning about,
he retraced his steps.
"What were you saying, Phil?" inquired Sid politely, if sarcastically.
"None of your business," replied the quarter-back a little stiffly. "I'm
going to write a poem about it," he added more genially.
"And send it to some girl, I suppose," went on Sid. "Oh, you make me
sick!"
What further ramification the conversation might have taken is
problematical, but it was interrupted just then by the arrival of Ed
Kerr, who seemed in much of a hurry.
"I've been looking all over for you fellows," he panted.
"Why hastenest thou thus so hastily?" asked Tom. "Is the college on
fire? Has Pitchfork been taken with a fit, or has Moses sent to say we
need study no more?"
"Quit your gassin'!" ordered Ed. "Say, we're going to have the walk rush
to-night. The freshies have just had a meeting and decided on it. Tried
to pull it off quietly, but Snail Looper heard, and kindly tipped us
off. Dutch Housenlager is getting the soph crowd together. You fellows
want to be in it, don't you?"
"Of course," answered Tom. "We have not forgotten that we were once
freshmen, and that we had many clashes with the second-years. Now we
will play the latter rôle. Lead on, Macduff, and he be hanged who first
cries: 'Hold! Enough!' We'll make the freshies wish they had never seen
Randall College."
"Maybe--maybe not," spoke Phil. "They're a husky lot--the first-year
lads. But we can never let them have the privilege of the walk without a
fight."
The "walk rush," as it was termed, was one of those matters about which
college tradition had centered. It was a contest between the freshman
and sophomore classes, that took place every fall, usually early in
October. It got its name from the walk which circled Booker Memorial
Chapel. This chapel was the gift of a mother whose son had died while
attending Randall, and the beautiful stained glass windows in it were
well worth looking at--in fact, many an artist came to Randall expressly
for that purpose.
Around the chapel was a broad walk, shaded with stately oaks, and the
path was the frequenting place of the college lads. From time immemorial
the walk had been barred to freshmen unless, in the annual rush, they
succeeded in defeating the sophomores, and, as this seldom occurred, few
freshmen used the walk, save on Sundays, when all hostilities were
suspended, in honor of the day. The rush always took place on a small
knoll, or hill, back of the gymnasium, and it was the object of the
freshmen to take possession of this point of vantage, and maintain it
for half an hour against the rush of the sophomores. If they succeeded
they were entitled to use the chapel walk. If they did not, they were
reviled, and any freshman caught on the forbidden ground was liable to
summary punishment.
Dark figures stole silently here and there. Commands and instructions
were whispered hoarsely. There was an air of mystery about, for it was
the night of the walk rush, and freshmen and sophomores were each
determined to win.
Garvey Gerhart, by virtue of the "boosting" which Langridge had given
him, had secured command of the first-year forces. As soon as it was
dark he had assembled them on "gym hill," as the knoll was called. There
was a large crowd of freshmen, almost too large, it seemed, for the
sophomores were outnumbered two to one. But Tom, Sid, Phil, Dutch
Housenlager, Ed Kerr and others of the second-year class were strong in
the belief of their power to oust their rivals from the hilltop. They
had a moral force back of them--the conscious superiority of being
"veterans," which counted for much.
"We're going to have our work cut out for us," commented Tom, as, with
his chums advancing slowly to the fray, he surveyed the throng of
freshmen. "My, but there's a bunch of 'em! And we've got to clean every
mother's son of them off the hill."
"We'll do it!" cried Phil gaily. "It will be good training for us."
"Of course!" exclaimed Dutch, as he put out his foot slyly to trip Sid.
Tom saw the act, he executed a quick movement that sent Housenlager
sprawling on the ground.
"That's the time you got some of your own medicine!" exclaimed Phil with
a laugh, as Dutch, muttering dire vengeance, picked himself up.
The preliminaries for the rush were soon arranged, timekeepers and
umpires selected, and, with the bright moon shining down on the scene,
the battle began. It was wild, rough and seemingly without order, yet
there was a plan about it. The freshmen were massed together on top, and
about the center bunch were circles of their fellows who were to thrust
back the rushing sophomores. Not until the last freshman had been swept
from the hill could the second-year youths claim victory.
"All ready!" yelled Ed Kerr, and at the freshmen went their rivals.
There was the thud of body striking body. Breaths came quick and fast.
There were smothered exclamations, the sound of blows good-naturedly
taken and given. There were cries, shouts, commands, entreaties. There
was a swaying of the mass, this way and that. A knot of lads would go
down, with a struggling pile on top of them, and the conglomeration
would writhe about until it disentangled.
Tom, Phil and Sid (whose hand was now almost entirely better) tore their
way toward the center. Time and again they were hurled back, only to
renew the rush.
"Clean 'em off!" was the rallying cry of the sophomores.
"Fight 'em back!" was the retort of the freshmen.
At it they went, fiercely and earnestly. The entire mass appeared to be
revolving about the hill now, with the little group of freshmen on the
top as a pivot.
Gradually Tom, Phil and their particular chums worked their way up
to the crest. Then they found that the freshmen had adopted strange
tactics. Under the advice of Gerhart they stretched out prone, and, with
arms and legs twined together, made a regular layer of bodies, covering
the summit. It was almost impossible to separate the lads one from the
other, in order to hurl them out of the way. They were literally
"sticking together."
"Tear 'em apart!" pleaded Tom.
"Rip 'em up!" shouted Phil.
"Hold tight!" sung out Gerhart.
And hang tightly they did. Tom succeeded in breaking the hold of one
lad, and Phil that of another. But, in turn, the two big sophomores were
borne down and overwhelmed by the weight of freshmen on their backs.
The referee blew a warning whistle. But two minutes of time were left.
The sophomores redoubled their efforts, but the ruse of the freshmen was
a good one. It was like trying to tear apart a living doormat.
The sophomores could not do it. Though they labored like Trojans, it was
not to be. Once more the whistle blew, indicating that the rush was
ended.
The sophomores had lost, and for the remainder of the term the freshmen
could strut proudly about the walk of Booker Memorial Chapel.