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STANFORD STORIES
TALES OF A
YOUNG UNIVERSITY
BY
CHARLES K. FIELD
[CAROLUS AGER]
AND
WILL H. IRWIN
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1900, by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
BLANCHARD PRESS, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
DEDICATION.
"To the newest born of the Sisters,
At the end of the race's march,
In her quaint, old Spanish garment,
Pillar and tile and arch;
Awaiting the age that hallows,
Her face to the coming morn--
Whose scholars still walk in her cloisters,
Whose martyrs are yet unborn."
"We scatter down the four wide ways,
Clasp hands and part, but keep
The power of the golden days
To lull our care asleep,
And dream, while our new years we fill
With sweetness from those four,
That we are known and loved there still,
Though we come back no more."
PREFATORY NOTE.
These are stories of the University as it was before the era of new
buildings. While the attempt has been made to create, in character,
incident and atmosphere, a picture of Stanford life, the stories, as
stories, are fiction, with the exception of "Pocahontas, Freshman," and
"Boggs' Election Feed," which were suggested by local occurrences, and
"One Commencement," which is mainly fact. The original draft of "His
Uncle's Will" was printed in _The Sequoia_ with the title "The Fate of
Freshman Hatch."
It may be necessary to add that, in the endeavor to present the actual
life of the University, it has seemed quite inadvisable to edit the
conversation of the characters from the standpoint of the English
purist. Since, however, those readers who boggle over slang could hardly
be much interested in the Undergraduate, it is sufficient merely to call
attention to the point.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A Midwinter Madness, 3
Pocahontas, Freshman, 29
His Uncle's Will, 55
The Initiation of Dromio, 77
The Substituted Fullback, 91
Two Pioneers and an Audience, 119
For the Sake of Argument, 135
An Alumni Dinner, 171
Boggs' Election Feed, 185
In the Dark Days, 207
Crossroads, 223
A Song Cycle and a Puncture, 249
One Commencement, 265
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAST THE LONELY REDWOOD TREE TO THE UNIVERSITY, _Frontispiece_
... TOWARD THE LA HONDA REDWOODS, _Facing page_ 148
A STROLL IN THE MOONLIT QUAD, PLANNED TO INTEREST THE CROWD
AT THE TUESDAY EVENING LECTURE, _Facing page_ 154
... THEN THE LULL DURING CLASS, _Facing page_ 200
A MIDWINTER MADNESS.
STANFORD STORIES.
A Midwinter Madness.
Genius has been defined as a capacity for taking pains.
When a college man's good fairy makes her first call at his cradle, she
may bestow upon him the football instinct, with muscles to match; no
fairy could do more. But if she bumps up against Heredity, and is
powerless to give him the supreme gift, she may compensate for it in a
degree by leaving the kind of larynx and tympanum used in the Glee Club.
Failing this, she may render next best service by throwing a mandolin in
his way and bewitching his parents into paying for lessons. Some twenty
years later, behind the enchanted scenes of a specially hired theater,
or on the polished floor of society's inner temple, he may think of the
fairy kindly.
Doubtless, all theatrical life means drudgery, but the Christmas tour of
the Glee and Mandolin clubs is drudgery amidst bowers of roses. The
hard-working professional would call it play; yet, even in this gilded
stage-life, there is the common affliction of being forced to appear at
every concert, and in places you don't care about--unless, of course,
you happen to be seriously ill.
The Clubs had just done an abbreviated stunt for the Los Angeles High
School the afternoon before Christmas. The occasion was a big ad., but
they ripped matters through in a hurry, because the social event of the
trip came that afternoon--Lillian Arnold's reception at her home on
Figuerroa Street.
At Hacienda Arnold there is running water along the garden copings, and
the grounds are large. It was bud-time, and the heavy fragrance of the
orange blossoms mingled with the bitter-almond smell of oleanders. Miss
Arnold served her refreshments on the lawn, and the girls looked peachy
in plume-laden hats and filmy organdies. The day was rather warm for
December. To this out-door reception came the prettiest girl in Los
Angeles, Dolores Payson; her full name, she confided to Cecil Van Dyke
that evening with a slight but captivating roll of her Andalusian eyes
and r's, was Dolores Ynez Teresa Payson. Van Dyke was the only man on
the trip who had thought to bring his summer togs, and he looked very
swell. Van played first mandolin and was notoriously susceptible. It is
down in the Club annals that she caught his game at first sight.
Had she been given to genealogical investigation, the name Van Dyke
might have recalled to this descendant of many hidalgos that foggy
battle-field in the Netherlands on which her ancestor and his took
pot-shots at each other with the primitive cross-bow. Motley records
that on that day far-gone Holland laid low the Spaniard. The present
historian is forced to chronicle the final triumph of Spain. The only
bow used in this last encounter was in the hands of a mythological
person whose existence is doubted only by scoffers.
They tried a dance or two in the crowded rooms, they strolled out into
the gardens, they ate ices under the roses in a secluded arbor. The
place, the time, the air had their influence on Van Dyke. He was from
Montana, where the magnolias do not shed their waxen petals at
Christmas, and the gold-of-Ophir roses sternly refuse to leaf until the
Fourth of July.
Perhaps he might have withstood all the seductive charms of the hour if
he had not escorted Dolores home and essayed to bid her good-bye. There
was a great clump of flaming poinsettia at the Payson gate. Dolores was
dark, with a rich southern complexion; her dress was white. So she stood
against the poinsettia. That is why there is more to this story.
Van Dyke meditated as he went into town. She was the finest girl he had
ever met. It was a hard graft, this playing one day in a live town where
one could meet charming people, and being forced to take the train next
morning for some uninteresting country place where they would have to
lounge around a cheap hotel until concert time. Why couldn't the manager
get up a schedule that would give them a day or so longer in a place
like Los Angeles? This making a college trip with the sole idea of
money-getting was degrading. He, for one, was willing enough to pay his
share of the extra expense.
On his way he stopped at a florist's. It was a habit he had acquired
under similar circumstances. He was puzzled to know just what to send in
a land where the highways and hedges run riot with flowers, but he
finally selected some wonderful orchids of delicate lavender and mauve.
Purposely, he put no card with them, feeling that she would guess the
sender.
He got into his dress clothes in rather an ungracious humor. Pomona was
the next place, a fruit town further south. Oh, it was too bad! Well, at
least he would see her again at the concert that night. He was grateful
for this much. Her seat was on an aisle, she told him; he would be able
to speak to her during the intermission; more than this, she had said,
in her best convent manner, that he might ride home with her papa and
mamma afterwards.
Still, this was an unsatisfactory way of carrying on an affair of the
sort, especially when it was the first really serious one he had ever
had. Clean out of Van's mind had faded the memory of a Montana cow-girl,
a San Francisco actress, a senior in the Lambda Mu sorority, a----but
space forbids. He mussed three ties. Freshmen are petulant things.
Perkins, who led the Mandolin Club, joshed him at dinner.
"What's the matter, my boy; didn't you have a good time this afternoon?"
"Of course he didn't," answered a guitar man. "You must have noticed his
bored expression all through; that is, when you saw him at all."
"That was merely the blase look that comes with four months at the
Youngest and Best," said "Cap." Smith. "The Freshman was happy on his
little inside because he was so well got up. He really looked the part;
now he's in ordinary clothes, like a common strolling player, and he
feels cross."
"No," growled Van Dyke, "I've caught cold or something."
"Oh," said Phillips, the Glee Club leader. He took up his table fork and
bit the end; holding it to his ear he gave the table a starting chord,
and they hummed "Ma Onliest One," while Van grew red, and the rest of
the dining-room stopped to listen.
Dolores Payson sat in an orchestra seat and smiled up at the immaculate
Mr. Van Dyke, above the only bunch of orchids in the theatre. He came to
chat with her during the interval between "La Czarina" and "Schneider's
Band." She was doubly guarded by her father on one side and her mother
on the other. It was a way they had. She introduced him demurely with an
adorable little wave of her black fan. He wondered if, should he quit
college right away, he could get a job which would enable him to support
a wife. He looked at the placid, olive-skinned mother, not yet old
enough to be very fat, and decided that he could; his glance wandered to
the angular, sharp-featured American father, and he was sure he
couldn't.
Van could not remember ever having seen such great, dark liquid eyes as
now melted into his. It seemed hard not to behold them again for a whole
week. Hard? It was impossible. It was dreadful to leave her for the
little time while the mandolin club was on the stage. On his way up the
aisle his freshman brain was seized and overmastered by a brilliant
idea; he almost stopped to pat himself on the shoulder.
Going into one of the dressing rooms, he sank dejectedly on a chair and
pressed his hand to his forehead. Perkins, gathering in his musicians
for the next piece, found him there.
"Come along, Freshie."
The first mandolin rose slowly.
"What's the matter?" asked the leader.
"Oh, nothing," said the other, "I'll be all right."
After the piece he went back to the dressing-room.
"Encore!" cried Perkins, rushing in.
"I can't help it," said Van, in a contracted tone, "I can't go on."
"Why not?" demanded Perkins.
"I'm in awful pain, Ted," pleaded Van. "Something I've eaten, I guess. I
can hardly stand up straight."
"Oh, rats!" answered Perkins sympathetically, and tore out again.
Van took his coat and mandolin and disappeared. Between numbers he came
in and slipped down the aisle to the Paysons' seats.
"Will you excuse me, Miss Payson? I can't go home with you after the
concert. I'm awfully sorry, but I feel pretty sick and I'm going back to
the hotel now."
"Oh, what is it?" Dolores asked, and her mother leaned forward with
polite interest.
Van smiled weakly.
"Nothing serious, probably," he said. "Don't worry, please. I won't say
good-bye," he added, taking Dolores' hand, "because if I _have_ to stay
over to-morrow I shall try to see you in the morning."
"Oh, I hope you'll be better, and I shall look for you."
Then Mason came out to sing, and Van left with a hurried good-night. The
streets were full of Christmas shoppers. At the first drug store he
bought some Jamaica ginger; then he went to the hotel and slid into bed,
leaving the lights on.
After the concert Perkins did not go to the cafe with the rest; he, too,
hastened back to the hotel.
"I'll bet he's at the Payson ranch this minute," he thought, as he made
for Van's room, but the sick musician was lying on his face, breathing
heavily.
"Well, what's the matter, anyway?" said Perkins, his suspicions fading.
"I don't know," groaned Van. "It came on all of a sudden at the theatre.
The pain is here on my right side. Gee whiz, it knocks me out!"
"Shan't I get a doctor?" asked the leader. "What do you think it is?"
"Of course," moaned the sufferer, "it may be appendicitis,--I don't
think that could hurt more,--but it can hardly be anything like that.
I've taken the ginger, and it will set me up, probably."
"You ought to have a doctor look at you, though. It's dangerous to put
it off," urged Perkins.
"No," said Van. "I'll stick it out to-night, and if I'm not better
to-morrow, why, you may get one. Never mind me, Ted. Where is the gang?"
"They're all down in the Grotto."
"Go on and join them; don't stay here, it isn't necessary. I'll be all
right, I say, and I can ring if I'm not. Come in in the morning, won't
you?"
"Sure. The train goes at ten-fifteen, you know. We can't get along
without you very well."
"Oh, I'll be fit in the morning. So long, old man."
"Good-night," and Perkins shut the door.
The Freshman lay still awhile, then got up and, smiling broadly, turned
out the lights and tumbled back to sleep.
Meanwhile Perkins joined the men at the restaurant.
"Van Dyke is sick," he said. "I've just been up in his room."
"What's the matter?"
"We don't know. He's afraid it's appendicitis."
"I'll tell you what it is," said Mason, the baritone; "it's heart
trouble. I wouldn't believe that man Van under a triple oath, if there
were a skirt in the case."
"You won't have to search far in this case," laughed a deep bass voice
behind a cool stein.
"Oh, I don't think so," protested Perkins; "he looked bad, bad. I think
it's square enough."
"Don't you believe him a minute. I'll bet it's a fake, pure and simple."
"He couldn't expect to work one on us."
"Why not? The time the Mandolin Club went North with the Berkeley Glee
somebody played the same blooming game. It worked all right then and
they joshed the life out of the leader, too. I heard Shirlock tell about
it."
The Freshman should never have allowed himself to go to sleep so easily.
By the time Perkins and Mason tiptoed up to his room, he was sprawled
out on his back, snoring with a healthfulness that was positively
vulgar. Mason gave the leader a significant punch and drew him down the
hall to his room.
"See here, Perk," he said, "if he keeps up that gag to-morrow I have a
scheme that is a pipe."
The invalid wore a woe-begone expression when the two fellows went in
before breakfast.
"Are you any better?" asked Perkins.
"No," said Van, miserably. "The pain is just as bad. I guess I'll have
to see a doctor after all."
"How did you sleep?" inquired Perkins.
"Bum. My fever was high all night," moaned the sufferer. "I heard you
fellows come up, and I hoped someone might drop in. I suppose you were
all too sleepy."
"Yes," said Mason, with a side look at Perkins, "everybody went right to
sleep."
"Well," said the leader, "we'll go down to breakfast now, and then we
will get a doctor to see you before we have to go."
Neither of them stopped to eat. They hurried first to the Polyclinic.
There Perkins asked for the name of one or two physicians who were known
to have little practice, and who could afford to take charge of a man
who would require constant attention for a week, a middle-aged person
preferred.
The man in charge gave them three names and addresses. They went first
to a Doctor Mead, who displayed his shingle in a quiet street. He was a
big, slow-spoken man, somewhat shabbily dressed.
Jimmy Mason approached him with such hesitation in his voice as befitted
the part he was playing. They wanted the doctor on a delicate matter, he
explained; it was a private affair which lay very near to them, Perkins
added.
"You see," said Jimmy, "we're all cut up. Poor little devil----" and his
voice broke artistically, while Perkins forebore to grin.
"Perhaps the case is not so grave as it seems," said the doctor, with
professional calm.
"I don't see how it could be any worse." Jimmy controlled his emotion
with an effort. "If it were just common sickness, but--but he's lost
some of his buttons--bughouse, crazy you know,--" his giggle turned into
a sob again, and Perkins, bearing up under his trouble, took the thread
of the story.
"You see, Doctor, we are musicians from Stanford, travelling through
here; something has happened to one of our party; I don't know what's
the matter: some hallucination."
"It struck him first at Santa Barbara," said Mason. "He thought that he
was very ill one evening when he was tired; said he was sure he was
coming down with appendicitis. We sent for Doctor----"
"Brown," filled in Perkins with presence of mind.
"A very able man; he stands high in the profession," said the doctor
gravely.
All three being thus established on a common basis of mendacity, the
head liar proceeded:
"The doctor couldn't find anything the matter, but the boy--he's only a
Freshman, you see--he raised Cain that night; next day he said he was
as well as ever. It's been like that ever since, Doctor. One hour he's
himself and then he goes to bed and swears he's sick and wants
medicines. We didn't get onto him until last night, when the poor kid
got to acting loco at the concert."
Perkins played chorus at discreet intervals.
"I haven't telegraphed to his people because I wouldn't distress them
till we knew. We must go on with the trip now, and we can't spare any of
our men because we took no substitutes; we strike this place again in a
week. You will be paid well for any services, and furnished a room at
the hotel. Now, Doctor, can you arrange with your patients so that he
will have your undivided time?"
("Bet you haven't any to arrange with," was the unspoken thought of both
men.)
Dr. Mead pondered.
"We come to you," Jimmy put in, "because we need someone on whom we can
rely, a man of skill and tact."
"It happens," said the doctor after minutes of profound deliberation,
"that I have no necessary calls to make until Saturday this week. What I
have to do can be managed over the telephone, and I presume patients can
call upon me at the hotel as well as here. Now, what are the exact
particulars of your friend's aberration?"
"Can you walk up to the hotel with us, Doctor?" asked Mason, looking at
his watch. "Our train leaves at ten-fifteen; we have very little time
left."
On the way the two gave to the unfortunate Freshman such peculiarities,
idiosyncrasies and hallucinations as seemed good; they warned the
physician that he must never be left alone, and that he ought to be
humored to the top of his bent in regard to his fancied attack of
appendicitis.
"Then it's understood?" said Mason, as they came down the hall toward
Van Dyke's room. "Of course we can't speak of the matter before him."
"Yes," said the doctor, "I think I can manage everything. You will
explain to the clerk in the office the peculiar character of your
friend's illness, and I shall have no trouble, I am sure."
"All right," said Perkins, and they entered. There were several of the
club in the room saying good-bye. At the entrance of the physician they
filed out.
"Where have you the most pain, Mr. Van Dyke?" began Dr. Mead.
"Here," said Van, without a blush.
The physician pressed his fingers upon the afflicted region, felt Van's
pulse and forehead and gravely examined his tongue; then he turned to
the two men and said:
"It is probably appendicitis. The boy must stay in bed for the present."
"Hate to leave you, Van," Mason said, taking the sick man's hand gently;
"but it's almost train time. Take care of yourself and do as the doctor
says, and you'll be O. K."
"Good-bye, old man," said Perkins. "Have 'em telegraph right along; we
shall want to know just how you are. We shall have to cut the string
quartet, and that's pretty hard with Pellams out of the trip, but don't
feel bad about that. You'll be nifty by the time we are on for the
return concert."
"Good-bye," said the man with appendicitis, assuming the look of one who
may be taking his last farewell of earthly things. "I shall come out all
right, I'm sure I shall."
"Course. Good-bye. Doctor, look out for him."
"Send up some paper from the office, will you?" murmured the Freshman
wearily. "I--I think I want to write to my mother."
Ten minutes later the bell-boy brought the paper and a Bible.
Dr. Mead arranged the bedclothes with a practised hand, then he sent out
for medicine and chatted affably until the stuff arrived. Van submitted
to a plaster on his abdomen and alternated messes for half-hour
intervals. He was contented enough. Early afternoon would be a good time
to find Dolores.
The doctor settled himself by the window and talked about the University
and politics and climatic conditions in Montana and California; the
musician joined in the conversation politely but without great
enthusiasm, wondering when the man was going; there was not any too much
time now for breakfast and a careful toilet. He ventured to speak.
"If you have other patients that call you, Doctor, you mustn't stay with
me. I can get along, even if it is lonely in a hotel, and you'll be in
again to-day, won't you?"
"Appendicitis," said the doctor, with his heaviest air, "is not a thing
to be treated lightly. Just now you are in a critical condition inasmuch
as we are not sure what turn your trouble may take. You are likely to be
seized suddenly with the usual symptoms: then an operation will be an
immediate necessity. I have the needed instruments right here in my
valise, and I can give you relief at once. If, however, I should leave
you, I might not be within reach until serious complications had time to
arise; for that reason I shall be obliged to watch you through to-day.
Afterwards it may not be necessary."
This speech fairly paralyzed the man in bed. Had he done this artistic
bit of acting for the purpose of spending his Christmas on the flat of
his back talking to a prosy old doctor? He lay still, trying to think
what answer could be made to this physician who told him seriously that
he had appendicitis. He put out a feeler.
"That medicine of yours is the real thing. The pain is very much less
now."
Dr. Mead looked at him over his glasses.
"Is it entirely gone?"
"Yes," answered Van, cheerily, "it certainly is."
"That is a dangerous symptom. The plaster should have drawn the pain to
the surface, but not stopped it. That numbness is exactly what I wished
to avoid."
He rose and poured out medicine from another bottle. Van nearly choked
in swallowing this. It was eleven o'clock. Sounds of Christmas revelry
floated even into his secluded upper room. The bells were telling to the
people of the City of the Angels their message of peace on earth, good
will toward men; they were dinning into the ears of the victim of a
modern disease the fact that he ought at that moment to be waiting for
Dolores on her pious way to Mission Los Angeles. He pictured her with
some ancient missal in her slender hands, and flanked on one side by her
sympathetic duenna of a mother. The certainty that her American father
would be safe at home did not detract from the charm of the situation.
"The drinks seem to be on me!" thought he after his next dose. The sun
of southern California was shining brightly out of doors; it must be a
glorious day at Westlake Park. The bedclothes were warm and irksome, and
that confounded plaster had begun to itch. If he was ever to see Dolores
again he should have to make a clean breast of the whole thing.
He sat up.
"Say, Doctor, I haven't appendicitis at all; I am as well as I ever was.
I just put this up as a joke on the fellows because I wanted to stay in
town instead of going farther south. I've imposed on you, I'm sorry to
say. I haven't any pain whatever. I was faking."
"Yes," said the doctor, soothingly, "I knew you were, but you are not
well at all, my boy, and my advice to you is to stay right there in bed.
You have appendicitis symptoms in spite of there being no pain, and you
might do yourself no end of harm by getting up now. I wouldn't let any
man go out of doors after taking that belladonna for the world. It would
be suicidal."
"But, Doctor, I'm not sick, I tell you; I feel out of sight," and Van
threw off the clothes and was about to spring out, plaster and all.
Dr. Mead thought it time to act.
"Get back in there," he said, quietly but firmly. He was a man of
powerful physique and Van thought it best to obey until he could reason
with him.
"I know what I am talking about, young man," he went on, "and you must
listen to me. I want you to stay in bed."
This was too much.
"I'll be hanged if I will!" shouted the patient, preparing to rise.
"Keep covered up!" ordered the doctor. He had a big, deep voice. He
stood a little way off, with his forefinger pointed at the student,
sighting over it with a cold, gray eye. Something in his manner began to
frighten Van. He shivered under the bedclothes. A hideous story which he
had read about a maniac barber came into his mind with sickening effect.
The man's whole appearance, all his actions, his eager grasping of the
appendicitis theory, proclaimed insanity. He meant to operate on him,
whether or no! There were the surgical instruments in that black bag on
the bureau, and he was shut up in the room with the whole crazy outfit!
He would have given his soul to be in Pomona with the club.
"All right, Doctor," he said weakly, sliding a little farther down into
the bed, "I'll do just as you say. Only I wish you'd ring and see if any
mail has come for me."
The boy who answered the doctor's call was an athletic young fellow. Van
thought that between them they could manage the maniac; so he sprang
out crying, "Quick! This man is crazy. Help me get him down!"
To his surprise the boy seized him and deposited him back in bed.
"What in thunder is the matter with you people?" shouted Van. "I'm not
going to stay here with that man when there's nothing the matter with
me!"
"There, there," coaxed the boy, "you're all right, sir; try to go to
sleep, can't you?"
Then Van turned over to the wall and wept salt Freshman tears, and the
awe-struck boy gently closed the door. And Cupid, with his wings folded
over his little arms, sat upon the bureau and laughed long and
cynically.
It was now past twelve o'clock. Church was over, and Dolores was
returning. Home-ward gently she rode with surging thoughts in her bosom,
and an expression of sweet, religious calm hovering over her straight
black brows. That was the Spanish of her. The moment the front door
closed behind her she sprinted for the telephone. That was the American
of her.
Had Papa Payson not been absorbed in the forty-eight-page Christmas
edition of the Los Angeles _Herald_, he might have overheard the
following semi-conversation:
"----"
"Main eight-double-eight."
"----"
"Yes."
"----"
"Is this the Westminster?"
"----"
"Will you--er--that is--did the Stanford Glee Club leave this morning?"
"----"
"Oh! Will you tell me, please, whether Mr. Cecil Van Dyke left with
them?"
"----"
"Oh, I'm so sorry! What's the matter?"
"----"
"Appendicitis!" The receiver dropped and swung against the wall. Dolores
had fled to mamma.
Perkins and Mason, treating each other at every station short of the
prohibition town of Pomona, would have felt less complacent over their
little joke had they seen the procession that left the Hotel Westminster
at one-thirty P. M. on that balmy Christmas day. The order of march, as
instituted by the American Dolores, was as follows:
1. The Payson carriage, with Mrs. and Miss Payson on the forward seat
and a tenderly wrapped Freshman on the other, and the coachman
instructed to drive gently.
2. Dr. Mead and the devoted bell-boy in a phaeton.
3. Small citizens on foot.
The doctor, obeying to the letter the orders of Perkins, who had
commanded him not to leave his patient for one moment, smiled broadly as
he gathered the lunatic into his arms and bore him past the fatal
poinsettia bushes and up the broad steps where the grave major-domo was
waiting to receive them. The scale upon which the Payson household was
conducted just suited the ideas of that worthy practitioner.
* * * * *
On Saturday, Perkins and Mason asked at the hotel for Van Dyke and the
doctor.
"They gave up their rooms last Monday, not very long after you left,"
said the clerk. "A lady took your friend to her house."
"Who was she?" asked Jimmy, with dark foreboding.
"A Mrs. Payson."
Perkins collapsed on his suit-case. Jimmy made for the desk and began to
scan the directory.
"What are you looking for?"
"The P's. I'm going to haze that rattle-weeded Freshman and slay the
doctor."
When the two defeated joshers paused inside the Payson gate, a scene of
touching domesticity met their gaze. Under a jasmine-covered corner of
the piazza, nestling in the depths of a great easy chair, lay Freshman
Van Dyke. Senorita Dolores, in the role of ministering angel, was
bending unnecessarily close. Dr. Mead, as near his patient as was
consistent with delicacy, was lounging in a hammock, and smoking a good
cigar. It is a tradition in Los Angeles clubdom that John Payson imports
his cigars direct. In the middle-distance, Mrs. Payson was approaching
with a cup of nourishing beef-tea.
Jimmy Mason, afraid to trust himself to the expression of his thoughts
in the presence of ladies, was about to vanish gracefully, but Van Dyke
caught sight of them.
"Hello, fellows. Hear you had a frost in San Diego," cried he.
"You must be very much better--able to be moved, I notice," with a look
in Jimmy's eyes that pointed to future trouble.
"Oh," said the Freshman, "almost recovered. I've had the very best of
care--and a very satisfactory nurse," and for the last time, in this
story, he gazed into those Andalusian eyes.
"But not the nurse we engaged," said the aggrieved Perkins.
"No," said Van, "this young lady was engaged only last evening."
"S-sh," said Senora Payson, pointing to the open window, "Papa may hear
you."
POCAHONTAS, FRESHMAN.
Pocahontas, Freshman.
"But when they lookt round for the Ladye Pocahontas, she
hadde gone to her Yorke woodes, weepyng they saye."
ROWE'S LIFE OF POCAHONTAS.
I.
To begin with, the college never called her Pocahontas to her face, and
no one would have found anything pat in the name until a long-remembered
spring afternoon in her Freshman year. After that day, although her
instructors still registered her as Hannah Grant Daly, she was generally
known as "Pocahontas." Students with visitors would point her out in the
Quad. "That's the girl they call Pocahontas." Then they would tell
briefly her story. She knew through her room-mate that the college had
nicknamed her, and she grieved over it. She did not know that John Smith
himself never called her Pocahontas; she had never dared to look at him
since the day they had named her.
Early in September the noon train brought her through the oaks and the
burdened olive orchards, past the lonely redwood Tree to the University.
The brakeman's call: "Next station is Palo A-al-to!" stirred her with
fluttering excitement. The crowded carriages and people at the station
bewildered her. Eager 'busmen struggled for the hand-baggage of
strangers, men with "Student Transfer" on their caps clamored for
trunk-checks. Fellows in duck seized some of the men who came down the
car steps, carrying away their suit-cases and throwing lusty student
arms about their shoulders. The men thus welcomed introduced younger
fellows and the whole group piled into a 'bus and shouted "Rho House,
Billy," to the driver.
The man who got out just ahead of Pocahontas was greeted by cries of
"Come on you Ca-ap!" and "Hello, Smithy, old boy!" He was evidently
someone of whom they were very fond. One fat fellow with a comical face
hugged him theatrically. Pocahontas watched them drive away, laughing
and slapping one another's knees. The man they called Smithy was the
nicest looking.
She had given her new valise to a gray-haired 'busman who looked a
little like the minister at home. On the way up the long avenue of palms
toward the sandstone buildings low in the distance, this 'busman chatted
kindly with her, telling her wonderful, almost incredible things about
the University, so that she began to feel a little less strange. As she
paid her fare in front of the Roble he said:
"Now, whenever you want a 'bus, Miss, just ask for Uncle John. That's
what they call me."
"Yes," answered the Freshman, gratefully, "I will,--Uncle John."
She passed up the dormitory steps, running awkwardly the gauntlet of
experienced eyes scanning the new arrivals. The Theta Gammas wrote her
down as material for a quaint little, quiet little dig,--not of sorority
interest. One of them ventured that there was an Oxford teacher's Bible
and an embroidered mending-case in the shiny valise. Another prophesied
that the newcomer would wear her High School graduation-dress to the
Freshman reception. These ladies had been at college for three years and
their diagnosis was correct.
So Hannah Grant Daly hopped with no unnecessary flapping of wings upon
her perch in the Roble dove-cote. The matron put her into 52 with
Lillian Arnold, a Sophomore leader of local society. This was "to make
things easier for her." Their wedded life lasted three days. It was long
after lights when Miss Arnold returned the first night. Hannah had read
her chapter and was lying awake, bravely resisting a homesick cry. Her
roommate groped in with an animated tale of a Freshman spread on the top
floor at which the chief attraction had been oyster cocktails.
Pocahontas shuddered. In imagination she detected a faint odor like
that from her mother's medicine-closet.
"I'd have asked you to go along with me," apologized Lillian, scrambling
into bed without any conventional delay, "but I thought you wouldn't
care for such things."
"I hope I never shall," said the new girl, solemnly, and turned her face
to the wall.
The following morning while Pocahontas arranged her share of the bureau,
the Sophomore draped a tennis net on their wall and fixed in its meshes
the trophies of her first year. She was putting a photograph in place
when Hannah spoke:
"Who is that, Miss Arnold?"
"That's Jack Smith," answered Lillian; "stunning, isn't he?"
"He's very interesting, I think. He was on the train yesterday. There
were ever so many boys to meet him."
"He's a Beta Rho,--belongs to that fraternity, you know. They have a
swell house here. I know most of them very well,--been over there to
dinner several times."
"What class is he in?"
"Mine,--Sophomore. He's a splendid athlete,--football and
pole-vaulting,--and he sings in the Glee Club. He was the only Freshman
to make the team last year,--he's really a perfect hero."
"I knew he was somebody by the way they acted down at the station. I
think he has a good face." The new girl had come over from the bureau
and was looking up at the picture in the net.
"Everybody thinks he is the handsomest man in college. You wait till you
see him in his red sweater. Don't say anything, Hannah, but I'm going to
have Jack Smith for my very own this year; you see if I don't manage
it," and Lillian, laughing, blew a light kiss to the photograph.
Decidedly Pocahontas disapproved of her room-mate. Later, when she found
that a half-dozen girls who had dropped in after dinner were there for
the evening, she went out into a music-room to look at her new
text-books. Routed from here by more butterflies, with "beaux," she did
her reading on a bench in the hallway. Another day and she was rooming
with a Junior who was a hard student. Her departure caused Miss Arnold
sincere regret. A girl she knew had roomed with a Freshman the year
before and the child adored her and did the mending of both. Lillian
hated to sew.
Pocahontas had been at college a week and was already learning that it
is not necessary to read all your references when her room-mate, coming
in from the library one evening, mentioned that there was a rush going
on over at the tank.
"A rush?" asked Hannah, "what is that?"
"A relic of barbarism; they ought to have put a stop to it long ago,
Professor Grind says."
"Yes," said the Freshman, "but what do they do?"
"Oh, get out and fight somehow,--I don't know just how,--something about
tying up. Only another way of wasting time, Hannah," and the Junior
plunged back into her Livy.
At breakfast Pocahontas heard Lillian Arnold tell about going over to
the baseball diamond to see the Sophomores lying tied up beside the
backstop, and what a joke it was on her own class and what a ridiculous
figure Jack Smith had made in the coils of a Freshman's trunk-rope, with
his face and hair all grimy with perspiration and dust, and that laundry
agent, Mason, piled on top of him. Hannah left the table in secret
excitement. Between recitations that morning she met Pete Halleck, a
classmate from her own high school; bursting with pride, he took her up
to the Row to show their very own class numerals shining high on the
tank, and she realized vaguely that this was a thing of which she, too,
was a part. There grew within her a longing to reach out a little toward
the big, full life of the college, to know something of the men and
women who lived it. All this was very wrong, she told herself, for she
had come here to study hard. She had only two years in which to fit
herself to teach. Here was the precious book-knowledge for which she had
hungered and pinched so long. It must not be neglected, ever so little;
but the enthusiasm of the boy with her was infectious. In her soul she
took issue with the views of her room-mate, fortified as they were by
the approval of Professor Grind.
In this rebellious mood she read on the Hall bulletin-board a notice of
the reception to be given to new students by the Christian Associations.
Here was a chance to satisfy that wicked craving without too great
concession, for of course there would be no dancing and the auspices
were so favorable. She spoke about it to Katherine Graham, a Junior, who
was in Lillian Arnold's "set," to be sure, but who had put her arm
around the homesick little Freshman one soft evening after dinner when
the girls were strolling before the Hall, and had drawn her down the
walk toward the Ninety-five Oak. Katherine was a fine, frank girl whose
talk about the University and her love for the campus and its life
stirred the new girl's pulses. She could listen with unguarded eagerness
to this Junior because she knew her to be a student. Pocahontas slipped
her arm wistfully 'round her friend's waist. To room with Miss Graham
would have been perfect happiness.
"Of course you'll go," declared Katherine, when she had heard the
Freshman's confidence regarding the reception. "It's slow, sometimes,
but you'll meet the people you want to know."
So out came the plain graduation-dress, folded carefully away since the
night she read the valedictory, three months ago; she sewed a rip in the
gloves saved from the same occasion, and she took out the fan which her
grandmother had given her, a wonderful fan she had considered it until
she saw a few of Lillian's.
In the gymnasium where glistening bamboo and red geraniums screened the
chest-weights along the walls, and feathery branches of pepper climbed
luxuriantly over the inclined ladders, she found the crowd
characteristic of this occasion,--the Freshman men at one end, the
Freshman girls at the other, and between them a neutral zone of old
students chatting gayly, oblivious of the purpose of the affair. Oh, but
the reception committee! Save for these indefatigable martyrs, the
Freshman sexes might have gazed wistfully at each other across the lines
of upper class-men until the lights dipped and never been able to bow on
the Quad next day. Important-looking persons with silk badges and
worried faces circulated in a grim endeavor to "mix things up." One of
these wild-eyed people would dash into the crowd and haul some
struggling upper class-man over to the feminine section. With his victim
in tow, he would open conversation feverishly:
"Name, please?"
"Miss Newcome."
"Ah, permit me to introduce Mr. Oldman. Miss Newcome, Mr. Oldman. Isn't
it warm to-night? Fine talk of the Doctor's, wasn't it? Well, you must
excuse me; we're very busy," the last words dying in the distance as he
sped away.
Pocahontas contrasted this chill with the warmth of church socials at
home. She felt disappointed and dreadfully alone. Her sober-minded
room-mate was bobbing like a pigeon before Professor Grind,
enthusiastically telling him "how much inspiration she got from his
courses;" Katherine Graham was lost in a swirl of upper class-men. The
Freshman had half turned toward the dressing-room when out of the press
came Jack Smith, big, wholesome-looking, still smiling with some memory
of his latest conversation. Why did Hannah stop? It was certainly
bold,--doubtless it was half-unconscious,--but stop she did, and a
committee-man, wheeling suddenly, caught Smith, dashed through the
preliminaries, and the Sophomore had added Hannah Grant Daly to the
list of his acquaintances.
Now "Cap" Smith had not come to this reception to meet Freshman
girls--at any rate insignificant ones with spectacles and sandy hair;
but no one could have told that he had not begged to be presented to
this one.
"I'll have to ask you the same question we put to all," he began,
smiling pleasantly; "what's your major?"
She would have given much to have answered something clever or
interesting, as no doubt other girls did, but she could only stammer:
"Education."
"You've answered so promptly I'll let you off the rest of the
text,--there are forty-two questions in all, each more inquisitive than
the last."
The Freshman giggled; she did not know just why, unless it was that his
face and merry way inspired jollity.
"Have the committee on irrigation attended to you yet?"
"I don't know; I have registered," she faltered.
He laughed, and she blushed uncomfortably.
"Oh, pardon me," he said, "I must go slow with my slang; you've had only
a few days to learn it. I'm just joshing the weakness of the lemonade
the Associations give us. Let's try some, though; shall we?"
They made their way to the lemonade booth. Such a vain, silly little
Freshman she was, to be sweetly conscious that people looked after them
as she passed along with this handsome, athletic young hero whom
everybody admired. Lillian Arnold was in the booth, dividing her
attention between filling glasses and entertaining four men. She gave
Pocahontas a cool bow and cast a look at Smith which the Freshman
interpreted "What are you doing with _her_?" At the same moment Lillian
thought of a foolish confidence she had made to the dig when they were
room-mates. Jack, however, was describing to Hannah the recent rush and
the glory of her class, and Lillian's glances were lost upon him. The
lemonade finished, he took the Freshman over to Professor Craig's
mother, and left her with a pleasant fairy tale about meeting her again.
"Who's your friend?" laughed Perkins, as Smith dived back into his own
element.
"Some little Roble dig. Don't ask me her name. I think people like that
are really lonesome, Ted. Say, those Phis have trotted Haviland 'round
long enough. Let's break up their interference."
Others came up to Mrs. Craig, and Hannah found herself introduced to a
variety of men, but she cared little if she met no one else just then.
She stood watching Jack as he passed from group to group, chaffing
merrily, shaking hands with many people. There was no one else in the
room so well worth watching.
That night, while the Junior breathed regularly on her side of the
alcove, Pocahontas lay a long time thinking dreamily. She knew he would
be like that; somehow he had looked so the first day at the station with
all those noisy boys. She should have answered something more than yes
and no at the reception. He would think her stupid. They had given her
advanced standing in Latin; perhaps he would be in the class when it met
on Monday; it would be splendid if he were; lots of the boys walked to
Roble with girls at half-past-twelve; she would ask him all about the
football; they would not have to talk about the Latin;--she felt so
small beside him as they went along the board walk--he looked down at
her and laughed--there was a seat under the Ninety-five Oak--all the
other people were talking, a long way off--the lemonade bowl under the
tree--shall we--
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 mass 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 scrap, 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! Sophomore
Smith, President of his class. 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 Sophomores once without
scrapping the whole year through?"
"What do you know about our wanting to scrap?"
"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 Sophomore class; 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 Sophomore
president.
"Yes, I guess you will," drawled Halleck. The mob howled. Smith's class
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 class 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
Sophomore.
"Then you won't rush?"