The rain fell in a steady, remorseless drizzle upon the rain-coats
and umbrellas of the throng that blocked the sidewalks and overflowed
on to the car-tracks; but the fires of patriotism were unquenchable,
and a thousand voices arose to the leaden sky in a fierce clamor of
intense enthusiasm. It had rained all night. The streets ran water,
and the spouts emptied their tides between the feet of the cheerers.
The lumbering cars, their crimson sides glistening, clanged their way
carefully through the crowds, and lent a dash of color to the scene.
The back of Grays loomed cheerless and bleak through the drizzle, and
beyond, the college yard lay deserted. In store windows the placards
were hidden behind the blurred and misty panes, and farther up the
avenue, the tattered red flag above Foster’s hung limp and dripping.
Under the leafless elm, the barge, filled to overflowing with departing
heroes, stood ready for its start to Boston. On the steps, bareheaded
and umbrellaless, stood Benham, ’95, who, with outstretched and waving
arms, was tempting the throng into ever greater vocal excesses.
“Now, then, fellows! Three times three for Meredith.”
“’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! ’rah, ’rah, ’rah! ’rah, ’rah, ’rah! Meredith!” A
thousand throats raised the cry; umbrellas clashed wildly in mid-air;
the crowd surged to and fro; horses curveted nervously; and the rain
poured down impartially upon the reverend senior and the clamorous
freshman.
“Fellows, you’re not _half_ cheering!” cried the relentless Benham.
“Now, three long Harvards, three times three and three long Harvards
for the team.”
“Har-vard, Har-vard, Har-vard! ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! ’rah, ’rah, ’rah!
’rah, ’rah, ’rah! Har-vard, Har-vard, Har-vard! Team!”
Inside the coach there was a babel of voices. Members of the eleven
leaned out and conversed jerkily with friends on the sidewalk. Valises
and suit-cases were piled high in the aisle and held in the owners’
laps. The manager was checking off his list.
“Cowper?”
“Here.”
“Turner?”
“All right.”
“Truesdale?”
“Hey? Oh, yes; I’m here.” The manager folded the list. Then a penciled
line on the margin caught his eye.
“Who’s Jameson? Jameson here?”
“Should be Jimpson,” corrected the man next to him; and a low voice
called from the far end of the barge:
“Here, sir.” It sounded so much like the response of a schoolboy
to the teacher that the hearers laughed with the mirth begot of
tight-stretched nerves. A youth wearing a faded brown ulster, who
was between Gates, the big center, and the corner of the coach, grew
painfully red in the face, and went into retirement behind the big
man’s shoulder.
“Who is this fellow Jimpson?” queried a man in a yellow mackintosh.
“Jimpson? He’s a freshie. Trying for right half-back all fall. I
suppose Brattle took him along, now that Ward’s given up, to substitute
Sills. They say he’s an A 1 runner, and plucky. He’s played some on the
second eleven. Taunton told me, the other day, that he played great
ball at Exeter, last year.”
The strident strains of the Washington Post burst out on the air,
urging the cheerers to even greater efforts. They were cheering
indiscriminately now. Trainer, rubbers, and coaches had received their
shares of the ovation. But Benham, ’95, with his coat soaked through,
was still unsatisfied, and sought for further tests. Two professors,
half hidden under umbrellas, had emerged from the yard, and were
standing at a little distance, watching the scene.
“Three times three for Professor Dablee!” The cheers that followed were
mixed with laughter, and the two professors moved off, but not until
the identity of the second had been revealed, and the air had filled
with the refrain of “’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! Pollock!”
“They look as though they ought to win; don’t you think so?” asked one
of them.
The other professor frowned.
“Yes, they look like that; every eleven does. You’d think, to see them
before a game, that nothing short of a pile-driver or dynamite could
drive them an inch. And a few days later they return, heartbroken and
defeated.”
Across the square floated a husky bellow:
“Now, then, fellows! Once more! All together! Three times three for
Harvard!”
The band played wildly, frenziedly, out of time and tune; the crowd
strained its tired throats for one last farewell slogan; the men in the
barge waved their hands; the horses jumped forward; a belated riser in
Holyoke threw open a front window, and drowsily yelled, “_Shut up_”;
and the Harvard eleven sped on its way up the avenue, and soon became a
blur in the gray vista.
“Say, Bob, you forgot to cheer Jimpson.”
The wearied youth faced his accuser, struck an attitude indicative of
intense despair, and then joyfully seized the opportunity.
“Fellows! Fellows! Hold on! Three times three for Jim--Jim--who’d you
say?”
“Jimpson,” prompted the friend.
“Three times three for Jimpson! Now, then, all together!”
“Say--who _is_ Jimpson?” shouted a dozen voices at once.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Three times three for Jimpson!”
And so that youth, had he but known it, received a cheer, after all.
But he didn’t know it--at least, not until long afterward, when cheers
meant so much less to him.