WELCOME AND UNWELCOME VISITORS
Suppose you were a Freshman and hazing were still in vogue, and the
first callers in your college course were two Sophomores, and each of
them had reasons for wanting to humiliate you, and one of the fellows
was a football player with muscles larger than your own; how would you
feel if they strode into your room, looking arrogant?
You, possibly, might not mind it. If so, Will Young was different from
you, for he felt very queer as he arose from his chair.
Channing said, "How do you do, Mr. Young?" Then, closing the door so the
landlady might not hear, "Well, Deacon," with his sarcastic smile,
"we've come for you."
Young said nothing. Instinctively he offered chairs.
"This is Deacon Young of Squeedunk, the freshest man in the class,
Bally. Bow, Freshman, to Mr. Ballard, of whom you have doubtless
heard--the famous centre rush of the famous Sophomore football eleven
that will do your futile Freshman team up so badly you can't see, later
in the term."
"No, thanks," said the big fellow to Young, in a very big voice, "never
sit on chairs." He had seated himself on Young's table, with one foot on
a chair, and was looking around the room as Channing went on:
"We secured several of your charming classmates on the campus. They
aren't far away from here now." Ballard chuckled at this. "But we missed
you on the campus, Deacon. You must have run home after the rush."
The Sophomores both laughed at this, but Young said nothing, and
wondered how Channing had found out where he roomed.
"You have given us some trouble. That is unfortunate for you. But you
were kind enough yesterday to oblige me with your name; so I went to the
registrar's office and asked where my dear old friend Willie Young
roomed. I told them I wanted to look you up and take care of you. We'll
take care of you, all right--eh, Bally?"
Ballard laughed his loud laugh at this way of talking. He thought
Channing very witty, and so did Channing.
Young was leaning against the mantelpiece.
"But we mustn't waste time here," Channing went on; "pick up your hat
and come on like a good little boy; we're all going for a nice little
stroll to the canal together."
Young had heard, since he last saw Channing, what the Sophomores did
with Freshmen at the canal. He did not move.
"Oh, I forgot," said Channing, "you have no hat; you lost yours in the
rush this evening, didn't you? Well, well, that was too bad. You will
have to go bareheaded. However, Freshman," he added, patronizingly
stern, "this will teach you a good lesson--two good lessons. In the
first place, little Willie must wear a cap and not a big felt hat like
this." He took Young's hat off his own head and looked at it
critically. "I suppose this is the latest thing out at Squeedunkville."
Ballard grinned. Young flushed and bit his lip.
"In the second place, you must always take it off when you meet your
superiors and thus save us the trouble of taking it off for you; and,"
he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the canal, "and
so save yourself some trouble also."
Ballard was now beginning to look interested. "I guess the Freshman's
got another hat in his closet," he said, gruffly. Then he commanded, "Go
get it, Freshman, and come on." Ballard was standing now.
Young did have a hat--a derby hat, the one he wore on the train and when
he first arrived--in his closet, but he did not go and get it, and he
did not come on.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" growled Ballard. "Come on." He let
Channing do the guying, but he liked to take a hand in the bossing
himself.
Apparently Young heard nothing; he had not said a word, and he was
quietly looking down at the carpet, but his heart was beating fast.
"Now, see here, Deacon," said Channing, "we don't want to have any
trouble with you. Are you going to come along peacefully and have an
easy time of it, or are you going to make a little trouble for us and a
lot for yourself?"
Young did not speak or look up. He seemed to be moving his tongue about
in his cheek.
Ballard approached him. "You won't come, eh?" he said, angrily. And with
that he took him by the shoulder.
"Take your hands off me," said the Freshman, shrilly, and wrenched
quickly away, backing up against the wall. He stood there breathing
hard, and he glanced from one Sophomore to the other.
Now, it is not the easiest thing in the world for a big man and a little
man to drag out of a room one very good-sized man who looks as if he had
made up his mind to stay in it. At any rate, to do it without
considerable noise is impossible. Therefore Channing stepped across to
the open window, stuck his head out, and gave a long, peculiar whistle.
He waited a moment and then repeated it Then an answer came back from
the distance.
"We'll soon fix _you_, Deacon," he remarked, nodding his head, as he
returned from the window.
Young was still standing backed up against the wall. Ballard, braced
against the door opposite to prevent the Freshman's escape, was
scowling.
"They'll be here in a minute," said Channing.
He referred to the classmates he had signalled to. You see if they had
all come in together it would have aroused the landlady's suspicions. As
it was, Channing had been obliged to tell her that Ballard and himself
represented the college Y. M. C. A., and that they wanted to ask Mr.
Young to join it.
"When they whistle I'll tip-toe down and let them in," said Channing.
"Listen! What's that?"
Footsteps were heard coming up the stairs.
"They couldn't have gotten here so soon," said Ballard.
"I didn't hear any whistle," said Channing.
The footsteps came nearer.
"Is this the room?" said a voice just outside the door.
"Yes, that's the one," came the reassuring tones of the landlady below.
The Sophomores had stopped talking.
A knock.
No reply.
Another knock.
"Come in," said Young, defiantly.
Ballard stepped to one side.
The door opened.
"Is this Mr. Young?"
"That's my name," said Young. "Come in." He was still standing by the
mantelpiece.
A dark-eyed, strong-faced, matured-looking man with rather long hair
stood in the doorway. "I am Nolan," he said, "of the Junior class, and
this is Mr. Linton," turning to a man behind him.
"Hello there, Ballard," Nolan said, casually then suddenly taking in the
situation and smiling, "sorry to spoil your fun," he said. "Hello,
where's your young friend going in such a hurry?"
Channing was seen slipping out of the still open door. "I'll be right
back," he said, grinning. The whistle had sounded while Nolan and Linton
were entering the room, and Channing wanted to get down in time to--but
it was too late. The Juniors had left the front door open when they
entered, and now the other Sophomores were on the way up the second
flight of stairs. "Where's the Freshman's room, Chan?" they said, in a
loud whisper.
"Wait, there's no use coming now," began Channing.
But Linton was now at the head of the stairs saying, in an amused tone:
"Oh, come right up; don't mind us." So, rather than seem afraid of the
Juniors they trooped in, all six of them looking as if caught at
something they were ashamed of.
Linton smiled drolly at one of the Sophomores he happened to know
personally. "Hard luck, Valentine," he said.
Nolan nodded gravely to one or two of them, and they said, "How do you
do?" very respectfully.
No one said anything else for a moment.
"Don't let us interrupt you," said Channing, grinning.
"We had no intention of being interrupted," said Linton, without looking
up. And Freshman Young noticed that the others seemed to consider this a
good joke on Channing, and Channing noticed that Young noticed it, and
this was one thing more to remember against Young.
"By the way," Linton went on in a lazy, matter-of-fact way, as he began
filling a pipe, "perhaps it would be just as well if you fellows all got
up and got out of here now. Billy and I came here to talk hall to this
Freshman, and we have a number of others to call on, and Billy mustn't
stay up late these days, you know."
"Billy" meant Nolan, the one with long hair, and he was a university
football man, and the training season had begun.
Linton made this remark in an ordinary tone, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world to request seven or eight men to leave a
room. He struck a match for his pipe as he finished speaking, and then
lifted his feet up on the table and leaned back without looking at the
under-classmen.
The Sophomores said, "All right," meekly arose, murmured, "Good-night,"
and smiling rather sheepishly departed.
Young looked on with mingled feelings. They outnumbered the Juniors
seven to two, and yet the arrogant Sophomores did not even question the
Junior's power. He was learning something about these traditions and
customs; evidently the authority was not in bodily strength.
But the two upper-classmen, without waiting to see what became of the
Sophomores, began forthwith to tell Young how different were the two
secret literary societies, whose mysterious, Greek temples looked so
much alike there side by side on the campus, and to point out how
superior was their own "hall," as they called it.
Nolan, who was a famous orator in this hall, did most of the talking.
Linton only put in a word now and then, but he kept glancing at the
Freshman in a queer, quizzical way as he blew smoke. When they arose to
go Linton said, in a pleasant tone:
"I suppose the Sophomores are bothering you a good deal?"
Young wondered what made Linton say so. "No," he replied; "they tried to
make me take off my hat yesterday, but I wouldn't do it."
He thought that would impress these upper-classmen.
Linton glanced at Nolan, who smiled.
"Say, Young," said Linton, kindly, "of course it's none of my business,
but--well, I'd take off my hat if I were you."
"Why?"
"Oh, well, because you're a Freshman."
"But what right have they to make me take off my hat to them? They
aren't any better than----"
"Because they're Sophomores. Come on, Billy." He opened the door. "You
think it over, Young. Good-night. Glad to have met you, Young."
Then on his way downstairs he added to his friend Billy Nolan, "I like
that big, green Freshman, but he needs hazing."
"He _is_ rather fresh. Do you think we'll secure him, Jim?"
"But you can hardly blame him for taking himself so seriously," Linton
went on as they gained the street "You see he has always lived at home,
didn't go away to prep. school, was never guyed or anything of that sort
in all his innocent life, and he doesn't know how to take it. He was an
important person at home--probably led his class at the High School--has
a lot of little brothers and sisters that bow down to him; and they've
told him that he is a great man so often that he thinks there must be
something in it. His hands show he has worked on a farm, but the palms
are soft now--I noticed that shaking hands--so he's probably clerked in
a store or taught school; yes, he's probably taught school."
Linton considered himself a student of human nature, and he did guess
pretty well this time, though Young had no sisters and had never taught
school.
"Anyway," he concluded, and in this he was right, perhaps, "college will
be a great thing for him. No one ever made him realize his relative
unimportance in the world."
"As we made big Bally realize it last year," interposed Nolan, smiling.
"Yes, and as we, too, were made to realize it the year before. My, what
a big chump you'd have been, Billy, if you hadn't been hazed."
"And, oh, what a supercilious ass you'd have made, Jim. Do you remember
that time----"
And these two walked on toward the campus with arms thrown carelessly
about each others' shoulders, reminiscencing about days which, to hear
them talk, you would have thought were half a generation ago; and so
they were--half a college generation.
Meanwhile Young was doing what Linton had told him to do, thinking over
what had been said to him. Also he thought over what he had observed
when the Juniors and Sophomores were in the room together, and he came
to certain conclusions. Then he went to bed.