A WILD NIGHT.
It was a strange spectacle. The campus seemed almost as light as
day. Two long lines of men in hoods and gowns entered from opposite
sides and began their march, loudly singing their society songs.
It was the night of the initiations to the three junior societies,
Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, and Alpha Delta Phi. It was a
strangely interesting sight, and crowds had gathered to witness it.
Slowly and with dignity the hooded and gowned members of the
societies marched about the campus. This part of their doings was
intended for the eyes of the public, but later things would happen
within the solid walls of their society houses that the public had
no hope of witnessing.
What were those things? Who can say? No candidate who has ever
passed through the ordeal ever opens his lips to tell what happened
to him. But certain it is that within those walls there was a merry
old time that night, for it is there the local burlesque is given,
and this has proved of spicy interest to the general public, being
filtered to the outside world.
This year among the happy candidates were two of Merriwell’s
friends. Jack Ready was one of them.
“La! la!” he said modestly, as he was congratulated. “Proclaim not
the honor to the world. It will be a great privilege for the Four
Hundred to catch me when I break away from Yale. Oh, I’m strictly
the thing, and they can’t get along without me.”
“What you really need,” said Greg Carker, “is a crown. You are a
king.”
“A fool’s cap would be better,” grunted Browning, who had been
offering congratulations. “I don’t know how they ever made the
mistake of taking him in, but I’m glad he’s made it.”
“Thanks, my fragile friend,” chirped Ready, with the old-time flirt
of his hand. “When I am in need of a fool’s cap I’ll know where to
come for it. Cluck! cluck! Git ap! My, my, how the wind blows!”
“I’d like to have the privilege of hauling you over the coals
to-night!” said Bruce, with a baleful glare in his eye. “Oh, I
wouldn’t do a thing to you! You’ll get it, anyhow, for they’ll be
sure to give you a double dose to cure your freshness.”
“Alas!” sighed Jack, “it can’t be cured.”
“Try carbolic acid,” suggested Bruce.
Later Ready and Bingham had disappeared, and their friends knew
they were going through the “fiery ordeal.”
What a wild night it was! Those who have passed through it know
something about the events of that night. To-day the initiations
are far milder than before the tragedy of Wilkins Rustin in ’92.
Rustin was a fine, athletic fellow. During his initiation he was
blindfolded and told to run at best speed along an unfrequented
street. Being a swift runner, he drew away from the two men in
whose charge he was. They shouted a cry of warning to him, but
this he misunderstood, and, swerving from a direct course, he ran
into the sharp pole of a wagon. They picked him up, bleeding and
unconscious, and he died from his injuries.
A storm of indignation arose all over the country, and the faculty
came near deciding to wipe out the societies altogether. It was
fortunate for Yale life that this radical step was not taken. The
men in charge of Rustin were overcome with grief, and their sorrow
led to their acquittal of anything but a charge of grave folly.
This night of which I write nothing of the kind took place; but the
old members of the society and the newly elected ones had a jolly
time of it. They made a night of it.
Along toward morning, as it was growing light, the members of the
societies engaged in a wild and weird game of baseball on the
campus. That is, many of the members of the societies engaged in
the game; but there were many others who curled up in the shelter
of some near-by sheds and serenely fell asleep.
Ready was not one of the sleepers. Bingham would have slept, but
Jack mauled the big fellow till he got him out behind the bat, with
a bird-cage over his head for a mask. Jack himself was pitching.
“Look out for my curves,” he advised. “Talk about Frank Merriwell’s
double shoot! Why, I’ve got the corkscrew ball.”
“I’ve discovered to-night that you have the corkscrew habit,”
rumbled Bingham, trying to make his queer cage balance on his
shoulders.
“Put ’em over,” called the batter. “If you hit me, I’ll bring suit
against you for breach of promise.”
It was rather dark, and Ready actually threw a curve. Fortunately,
the ball was about as hard as a ripe cucumber, for it grazed
Bingham’s fingers and struck the bird-cage a glancing blow, setting
it to spinning about on his shoulders. The batter swiped at it
furiously, and threw himself off his feet onto his back.
The watching crowd was boisterous in its applause. This was the
kind of baseball that filled their hearts with exceeding great joy
at about this hour in the morning.
“One ball,” decided the umpire, who had closed his eyes and turned
his back.
“One ball!” shouted Ready. “Why, he struck at it, Mr. Umpire.”
“But it wasn’t over the plate,” said the umpire, with dignity.
“That doesn’t make any difference. He struck at it.”
“Be silent,” commanded the umpire. “He had no business to strike at
such a bad one. It is one ball.”
And that decision stood. The next pitched ball struck the batter in
the small of the back.
“Dead ball,” said somebody.
“No; dead man,” said the umpire. “Take him off the field. Remove
the corpse.”
“Hold on!” cried the batter. “I want to get one crack at that ball.
Give me a show.”
“I have declared you dead,” said the umpire; “so you’ll have to
make room for the next man. Drop that bat and take to your hole,
you lobster!”
The next man came up and hit the first ball straight at Jack, who
did not stop it with his hands, but with the pit of his stomach.
“Judgment!” he gasped. “I have it!”
“That’s right,” said the umpire. “Corbett got it there at Carson
City. You’re out.”
“Out?” squealed Jack. “It’s the other man who is out!”
“I tell you that you are out,” insisted the umpire. “Get off the
grass.”
And Jack was compelled to make room for another fellow who was
ambitious to do some pitching.
“Alas and alack!” he sobbed, as he stood aside. “It is thus we poor
mortals get it in the neck!”
“I thought you got it in the stomach,” said Bingham.
“Only a bird in a gilded cage,” Jack exclaimed, pointing to the big
sophomore.
But the pitching of the new man was of a most terrific order, and
Bingham loudly called for him to “ease ’em over.” The second ball
the new man pitched was a foul tip, which the catcher misjudged,
getting it just where Ready had received the batted ball.
Over on his back rolled Bingham, while the crowd whooped with joy
and danced grotesquely in the gray morning twilight.
“Drag off the dead,” solemnly ordered the umpire.
Jack Ready rushed in, caught Bingham by the heels and started with
him, dragging the big fellow along on his back. He succeeded in
pulling Bingham for at least a rod before the fellow recovered
enough to kick him off.
“Hey!” roared Ralph, as he sent Ready reeling. “What in thunder do
you take me for, you jackass? Think I’m a dump-cart? Is that why
you promptly harnessed yourself into the thills?”
“Excuse me!” chirped Jack, standing off and surveying the other
with comical gravity. “I thought you were dead, and I was on the
way to the dumping-grounds with you.”
“You’ll find I’m not dead!” snapped Bingham, as he got up and made
a dive for Jack.
“I surrender!” Ready helplessly cried, throwing up his hands. “I
might escape you by running, but the effort is too great.”
“You can’t run,” declared Ralph, as he grasped the joker.
“I know it. I have discovered something that can outrun me or any
other man living. I’m going to enter it in all the races this
season.”
“What is it?”
“A gas-meter.”
Bingham thumped Jack.
“You’ll have to pay for this coat,” he declared. “You tore it when
you pulled me along.”
“Where did I tear it?”
“Why, on the back, of course.”
“And you were on the part that was torn. Oh, well, you are used to
that. You often get on a tear.”
Then, with their arms about each other, they stood and gazed on
that wild and grotesque game of ball. It was a hilarious spectacle,
to say the least, and all the rules of baseball were ignored and
violated by both players and umpire. In fact, the closer the
players stuck to the regular game the greater penalties the umpire
put upon them.
Arm-in-arm, Bingham and Ready entered the neighboring shed, where
they saw dark forms stretched about.
“Behold!” said Jack, in a hoarse whisper. “This is a battle-field,
and here are the slain who by the ruthless enemy have been shot.”
“I’m only half-shot,” declared one of the sleepers, sitting up in
a dusky corner. “Gimme ’nother drink.”
Then another sat up and began to sing in a wild and weird manner:
“How dry I am! How dry I am!
Lord only knows how dry I am!
I want a drink, I want it now!
How dry I am!
Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
One by one the others roused up and joined in the singing, sitting
there in the gloom, some swaying slightly, some holding themselves
rigidly straight on account of the queer feelings in their heads.
It was a strange sight, and the hoarse, tuneless chanting sounded
like a funeral dirge.
“Shut up!” grunted one fellow, who had refused to sit up. He put
his hands over his ears and tried to go on sleeping.
The singing--if singing it could be called--continued in the same
dirgelike strain.
“We’ll see if we can’t accommodate you,” murmured Ready, who had
found in a corner of the shed a hose used for washing wagons.
Investigation showed that the water could be turned on in that
corner. Jack shut the nozzle and turned the water on. Then he was
ready.
“How dry I am! How dry I am!
Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“Perhaps this will wet you down a little,” observed Ready, as he
calmly turned on the hose and let drive at the crowd.
Swish! spat! spatter!
The water flew, the singing stopped, the men shrieked, and there
was a wild scramble to get away.
“It’s a cloudburst!” yelled somebody.
“Help! help! Fire!” cried another.
“Oh, goodness!” gasped another. “That stuff struck me in the mouth
just as I was singing. I’ve swallowed more than a gallon of real
water. It’ll be fatal!”
They made a wild scramble to get out of the shed. Some of them got
up and ran; others crawled as fast as they could on their hands and
knees. And all the while Ready continued to serenely play the hose
upon them.
Not one stopped to investigate, for that water was “cold and wet.”
It was too much for their nerves. In a very few minutes Ready had
cleared the shed. As the last of them went out, he dropped the hose
and ran after them, wringing his hands and pretending that he had
been driven out with the others.
He left Bingham in the shed roaring with laughter.
“Oh, my, my!” gurgled Jack, as he came tearing out into the midst
of the water-dripping crowd, “and I was having such a lovely dream!
What happened, anyhow?”
“The waterworks exploded!” declared one drenched fellow, wringing
water out of his coat and wiping it out of his eyes.
“Wasn’t it awful!” gasped Ready.
“Hush!” commanded one. “Listen!”
Bingham was heard laughing in the shed.
“’Sdeath!” panted Ready.
“’Sblood!” hissed another fellow.
“Somebody turned that water on us!”
“That’s right!” agreed Jack excitedly. “The wretch who did it is in
there now!”
“He must die!” savagely howled one of the wet chaps. “I am ready to
kill him with my faithful boot-jack!”
“He must suffer!” they all declared. “Who dares go in there and
capture the wretch?”
“Wait,” advised Ready. “He’ll come out, and then we can pounce upon
him.”
Even as he spoke, Bingham came strolling out of the shed, still
shaking with laughter.
“At him!” hissed Jack, and they flung themselves upon him.
“To the stake!” snarled one.
“What stake?” asked another.
“Mistake,” chuckled Ready, to himself.
Then he plunged into the thickest of it, yelling for them to give
the wretch some of his own medicine.
“Hold on!” cried Bingham. “What are you going to do? Hold on!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Jack. “We won’t let go of you. There is no
reason why you should worry about that.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Bingham again.
“Give you your just deserts, base-born wretch!” cried Ready. “Didst
think to escape retribution?”
“But I haven’t done anything! It wasn’t me!”
“Don’t think to deceive us with thy false tales.”
“But you know I didn’t do a thing, Ready! Why, you----”
Jack, however, raised such a racket that Bingham’s words were
drowned and the big fellow was dragged back into the shed, where
the hose was found on the ground, still hissing and squirting.
Two men who had been drenched volunteered to hold Bingham. A dozen
were eager to play the hose. They gave it to him at once. He ducked
his head, and the water struck him under his collar at the back of
his neck and poured down his back. It seemed to take the strength
out of him and leave him gasping and helpless for the moment. Then
that cold and chilling stream played all over him.
Jack Ready stood aside, his hands clasped, a look of sadness on his
face and deep joy in his heart.
“It is ever thus,” he said to himself, “that the innocent man ever
gets it in the neck, while the other chap gets off and becomes a
hero. Let this be a lesson to you, Jack, my boy, to always take
care not to be the innocent one.”
They did not let up on Bingham till the big soph was drenched to
the skin and in a furious mood. He broke away from the fellows who
were holding him and rushed from the shed, vowing he would murder
Ready on sight.
“I’ve had a lovely time to-night,” whispered Jack still to himself;
“but something tells me that I had better fade away. Here is where
I fade.”
He managed to escape from the shed, round which he stole, making
off into the gloom. At a distance, watching the men near the shed,
stood a lonely figure. Jack drew near and saw it was Bertrand
Defarge.