The temporary heroic mood, that had marked his departure from the
mountain, wilted on the long railroad journey. He was very lonely at
first, in New Haven. The town was dead and deserted, as he took the
entrance exams. In the interval of uncertain waiting, he brought out his
disused stamp album, and spent solitary evenings rearranging every stamp
in the book.
With the next week, he began to feel at home. Every train vomited a riot
of eager boys,--recent alumni back for the opening fun, self-conscious
upper classmen, timid beginners like himself. The excitement of making
new friends, and learning the immemorial lore of Yale, pulled him out of
his shell of seclusion. He became one of the crowd, an atom swirling
through unaccustomed channels of a fresh social body.
He grew at once into Sheff's boisterous feeling of superiority over the
placid, plugging Academic grinds. He snorted when compulsory chapel was
mentioned. Why, he would be a junior next year, when these staid
classical freshmen would be mere sophomores. That was what Sheff did to
a fellow!
His letters home were full of imposing details, gathered at second hand.
There was no place like this in the world!
The first big night came,--the night of the Sheff Rush. Pelham felt a
peculiar interest in it. He was not very athletic, although in
wrestling, as in cross-country work, he was above the average. And this
occasion was sacred to the wrestlers.
His wrestling pictures, dating from Adamsville days, had been properly
admired by his room-mate, Neil Morton, a strapping, likable Texan, who
had prepped at Hill. Pelham, a mere graduate of a city high school,
could not expect to be ranked with the products of Lawrenceville, Taft,
Hill and St. Paul's.
After the heavy-weights and middles had been annexed by the juniors,
there was a lull. No freshman light-weight could be located.
Neil rose to his feet. His yearling bellow rang over the heads of the
crowd. "Judson! Try Judson, here!"