FUN AT THE THEATER.
Up the gallery of the Hyperion Theater, the Freshman class went
bouncing with a great clatter and stamping of feet. It was the night
of the Glee Club concert, toward the end of January, which, in the
days of Frank Armstrong's Freshman year, opened the festivities of
Junior Promenade, the great social function of Yale. The Promenade
has for generations been known as the "Junior Prom," but it is not
strictly a Junior occasion. Seniors, and even Sophomores whose
finances are not too low to permit the purchase of a ticket, may go,
but in spite of the fact that many of these classes do go, the Prom
is still largely a Junior affair. Around the Prom, or ball, which
brings the social gaiety to a close, have grown in the course of
years other entertainments for the fair guests and their chaperons,
who gather in New Haven by the hundred from the length and breadth of
the land. Of these the Glee Club concert was one where the Freshmen
in those days, for it has all been changed since, were tolerated in
the upper gallery of the theater. They could not sit in the pit or
balcony of the house. Custom had allowed them certain rights and
their "stunts" were looked forward to as a part of the entertainment.
The Freshmen were not supposed to interfere with the concert itself
but frequently did interfere in spite of the restraining influence
of Junior guards who were scattered through the gallery. But the
throwing of confetti, streamers and cards to the fair guests was
tolerated and expected. Occasionally the Freshmen overdid the thing
and not infrequently a "rough-house" of considerable proportions held
sway.
Frank's class was a lively one, as had been shown on several
occasions during the fall and early winter. A number of the members
had a faculty for getting into trouble on all occasions. Half a
dozen of them had been only a few days before up before the Freshman
Committee for attempting to break up a dance in one of the local
halls of the city, which necessitated the rushing of a squad of
police to the scene. Minor mischief was always being done. Rumors
were rife that the Freshmen were going to perpetrate something new
on the night of the Glee Club concert. Therefore the Junior guards
were more than usually vigilant.
"What's that you have under your coat?" demands a Junior as a tall
Freshman appears on the landing of the stairs with the skirts of his
raincoat bulging suspiciously.
"Nothing but myself," backing away.
"Come on, open up! What have you got?"
"Nothing, I tell you," but the Junior lays violent hands on him
and after a moment's search drags forth a squawking hen! She flaps
herself free from the grip of her rescuer and creates a disturbance
which brings scores up to the landing on the double quick.
The hen is finally captured and carried out, squalling tremendously
at the unaccustomed usage.
Other Freshmen are captured with noise-making devices, living and
mechanical, and thrown out bodily or the objectionable instruments of
torture taken from them. But some have slipped past even the vigilant
eyes of the guards, and are ready to carry out the Freshman part of
the entertainment as classes before them have done.
Inside the theater the gallery is jammed till it can hold no more.
There is a babel of voices through which occasionally cuts the sharp
Yale cheer, that the Freshmen now, with three months of practice,
have learned to perfection. Cheers, howls and catcalls make that
gallery a perfect bedlam.
Over the gallery front, looking fearfully insecure in their high
perch, hang scores of boys angling for the attention of the Juniors'
young ladies with a long string to which is attached a card and
perhaps a pencil. One side of the card bears a fond message to the
fair guest below, and the other side is blank for the answer, which
the Freshman above hopes to catch in his angling. And frequently he
does. The Junior takes it all in good part.
"O, lovely creature, will you be mine, will you let me hold your
lily-white hand when I'm a Junior?" is the rather disconcerting
message a young lady in one of the boxes pulls down after it has been
dangled in front of her nose for a minute or two by Freshman hands in
the top gallery. The Freshman above having established communication,
waits impatiently for an answer. Presently it is written in the box
below and is pulled up eagerly.
"No, I don't like the color of your hair."
"I'll dye it blue if that will help any," may be the next message.
Fifty men are angling at a time and the lines sometimes get crossed.
It is all great fun for the girls who enter into the spirit of the
thing and are not disturbed, after the first shock, at the ardent
messages that are swung in front of their faces.
Of course, every one cannot angle for love messages in the pit
because, although the front of the gallery resembles a grape-hung
garden wall with the clustering heads, there are several hundreds
behind the first row. They content themselves with throwing confetti
and paper streamers into the pit and boxes until there is a jungle
of it below, through which a late-comer must literally break his
way. The floor itself is covered with confetti and cards whereon are
printed in prose and verse amazing praises for the class in the upper
gallery, recounting what that class will do when it becomes a Junior
class two years later and shall have the position of honor.
On this particular night everything went well in the gallery until
the program was half over. Then trouble broke loose, for all
legitimate means for attracting attention had been exhausted. At the
moment the quartet was delivering itself of a touching melody and
quiet was temporarily established even in the gallery. The tenor,
striving for one of his highest notes, suddenly broke off with a
violent sneeze. Some one in the gallery had thrown a tissue paper wad
of snuff against the scenery behind the quartet. The paper broke and
the snuff, light as feathers, permeated the air.
The bass singer of the quartet immediately followed the tenor with
a resounding bellow at which the audience, not knowing the cause,
burst into roars of laughter. But soon they changed from laughing
to sneezing, for handfuls of the snuff were now pitched over the
gallery rail by the offenders, and the coughing and sneezing became
general. No one was exempt. Dignified chaperons, pretty girls and
their escorts joined in the chorus. The quartet retired in confusion,
holding onto their noses.
"Stop it, stop it!"
"Get out, Freshmen," yelled the guards, but so thick was the press in
the gallery that the guards were powerless to get at the offenders.
To cap the climax, a Freshman emptied about a bushel of fine,
powderlike confetti on the heads of the people below, while still
another opened a pillow of fine down feathers which, dropping to the
pit of the theater in a cloud, covered the gowns of the ladies. The
feathers insinuated themselves down the necks of everyone.
Having worked their last indignity, two score of the Freshmen tumbled
down the gallery stairs like a hurricane, and broke pell-mell for the
street with the guard after them. Some punches were delivered, but
most of the Freshmen escaped, yelling, with whole skins.
Then the Glee Club concert went on again and was not interrupted
but once, when someone threw a small rubber ball from the gallery
which struck the leader fairly on top of his head and bounced twenty
feet into the air to the great amusement of the audience and the
discomfort of the leader.
"Some night!" observed the Codfish as the boys reached their room in
safety. "I got hit three times in the overflow. Gee whiz, how those
feathers stick!"
"Were you the pillow man?" inquired Frank.
"I was that same. Have you noticed the absence of two of our best
cushions?"
"My cushions," gasped Frank, "and where are the cases?"
"When the storm burst I didn't have time to get them under cover.
They go to the Hyperion management as a souvenir."
"More likely to the Junior scouts," suggested Jimmy.
"Thoughtful kid, my initials were on them," said Frank. "You could
create trouble for someone if you were alone on a desert island."
But no trouble did come out of the incident for the great dance
itself coming on the next evening, as it did, overshadowed such minor
things as the Freshman class and its doings.
But the affair had one result. It was the last time that the Glee
Club concert was ever held at the Hyperion. After that year it went
to one of the University halls where Freshmen, fishing from the top
gallery, tantalizing feathers and tormenting snuff were not known,
and where the concert went its full length without disturbance of any
kind.
Frank Armstrong, while a frequent visitor at the swimming pool,
had not gone out for the Freshman team. Football had claimed his
attention in the fall when swimming practice first began, and
although urged to join the Freshman team by classmates, who had seen
him in the pool, he had declined.
"I want to have a good big deposit in the education bank when
baseball opens up," he used to say.
"You're a blooming old grind," the Codfish would retort when Frank
advanced his reasons for keeping the time free for studies. "You
aren't doing as much as I am for the class."
"But I'm doing as much as I can for the class and something for
myself."
"Selfish, selfish. Here's the Freshman swimming team staggering
along----"
"Floundering along, you mean."
"Fishes flounder, and there's no fish on the team, human or
otherwise. That's the reason they ought to have a good, able-bodied
fish like yourself, scales and all, to help 'em out."
But in spite of Frank's desire to keep away from swimming, other than
as a pastime, and to keep in fair condition, he became drawn into
it unintentionally. One day, sprinting down the length of the pool
to overtake Jimmy, he attracted the attention of Max, the swimming
instructor, who kept an eagle eye on the outlook for promising
talent.
"Where you learn to svim like dat?" inquired Max as Frank pulled
himself out of the water at the end of the pool while Jimmy hung
gasping with his exertions on the edge.
"O, paddling around," returned Frank.
"Pretty good paddlin', I guess. Vhat's your name?"
"Armstrong."
"Freshman?"
"Yes."
"Ever do any racing?"
"A little."
"Here, let's see if you can svim fifty yards fast."
"O, but I'm not in training."
"Don't make no difference about dat. Svim up one length and back
again. I see your time. Come on, I tink you can svim fast."
Frank, thus urged, took a racing dive, paddled easily to the other
end of the pool, turned leisurely and came back to the starting point.
"Umph!" grunted the swimming instructor. "Dirty-five seconds, dat's
bad. You ought to do it five seconds bedder!"
Frank grinned, thinking he was nicely out of the difficulty, for he
argued with himself that in justice to his work he could not give the
time necessary this year at least to go in for swimming.
But he reckoned without Max who stood squinting at him.
"Now," said the instructor, "vhen you've got your vind again I vant
you to do dat over again. Und doan loaf along so much, move dose arms
and legs a little bid faster."
Jimmy laughed, for he knew Frank was trying to get out of swimming
training. But Frank was fairly caught now, and there was nothing for
him to do but to swim the distance again. He perched on the edge of
the pool end, and balanced for the start as Burton had shown him.
He took the water as cleanly as a knife and using a graceful but
powerful crawl shot down to the further end, turned half under water
and came back with a quickening gait until his hand touched the pool
end where Max stood with his eyes glued on the watch.
"Dirty seconds," said the instructor half to himself. And then to
Frank. "Vhy didn't you dell me dat before? I vant you to come here
effery day and svim. Dis Freshman bunch of mine ain't no good. You'll
help? Who showed you how to svim like dat anyway?"
"O, a fellow named Burton."
"Who?"
"Burton, one of your Yale captains."
"O, Burton, hey? Are you de fellar Armstrong dat svam down at Travers
Island last summer?"
Frank nodded.
"Py jiminy, vhy didn't you dell me dat before? Dat settles it. Now
you got to come and help out this Freshman bunch."
That was the end of Frank's resolution not to get mixed up in
athletics until the baseball practice opened. Every day found him
at the pool, and under the careful guidance of the instructor he
improved steadily, and when the Freshman-Sophomore relay race came
off he was selected as the man to swim the last relay for his class.
This he did so well that, although starting with a handicap of ten
feet, he beat out his opponent by the breadth of a hand, and won the
event for the Freshmen.
Frank might have been induced to continue in the swimming game, for
the love of it, but in the last part of February the overpowering
call for baseball candidates caught him, and he joined the uniformed
crowd that daily haunted the cage in the rear of the Gymnasium; and
through the afternoons, when recitations permitted, he took his share
of batting, base-running, pitching, stopping grounders, and all that
goes to the training of a Yale baseball player.
He was at first enrolled among the candidates for pitcher, but as
there seemed to be a great plenitude of pitchers, he was relegated to
the outfield, but glad to be on the squad on any position.
"What, our young Christy Mathewson out in the lots! Fie upon them!"
exclaimed the Codfish when he heard.
"Even Napoleon had to begin," returned Frank. "Maybe they'll back me
off the field before long. College baseball isn't school baseball,
you know."
With the coming of warmer weather, the crocuses and chirp of the
robin in late March, the baseball and track men forsook the cage for
the open field, and there during the long afternoons the candidates
were put through their paces by the different coaches.
Coach Thomas, who had been appointed by the 'Varsity captain to
drill the Freshman nine, was a believer in hard work and gave his
pupils plenty of it to do. Naturally, men from the larger preparatory
schools, who had come to Yale with a reputation made in their school,
had the first call. When they made good they held their positions.
Armstrong and Turner, coming as they did from a school not among the
half dozen prominent ones in the country, had to show their merit by
hard fighting. But the coach played no favorites and when a player
showed merit in the practice he had due consideration.
Turner and Armstrong, the former as catcher and the latter as
pitcher, worked as a battery for some of the early practice. Frank's
remarkable control stood him in good stead at first, but as the
batters improved in their hitting of straight balls, Frank dropped
behind in the race, and was now used only occasionally for batting
practice. He was one of the half-dozen substitutes in the outfield.
Turner fell into a more fortunate situation as catchers on the squad
were scarce, and before two weeks of practice had elapsed, was in
second place in the race for the position of backstop on the Freshman
nine.