A LIVELY HAZING
“Wow! But this is a lonesome place!” exclaimed Cap Smith, as he and
his brothers were set down by the depot stage in front of the gates of
Westfield Academy.
“And we’ve got it all to ourselves for two weeks,” added Pete. “I
wonder how we can stand it?”
“Got to,” declared Bill grimly. “Say, they’ve got a beaut diamond,” and
he motioned toward the baseball field.
“Nothing doing in that line until spring,” commented Cap. “Football has
the call now, but I don’t s’pose we’ll get a look in at that. Well,
come on,” and he went through the massive bronze gates.
“Where you going?” demanded Bill.
“Up to see Prexy. Dad gave me a letter for Dr. Burton, the president,
and we want to pay our respects, and find out where we’re going to
sleep to-night. I don’t exactly feel like camping out on the grass.”
“Me either,” came from Pete. “Say, as soon as we can get into some old
togs can’t we get up a game. Maybe there are some fellows sent on here
early, like us, and we can pick up a nine.”
“I’m afraid not, son,” spoke John, “but that looks like a place where a
college president would hang out. Come on, we’ll give it a trial.”
A little later they were shaking hands with the venerable Dr. Burton,
who made them genially welcome, but looked all the while as if he
didn’t quite know what to do with them, and wished they would take
themselves off, or go away so that he could get back to a volume of
Chinese proverbs on which he was working, making a translation of it
into modern Hebrew.
“I’m very glad to see you young gentlemen,” he said, “and I hope
you will like it here at Westfield. The students will—ahem—arrive
shortly.” That was all the reference he made to the fact that our
heroes were sent on ahead of the time as a sort of punishment, and the
boys were duly grateful.
“I have arranged for you to have rooms, temporarily, in the senior
dormitory,” went on Dr. Burton. “Professor Landmore, the science
instructor is there, and he—er—he will, ahem—look after you,” and
the good doctor seemed a trifle embarrassed.
“I guess he thinks we sure do need looking after,” murmured Pete, when
he and his brothers had settled down in a big room containing three
beds, which apartment was to be their home until the term opened.
“Shall we decorate?” asked Bill.
“What, put up all our trophies? Not much!” exclaimed Pete. “Wait until
we get into our own flat, and see what sort of neighbors we have. This
will do for now. I’m going to get unharnessed,” and he proceeded to don
some more comfortable clothes than those in which he had traveled.
A little later the brothers were out on the deserted diamond, tossing
balls back and forth, and batting them. In vain they looked for some
one with whom to organize even half a nine, and finally they gave it
up, and strolled about, looking at the college buildings, walking over
the football gridiron, and speculating as to what sort of fellows they
would get chummy with when the students arrived.
For two weeks our heroes lived rather a dull life, though Professor
Landmore made friends with them, and took them on long walks collecting
science specimens. Once he went fishing with them, but he paid little
attention to the sport after he had captured a new species of frog,
notes concerning which he proceeded to enter at great length in a book,
while the Smith boys pulled out some fine specimens of the finny tribe.
That night, the final one before the opening of the term, our friends
were given their regular rooms in the Freshman dormitory—three
connecting apartments, not very large, but just suitable for the boys.
And straightway the brothers began to decorate the walls, each in his
own peculiar way.
With their choice possessions and trophies hung up, the brothers
gathered in Pete’s room that night for a talk before turning in.
“Well, the crowd will be here to-morrow,” observed Bill.
“Yes, and then for some lively times,” added Pete.
“How do you mean?” asked Bill.
“Initiations, and hazing and all that. But we’ll have to stand it.”
“Surest thing you know,” declared Cap. “We all want to make the ball
team this spring, and if we balk out of the hazing I know what that
means.”
“Are you going to take all that comes?” asked Bill.
“Well, up to a certain point, but if it gets too strenuous, I’ll take a
hand myself. But we can’t tell until the time comes. Now let’s get to
bed.”
Lively were the scenes that took place the next day. With the arrival
of many new students, the return of old ones, the assigning of the boys
to their rooms, the making up of classes, it is a wonder that poor old
“Prexy’” did not desert. But he took everything calmly, and soon a sort
of order came out of chaos.
The Smith boys found themselves in the midst of a lively colony of
students in their dormitory. There were five rooms on a short corridor,
and of these our heroes had three. Pete’s apartment was between those
of Bill and John’s, while the letter’s adjoined the room of Donald
Anderson, a new lad who was at once dubbed “Whistle-Breeches” by some
senior from the fact that Donald wore corduroy trousers, which squeaked
or “whistled” as he walked. As soon as he learned why he was so
christened, he got rid of the offending garments, but the name stuck,
and “Whistle-Breeches” he remained to the end of his course.
Next to Bill there roomed a well-dressed, supercilious lad, who was
reputed to be quite wealthy, and his overbearing manners added to this
surmise. He was James Guilder, but he was at once christened “Bondy”
for he had boasted of his father’s stocks and bonds.
Behold then, these five lads domiciled together in the Freshman
corridor. Across the hall from Pete’s room, was a larger apartment,
which, as befitted his station, held a lordly senior, one Dick Lawson,
who rejoiced in the name of “Roundy” because he was fat. He was also
good natured, and though the school authorities had placed him there
to have a sort of leavening effect on the Freshmen, he was too good
natured to be any sort of a monitor.
After the first supper, partaken of with the entire school assembled in
the refectory, the three Smith boys went to their rooms, not knowing
what else to do.
“I say, we’re not going to stay in like chickens; are we?” demanded
Bill.
“No, but take it easy,” advised Cap. “We want to get the lay of things
before we start anything.”
“That’s all right,” agreed Pete. “Do you know what the Freshmen do the
first night?”
“Get hazed?” ventured Cap.
“No, they go out and collect signs from around town—pull ’em off, you
know; bootblack signs, restaurant signs—any kind—and decorate their
rooms with ’em. Let’s do it. Whistle-Breeches said he’d go.”
“Let’s don’t,” came from Cap calmly. “To-morrow will do as well, and I
want to look over some lessons. We’ve got to buckle down to work here.
It isn’t like the school at home.”
“Wow! I say you’re not going to become a greasy grind so soon; are
you?” demanded Bill in contempt.
“Not exactly,” answered Cap, “but we didn’t come here just to have fun.
Dad expects something of us.”
“Of course,” agreed Pete, “and we won’t disappoint him, either. I guess
I’ll—”
But a knock on the door interrupted him, and a voice called out:
“Open up, Freshies!”
“The hazers!” whispered Bill. “Shall we stand ’em off?”
“Might as well get it over with,” suggested Cap. “Just stick together,
that’s all, and when I give the word, which I’ll do if they get too
strenuous, just sail into ’em as we did into Beantoe and Spider that
time.”
“Sure,” agreed his brothers.
“Come on, Freshies! Open up or we’ll break in!” and the summons was a
thundering one.
“Coming!” cried Pete gaily, and he swung back the portal to confront a
crowd of Sophs and Juniors, who had taken it unto themselves to do some
hazing.
“Oh, this is fruit! This is easy!” was the cry, as they saw the Smith
brothers.
“Please—please you—you won’t be too—too rough, will you fellows?”
pleaded Pete, in simulated terror.
“Rough? Oh no, we’ll be as gentle as lambs; eh boys?” retorted one of
the hazers.
“Oh, no, we won’t do a thing to them!” cried another.
“Who’s in the next room?” demanded the leader of the band.
“Bondy Guilder,” replied Bill, indicating the room adjoining his, where
the wealthy lad was domiciled.
“And on the other side?”
“Whistle-Breeches Anderson.”
“Good! Yank ’em both out, boys,” was the order, and some of the cohorts
left to execute it, while our three heroes were pulled and hauled from
their apartments, going not unwillingly, as they thought of Cap’s plan.
“Out on the diamond with them,” ordered the leader, who was addressed
as “Senator” but with whom the Smith boys were not acquainted. “Bring
along the other two.”
Pete and his brothers soon found themselves in the midst of a motley
crowd of Freshmen, more or less alarmed over the ordeal in prospect.
Some were cravenly begging to be let off. Others were threatening and
some, like our friends, were silent, taking it as a matter of course.
“Now then, the gauntlet for some one,” ordered the Senator. “Line up,
fellows. Here’s a good one to start with,” and he hauled Bondy Guilder
out from the press.
“Hands off!” exclaimed the wealthy lad angrily.
“Oh, ho! High and Mighty; eh? Well, that doesn’t go at Westfield. Send
him down the line, fellows,” and the Senator gave Bondy a shove. The
hazers had lined up in two files, armed with bladders, rolls of papers,
books and stockings filled with flour. It was a reproduction of the old
Indian gauntlet along which hapless prisoners had to pass, being beaten
and clubbed as they ran.
“You chaps are doing this at your own risk!” cried Bondy trying to
break away.
“That’s all right, sport! We’ll chance it,” came the answer. “Run, you
lobster, or you’ll get the worst of it!”
“I—I protest!” cried the victim, as he turned to see who had hit him
with an inflated bladder, in which corn rattled.
“He doth protest too much!” cried a laughing hazer, fetching Bondy a
resounding thump with a slap-stick.
“Run!” shouted the Senator, giving him another shove, and the wealthy
lad ran perforce, since he was half-pushed, half-pulled the length of
the double line.
And what a trouncing he got! He was at once recognized as a
supercilious and overbearing lad and the punishment to fit the crime
was duly meted out to him. He reached the end of the gauntlet rather
much the worse for wear, and his spruce new suit was in need of a
tailor’s services.
“Now for the next!” cried the Senator. “Where’s that Whistle-Breeches
fellow?”
“Here,” answered Anderson.
“Well, we’ll let you off easy, for you look like a good sort.”
Whistle-Breeches was grinning in an agony of apprehension. “Can you
sing?” he was asked.
“A—a little.”
“Dance?”
“Even less.”
“Good, then you’ll do the Highland fling. Here, who’s got the mouth
organ?”
“I have,” was the answer from the ranks of the hazers.
“Pipe up a Scotch hornpipe. Where’s that whitewash brush, and skirt.
Off with his trousers.”
Before Donald could protest he was minus his lower garments and a short
skirt of Scotch plaid had been slipped over his head, and fastened
behind. Then a dangling whitewash brush was hung about his hips, in
imitation of a Scottish costume, and while the mouth organ made doleful
music Whistle-Breeches as well as he was able, which was not very good,
did a dance.
“Livelier!” was the command, amid a gale of laughter, and livelier it
was, until even the hazers were satisfied.
“Next,” called the Senator, like a barber.
“Here are three we can work off together,” volunteered some one, and
Pete, Bill and John Smith were thrust forward.
“What’ll it be?” demanded the Senator.
“Blanket tossing,” called several.
“No, the pond test.”
“Too cold for the water. We’ll give ’em the blanket degree. Bring out
the woolens.”
Some heavy horse blankets were produced and with the hazers holding to
the corners, our heroes were tossed up into the air, and caught as they
came down with sickenish feelings. But they had been through the ordeal
before, and knew what to do. They kept quiet and were not hurt.
But when Bill and Pete were tossed together, it was not so much fun,
and they very nearly had an accident. Altogether it was rather a tame
hazing, and the Sophs and Juniors felt it so.
“The pond! The pond!” was the cry.
“That means a ducking,” said Cap in a whisper to his brothers. “We
won’t stand for that. Let ’em take you along easy, until they get you
right to the edge, and then take a brace, and pitch in the first man
you can grab. I’ll whistle when it’s time. They won’t suspect anything.”
“The pond! The pond!” was the cry again raised, and though the Senator
and some of the older students were a bit averse to it they had to give
in to the majority.
“Come on!” cried the crowd, hustling Pete and the two other lads along.
“It’ll be over in a minute and you’ll feel better for it,” consoled one
hazer to Cap.
“Do you really think so?” he asked gently.
“Sure,” was the reply, and the youth wondered why the three did not
make more of a fuss. He found out a little later.
“Much against our will, we are compelled to initiate you into the
mysteries of the Knights of the Frogs,” said the Senator, as the crowd
lined up on the bank of a pond not far from the football gridiron.
“Go ahead,” said Cap easily, glancing on either side where his brothers
stood. “Is it deep?”
“Only to your waist,” answered the Senator. “Can you swim?” and he was
in earnest for he would have stopped the hazing had he found either of
the candidates deficient in the watery pastime.
“A little,” admitted Bill. “Oh, please—please don’t throw us in!” he
pleaded suddenly.
“No, don’t—I—I have a cold,” added Pete, taking his cue.
“I—I’d a good deal rather have something else, if it’s all the same to
you,” put in Cap, pretending to shiver.
“I thought we’d get their goat!” shouted a lad who had been
disappointed that the candidates did not show more fear. “All ready
now, in with ’em!”
The three Smith brothers allowed themselves to be led close to the edge
of the pond. On either side of each lad stood a hazer, with one hand on
a collar and the other grasping the seat of the trousers.
“All ready!” again called the leader. “I’ll count three and in they go!”
“One!” came the tally, and the throwers swayed their victims slowly to
and fro.
“Two!” came the count.
But before the third signal could be given there came a whistle from
Cap. At that instant the hazers had eased back ready for the forward
motion at the word three!
But it did not come. Instead Pete, Cap and Bill seemed to slip down.
In an instant they were loose. But they did not run.
Instead they put out their feet, one after the other gave vigorous
shoves, and six forms, dextrously tripped, lay prostrate on the sod.
They were the forms of the lads who had expected to toss into the pond
the three Freshmen.
“In with ’em!” cried Cap, and before the astonished hazers knew what
was up, one after the other had been rolled down the sloping bank of
the pond, into the water.
The tables had been turned most effectively, and, as our heroes fled
off through the night they heard some one call:
“For the love of tripe, what are we up against? Who were those fellows?”
“Th—those—those Smith boys!” was the spluttering answer of one who
crawled out of the frog pond.