This story begins with a girl. She was small and had a nose that
turned up and a quiet appreciation of the ridiculous. All summer long
she sat on the sand without a veil and was nice to two little boys in
clean duck trousers and buzz-saw hats which blew off sometimes.
One of these was eighteen years old and had a complexion that women
envied and felt like kissing. He was small and dainty and smelt like
good soap. His name was Valliant. The other was a little older,
considerably bigger, and much more self-assertive. Except for his duck
trousers he wore orange and black with his class numerals on
everything. That might have made but little difference. But the girl
decided that she would like it more if they would become angry for her
sake, which they one day did.
After that whenever the little one was alone with her his voice was
soft and his manner thoroughly abject. She liked this. She liked his
sweet-and-cleanness also. The other, whose name was Buckley, had an
untamed, defiant way of tossing his shoulders, like an unbroken
stallion. She liked that still more. When she sat out dances with him,
she put him where the arc-light on the veranda would play upon his
eyes, which were good, and talked about the other boy's nice manners.
Best of all she liked to have both about her at once. The sophomore
breathed lungfuls of cigarette smoke and told her how hard his class
would haze the freshman in the fall, and how cold the canal was on a
frosty night, while the sub-freshman only gazed out over the legs and
arms splashing and gleaming in the surf, and tried to smile in a way
to show Buckley that he was not taking offence. For what could a
sub-freshman do?
Then the girl would poke the end of her red parasol in the sand and
say: "I think it would be just too mean of you to haze Mr. Valliant.
He is such a good friend of mine." This was because it is woman's
nature to take the part of the weak and oppressed.
But one day the sophomore made a remark about "pretty pink-cheeked
boys," which had been better left unsaid. Then arose the younger one
and shaking impressively a slender, pink-nailed finger, he spoke.
"You had better not try to haze me, Will Buckley. Do you hear what I
say?" Which was the very worst thing he could have said. Besides it
was decidedly fresh.
But he was very much in earnest and quite angry and his young voice
broke in the middle. The sophomore laughed mirthfully and the girl
became genuinely sorry for a moment, despite the humor of the
situation; and as she watched his dainty legs retreating over the
dunes toward the cottages it repented her of having stirred up enmity
between the two, and she resolved from that day to make up for it.
This she did by being always good to the little one in the presence of
the big one, which seems short-sighted in her.
Thus did one small girl amuse herself throughout the week, and then,
when Saturday evening came and the children were left to burn
cigarettes by themselves, she entertained the men with it, who came
down to spend Sunday. For her nose turned up and she was good at
mimicry. She won't be mentioned again.
* * * * *
In the glorious old days of untrammelled class activity when everyone
recognized that there were certain duties owed the freshman by the
sophomore class, as Hall talk was due them from the upper-classmen
(another good old custom now defunct), you had only casually to drop
word to a freshman on the way to recitation to wait for you when night
came, back of Witherspoon--as you would bid a classmate come to a
spread in your room--and he would turn up promptly and smilingly, take
his little dose meekly and cheerfully, and go to bed a better boy for
it and brag about it every time he dined out in Christmas holidays.
But all that is changed now.
Even in the days of which this is written, which were only
comparatively modern times, one had to play a very careful game to do
any hazing. The freshman was beginning to hesitate about putting out
his light when you yelled up at him from the street. People were
putting strange notions in his head. He was beginning to think he had
a personality. They were telling him he had rights. The old glory had
departed along with Rushes and Midnight Cane Sprees and Horn Sprees
and Fresh Fires to make room for a University spirit and linen shirts.
At the present rate of retrogression--mark the prediction--it will not
be many years before the freshman will be allowed to wear the orange
and black and the sophomore a silk hat! When that day comes, may it
be that a certain Old Grad. will have attended his last reunion.
Twice had Buckley waited near the house where Valliant ate his dinner.
But it's quite light after dinner in September. He had gone to the
house where he roomed, and asked the landlady if any of the gentlemen
wanted to join the Y. M. C. A. But that, like the _Nassau Lit._ and
_Princetonian_ subscription-list-game, had been played out; the door
was closed in his face. Then for three successive nights he waited in
an alley near by, and on the third night the freshman came. But with
him an upper-classman friend.
Buckley said things and kept in the shadow. But the freshman had good
eyes and said as he took out his keys, "Oh, is that you, Mr. Buckley?
Why, how do you do? Aren't you coming up to see me?" That was horribly
fresh.
"Not now," Buckley growled. "Which is your room?" Excusing himself
from the upper-classman, who was enjoying all this, the freshman led
Buckley into the alley-way, and pointed up at the wing of the house.
It was a large one and many people lived in it. "That room up there
next to the one with a light in it. See?" he said in polite, friendly
tones. This was decidedly fresh.
Buckley said he would come up later on in the evening, which, of
course, he had no intention of doing, and saying "Good-night"
good-mannerly enough, he slinked off, and the freshman took his friend
up the stairs, which smelled of damp carpets.
The next night Buckley got his gang together. They blew smoke in one
another's faces and decided that a little exhibition of oarsmanship in
a basin of water with toothpicks would do to warm up with. Then a
cross-country jaunt would be appropriate, running, walking, and
crawling to the canal. Here, as the freshman was proud of his shape,
he would be given an opportunity of displaying it while the moon
reflected in the water. And, if he felt cold after that, he could
climb a telephone pole for exercise--they didn't want to be
inconsiderate of his comfort--and sing "Nearer my home to-day, to-day,
than I have been before," at the top of it. Then with a few
recitations and solos on the way back he could be put to bed. This
would be a good night's work.
It was nearly two o'clock when they carried the ladder into the
alley-way. They laid it down in silence.
For several reasons this was to be a right nervy go. A young professor
and his young wife had a suite of rooms in the house. But it wasn't
that which troubled them. This was. The moon shone full and strong
upon the clear, blank wall of the house, and it was in plain view from
a certain spot a distance of about two blocks away. Across this spot a
certain owl-eyed proctor was pretty sure to pass and repass off and on
all night.
That was the reason they were sitting on the ladder waiting for a
signal from Colston, who was over by the certain spot watching for the
certain proctor.
"Buck, which is the freshman's room?"
"It was the one next to the light and the light was in the room over
the side-door."
"Second or third story?"
"Sist! not so loud. Why, let's see, the third."
"Yes," said Haines, "don't you see the window's open up there. None of
the family would do that. Town people would never air----"
"Listen!"
A whistle came from the silent distance, the first bar from "Rumski
Ho," then a silence, then the same bar repeated. And by this they knew
that the proctor had walked into the open space and out of it again,
and that if they hurried they could put the ladder against the house,
send a man up it and take it away again before the proctor crossed
the open space once more.
Buckley started up. The others leaned against the bottom round to
steady it. Then he came back for a moment. "Don't take it away until I
get all the way in--until I wave my hand. There's plenty of time. Keep
cool," he whispered, as he nimbly began his ascent. For his descent he
was to rely upon the stairs, the freshman, and his own persuasive
powers, for what are freshmen and stairs made for?
Buckley was a right devilish young man, and typically a sophomore. The
year before he had climbed the belfry of old North and stolen the
bell-clapper and gained class-wide renown. Already this term he had
mounted the water-tower and painted the freshman numerals green. The
very night before this he had run around the eaves of Reunion, which
is no easy trick, with "Bill," the night proctor, behind him, and when
he dropped off the bottom round of the fire-escape into the arms of
another proctor, he had wriggled out again. Still there are sensations
peculiar to scaling a ladder stretching toward the black of an open
window, with a moon throwing shadows of yourself and the rounds of the
ladder against the dull bricks of an old-fashioned house, while old
North strikes two in the distance. Buckley felt them.
The ladder did not quite reach, and he had to stand on the top round
and stretch for the sill. Then he pulled himself up, got one foot
over, took a longer grip on the inside of the window, dragged the
other foot up, as you would climb a high board fence, and was in the
room with both feet. He leaned out and waved his hand. The top of the
ladder silently swung out from the wall and swooped down in silence.
Buckley turned and started across the room.
He could feel the heavier atmosphere of indoors. A small clock was
ticking somewhere. He detected a faint scent of mouchoir powder, and
was just remarking to himself half consciously that it was just like
that pretty-faced freshman, when from somewhere there came a soft
voice, saying, "Is that you, dear?"
Then, before all the blood near his backbone had time to freeze into
little splinters of ice, he said, "Shsss," and stepped out of the
moonlight and into the shadow, which is the best thing to do in case
you are ever in a similar situation. Buckley's instinct made him do
it.
Across the silence the soft voice floated again and mingled with the
moonlight, "Oh, I'm not asleep. But why did you stay so long, Guy,
dear?" There was another sound. It was the squeaking of a bed-spring.
Then, as Buckley's knees stiffened tight against each other, he spied
coming toward him something white, with two black streaks hanging half
way down, which as the thing came into the moonlight, he saw to be
long braids of dark hair. Also, the light showed a tall, slender
figure clothed in but one garment, which was white, and a face which
was young and beautiful. Buckley had never seen a woman dressed that
way before, and he closed his eyes.
But he felt it coming nearer and nearer. He stood up perfectly
straight and rigid in the darkness as two arms reached up and met
about his neck. The arms were soft, and they smelt good.
Buckley did not budge, and the soft voice began, in a sort of whisper,
"You have not forgiven me yet?" It began to sob, and he felt the
sobbing against his orange and black sweater. "You know I did not mean
it. Won't you--forgive her? Won't you forgive--her?" And Buckley fully
realized that he was in the thick of some romantically ghastly
mistake, and that the only thing he could do to make it worse would be
to speak or show his face.
For fully half a minute he stood thus motionless, with his arms at
his sides, gathering himself together, and trying to think what to do.
And when he had made up his mind what to do he gritted his teeth and
put both arms about the Clingy Thing.
And when he had done that the Clingy Thing began to purr in soft,
plaintive tones, which undoubtedly were sweet, and would probably have
been appreciated by Buckley if he had not been so rattled. "Tell me
that you _do_ forgive me. Say it with your own lips."
Buckley said nothing with his lips. He was biting them.
"Guy, speak to me!"
Buckley didn't.
"Speak to me, my husband!" A soft, fragrant hand came gently up along
his cheek, which tingled, and over his eyes, which quivered, and
pushed back the hair from his brow, which was wet. Suddenly she raised
her head, gave one look at his face with large, startled eyes, then,
with a shuddering gasp, she recoiled.
But Buckley was not letting go. This is what he had been preparing
for. Keeping one arm about her waist he threw the other around the
neck in such a way that he could draw it tight if necessary, and said
in one breath, "For heaven's sake, don't scream--I can explain!"
"Ugh! Oh, let go! Who--let me go or I'll screa-ch-ch-ch."
But Buckley didn't let her do either. He pressed on the windpipe,
feeling like three or four kinds of murderers as he did so. Then, as
she struggled with feeble, womanly might, Buckley did the fastest
thinking he had ever done in all his nineteen years. The door of the
room--was it locked? The stairs--where were they? The front door--was
the night-latch above the knob? Was it below? Would it stick? All this
time she would be screaming, and the house was full of men. He would
be caught. He was in for something. But was he hurting her? He began
to talk.
"Oh, please, if you scream it'll only make things awfully awkward. I
got in here by mistake. I can explain. I'm not going to hurt you. Oh,
please, keep quiet."
She tried again to wrench away from his grasp, and Buckley drew her
back with ease, feeling half sorry for her poor little strength.
"Promise me you'll not cry out and I'll let go."
"Yes, yes, I promise," said the scared voice. "Anything. Only let me
go."
Buckley released his grasp. She fled across the room. He thought she
was making for the door. He sprang toward it to keep her from running
downstairs and arousing the house. But she only snatched up an afghan
or something from the sofa, and holding it about her retreated to the
dark part of the room.
Buckley couldn't see her now, but he heard her moan, "Oh dear, oh
dear!" in a muffled tone, and he felt that she must be cowering in the
corner farthest away from him, and it made him have all sorts of
contempt for himself. Then he talked again, standing with his back
against the door and looking toward the dark. "I don't know who you
are," he began in a loud, nervous whisper, "but whoever you are, I
wish you wouldn't cry. Please be calm. I want to talk to you."
"I don't want to hear you--I don't want to hear you."
"Not so loud, or we'll be heard."
"Oh, oh, how can you trade upon my necessity? Haven't you a grain of
manhood, a spark of kindness in you----"
"Yes, yes, lots," said Buckley. "Listen to me. Please listen. It's all
a big mistake. I thought I was coming to my own room----"
"Your own room!"
"I mean my classmate's room--I mean I thought a freshman roomed here.
I wouldn't have made the mistake for anything in the world. You
aren't half as sorry I got in your room as I am--Oh, yes, you are!--I
mean I'm awfully sorry and wish to apologize, and I hope you'll
forgive me. I didn't mean anything----"
"Mean anything!"
"Really I didn't. If you'll only let me go down and promise not to
wake the house before I get out, why, no one will ever know anything
about it, and I'll promise not to do it again. I'm awfully sorry it
happened." Buckley started for the door.
"Mrs. Brown--Mr. Brown, help! murder!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake don't!" cried Buckley.
"I will. Just as soon as I get breath and strength enough I mean to
wake the house, the neighbors, the whole town if I can."
"No, you won't!" Buckley started across the room.
"Stop!" she cried.
He stopped. The voice was commanding. It seemed already quite strong
enough to scream. He said: "You promised not to scream."
"But you forced me to promise."
"Are you going to scream?"
"I am." She was getting her breath.
"Oh, don't; please don't. If I wanted to, I could hurt you. I don't
want to hurt you. Ah, have pity on me!"
The bold, bad sophomore was down on his knees, with his hands clasped
toward the dark, where the voice came from. He was very sorry for
himself.
"You stay right there in the moonlight."
"Right here?"
"Right there. And if you dare to move, I'll scream with all my might."
Buckley first shivered and then froze as stiff as if a hair-trigger
rifle were pointing at him. "How long must I stay here?" he asked,
without moving his head.
"Until my hus-- Until daylight," returned the voice.
"Until daylight!" repeated Buckley. There was something impressive in
the deep, rich voice of this tall young woman, and whoever she was,
Buckley could tell, from the refined tones, that she was a lady. He
could just make out the gleam of her face and of one arm in the dark
corner.
Outside, the crickets were scratching in the warm, still night. It was
after two o'clock. A moon was shining in his left eye. And he, William
Buckley, was kneeling, with his hands stretched imploringly toward a
girl whom he had never seen before, in the third story of an
old-fashioned Princeton house, which he had entered for the first
time by a ladder which, by this time, was resting serenely against a
freshly painted house in Mercer Street, whither it had been borne by
four classmates, who were now at the corner of Canal and Dickinson
Streets, as per agreement, and cursing him for taking such a long time
to pull one small freshman out of bed. Meanwhile, the moon was
approaching the window-post.
"Please, oh, please, whoever you are," he began, in earnest, pleading
tones, "won't you forgive me, and let me go?"
There was no answer.
"I am a gentleman. Indeed I am! I wouldn't harm a girl for the world.
Please let me go. I'll be fired--I mean expelled from college for
this. I'll be disgraced for life. I'll----"
"Stop!" The voice seemed to be calm now. "While it may be true that
you did not break into my room with intent to rob or injure a
defenceless woman, yet, by your own confession, you came to torment a
weaker person. You wanted to haze one of the freshmen in this house;
that was it. And when my husband----"
"Oh, have mercy on me. Won't you have mercy?" Then he began to tell
her what a good boy he had always been, and how he had always gone to
church, and how fond his mother was of him, and that he was the pride
and ambition of the family, and similar rot, showing how completely
scared to death he was. "Just think what this means to me," he
concluded. "If I'm fired from college, I'll never come back. I'll be
disgraced for life. All my prospects will be blighted, my life ruined,
and my mother's heart broken."
She gave a little hysterical sob, as if the strain were too great for
her. "Yes, for your poor mother's sake; yes, go!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, thank you with all my heart. My mother would, too, if she could
know. I don't deserve to be treated so well. I shall always think of
you as my merciful benefactress. I can never forgive myself for
causing you pain. Oh, thank you."
Buckley, the sophomore, who had strode into that room so manfully, in
the full pride of his sophomorish strength and orange and black,
grovelled across the room and out of the door, then tip-toed his way
down the hall stairs, silently pulled back the latch of the front
door, and sneaked off, with his tail between his legs.
The outside air did him good, and by the time he reached his impatient
class-mates he had thought up a fairly good lie about the freshman's
being ill, quite seriously ill, and about his stopping to look after
him a bit, which they admitted was the only thing to do under the
circumstances, though it was blamed hard lines, after all the trouble
they had taken. "Better luck next time, Buck," they said, and went to
bed.
By the ten o'clock mail next morning Buckley received a letter in
strange handwriting. It said: "Just as a tall woman looks short in a
man's make-up, so does a short man look tall in a woman's make-up, and
you should know that blondes are hard to recognize in brunette wigs. I
could have done more artistic acting if you had come up earlier, when
I had on my full costume. You ought to know that a real girl wouldn't
have behaved quite that way. You see you still have a number of things
to learn, even though you are a soph. Sort of hard luck, all this,
isn't it, old man? Hoping that the rouge will wash off your lips and
that you will learn to forgive yourself, I am your merciful
benefactress, H. G. Valliant."
This is the freshest thing I ever heard of.
There was a P. S. which said: "Whether or not this thing gets out
rests entirely with you and your hazing friends."
Of course it did get out, as all such things do; but Valliant was not
bothered again by sophomores, though he ought to have been hazed up
and down and inside-out and cross-wise by the whole college.
You can see him if you attend the next production of the Dramatic
Association.