Hugh was by no means continuously depressed; as a matter of fact, most
of the time he was agog with delight, especially over the rallies that
were occurring with increasing frequency as the football season
progressed. Sometimes the rallies were carefully prepared ceremonies
held in the gymnasium; sometimes they were entirely spontaneous.
A group of men would rush out of a dormitory or fraternity house
yelling, "Peerade, peerade!" Instantly every one within hearing would
drop his books--or his cards--and rush to the yelling group, which would
line up in fours and begin circling the campus, the line ever getting
longer as more men came running out of the dormitories and fraternity
houses. On, on they would go, arm in arm, dancing, singing Sanford
songs, past every dormitory on the campus, past every fraternity
house--pausing occasionally to give a cheer, always, however, keeping
one goal in mind, the fraternity house where the team lived during the
football season. Then when the cheer-leaders and the team were heading
the procession, the mob would make for the football field, with the cry
of "Wood, freshmen, wood!" ringing down the line.
Hugh was always one of the first freshmen to break from the line in his
eagerness to get wood. In an incredibly short time he and his classmates
had found a large quantity of old lumber, empty boxes, rotten planks,
and not very rotten gates. When a light was applied to the clumsy pile
of wood, the flames leaped up quickly--some one always seemed to have a
supply of kerosene ready--and revealed the excited upper-classmen
sitting on the bleachers.
"Dance, freshmen, dance!"
Then the freshmen danced around the fire, holding hands and spreading
into an ever widening circle as the fire crackled and the flames leaped
upward. Slowly, almost impressively, the upper-classmen chanted:
"Round the fire, the freshmen go,
Freshmen go,
Freshmen go;
Round the fire the freshmen go
To cheer Sanford."
The song had a dozen stanzas, only the last line of each being
different. The freshmen danced until the last verse was sung, which
ended with the Sanford cheer:
"Closer now the freshmen go,
Freshmen go,
Freshmen go;
Closer now the freshmen go
To cheer--
SANFORD!
Sanford! Rah, rah!
Sanford! Sanford!
San--San--San--
San--ford, San--ford--San--FORD!"
While the upper-classmen were singing the last stanza the freshmen
slowly closed in on the dying fire. At the first word of the cheer, they
stopped, turned toward the grand stand, and joined the cheering. That
over, they broke and ran for the bleachers, scrambling up the wooden
stands, shoving each other out of the way, laughing and shouting.
The football captain usually made a short and very awkward speech, which
was madly applauded; perhaps the coach said a few words; two or three
cheers were given; and finally every one rose, took off his hat if he
wore one--nearly every one but the freshmen went bareheaded--and sang
the college hymn, simply and religiously. Then the crowd broke,
straggling in groups across the campus, chatting, singing, shouting to
each other. Suddenly lights began to flash in the dormitory windows. In
less than an hour after the first cry of "Peerade!" the men were back
in their rooms, once more studying, talking, or playing cards.
It was the smoker rallies, though, that Hugh found the most thrilling,
especially the last one before the final game of the season, the "big
game" with Raleigh College. There were 1123 students in Sanford, and
more than 1000 were at the rally. A rough platform had been built at one
end of the gymnasium. On one side of it sat the band, on the other side
the Glee Club--and before it the mass of students, smoking cigarettes,
corn-cob pipes, and, occasionally, a cigar. The "smokes" had been
furnished free by a local tobacconist; so everybody smoked violently and
too much. In half an hour it was almost impossible to see the ceiling
through the dull blue haze, and the men in the rear of the gymnasium saw
the speakers on the platform dimly through a wavering mist.
The band played various Sanford songs, and everybody sang. Occasionally
Wayne Gifford, the cheer-leader, leaped upon the platform, raised a
megaphone to his mouth, and shouted, "A regular cheer for Sanford--a
regular cheer for Sanford." Then he lifted his arms above his head,
flinging the megaphone aside with the same motion, and waited tense and
rigid until the students were on their feet. Suddenly he turned into a
mad dervish, twisting, bending, gesticulating, leaping, running back and
forth across the platform, shouting, and finally throwing his hands
above his head and springing high into the air at the concluding
"San--FORD!"
The Glee Club sang to mad applause; a tenor twanged a ukulele and moaned
various blues; a popular professor told stories, some of them funny,
most of them slightly off color; a former cheer-leader told of the
triumphs of former Sanford teams--and the atmosphere grew denser and
denser, bluer and bluer, as the smoke wreathed upward. The thousand boys
leaned intently forward, occasionally jumping to their feet to shout and
cheer, and then sinking back into their chairs, tense and excited. As
each speaker mounted the platform they shouted: "Off with your coat! Off
with your coat!" And the speakers, even the professor, had to shed their
coats before they were permitted to say a word.
When the team entered, bedlam broke loose. Every student stood on his
chair, waved his arms, slapped his neighbor on the back or hugged him
wildly, threw his hat in the air, if he had one--and, so great was his
training, keeping an eye on the cheer-leader, who was on the platform
going through a series of indescribable contortions. Suddenly he
straightened up, held his hands above his head again, and shouted
through his megaphone: "A regular cheer for the team--a regular cheer
for the team. Make it big--BIG! Ready--!" Away whirled the megaphone,
and he went through exactly the same performance that he had used before
in conducting the regular cheer. Gifford looked like an inspired madman,
but he knew exactly what he was doing. The students cheered lustily, so
lustily that some of them were hoarse the next day. They continued to
yell after the cheer was completed, ceasing only when Gifford signaled
for silence.
Then there were speeches by each member of the team, all
enthusiastically applauded, and finally the speech of the evening, that
of the coach, Jack Price. He was a big, compactly built man with regular
features, heavy blond hair, and pale, cold blue eyes. He threw off his
coat with a belligerent gesture, stuck his hands into his trousers
pockets, and waited rigidly until the cheering had subsided. Then he
began:
"Go ahead and yell. It's easy as hell to cheer here in the gym; but what
are you going to do Saturday afternoon?"
His voice was sharp with sarcasm, and to the shouts of "Yell! Fight!"
that came from all over the gymnasium, he answered, "Yeah,
maybe--maybe." He shifted his position, stepping toward the front of the
platform, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.
"I've seen a lot of football games, and I've seen lots of rooters, but
this is the goddamndest gang of yellow-bellied quitters that I've ever
seen. What happened last Saturday when we were behind? I'm asking you;
what happened? You quit! Quit like a bunch of whipped curs. God! you're
yellow, yellow as hell. But the team went on fighting--and it won, won
in spite of you, won for a bunch of yellow pups. And why? Because the
team's got guts. And when it was all over, you cheered and howled and
serpentined and felt big as hell. Lord Almighty! you acted as if you'd
done something."
His right hand came out of his pocket with a jerk, and he extended a
fighting, clenched fist toward his breathless audience. "I'll tell you
something," he said slowly, viciously; "the team can't win alone day
after to-morrow. _It can't win alone!_ You've got to fight. Damn it!
_You've got to fight!_ Raleigh's good, damn good; it hasn't lost a game
this season--and we've got to win, _win_! Do you hear? We've got to win!
And there's only one way that we can win, and that's with every man back
of the team. Every goddamned mother's son of you. The team's good, but
it can't win unless you fight--_fight_!"
Suddenly his voice grew softer, almost gentle. He held out both hands to
the boys, who had become so tense that they had forgotten to smoke.
"We've got to win, fellows, for old Sanford. Are you back of us?"
"Yes!" The tension shattered into a thousand yells. The boys leaped on
the chairs and shouted until they could shout no more. When Gifford
called for "a regular cheer for Jack Price" and then one for the
team--"Make it the biggest you ever gave"--they could respond with only
a hoarse croak.
Finally the hymn was sung--at least, the boys tried loyally to sing
it--and they stood silent and almost reverent as the team filed out of
the gymnasium.
Hugh walked back to Surrey Hall with several men. No one said a word
except a quiet good night as they parted. Carl was in the room when he
arrived. He sank into a chair and was silent for a few minutes.
Finally he said in a happy whisper, "Wasn't it wonderful, Carl?"
"Un-huh. Damn good."
"Gosh, I hope we win. We've _got_ to!"
Carl looked up, his cheeks redder than usual, his eyes glittering. "God,
yes!" he breathed piously.