CHAPTER I._Whispering Tongues

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MASTER FRISKY. By Clarence W. Hawkes.

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WHISPERING TONGUES

HOMER GREENE

_New York

Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

Publishers._

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

Prof. William Wells, LL.D.

KNOWN AND LOVED BY MANY GENERATIONS OF UNION

COLLEGE STUDENTS AS “BILLY WELLS,” THIS

LITTLE VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY

INSCRIBED

“_Alas! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth;

And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny and youth is vain;

And to be wroth with one we love

Doth work like madness in the brain._”

_SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

THE MOONLIGHT RUSH 9

CHAPTER II.

THE GAMMA QUESTERS 21

CHAPTER III.

BEFORE THE FACULTY 35

CHAPTER IV.

THE QUARREL OF FRIENDS 49

CHAPTER V.

A COWARDLY REVENGE 61

CHAPTER VI.

ALMOST A TRAGEDY 74

CHAPTER VII.

THE WELCOME HOME 87

WHISPERING TONGUES.

CHAPTER I.

THE MOONLIGHT RUSH.

It’s a way we have at Old Concord;

To drive dull care away.

One moonlight evening in the early spring, under a cloudless sky, a

party of twelve Concord College Sophomores sang these lines as they

marched up the street toward the college grounds. They were young, all

in a happy mood; they kept step to the strokes of their canes on the

pavement, and swung along with vigor and elasticity, making the air

throb with their rollicking songs.

Parmenter was with them. His was the tenor voice that rang out with

such strength and clearness above the others. He was the leader of his

class; in favor with the faculty, popular with his fellows, a welcome

guest at any gathering.

The party passed on up the hill, through the college gate and along the

terrace, still singing. They halted in front of Professor Samuel Lee’s

residence, faced toward it and began a new song:

Here’s to Sammy Lee, drink it down, drink it down;

Here’s to Sammy Lee, and a right good fellow he;

Drink it down, drink it down,

Drink it down, down, down,

Balm of Gilead, Gilead;

Balm of Gil-e-ad;

Way down on the Bingo farm.

The last words were hardly out of the mouths of the singers before the

door of the house was opened, and from the square of light thus made,

the old professor himself stepped out upon the porch.

“Thank you, young gentlemen,” he said, pleasantly. “This is a glorious

night for a song. I’ve heard students sing along this terrace for

twenty years and more, and I never liked their songs better than I do

to-night. The music of them grows upon me always. Thank you again,

gentlemen, and good-night!”

“You’re welcome, Sammy!” shouted one irrepressible from the group,

while all the rest responded with a hearty “Good-night!”

No one intended to be disrespectful to Professor Lee. The use of his

nickname was meant as a mark of affection, and he understood it so. But

in the classroom his dignity was never trespassed upon. There were one

or two good stories handed down from class to class, narrating the

just fate that befell audacious students of the past who had ventured

to be rude to “Sammy.” These possibly apocryphal incidents made him

more popular, and in private he was the trusted friend of every student

at Concord College.

Besides that, he had a boy of his own--an only child, with whom he kept

in close sympathy, and in whom the best and brightest of all his hopes

were centered. This boy, Charley, was a member of the Sophomore Class.

He was a bright, lovable, popular fellow, impetuous, perhaps somewhat

lacking in stability, but likely to become a worthy if not a brilliant

man.

He came out now upon the porch, just as his father turned to go in, and

stood for a moment peering into the group on the walk as if trying to

make out the identity of the persons who composed it. He was no sooner

seen by his classmates than another song broke from their lips:

Here’s to Sammy’s son, bring him down, bring him down:

Here’s to Sammy’s son, for he’s always full of fun;

Bring him down, bring him down, bring him down, down, down, down.

Young Lee recognized the tenor voice in a moment. He and Parmenter were

bosom friends. Their companions had long ago dubbed them Damon and

Pythias.

“Hello, Fred!” cried Lee, “are you there? Hello, fellows! Is there room

for me?”

“Always room for one more,” was the reply. “Move up, please! Move up

now and let the gentleman aboard! Why don’t you help him on, Freddie?

Help him on; he’s yours.”

There was more good-natured bantering. Then the party faced toward the

campus and started on, singing a good-night song to Professor Lee:

Good-night, Sammy! Good-night, Sammy! Good-night, Sammy!

We’re going to leave you now.

Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along;

Merrily we roll along

O’er the deep blue sea.

The steps sounded in unison, the heavy canes beat time, and back from

the campus, mellowed by the growing distance, came still the music of

the song:

Sweet dreams, Sammy! Sweet dreams, Sammy!

Sweet dreams, Sammy!

We’re going to leave you now.

Through a half-open window the words came floating softly into the ears

of Professor Lee, and he smiled as he thought of the real affection and

seeming irreverence of the boys. Though his hair was white with years,

his heart was very youthful.

He liked young men, and sympathized with them. He entered heartily

into both their work and play. He enjoyed their fun, approved of their

games, and was the champion of athletics at Concord. But the doubtful

sport of hazing he detested with his whole soul, and did not hesitate

to say so.

Every one was aware of his feeling on this subject, but there were few

who knew why it was so deep. In a distant city, confined in an asylum

for the insane, Professor Lee’s only brother had lived for years, an

imbecile. His condition was the direct result of injuries received at

the hands of college hazers in his youth.

With this sorrow shadowing his life, it is not strange that hazing was

an object of horror and hatred in Professor Lee’s thoughts.

The party of students, now headed by Parmenter and Lee, passed on

across the campus, still singing. From the shadows of North College the

tall figure of a young man emerged and came toward them. In the bright

moonlight he was recognized at once as Van Loan, a man who had recently

entered the Freshman class, coming from another college.

He had brought with him a reputation for mental ability and physical

strength that gave him at once a prominent position among his fellows.

But he was inordinately vain. He did not hesitate to boast of his

wealth, of his aristocratic lineage, and of his superior attainments.

There is no community so thoroughly democratic as a community of

students; and while Van Loan’s real ability met with the respect it

deserved, his vanity and arrogance made him obnoxious.

To-night he was dressed in the height of fashion. His costly clothes

were a perfect fit. But the articles of ornament and apparel which

particularly attracted the attention of the Sophomores who approached

him were his high silk hat and his heavy cane.

It was an unwritten law among the students at Concord College that

Freshmen should not wear silk hats or carry canes before reaching their

third term. Any violation of this law was sure to bring on a class

rush, in which the winning side secured and preserved the offensive

articles of costume as trophies and emblems of their victory.

Yet here was a Freshman, in the midst of the second term, approaching a

group of Sophomores with a cane in his hand and a silk hat on his head!

Apparently he saw danger ahead of him, for he stopped a moment.

“What is it?” asked some one in the group, as they came up to Van Loan.

“It must be Wilson’s dummy come to life,” replied another. Wilson was

the college tailor.

Van Loan heard these uncomplimentary remarks, and his face flushed with

anger. He started boldly on, turning to the right as if to pass by the

group. But half a dozen Sophomores intercepted him.

“What do you fellows mean by this impertinence?” he asked, curtly.

“We mean,” replied Parmenter, “that Freshmen are not yet allowed

to carry sticks or wear ‘plugs.’ As you came here recently, from a

one-horse college, perhaps you were not aware of this rule. If not, we

shall be pleased to escort you to your room, where you can lay these

highly objectionable articles of apparel away, and let them grow with

your growth until it is time for you to wear them. But if you have

knowingly and deliberately violated our rule, we--”

“What business is it of yours what I carry or wear?” interrupted Van

Loan, hotly. “Stand aside and let me pass, or some one will get hurt!”

“Having declined our offer to escort you to your room,” continued

Parmenter, coolly, “we shall be obliged to ask you to deliver up to us

at once the articles I have named.”

“You shall not have them!” replied Van Loan, savagely. “I dare any one

of you to come and get them. I dare all of you to take them away! You

are cowards and bullies, every one of you!”

Nevertheless, as the Sophomores approached him he backed out into the

road, retreating steadily until he came to the edge of a muddy pool of

water left by the melting snows.

“You are robbers!” he shouted, fiercely. “What right have you to stop a

gentleman in the public road and demand his property?”

“The right that might makes,” came the quick reply from some one in the

group.

The Sophomores were gradually encircling their victim. Van Loan glanced

about him nervously, and clutched his cane as if to make ready for

action.

“Give them up peaceably, and we won’t even disturb the part in your

hair,” said some one.

“And be quick about it, too,” said another, “for tempus is fast

fugiting.”

Another body of students, scenting sport and trouble from afar, was

rapidly approaching from the direction of South College. The circle

about Van Loan was completed and contracting. He saw that his only hope

lay in holding his enemies at bay until help should arrive from his own

classmen. Yet he could not face all ways at once.

“Come, here’s the last word,” said Robinson, who recognized the men

now bearing down on them as members of the Freshman class; “will you

surrender the obnoxious articles peaceably, or won’t you?”

Van Loan, too, saw that assistance was at hand, and his courage

increased accordingly.

“Never!” he shouted. “These things are mine, and I’ll keep them, and

the first man that lays his hands on them or me, I’ll break his--”

What it was that Van Loan would have broken, no one ever knew; for

Parmenter, advancing quickly to his side, tripped him so suddenly and

dexterously that he measured his full length in the shallow, muddy

pool into which he had been too dainty to step.

In the same instant Lee snatched the cane from his grasp, and Robinson

caught the silk hat as it fell.

But the victory was short-lived. Van Loan’s assailants turned

with their trophies only to find themselves face to face with and

outnumbered by a party of Van Loan’s classmates, who plunged at once to

the rescue.

Then the rush was on. Up from the midst of the struggling mass came

the class call of the Sophomores. It was followed at once by the class

cry of the Freshmen. Soon the campus was alive with students hurrying

singly and in groups toward the scene of the conflict.

Freshmen and Sophomores darted at once into the thick of the fight,

while the Juniors and Seniors, moving about on the outskirts of the

battleground, cheered and encouraged alternately the contending

factions.

Van Loan had struggled to his feet as the center of battle moved away

from him, and looked down ruefully and in speechless anger at his

soiled and dripping garments.

“Don’t look very pretty, do they?” said a smiling Junior who stood by.

The victim of the drenching did not deign a reply. He jerked off his

coat, and began wringing the water from it. Suddenly he asked: “Who was

it, anyway? What coward threw me down?”

“A young fellow by the name of Parmenter,” was the answer; “a

first-class all-around athlete. I shall be happy to introduce you to

him at some more opportune moment.”

Van Loan did not relish the bantering tone of his informant; and

muttering something more about cowards and bullies, he turned savagely

on his heel, and started across the campus toward his room.

But a second thought appeared to come to him; for in the next moment

he swung himself quickly about and ran, as fast as his heavy garments

would permit him to, toward the crowd that was still struggling over

his hat and cane.

He forced his way desperately into the center of the group and through

it, looking for Parmenter, his wet clothing like ice upon his body, but

a fire of hate raging in his heart.

It was not long before Van Loan’s hat was in shreds; but the cane,

heavy and tough, resisted all the violence brought to bear upon it,

and remained unbroken. Wherever it was, there was the center of the

fight. The struggling group about it moved here and there, now swiftly,

now slowly, swaying and parting, meeting and clinging, the dark mass

looking from a distance, in the moonlight, like some huge monster

twisting and writhing in pain.

Hats were lost and trampled upon. Coats were torn from the backs of

their owners, clothes were rent and ruined--everywhere the campus was

strewn with the débris of personal belongings.

Shifting back and forth by degrees, the surging mob finally reached a

point in the driveway near the corner of South College.

Suddenly, the mass being rent by some swift convulsion, Parmenter

darted from the midst and ran rapidly along the drive toward the main

entrance to the building. He held Van Loan’s cane in his hand. In an

instant Van Loan was at his heels, with Lee a good third.

From the crowd that pressed forward toward them came hoarse shouts of

encouragement and wild yells of anticipated victory. The non-combatants

who stood by joined in the cheers, and hurried on after the racers.

Those who watched closely saw that Parmenter, notwithstanding the

swiftness of his gait, limped as if he had been hurt. They saw, too,

that Van Loan was gaining on him; and more than one person, marking

the look of desperate desire in Van Loan’s face, feared that it meant

serious mischief.

When Parmenter reached the stone pavement in front of the buildings Van

Loan was near enough to grasp him, but he did not do so. He kept on

until pursuer and pursued were side by side; then turning sharply and

suddenly, he thrust out his foot and struck Parmenter’s feet from under

him. The young man was hurled headlong to the pavement.

He fell on his side and shoulder. The blow of his fall was heard above

the storm of shouts and cheers that followed him. In an instant Van

Loan had seized the cane, and flourished it for a second in heroic

attitude above the prostrate body of his victim. Then finding Lee

almost within touch, he turned and ran with it into an open doorway of

South College.

But Lee did not follow him; he stopped where Parmenter lay in the

moonlight, white-faced, limp, and unconscious, with flowing blood

staining the pavement under his head.

“He’s hurt!” cried Lee, frightened at his friend’s appearance, and

bending over him in deep anxiety. “He’s hurt! Maybe the brute has

killed him! Here, give us a lift; let’s carry him in! Rob, run for

Doctor Park--run!”

The crowd, suddenly quieted, pressed forward toward the point where

Parmenter lay. Half a dozen of his classmen had already lifted him in

their arms, and a moment later they were carrying him, hurt, helpless,

still unconscious, across the moonlit campus to his room.

But the fight was won. Van Loan’s stroke, cruel and revengeful though

it was, had placed victory in the hands of the Freshmen. Henceforth

every man in the class was entitled, by virtue of the time-honored

student law, to wear a high hat and carry a cane whenever and wherever

he might choose to do so.