Stanford Stories Part 9

One Thursday, at football practice, about two weeks after Haviland had agreed to join, Pellams spoke to him.

"Professor, on Sat.u.r.day night you are to be initiated. Bring over your suit-case with a change of under-clothes and a pair of old shoes."

"I was going up to San Francisco on Sat.u.r.day," murmured Haviland, his heart beating a bit faster, "but----"

"You have changed your mind," finished Pellams, quietly. "We will have dinner as usual, and you will be on time, please. So long, Professor."

Haviland was not wholly at peace as he walked back to the dormitory. A Freshman never becomes especially hilarious in antic.i.p.ating his initiation night; there is an uncertain certainty about it that he cannot entirely laugh away, however much natural bravery he may have, however h.o.a.ry he may be in high school fraternity experience. At the chapter house, where things have been made so pleasant, careless remarks are dropped, full of sinister meaning. It is not nearly so comfortable there now, and Freshman Damocles wishes the suspense were over.

When the fateful Sat.u.r.day dawned, Walter had a strong impulse to go to the city as he had originally planned. Pellams had explained to him that his having held out so long before agreeing to join would probably mean his "getting it unusually hard." He knew that of all the fraternities, the Rhos were the most severe in their initiations--one of the Rhos had told him so.

At the post-office that morning he met Professor Lamb starting for a day's botanizing in the foothills. He did not know the instructor, but he envied him as he leaned on his wheel and watched the botany man take the fence and start off across the brown pastures toward the hills beyond the lake. There certainly was a strong resemblance.

"Oh," groaned the candidate for fraternity privileges, "I wish it was a case of his resembling me instead of my looking like him. I only wish I was the prof, now, I'd change places quickly enough. I'm afraid I'm a coward."

He wondered if they guessed how scared he was; he hoped not. He pedaled around to the courts, where Cap. Smith was waiting to play tennis, and he put on an infant bravado which secretly pleased the Soph.o.m.ore. After a few sets Cap. put his racket under his arm.

"No more tennis, Professor," he said, with meaning; "you'd better rest most of the day. Get out your work for Monday, you won't feel much like studying to-morrow, you know, and don't forget to be at the house at six sharp." Then, since the Freshman had visibly wilted, Smith grinned all the way across the field.

Haviland suspected two other fellows in the Hall of being in a state of mind similar to his own, but as he had been instructed to keep the matter absolutely secret, he could not turn to them for relief. He worried through the long Sat.u.r.day, making futile attacks on the work prescribed for Monday, strumming in an aimless way on his banjo, and finally writing his mother a letter between the lines of which she at once read malaria.

Dinner at the Rho house was the most miserable meal he had ever choked his way through. A half-dozen graduates were present, and some men from the Berkeley chapter. These visitors seemed a solemn lot, and conversation included the candidates only now and then. During the lulls in the talk, the Freshmen made audible sounds trying to swallow their food; this was so embarra.s.sing that they gave up the effort to eat, only gulping water now and then during talk. It was a relief when some one touched each Freshman quietly, and the condemned youngsters followed upstairs, their faces wearing pitiful dumb-victim-at-the-altar expressions, or trying with ghastly smiles to show how little they cared.

The young moon, sloping toward the s.h.a.ggy rim of the Palo Alto hills soon after eight o'clock, looked down into the pasture lands back of the campus. There she saw Walter Haviland, blindfolded and with a rope about his waist. Three other Freshmen were in a similar condition in different parts of the field. Haviland had been intrusted to the tender mercy of Cap. Smith, a 'Varsity man, and Pellams Chase, greatest of all joshers.

This was indeed a high honor. Two of the less distinguished members hovered about them, eager to add their services. Their objective point was a fence skirted by a gully through which water ran in the winter time; into this gully they flung the luckless Walt and left him there while they took their ruthless course to a part of the field where another group of men had gathered.

The moon touched delicately the redwood trees upon the western ridge, then slipped down beyond them. With her last look into the field she saw Haviland lying on his face at the bottom of the gulch. She saw also Professor Lamb, of the botany department, hurrying home cross-country from the day's collecting on upper San Francisquito Creek, tired, dusty, bedraggled, thinking with an unscientific enthusiasm of the hot dinner awaiting his homecoming. The lingering moon, peering over the mountain edge, saw the instructor clear the fence and plunge into the shadowy gulch. Then, before she could see what happened next, the stern law of the solar system drew her reluctant down.

The four men who had charge of Haviland came back from their consultation with the others. When they were near the place where they had left their victim, a man appeared, climbing out. This called for investigation; they bounded along through the gulch and came up with the fellow. To their surprise it was Haviland with his bandage off and the rope nowhere. It was the first time a man had ever tried to give them the slip. He should pay for it! Cap. Smith threw himself on the Freshman at the first glimpse of his face. In a jiffy there was a new bandage over his eyes and another rope coiled around his waist; this time it included his hands. He struggled resolutely, but in silence, for his breath had left him when he struck the ground with Smith on top.

They seized him firmly and ran him at breakneck speed over a terrible course, heading for an old well which waters a back pasture. Here they stopped, spent with running.

"On your knees, Professor!" gasped Pellams, with as much authority as his lack of breath would allow.

The panting victim remained standing.

"Down!" accompanied by a resounding blow of a barrel stave.

Still no movement, but a gurgle was heard as though speech was being labored for.

Biff!

The unfortunate creature sprawled beside the well, but struggled up again to a half-kneeling posture.

"This--must--stop!" he gasped, painfully. "It--is--an--outrage.

I--am----"

"No levity, sir!" said Smith. "You've got to do what we say, Professor, or you won't get in at all."

"I don't--want--to--get--in," panted the poor wretch in desperate protest. "It's--a--mistake--I----"

"See here, Professor; where's your nerve? Be a man! You'll never make a Rho at this rate. Brace up, for Heaven's sake! Rise, Neophyte."

They gave the rope a cruel wrench, which brought their captive to his feet.

"Let's kill him," whispered one of the men. Never before had there been so shameful a display of the white feather.

"We'll duck him."

They brought their Freshman to the brink of the well. They tightened the rope under his arms, and, before he could divine their intentions, they were lowering him down the slippery side. When his feet struck the cold water he struggled violently, shouting something which his splas.h.i.+ng and the echo of the well made unintelligible. Presently they hoisted him, dripping and speechless with rage.

"Thou hast now been cleansed of thy sin and cowardice, O Neophyte,"

declaimed Pellams. "Forward to the joys that await thee!"

They dragged him home on the run, taking the road this time and making all haste to the house. The half-dead initiate had to be carried upstairs. Smith took off the rope and told him to strip for a bath. The victim sat on the edge of the Soph.o.m.ore's bed and shook his head feebly. He was evidently exhausted.

"Come, hurry up, Haviland," said Cap. He felt a brutal impatience to see what the barrel staves had done to the fellow's back. "Get bathed and put on your dry clothes and be ready for the feed."

The initiate raised his hands slowly and untied the bandage. He blinked a moment at Smith, then he said huskily, "I am not Haviland, Mr. Smith, nor do I want any 'feed.' I want to know what this means." There was no anger in his voice, only great weariness.

The freezing truth dawned on the horrified student. His first impulse was to rush out of the house and to keep running. He managed to stammer:

"Where's Haviland?"

"I don't know where Haviland is," muttered the tired instructor. "I don't know who Haviland is. If I have taken his place I am ready to change again." He looked down upon his clothes, stuccoed with tarweed burrs and wet mud.

Then Jack Smith laughed aloud.

"Professor, when we've found Haviland, and you've seen him, you'll understand the whole horrible mistake, and----"

"There was no mistake," said the other, coldly, "you called me Professor while you were beating me."

This only set Smith off again.

"That's our name for Haviland. You see he looks like you--oh, I can't explain it to you, Professor; but when you've seen the man you'll forgive us, I know you will. And you've simply got to stay to our feed now, if we have to tie you up again to keep you here."

Professor Lamb, of the botany department, smiled wanly.

"I think I will take a bath, anyway," he sighed.

THE SUBSt.i.tUTED FULLBACK.

The Subst.i.tuted Fullback.