.... ' irff RIVF-HNlYfiOI UL L/ .11 IU VJUL SANTA CRUZ Gift ol W.W. HENRY JR SANTA CRUZ FOR THE BLUE AND GOLD FOR THE BLUE AND GOLD A Tale of Life at the University of California by JOY LlCHTENSTEIN A. M. ROBERTSON SAN FRANCISCO 1901 COPYRIGHT 1901 BY A. M. ROBERTSON PRINTED BY THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. FOR THE BLUE AND GOLD A Tale of Life at the University of California by JOY LlCHTENSTEIN A. M. ROBERTSON SAN FRANCISCO I9OI COPYRIGHT 1901 BY A. M. ROBERTSON PRINTED BY THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. TO MY WIFE CHEER FOR THE BLUE AND GOLD Cheer for the Blue and Gold, whene'er you see its hues! In vict'ry or defeat, do not the moments choose. Its colors stand for things that have sweetened all our lives. With every added cheer new love springs, old revives : Cheer for the Blue and Gold ! CONTENTS CHAPTER PAG I. Entering the University 1 II. The Raw Article 12 III. Getting Under Way 22 IV. The Rush .... ... 33 V. College Days and Ways 51 VI. Who's Afraid? 65 VII. The Big Game 92 VIII. The First Lap Completed 110 IX. The Clans Regather and Do Some Politics . .121 X. "How the Other Half Lives" .... 138 XI. Trouble on the Hill 153 XII. "Drill Ye Tarriers" ...... 169 XIII. Bourdon .180 XIV. Class Day 202 XV. The Dark Horse ....... 215 XVI. O-U-T Spells Out ... . 225 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUSTRATION PAOB ' ' Down below, the grand old oaks spread their gnarled limbs." Frontispiece "He stood on the west steps of South Hall." . . 16 1 ' With a blithe heart, he stepped up the campus to his first recitation." 28 The Rush 40 Bumming on North Hall Steps. 52 The Backs 66 "There they sit, waiting for their champions to appear." 92 "California has kicked off. It is Stanford's ball for first down." 104 Down in the Occident office 124 "Digging." 144 "The bugle rings out sharply upon the bracing, early April air." 170 " It is good to be here." 208 Old North Hall. 228 CHAPTER I Entering the University 11 Excuse me; can you tell me where I must go to enter the university ? ' ' '' Through the entrance." "Come off, Charlie, you know that he has to go to the recorder's office first." "By George, that's so. I'd forgotten. You first have to go to the recorder's office and register, you know. And you' re in the wrong direction for that. He's in the county Hall of Records, 'way back in Oakland. You'd better wait for the down train. It'll be here in a few min- utes and you can take it back ; too bad." The tone of the first speaker's " thank you" showed his disappointment. He let a countrified looking oilcloth bag slip out of his hand to the ground, prepared to take the other's advice. Berkeley Station is the scene, the time the middle of August, when the University town wakes up after a three months' sleep and takes on a livelier hue with the opening of a new college year. A train from the city has just arrived, and, as a result, the reader is, in the foregoing dialogue, introduced to James Rawson, sub-freshman, and to the leading spirit of a band of "jolly sophomores." According to immemorial custom the latter is gathered at the station to see how many green freshmen can be baited. For the Blue and Gold The lanky young man with the antique bag is an easy mark. They proceed to draw him out. " Coming to college ? " "Yes." "From what prep? " "How's that?" " Oh, at what school did you prepare? " " None. I've been studying up by myself." "Ha, ha! Haven't got a rec, then? Going to take the entrance exes ? I see. Hard graft. Where are you from?" "Riverside." "Why didn't you go to Stanford ? It's a snap to get in there. Most fellows from the rural parts go there anyway." "Well, I don't know. I found out about this place first. It seemed to be what I wanted, so I did not look any further. Are you going to enter, too ? ' ' "Well, that's a good one. Ha, ha! Fellows, am I going to enter? No, I entered long, long ago. I'm a sophomore.' ' " I beg pardon," hastened Rawson, perceiving that he had committed some sort of a breach of etiquette. "Well, here's your train, Mr. Freshman," broke in the other. " Now, remember, County Recorder, Hall of Records, Oakland back that way. That's the place to register. Am I right, boys? " " You're all right, Charlie," they chorused. The dis- appointed look returned to the tall man's face as he picked up his bag. The train came to a halt and he prepared to enter. He looked around in the direction of his informants. They had turned and were walking away, shaking with Entering the University laughter and slapping one another on the back. A sus- picion that he had been made game of came into Rawson's mind, and he hesitated. Looking up, he met the glance of a prim old lady standing by. " Don't get into that train," she broke out sharply. "They're only fooling you. Go up that street there Center Street and keep going straight up and you'll come to the university. Ask for the recorder's office there. That's what you want, not the county recorder. Young rascals ! ' ' she snapped, and hopped on board the already moving train, leaving Rawson with his word of thanks still on his lips. Determined to ask no more questions, he started off in the direction indicated. His ten minutes' walk up to the university buildings will give us a chance for a bit of a gossip. As he goes up the street, James Rawson is twenty-three years of age and past, stands six feet two and one-half in his stockings, and tips the scales close to one hundred and eighty -five pounds. His face is thin, with prominent cheek- bones, but that it is not drawn by ill-health is easily seen, for the eyes shine cool and clear from beneath heavy, straight, black brows. Black hair, likewise straight and stiff, hangs down over a tall collar, which latter does not succeed in concealing a thin, bony neck. There is just a suspicion of the Indian type about Rawson, which is height- ened by his bronzed skin. So much for the outward, phys- ical aspect. What of the inner forces that are propelling him ? Rawson hails from a new town down in the Southern California orange belt. His folks are Easterners, who came out just before the "boom." After the events of that period (when values went up like a rocket and came down For the Blue and Gold like its stick) had left their holdings in much the same state as a dried prune, they had gone into orange raising. James had been through the grammar school, but was compelled to stop there, as the oranges needed his help. But there was that in him which craved the more systematic and refined knowledge that we call culture. So he did not forget his books when the school door closed behind him. At about eighteen he came to realize that the university was the place where they had what he wanted, and he determined to get there some day. He took up the high school work, and followed it as best he could with the aid of chums who went there. A year previous he had approached his father : "I want to go to college, dad. Do you think that you can spare me after this season ? ' ' The father had long known what was coming. "It's the only thing for you, Jim, and you'd better go. It'll be a hard pull without you, and I can't do more than give you your time. But if you think you can make it, why, try it on, and I'll stand the fare back if it don't go. Looking around nowadays, when half the country goes up to college, I see how big a handicap a fellow has to give to the man with the college degree. Go in and win, Jim, if you can." James gripped his father's hand in a manner which telegraphed much. He worked harder than ever that year, and, with a few things that were placed in his way, managed to save seventy-five dollars by August. The purchase of clothes and a steamer ticket had reduced this by half. Then, with a last look about the old place, and a wordless farewell, James Rawson started off in search of the higher education. There he is now, at last, after some Entering the University more misdirections, climbing the stairs of North Hall to the recorder's office. "What is the first thing for me to do to enter the university?" " Have you a recommendation from an accredited secondary school ?" "No." "Then you must pass the entrance examinations. Here is a register telling you which ones to take. Here is a schedule of when they occur, ' ' and the attendant turned to the next freshman. Rawson did not need the information that the register contained as he had long ago mastered it. He knew the subjects that he had to be examined in, and something about the kind of examination to expect, which latter he had learned from a specimen set of questions. Glancing at the list, he found that his first examination was the first on the list. "English 1 A," scheduled for next morning at nine. Realizing now how close he was to the test upon which everything depended, a doubtful spell seized James, and he was for opening up his bag for another look at the book. He had had these spells before. I wonder if I have covered all the ground ? Will I remember everything when the decisive moment comes? Wouldn't it be pretty if they should stick a big, lumbering cuss like me with some little point that a sixteen-year-older knows? Then I'd be dropping off the train down Riverside way, and the old man would say : ' * Ho, you back, Jim ! Better get into your jumper and lend a hand with the fumigating." With an effort Rawson rubbed these pictures from his mind and picked up his bag for a preliminary survey of For the Blue and Gold the scene of operations. He had, besides, to get around and find out what chance there was for a job with which to pay his way. He was under no illusions as to the length of time that his money, unassisted, would last. He had heard that there were plenty of chances for work in Berkeley, whereby a student could earn his board and lodgings, at least. Coming up in the boat he had spoken to a graduate who had done it. Coming to college, like James, with a small sum to start on, sufficient for books and incidentals for a term, he had, in the first year, made beds and chopped wood in a boarding-house for his keep, and during succeeding vacations he had gathered up enough to last him through college by canvassing for a stock book. Such was the line of action that James had marked out for himself. He had no fears on this score, for he was neither afraid nor ashamed of work in any form. " Let me pass these exes first," he said to himself, "and I'll find the job to keep me going." It was not yet noon, so he determined to look around a while and get his bearings. Standing on the west steps of South Hall, he drank in the beauty of the scene before him the finest university site that the world can show. Immediately in front lay the sloping campus, bare and dry ; but down below, the grand, old oaks spread their gnarled limbs, and off to the right the tall trees on the slope gave promise of refreshing shade. "There'll be the place to study," thought James. Far down below, San Francisco Bay lay shimmering in the strong sun, and out further, seen above the tree-tops, the Golden Gate spanned its narrow width between the Fort and the brown Marin hills. "Here's what you've been looking for, my boy." Entering the University Rawson was suffused with desire to be part of what was about him, to grasp the splendid things, to figure in the life that seemed now within his reach. Who does not experience this uplifting, enlarging emotion when he stands, taking in the beauty and dwelling on the significance of the dear old campus and its sights? It comes to the new sophomore, just returned from his first long vacation ; and to the staid alumnus, too, the old longing, unappeased, returns when, after each absence, he views the old, familiar scenes. From South Hall, James wandered up to the library, then back again to North Hall. The steps here were well filled with lolling figures. "Here's your cousin Si, just come to taown," came from the steps. The remark had not been intended for James' ear, but it had overshot its mark. He felt his old bag grow to the proportions of a Saratoga trunk as it hung by his side. He turned red about the ears and his feet refused to move properly. Then some one began to mark time : "Hip, hip, hip, hip." Coming close, James singled out his young misinformant of the morning, Charlie Boyce. Rawson hesitated, not caring to retreat, yet not wishing to force his way up the steps. Here Boyce broke the ice, calling out cheerily: "Come right up ; step on their necks." He stood up and shook James warmly by the hand. "Registered yet? No? That's too bad. But you're a bit ahead of time. Regis- tration won't come till next week for freshmen." The sophomore's cheerful audacity made it impossible for James to feel angry, so he merely grinned, holding on warmly meanwhile to Boyce' s fingers until the latter began to smile wryly out of the other side of his mouth. "Well, so long," began Boyce, limply, as James For the Blue and Gold finally released his grip. * ' Let me know if I can be of any further assistance to you." 1 ' Yes, I surely will, ' ' replied James, grinning, and the smile was not all on him as he went through the door. " Hully gee, but that freshman's got a grip!" ex- claimed Boy ce, wringing his fingers. "I wouldn't like to run up against that man in the rush." "There's good football material there, I bet, if it's only brought out, and the freshmen need all they can get this time," remarked another. In the hall Rawson found an interested group studying the notices on the bulletin-board. A half dozen, evidently freshmen, were gathered about the schedule of entrance examinations. A fellow-feeling was making them wondrous kind. As James stood he was accosted : "Going to take the exes ? " "Yes." "What ones?" " All that I need to get into the College of Social Sci- ences eleven, I think." "Well, well ; you're up against it. I only have to take two in English. This is my sophomore year. The prep I came from didn't get accredited in English 1 B and 14 last year, and I let them stand over. You see, the old prof that came visiting us caught us on an off day and cinched us right and left. But you'll pull through all right. The only way to do is to bluff it out write all around your subject, and you're bound to hit something. Don't particularize; deal in glittering generalities, and write a lot. If you fill up a whole wad of paper, the prof will get sleepy and give you a two in self-defense." Entering the University Rawson was beginning to get information in large chunks. He wondered if it was of the same sort as Boyce's. But, no ; he had "cottoned up" instantly to the tall youth. He was sorry, therefore, when his informant broke off, calling out : " Here, George, is a man in the same boat that you are has to take all the exes." ' ' Glad to meet you, ' ' said George, extending his hand. "We're companions in misery. Say, by the way, do you remember who wrote ' Lycidas ' ? Oh, yes, Milton, to be sure. I'm always getting that man mixed with Keats. He wrote ' Lamia,' didn't he ? I tell you those names that be- gin with the same letter are confusing. This English business is a little out of my way, anyhow. You see, I'm going into the Mining College. I don't see what use I'll have for English in a mine. Well, I'm off to lunch. Come along, Percy. After that, some tall digging. So long." James strolled down-stairs into the locker room and up- stairs through the deserted halls and rooms, with the wood- man's instinct of getting his bearings. He looked in through the open door of room 23, where he was going for his first examination, and felt that to have the pictures of the authors about whom he was to write, looking down at him from the walls, was going to be quite an inspi- ration. Then, between eating his lunch, which he got from his bag, and strolling up toward the hills back of the Chemistry Building, the afternoon began to wear away, and James bethought himself of securing accommodations for the evening. Passing down the path from the library, he met his two acquaintances. ' ' Going home ? ' ' they called. IO For the Blue and Gold " Going to find a home," replied James, as he joined them. "Not located yet?" ' ' No. I just came in this morning. " " Well, say, George and I are in a nice, modest place down on Chapel Street. The old lady seems to have more room than she wants. Why not come along and see what she's got ? ' ' I * All right, " assented James. ' ' I just want tempor- ary quarters while the exes are on. If I weather them, I'll look around for something permanent." " Same here. Last year I was in a chewing club, and as soon as things get going, George and I are going to organize or join another. ' ' II What's the plan?" "A dozen fellows, more or less, get together, hire a few rooms or so and a chief cook and bottle washer, and take their meals together. It's all right if the fellows are all right. They all share the expenses co-operative, you know." " How much does it stand you? " 1 ' Oh, anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars per month. Depends on the food and style. I try to strike a mean." " What do room and washing come to|?" "Well, you can bunk one, two or three deep, and from the cellar to the garret. Two's company, unless you're sure of the third. Call it two per month each. Then, if you want the rest, figure in a dollar for washing and three for books, class assessments and extras. I wouldn't want to live for less than eighteen plunks per. " 14 I'll have to," asserted James. "I'm going to try it working my way through.'* "Don't let me discourage you," hastened Percy. "It can be done, and lots do it. But it's hard graft, and a fel- Entering the University \\ low has to give up everything but work, Sundays and all just dig, dig. But during vacation, you'll be able to put enough by to last you well through next year. George and I did. We're pooling ours. We met on a harvester down in the San Joaquin Valley this vacation. That's hard graft, too. Look at those hands." " Here we are. Have to ring, as we have no key yet." The door opened, disclosing, to Rawson's surprise, the prim old lady of the morning. She smiled severely. 11 Well, young man, did you find the right recorder?'* ' ' Yes, thanks to you. I did not have the chance this morning, so I want to thank you now." "Oh, that's all right. Beware of sophomores and don't go outside the mile limit that's my best advice to new freshmen. ' ' James made known his necessities and was soon up-stairs, "under the roof," in a prim little bedroom. As the boarders had not yet begun to come, James and his two friends, with Mrs. Saunders, the little landlady, made up the company at the table. It was not a very lively gathering, for, try as they would to be jolly, the cloud of the pending exes hung over at least two heads. Good-night was soon said. James sought his room and spent an indecisive moment hovering between his books and his bed. Bed won, and, as he was dozing off, he was conscious of a continued buzz in the next room. Then came a protesting, sleepy, "Hang it, George, read that to yourself. I don't want to know it. " A book was slammed viciously, and in the succeeding quiet, James fell asleep, to dream of questions for which no answers had ever been made. CHAPTER II The Raw Article Next morning the campus sprang into life. Towards nine, students began coming from all directions, most of them converging at North Hall, where the first examinations were to be held. They were not only freshmen, but some sopho- mores who had entrance or freshman conditions to work off. James and his two friends were early on the ground and proceeded up to the room of torture. Here James met his first surprise. The chairs were arranged like checkers on a checker-board, an arm's length in every direction separa- ting each from its neighbors. "What's that for?" he asked. "To prevent cheating, I suppose," answered Percy. ' ' There are plenty who are still kids when they come here, and the best have to be treated like the worst, I guess, for safety." Nevertheless this came as a shock to Rawson, who had formed some ideals about university life, based upon the supposition that all who were there came with the same intentions that he came with. But there was little time for this train of thought. Soon he found himself plunged into the middle of things. After he had overcome his first nervousness he felt himself sailing on in a surprisingly smooth way. He looked neither to right nor left, intent upon his work, until presently he felt a slight touch on his right foot. He glanced up and The Raw Article saw that his neighbor on that side was a sprucely dressed youth with a high collar and evenly parted hair. In a minute the kick was repeated, and, looking up annoyed, Rawson saw that the other had a scrap of paper in his hand which he now reached out to him. Just at this moment the instructor glanced their way. Quickly leaving his seat, he advanced down the aisle calling, ' ' No communication, please." He stood before them. " Kindly pass me that slip of paper," he said to the youth, who still held it, his arm half extended. It read : " Who wrote that passage in the third question?" " Whose is this? " came the sharp question. ' * I picked it up to pass back to him ; I supposed it was his," replied the other, quickly. " Did you write or pass this ? " to Rawson. " No, sir ; never saw it before ; he must be mistaken." " It was right there, near the leg of his chair," spoke up the youth, eagerly. Seeing that the others were being disturbed, the in- structor commanded, ' ' Both you gentlemen come up to my desk with your papers." Rawson was pale with fear that his career was about to be shut off through the other' s rascality. He felt that it was only his word against the other's. The instructor examined Rawson 's paper. Question three was completely and satisfactorily answered. He had been working on question four. The instructor took up the other one. The question was repeated, then the words, ' ' The author of the foregoing passage is ' ' and the rest of the sheet was blank. He looked up. ' ' You may return and continue, Mr. Rawson," handing back James* paper. "Mr. Holland, For the Blue and Gold you are excused from further participation in this examina- tion. I will hold these papers." The youth, his face flaming back to his ears, sprang for his hat and hurriedly left the room muttering, * ' We will see about this." As Rawson passed Percy, the latter whispered, " Holy smoke, Captain Holland's freshman brother." The rest of the examination passed off without incident. Rawson felt that he had done well, and this gave him confi- dence for the succeeding tests. These three days were busy ones. He got so used to walking into rooms, taking paper and pencil, and writing answers to questions, that by the end of the third day he was quite hardened to the process. He felt pretty easy about everything but Latin, in which he had been rather at sea. Sure enough, a few days after the examination, Rawson, passing through North Hall, stopped at the bulletin-board where a lot of official letters to the students were on the rack. He glanced idly along the rows until he came to " R," when his heart gave a jump at the name "James Rawson" on a white envelope, with the heading "Recorder of the Faculties." Inside was a printed card informing James Rawson that he was condi- tioned in Latin 6 and 7. Turning to leave, he heard a genial voice call, " Hello, freshman ! ' ' and smiling Charlie Boyce reached up and slapped him on the back. "Cinch notice, hey? Get any more? No? Well, then you're through all right, for tomorrow you sign the roll." Rawson felt relieved, even joyous, and smiled agreeably on Boyce. He did not feel a particle of ill-will against the fair-haired, laughing sophomore for his trick. In fact, he The Raw Article was grateful for the experience that he had gained by it. So when Charlie said in a matter-of-fact way, " Say, Rawson, I suppose you'll be down to the gym tomorrow to get measured for your uniform?" James smiled. "I'll think about it," he replied. "Straight goods, sure," affirmed Boyce as he left. Rawson hunted up Percy and George. "Get any notices ? " asked the latter. ''Yes, one; though it's a double header Latin 6 and?." "Good enough! You'll work that off all right next January. I've got one, also. In that confounded English 14. I tell you that's no pipe. I can't just get it through my nut, anyway, what a fellow in the Mining College wants of English 14." Rawson told his friends what Boyce had said about getting measured for a military uniform and Percy advised, " That's a good thing to keep away from, Jim. They strip you, give you a cold shower, put you through a lock-step, and lots of other stunts. However, we'll take it in as spectators. ' ' Next day the freshmen signed the roll. After filling out an elaborate blank, descriptive of himself and his family, and paying his diploma fee, Rawson became the proud possessor of a blue card which recommended him for admission to the university. After this the freshmen registered (selected their studies) for the first half year. There had been a great deal of talk among them about this ; discussions as to what studies were prerequisites in such and such college ; what were the best courses to take and what the easiest ' ' snaps' ' 1 6 For the Blue and Gold these latter. And we may be sure that a great deal of misinformation was exchanged. For this matter of choice of subjects and of courses is one that very few get straightened out in their freshman year, no matter how much it has been talked of before. It takes a great deal of discussion among students and between students and pro- fessors before, from the intricate and bewildering display of courses in the register, the student can select just the right ones those that he has to have to graduate and those elective courses that are best. And need it be said that some go through college without having taken many of the latter class ? The freshmen had not much freedom in the selection of courses. Registered in a certain college, one has to per- form specified prerequisite work in the first two years. Rawson was registered in the College of Social Sciences, and he determined to take up the prerequisite work exactly as required. The question with him was, how much could he take and still do enough outside work to support himself? Eighteen hours of recitation a week he learned was the limit allowed by the faculty. " Do you think I will be able to take eighteen hours, Percy?" he asked. " Easily, if you were not going to work outside. But I don't see how you can if you are. You'll have to find your job first in order to be able to see just how much study you can do." "Well, I haven't had time to look for it, and I must register today." " Here is my advice, then : register for fifteen hours. Keep that up regularly for eight terms, and you'll have just The Raw Article 17 enough to graduate. You are supposed to give two hours to preparation for each hour of recitation. Some things will come easier ; maybe some will come harder. So let's say that you average forty-five hours of college work a week. Say, seven and one-half hours a day, leaving out Sunday. That gives you all the way from five to seven for outside work. You ought to be able to earn your keep in that time and still have a little left over for recreation. But don't register for any half-past eight or one o'clock courses, as you'll probably not be able to make them." "That seems right," replied James, as he thanked Percy. And he took his friend's advice. Instruction for freshmen was to begin on i the following day. After having registered in the morning, James was strolling down the main path with his two friends, when, glancing over in the direction of the gymnasium, he saw a line of students drawn up, having decidedly the appearance of an awkward squad. In front of them stood a student in the military uniform of an officer. His black plug hat showed him to be a senior. He carried a cane. Rawson had forgotten what Boyce had told him about being measured for a uniform. Now he recollected, and thought that this might be the ceremony. " Let's go over and see what's doing," he suggested. They crossed the campus to the gym. "Now, freshmen," the senior was saying, "as you may know, each year we take squads of you out to test you for drill. Then you get measured for your uniforms up in the armory. Now, right face, forward march !" The freshmen (eight of them) looked a little incredulous and hesitated, but the senior stamped and waved his cane, 1 8 For the Blue and Gold " forward, double time ! " he shouted. Seeing how earnest he was, and that he wore an officer's shoulder-straps, they obeyed. Forward they started, in single file with various strides, up the campus at a trot. A group of sophomores set up in high-pitched voices, "Drill, ye terriers, drill." "Put them through it, Holland." As Rawson heard the name, he looked at Percy, who nodded affirmatively. "He might be at better business." "Well, let's follow it up and await developments." They now came before the rear steps of North Hall. A crowd was waiting. "Hip, hip, hip, hip," they meas- ured. " Halt ! Fold arms ! " The freshmen looked embarrassed. Holland turned around. " Quick, adjutant, the stethoscope." Two students advanced, one with a ready-made imitation of a stethoscope in his hand, the other with a note-book. "Unbutton vests, open!" shouted Holland. The man with the instrument pressed it to the first freshman's breast, placing his ear at the other end. The man with the book poised his pencil. The other called, "Fourteen, thirty -one, fifty-nine, seventy-five, ninety-eight; got that down?" To Holland, "He will do, general." So on down the line they went, with variations. One freshman did not register enough. " Below normal, general." "Orderly run him up to the library and back," was the command. Another was mounting way up into the hundreds, when the man with the instrument called, excitedly, ' ' Here, this man has had too much ; lay him down, ' ' and the frightened youth was stretched at full length on his back and fanned. Presently Holland addressed . them : ' ' Attention ! Freshmen, you have all passed with the exception of you two," pointing. "The Raw Article 19 " You go up to the doctor of the Philosophy Building and ask for an excuse from drill. Now, forward march, to be measured for uniforms." With the crowd that followed, they filled the small armory. Rawson, Percy and George managed to edge up to the front. " Attention, freshmen ! You are now about to be measured for the insignia of your connection with this great university. That you may realize the responsi- bility you undertake and prove worthy of the honor, you will first answer and subscribe to these questions." The man with the pencil and book advanced. Holland cleared his throat and threw his chest forward. Then the, in turn, dubious, bewildered and embarrassed freshmen were put through this catechism : "Your age and place of birth?" "Your mother's maiden name?" "Your religion?" "Do you believe in God ? " " Do you swear to support the Ten Command- ments and the Constitution of the United States while a member of this university?" " Do you smoke, chew, or drink ? " and so forth. Then a mysterious looking, covered tin pail was produced, with a length of rubber tubing leading from a hole in its cover. "Attention, freshmen!" com- manded Holland. * ' This will test your powers of inhalation. Here, Shorty, take hold of this and draw in for a minute while I hold the watch." The tube was passed to the youngest of the band, a boy of not more than sixteen. "Now ! " He drew in deeply and then spat out a mouthful of salt water, sputtering like a new swimmer. ' ' Keep on ! " shouted Holland, raising his cane. Up to this time Rawson had viewed the fun with some- thing like appreciation, though he did not quite approve of For the Blue and Gold an officer's losing his dignity to such an extent, nor of the cynical, matter-of-fact way in which he went about it, not seeming himself to enter into the sport. But James had all along had a sort of fellow-feeling for the freshmen. Now, his sense of fair play reinforced this. He pulled the tube from the poor little freshman's hand. "I guess we'd better quit now; we've had enough." Everybody was amazed at his intrepidity he, too, evidently a freshman. Holland's face turned red with anger, and he snapped out : " Hold on, you lanky freshman, we'll give you some, too. Give me that tube. " "Don't get excited," suggested Rawson, in no whit overawed. "Give me that tube, I say, you hoosier !" and he lifted his cane. Quickly, Rawson grabbed and cracked it. " Come on, fellows, let's show him," shouted Holland, enraged, and made a dive for Rawson. Nobody responded, though some one set up a rallying cry of ' ' Rough house ! ' ' in back of the room. Percy and George stood close to aid their friend. Rawson caught Holland by the arms as he charged and pinned them tight. The latter kicked and squirmed in a perfect frenzy, but to no avail. Rawson' s long arms clasped him as a vise. "Let's cool him off a bit, Percy," he suggested. " Lift the cover off that pail. " And, tipping the struggling captain up as he would a sack, Rawson ducked his head deep down into the pail of salt water. "Let me get at him ! I'll murder him ! " spluttered Holland, as he struggled up. But his head was a tight fit for the pail and he brought the vessel up with him like a The Raw Article 21 snuffer on a candle, spilling the water over his clothes. The onlookers were convulsed, glad to see the overbearing Holland put to shame. While he was struggling with the pail, Percy and George pulled Rawson from the room, laughing heartily. Once outside, they gave new vent to their laughter, Rawson included. * ' Oh ! but you're jolly green to have forgotten your place like that !" "You've run up against the Holland family pretty hard, haven't you, Jim?" suggested George. CHAPTER III Getting Under Way "I'm looking for a job, Mrs. Saunders. Have you anything around here for me to do ? " Rawson had approached the old lady after breakfast the next morning. She eyed him severely. " Can you do almost any- thing, as they say? " " Pm afraid that's too big a job for me to tackle, but I think I could milk the cow, feed the chickens, take care of the garden, chop the wood, wash the dishes, wait on table, if you need any of these things done. ' ' "That's better, sir," nodding her head. "I had a fellow in here last year who was sure he could do ' almost anything,' and bit by bit I found out that he could do ' almost nothing. ' I do need a man about the house and you have hit upon just what I want him to do. My last man gave me two hours morning and evening and one hour at noon. Could you give this time from your studies ? ' ' "Yes," replied James, after a moment of thought. ' ' What would it be worth ? ' ' "I'll give you board, room and washing. You can keep your present room." * ' Call it a bargain ? ' ' asked James. ' ' Yes, ' ' nodded the old lady. * * Will you start today ? ' ' "Right now." Getting Under W^ay 23 Rawson was glad to have it settled. After paying his diploma fee and depositing for his military uniform, he had about ten dollars left with which to pay for books and for his board bill for five days. He realized that he must turn up a few dollars to keep the mill grinding, but it caused him no anxiety. He asked Mrs. Saunders for his bill to date. "I'll take it out of you in work." "No, I prefer to pay," he insisted. She compromised on four dollars, and James felt easier. As a poor, lone widow, she was more than glad to have a strapping big fellow around for safety. Besides, she liked a man of so few words. Rawson informed Percy and George of his decision. " We've brought some fellows together and are going to start a masticating club down Telegraph Avenue way," said Percy. "Sorry that we'll have to part company, but we'll be able to keep track of one another on the campus, and, maybe, when you become a bloated plutocrat, too, you will join the Oski-Wow Chewers." "I'd like to, well enough." James, too, regretted having to lose the companionship of his two friends, to whom he had been closely drawn dur- ing the few days past. First friends are best. They had been the earliest whom he had met at college, and were fashioned a great deal after his own pattern. Both were younger than he, although Percy was in his sophomore year. Percy had had the best advantages of the three, having been educated at a high-toned private school a " prep," so called down in the Santa Clara Valley. His parents were both dead. His mother had left him and his 24 For the Blue and Gold inheritance in charge of an old family friend, who had fallen into the bad habit of merging his client's money with his own in a common fund. An unfortunate wheat deal had started a large leak in the common fund in fact, brought it below the margin of the sum that was Percy's. So, packing his grip, the guardian had departed for Mexico, leaving Percy, at graduation time, with a quarter's tuition to pay from the sale of his horse and bicycle. Here Percy justified his heritage. He did not look up his father's rich friends, but determined to go to college anyway, through his own efforts. He went to work that summer and made enough to carry him through his freshman year. A number of his ' ' prep ' ' classmates entered college with him. Nearly all being desirables, they were, one after another, "rushed" by fraternities. A few, who had not learned of the change in Percy's condition, had started in to help rush him for this frat or that, but, upon being informed by mutual friends that they were merely placing Percy in an embarrassing position, they had desisted. Percy was, nat- urally, a little touchy about his "fallen fortunes." In truth, he became just a trifle morbid upon the subject, although otherwise in the best of health, mental and phys- ical. He thought that he saw an alteration in the bearing of his erstwhile companions. This existed merely in his imagination. Nevertheless, it was real enough to him, and caused a reaction in his conduct toward them. He put on a studied stiffness of mien with these, and began ardently to cultivate the company of their opposites. He had kicked over the traces even in his attitude as a sophomore toward the incoming freshmen. This accounts, in a measure, for his cultivation of George and James, two raw, ineligible Getting Under W^ay 25 freshmen, an act somewhat uncommon in college, where Damon and Pythias do not usually belong to different classes. Percy fell not far short of James in height. He was an even five feet eleven, "with his hair combed." He was framed on a trimmer plan than James ; weighed about fifteen pounds less than the latter. He had played half- back on his freshman football team the previous year and substitute on the varsity, and had his eye on the varsity for the coming season. George, on the other hand, was in marked contrast to the other two, both physically and mentally. He was five feet four, and almost as broad as long. * ' Cub, ' ' his nick- name, was an indication of both characteristics. His heavy, broad hands, spatulate fingers and thick wrists had been made for the hammer, and all his thoughts were on machin- ery. He was a good mathematician, but did not amount to much in the "humanities" took no stock in them. In fact, their graces were foreign to the operations of his mind, which ran to plain figures, not to figures of- speech. Kip- ling' s was the only poetry that he could tolerate, " Me An- drew's Hymn," his favorite, especially the lines beginning : "Whaurto uplifted like the Just the tail-rods mark the time. The crank-throws give the double-bass ; the feed- pump sobs an' heaves : An* now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves. Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link- head bides, Till hear that note? the rod's return whings glim- merin' through the guides." 26 For the Blue and Gold But George, though uncut and unpolished, was diamond, nevertheless, as those who knew him came to realize. He soon joined the "mining push," where he was thoroughly at home, and of which he became a leader before his fourth year was finished. Mrs. Saunders' " select students' boarding-house" was now running to its full capacity, and the landlady, with twelve hungry mouths to satisfy at every meal, had her ingenuity taxed to its limit in the division of meat sufficient for ten. At James' first appearance in a long white apron the company stared. "Great stilts! what's this?" exclaimed Herbert Edwards to his co-ed neighbor, as Rawson came swinging in, three steps from the door to the table. But James was as to the manner born which he wouldn't thank me for saying. He placed the steaming platter before the hostess, retired for the vegetables, and was handing around bread and delivering plates with the grace of a Chesterfield. The co-eds' first giggles, and likewise those of two young freshmen, were stifled before such earnestness and adaptability. Mrs. Saunders eyed her "help" with satis- faction. Their first wants appeased, James retired to a corner to study "his" boarders. They were divided, as to sex, into eight men students and four co-eds. Of the latter, three did not interest him, but the fourth held his attention. She appeared to be a stockily built girl in a plain shirt-waist and white collar. Her brown hair, soft and wavy, was evenly parted in the middle of her head and smoothed down over Getting Under Way 27 her ears. But James' glance lingered on her forehead, which was of a type unusual in a woman, not rounded, with two well-developed bumps of what the phrenologists call eventuality, slanting slightly back over her eyebrows. James himself had just such a forehead, although he hadn't noticed it. The co-ed seemed to be frowning. Two vertical lines ran parallel between her brows. " Pretty sober looking for a girl," thought Rawson, "but I bet she's all right." "What do you think of the football outlook, Mr. Davis?" asked Robbins, the wee freshman, in a laudable desire to start the conversational ball a-rolling. Davis pushed his spectacles up, tried to take the kink out of his shoulders, and looked severe. "I haven't followed the football situation. If a man comes here to work, Mr. Robbins, as you'll soon find out, he has to let football and kindred diversions alone. You'll be compelled to put in five hours a week at gymnasium and drill, and I have found that that cuts a big hole into a fellow's study time time that he can ill spare. As ,for football, its pursuit is incompatible with proper college work." And Davis looked severely over in the direction of a chair at the other end of the table. Its occupant smiled quietly. "Say, Dick, have you worked off that condition in analytical mechanics yet?" came the question from the other end, addressed to the man with the quiet smile. Davis was triumphant. The conversation had come right his way. "There," he said, with conviction, "we have a slight insight into one of the prices that a fellow pays for football fame. Mr. Hawley, you know, is our captain, " in a voice of asperity. 2 g For the Blue and Gold Robbins turned red and the raised cup trembled in his hand. What a frightful mistake he had made. How stupid he must have appeared not to have known the famous football player. " I I I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawley," he stuttered. " Don't mention it. Davis and I have agreed to disa- gree on the subject of football. You would not think from the way that he speaks of my cinches that if it had not been for him they would have numbered three and not two. Yes, and but for Miss Gray here (indicating Rawson's young lady) I surely would have had another one in conies, ' ' and he seemed to enjoy the recital of what, to Davis, was a tale of shame. "But you must consider," began Miss Gray, looking up, ' ' that the faculty asks too much of the athletes. From the president down they say that athletics are a good thing. They also admit that it is through the few picked athletes that the other students are stimulated. And they come to the games and shout as loudly and feel as proud as anybody. Yet, when a man takes upon himself all the hard work of training spends four or five hours a day for the benefit of the college the faculty turns about and sets up a higher standard of scholarship for him than for an ordinary student. He must not have more than seven hours of con- ditions. There is no such restriction placed upon the bum on North Hall steps. Don't you think it is a little incon- sistent, Mr. Davis?'* "Thank you, Miss Gray," spoke up Hawley. "I now feel amply vindicated and my self-respect is quite restored." In the interval, little Robbins' poise returned and he I o cr Getting Under Way 29 plied Hawley with a perfect volley of questions during the rest of the meal, to the utter neglect of his chops and hot cakes. His morning duties over, James picked up his note- book, and, with a blithe heart, stepped up the campus to his first recitation. The days now began to repeat themselves with uniformity as Rawson fell into his work. He was entering upon a new world and every moment had its charm. He sprang to his duties with eagerness which did not abate before the drudgery that took up almost half the day. He was up with the midsummer sun and did not turn his lamp out until ten or eleven at night. But between these hours he had a few free periods, when he did a little wholesome lounging, made acquaintances, and found out college manners and customs. On this point, he was at a disadvantage, com- pared with most of the other freshmen, who had come from secondary schools. They had, to begin with, quite a circle of friends of former school days, not only those who had come in with them, but also such as had preceded them from the same schools. Then, they had talked over college affairs so much in their "prep" days that matters of form and those infinite c ' red tape ' ' details which confront a student at every step in his freshman year were somewhat familiar to them. But Rawson was working off his handicap every day, making acquaintances with other members of his class on campus and in recitation rooms. It is not hard to make friends at California. ' ' Say, how do you work this problem?" or "Have you got your English?" is all the introduction necessary. Sophomores, juniors and seniors 30 For the Blue and Gold all. looked alike to James at first. A regularly "prepped" freshman would never have dared to do what he had done in the armory. He did not feel the other freshmen's diffidence about approaching upper classmen. He had the country way of saying ' * good morning " to everybody he met. And many an upper classman who would have passed a "kid freshie " unnoticed (Rawson, let it be noted, was about five years older than the average freshman) unbent to James. As for the freshman-sophomore ' * mutual disregard " that plays so large a part in the first two years at college, Rawson was amused by it, because he could not understand it. However, he was soon to be enlightened on this point. Rawson' s busiest days were Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On each of these he had four recitations, besides drill and gymnasium. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays he had but one hour of recitation. In classroom, James took matters almost too earnestly. He gave his undivided attention to the instructor, because that, thought he, was what they were both there for. His chair remained unadorned by initials or class number. His hand was first and invariably up if a question were asked. In his English course the young instructor noticed this before the week was out, and, glad to have Somebody to talk to who seemed well awake in the lazy atmosphere, he fell into the habit of speaking straight at James. Most of the new freshmen held the Minto course for a bore, because there was too much " digging" attached to it. James took act- ual pleasure in this. It was something to grapple with. Physics was opening up an entirely new world to him the world he lived in. German, too, was something entirely Getting Under If^ay 31 new. He had never before heard it spoken, and he was a source of amusement to both instructor and students when- ever his stiff tongue tried to frame the Teutonic gutterals. But this made James only the more determined to master the difficulties, and as he went about his duties, he would mutter German sentences to himself, until Mrs. Saunders would look askance at her help. The hourly succession of recitations, with its hurried march from one room or building to another, had some- thing of exhilaration in it for Rawson. He liked to feel himself part of the hurrying crowd, grabbing books and jumping up from seats at the tap of the first bell, and push- ing out into the hallway and on to the stairs, meeting an opposing, jostling current coming from where it had just been. There was, added to this exhilaration at feeling him- self one of these eager pursuers of knowledge, an invaria- ble, pleasing anticipation attending the transition from one study to another. The periods were not long enough to dull one's interest, and, at the end of fifty minutes, there was waiting a subject, maybe the antithesis, complement, or foil to the one just left. Then there were the study periods up in the library, in the "boys'" room at the side study, alas, often under difficulties which called up the greatest efforts of concentra- tion, notwithstanding the helpful assistance of the Prince of Silence. One would be sitting engrossed in an intricate problem in math, just on the point of solution, when along comes a healthy freshman (or senior), pulls his chair out with grating violence, bangs his books on the table, and calls out in a stage whisper, " Anybody got a Califor- nian?" After which the football situation is discussed in 32 For the Blue and Gold the same whisper. Or, " Give us a lift with this translation, will you ? ' ' Then it is time to flee. Nevertheless, the little side room, with its hourly commotion of departures and arrivals, has a fascination and Rawson felt it so soon that he never looked for quieter quarters. All in all, James Rawson was entering upon the happiest period of his life, happy no less because it was filled with good, hard work. All day his heart sang within him and in sheer overflowing of animal spirits he would sometimes have to break away across fields, leaping fences and ditches like a frisky kangaroo. CHAPTER IV The Rush 1 ' Freshmen, your future lies before you. You have a reputation to establish. Make a good beginning by tying up your natural enemies, the sophs. Justify the confidence we juniors place in you. Keep up the good record of the victorious odd-numbered classes. Don't be afraid of crack- ing a few necks or skulls. Don't be afraid of breaking a few legs or arms. A couple of sophomores more or less in the world what does that matter? It's all in the game. They'll do you, if you don't do them. Any kind of rough house goes in the rush." Thus exhorted the man in the tattered gray plug hat who had called the freshman rabble to order so that arrange- ments might be made for the great annual freshman-sopho- more rush. His malicious exhortation had its intended effect. An uneasy rustling animated the roomful of fresh- men. " I had no idea it was so rough," apprehensively whis- pered Robbins, a wee freshman, to his neighbor. * ' No more kid play when you come to college, Bobby," was the confident rejoinder. "We'll meet them more than halfway when it comes to cracking nuts." Nevertheless, little ripples of fear were even then begin- ning to glide up and down the answerer's backbone. The junior's words, sinking in all over the room, were the first 34 For the Blue and Gold weights in the handicap of fear that each freshman was to carry into the rush. The junior continued : 1 ' We will now proceed to the election of a leader. As you ought to have known, the prex leads the rush. But with the prex that you have elected that is out of the ques- tion. He is sick tonight and can not be here. So, now that he is out of it, we'll have to elect a separate rush leader. I hope you understand what is wanted your biggest and huskiest rough-houser." There was a story behind this allusion that of a hun- dred-and-ten-pound freshman coming to college with wires all laid from his prep to be first class president, and of his defeating a hundred- and-seventy-five-pound rival, who, in view of the rush, was the logical candidate. Later, when he realized the job that was on his hands, the new president had promised to throw his support to the defeated aspirant for the temporary office of rush leader. This was the ' ' slate. ' ' But George Thornton had other views. He intended to break it, and with James. To this end, without consulting the latter, he had sought out the freshman victims of Holland's uniform measuring joke, and, with them as a nucleus, had started a Rawson boom for rush leader. This, though less than six hours old, was thriving, for the armory story had been widely spread, and as James walked up the campus he was pointed out as the freshman who had ducked Captain Holland. George and the nucleus were now occupying front seats. " Nominations are in order for rush leader.'* " I nominate Tom Edwards." Several seconds. This was the slate. The Rush 35 "I nominate James Rawson, the man who broke up the uniform measuring josh," sang out George's stentorian voice. "Second the nomination." " Second it." "Sec- ond it." James had arrived late and was standing at the back of the room. One of the "joshed" freshmen saw him and set up a yell : ' ' Good boy, Rawson ! ' ' A hiss sounded from the middle of the room. " Come to order. You can have any one you want. Nominations are now closed. All of you may not know the candidates. Step up here, Edwards and Rawson, and show yourselves. ' ' James was greatly embarrassed by so much publicity. Besides, he barely knew what it was all about. His lack of prep training caused him to be out of touch with college manners and customs. Why had George nominated him ? He hung back. "Go along," urged the freshman who had started the cheer. "Where is Rawson?" "Here he is, back here." George elbowed his way back. "Come along, Jim, and show yourself. When they see you, you'll get it. You've as much right as the other fellow." He locked his arm in James', and they worked their way to the front. James, red about the ears, took his place beside Edwards, who sized him up askance. Edwards was a 36 For the Blue and Gold florid, muscular youth of about eighteen, somewhat shorter than James, but stockily built. Rawson's more mature appearance was in his favor. They both felt themselves the cynosure of every eye. The situation was embarrassing in the extreme. To relieve it, James held out his hand. "Let's shake, Mr. Edwards, just to show there's no ill feeling." The movement was well taken by the onlooking freshmen. 11 Freshmen, you can't make a mistake," announced the junior. " What one lacks in breadth he makes up in height, and vice versa. You pays your money and takes your choice." Tellers had been appointed. The vote was taken. Tense excitement prevailed during the five minutes in which the ballots were being sorted. " Order !" shouted the junior. " Total vote cast, two hundred and ninety-eight. Edwards, one hundred and forty-seven ; Rawson, one hundred and fifty-one. Rawson is it." "Rawson, Rawson, good boy, Rawson!" "Speech, speech ! ' ' came the cries. James' embarrassment increased. He had never before heard his name shouted in public like this. George, slap- ping him on the back, pushed him up to the platform. "Classmates, I classmates, I I thank you for the honor," he stammered. "I'm new at rushes, but from what I've gathered here they are not unlike those we used to gather in the marsh." Here James braced himself for a pun. "Bulrushes, I mean." (A voice: "You bet, we'll toss them, all right.") " We're going to have a tus- sle with the sophomores and try to tie them up with pieces The Rush 37 of rope. That ought not to be such a serious matter." (Cries : ' ' No, no ! We' 11 win in a walk. ' ' ) "Maybe we won' twin in a walk, but we' 11 win in a rush, anyway." (A variety of appreciative calls : "You've got the idea, Rawson." The freshman spirits are rising.) James concludes: "What we lack in experience, we'll make up in willingness and numbers. They can't beat us if we stand all together. Let's go into it good-naturedly, con- fidently, but to win. I'll be with you all the time." James sat down, wiping his forehead. His speech raised the spirits of the freshmen wonderfully. After a few matters of detail had been disposed of, the meeting adjourned, with everybody in high feather, trying to shout, in unison, a brand new class yell. Rawson at once found himself an important personage in his class. Within a day he was on speaking terms with nearly every freshman in college. There was much to be done and much to be learned. James entered into it with a will, his Anglo-Saxon heritage speaking out with lust for a scrimmage. Upon inquiry, he learned that it was part of the sophomores' plan to try to strike terror to the hearts of the green freshmen by hair-raising yells, whoops and other bluffing devices, and that the junior's remarks about neck- cracking were yarns intended to fortify the freshmen with bitter resolve. James felt that the effect could not be good, so he made an effort to counteract it in his talks with his classmates. But his influence was in many cases but tem- porary, for along would come a malicious junior or senior and undo his work with the same old yarns : " Look out for knives in boot-legs," or, "If you see that you can't tie your man up, step on his vertebrae ; that'll put him out for good." 38 For the Blue and Gold " Hey there, Jim, I hear that you're agoing to lead the freshmen in the rush!" greeted Percy. " Sorry, old man, but you're up agin it hard. We'll simply swallow you freshmen, boots and all." "You'll realize that you've been dining if you do," laughingly replied James. " Say, Percy, here I'm rush- leader, but blessed if I know what it's all about. What have we against you sophomores, or you against us that we should formally wage war? " "There are not many who could give you a satisfactory answer to that. As I size it up, the mutual anti-sentiment is something like this : The sophomore has a feeling of contempt for the freshman, something like that the fellow who has just had a certain experience has for the man who is just about to get it the feeling of the brand new journey- man for the brand new apprentice boy. On the freshman side, it amounts to a resentment of that arrogance. They know how slight is the foundation for it. So there has to be a scrap. But I tell you one good that the rush does for the freshmen. It makes them acquainted, just as soldiers, fighting side by side, get acquainted. In standing up at the outset against a common enemy, the separate atoms of stranger freshmen form into something like a united whole. It gives class spirit. But say, Jim, for the time we're enemies, and if we're seen together it'll look fishy. From now on through the rush I give you fair warning that I'm going to try every way possible to do you and your class up, and you can do the same. So sheer off. Shake first." ' ' Shake ! ' * They parted, both laughing. James hadn't thought of that before. Here was Percy, his first college friend, going to fight against him and for the The Rush 39 moment he was sober. But, pshaw ! It was only play ! However, he was of two minds as to that before it was all over. Down at Dwight Way Station, the busy, important juniors, in their gray plugs, their pockets stuffed with lengths of rope, were marshaling the freshman cohorts. "Hi there, Rawson, get those freshmen of yours into line down there, four abreast ! " " Say, this is a holy mob of sheep we've got here, isn't it? Biggest gang of freshies I ever saw. If numbers can win, they ought to wipe the ground with the sophs." A few freshmen heard this colloquy and set up a yell of defiance and confidence. ''Save your wind for the sophs, freshmen ; you'll need all you've got." The signal by which the freshmen might know one another in the heat of the fight was now given and rehearsed. Now they were all in line, and the column started off, its yelling and singing echoed by the cries of the Berkeley "town muckers" who came tagging along. This night every Berkeley boy of every degree observes. It is the great chance of the year to see a free fight and such a fight! The freshman costumes afford no end of amusement to onlookers. Many are the comments on the crazy college fellows. Baseball suits, football suits, grimy overalls, vari- colored sweaters and coats turned inside out, are among the variety of costumes. Some wear no coats, but content themselves with vests turned inside out. Few wear hats, as these will soon be superfluous. Instead, they are thrust 4 o For the Blue and Gold into pockets for safe keeping. At the head of the proces- sion, with the juniors, walks James, gotten up regardless of appearance in his gardening overalls and an old cutaway coat turned inside out and buttoned closely under his chin. Beneath the coat well, " least worn, soonest mended," he had said to himself. The coat-tails bobbed erratically be- hind. His long, stiff hair hung stiffer than ever. Judging by appearances, James would not have been a safe man to meet alone on a dark road that night. " Oh, we'll rush 'em and we'll mush 'em, We'll do 'em and we'll chew 'em, We'll bind 'em and we'll grind 'em in defeat ! So the measly sophomore he will never brag no more, For the frisky freshman's rope he'll have to eat " chanted the exultant column, as, with arms locked, they stepped briskly along. E pluribus unum bonds were being formed by groups of threes or fours, who were agreeing to stand together and fall together if need be, but not to separate ; for this, they had heard, was the best way to rush. "Do you think we'll beat them? ' ' was the oft-repeated, eager query whenever a junior's ear could be caught. "Don't know. A rush is like an election you never know who's it until all the votes or victims are counted." Now, with an ever-increasing crowd behind, the column swings from the shadow of the oaks into the open space of the lower campus. The moon is just coming up over South Hall, throwing the campus into bold relief. The column of fours is now changed to a single line, stretching diagonally across the gridiron, with its face towards North Hall and the slope in front of it. The townspeople close in The Rush 41 tightly on two sides, forming a lane, down which the sopho- mores must come to get at their opponents. Here and there bustle the important juniors, waving their lengths of rope in the air and giving a multitude of counsel to the freshmen. And here begins the most trying time the wait before battle. Somewhere up yonder, back of North Hall, the enemy is forming and preparing to swoop down upon the waiting freshmen. But the sophomores are taking their time about it, well knowing from sad experience of the previous year how much starch every minute of inactive suspense is taking out of the freshman backbones. Tense and expectant, with every nerve strung to its utmost, with every heart throbbing like a feed-pump, the freshman line, in these few minutes, completely loses the bolstered-up con- fidence with which it had started from Dwight Way. "Will they never come?" "Hark! what was that rumbling noise ? " " Ha ! there they are ! No. ' ' "Do you think there's anything in those yarns of neck-cracking that the juniors were getting off? " nervously inquires Robbins, the wee freshman, of his companion. Their arms are locked and the other feels Rabbins' heart go thump, thump against his elbow, painfully distinct. He looks into his friend's white face. Robbins is only sixteen years a bright, precocious boy, who has taken classes in school as a youth goes up stairs, two at a time. He should not have been there. His teeth are chattering now, but he is determined to show his classmates that he is more than a mere "mama's boy." Will they never come, and what will happen when they do? Robbins catches tight hold of the other's arm to 42 For the Blue and Gold prevent his feet from carrying him away. The arm hugs his. " N no, Bobby, I don't think it's so serious," comes the halting answer. Robbins' disease is contagious. The other's one hundred [and sixty pounds are assuming the stability of a leaf. They both are undergoing an attack of "rush fright," had they only known it a weakness that has seized the stoutest freshman in his day. And they are not alone in that long, wavering line. Up and down goes James, with the juniors, counseling and hearkening. He gives Robbins a pat on the shoulder. " Tie 'em up tight, now, so they won't break loose." Robbins straightens up and nods with an uncertain smile. James had thought out all sorts of plans and forma- tions with which to meet the attack. But each one, upon presentation to the juniors for an opinion, has been voted down. "It's no use making a plan. Your soldiers are too young. They' 11 forget it the minute the sophomores strike them. Just line up and catch hold.' ' "Hark ! what was that? There, there, they come !" A jubilant cry from the waiting freshmen, as a long, trailing mass appears on the road above. Now they are among the trees. Hey, there they come. Hurrah ! The ninety even cry sounds out aggressively ; ninety odd throws it back. Now the rush fright holds sway but a moment more and then is to be forgotten in the heat of conflict. Out of the trees they break, plainly visible now. Hordes of them, urged on by the seniors in black plugs. Ear-splitting whoops and yells. Down they swoop in a long, waving line. The freshmen get ready to spring. "Steady, boys; let them come," yells James The Rush 43 excitedly, waving his arms. Suddenly, when less than a dozen yards away, the cry is ' ' Halt ! ' ' and the line of shouting sophomores comes to an abrupt pause, like that of the lion preparing to spring. "Now, sick 'em ! Rush !" yell seniors and juniors. The long lines spring for each other like a multitude of bull- dogs. A score of freshmen, it must be said, and among them many stout of limb, weaken at this crucial moment and sneak off unobserved, thus handicapping their class at the outset. The rush is on. First, pushing, heaving, grappling ; some are lifted high into the air by the pressure. Then they begin to squirm and scramble as they endeavor to pull each other to the ground. In a minute the two lines are a wriggling mass of arms and legs pawing up the earth. Above them, like wild Indians, dance the juniors and seniors yelling encouragement and round about, also, dance the spectators in their excitement. On the edge hovers timidly many a throbbing co-ed, hoping and fearing for class or for friend. Thump ! Grunt ! Pull ! Haul ! Kick ! By a pro- cess of selection the wriggling mass breaks up into small groups, and the conflict becomes individual. All over the field struggle the contending forces in twos, threes, fives, or maybe tens, according to the lustiness of the combatants. The harder the struggle a man can make the larger the group that will be attracted to subdue him. No more rush fright now. No more thought of broken limbs or cracked skulls. Little Robbins lies squirming under a heap of two struggling sophomores and three ditto freshmen. They are 44 For the Blue and Gold boring a hole into the ground with him. He catches wildly at a pair of kicking sophomore legs. "Hi, there, ninety odd rope, this way," cries out his smothered voice from underneath the heap. A ready junior rushes over and squeezes the desired article down between Robbins' teeth. "I've got him, fellows, quick, his arms," he presently cries, and the sophomore is pulled off of him, laid on his stomach, and his arms tied behind his back. ' ' Hammer-lock him ! hammer-lock him ! " Ouch ! oh, go easy ; they 're breaking ! " Then he is carted off to the back-stop, where a small pile of tied-up sophomores lies, thrown down like logs of wood, guarded by a few freshmen, to prevent untying or rescue. But Robbins' triumph is short-lived. He is pounced upon by two sophomores. " Hi, Charlie, give us a hand with this kid freshie." Robbins cries out appealingly, "Oh! Ninety odd, this w and Garrett shakes his two clenched fists in the air. His words bite into the players like a fiery brand, and, with a smothered yell, they bound out of the room into the field, the cynosure of thousands of eyes. Such a deep, swelling roar ! It sounds like the booming breakers. . But above it, as the yell leader lifts his hand, comes the California yell from the rooters' section, sharp, bark-like : Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Call for nia ! U.C.Berkeley! Zip ! Boom ! Ah ! 9 6 For the Blue and Gold Then ' ' Oski-Wow ! ' " Three cheers for the team ! ' ' given standing, and the new yells in quick succession, fol- lowed by the band in an inspiring march, only quieting down for critical observation of the warming-up practice. The substitutes and care-takers trot over to their side- line. The varsity players are falling on the ball like young colts rolling in the sand. Then James takes a few limber- ing-up kicks, and, as they note his easy, long-limbed action and watch the hurtling pigskin mount, the Stanfordites open their eyes a little wider. Now the team is running through the signals, up and down the field. Finally, as their red-stockinged opponents, with the bulk-enhancing white S on their sweaters, come trotting out, the California players retire to the side-lines. A second roar surges up to greet the men of the Cardinal, and, above it, the rumble : Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Stanford ! They, too, have their repertoire of yells and choruses, and their band, and the uproar lasts as before, though perhaps a little less in volume. The captains have shaken hands, the coin has been tossed, sweaters have been peeled, and California takes the ball for the kick-off. Carefully James props the ball up at the correct angle, tensely the ten men poise, ready to dash down with the sound of his foot upon the ball. The umpire's whistle sounds out shrilly upon the quiet air. " Punk ! " And a long, low drive goes hurtling down the field. The line The Big Game 97 leaps forward as one man. Past the heads of the opposing halves, expectant, sails the ball, and into the full-back's arms at his five-yard line. Quickly the interference forms, and up the field charge the cardinal players. One by one California meets them and puts them out of it. Burton, the speedy left end and savage tackier, is down the field, a heavy guard and a tackle almost with him. Smash goes the interference. And Burton, with a flying tackle, brings the Stanford full-back to earth at the twenty-yard line. Quick as a cat the other end is on him to hold him down. Now is the real test. "Lineup quickly, boys," urges Murray, the Stanford quarter. The California line is as if on springs. Will it hold against the first onslaught ? The rooters' hearts stand still. Quickly the ball is snapped] and Stanford's left half launches himself like a catapult at right tackle. A pushing, heaving mass ; underneath, the man hugging the ball. ' ' Second down. Three yards to gain." " Rah ! Rah ! Rah ! " shouts Stanford. " We'll make our distance ! ' ' Every U. C. man's heart sinks within him. "Hold them, California ! " exhort the rooters. "Line up, line up." The California line grits its teeth. "Thump." A straight buck on center. A pushing, heaving mass, and twenty- two pairs of legs and arms are piled in a seemingly inextricable heap. "Not an inch, not an inch," declare the U. C. partisans, jumping up and down. "Third down. - Three yards to gain." California's turn to yell. Now for the punt. The Cardinal's quarter is the best 9 8 For the Blue and Gold kicker she has ever produced, some say, the best that the coast has yet produced. He falls back. So does Rawson. A long, hard drive, sailing high, and James has it safely tucked under his arm. Forward he darts behind Hawley and Percy, his free hand resting lightly on the latter' s shoulder. The line has blocked long and hard, but now several lusty red-shirts are bearing down upon them. Hawley blocks one, the other, giving Percy the shoulder, nails James, who goes down hard, but manages to wriggle onward a foot on the ground. The ball is resting on California's fifty -yard line. " Good boy, Rawson ! " yell the rooters. California now has the ball. The first high-strung nervousness has passed off. "How will Stanford's line hold?" is the question. "Ends back!" calls Hoskins. The play is massed on the right tackle. They gain three yards. "Second down. Two yards to gain." ' ' Zip, boom, ah !" The Blue and Gold is wild. They are standing up, frantically waving their flags. "Hit 'em again, boys harder !" shout the rooters. Slowly, on short gains, but nevertheless surely, Cali- fornia begins to back her opponent down the field. The Cardinal does not seem to get into U. C.'s plays quick enough. California's team-work is something to see. Now a plunge through tackle, now an end run. Hawley goes through the line for the full distance. Percy skirts the end for three yards. James, on a straight buck, goes through center for the other two, and the Cardinal supporters begin to look serious, while Hoskins holds his hand up to the U. C. rooters for quiet, so that the signals can be heard. Gar- rett crouches on the side line, clutching at the ground. The Big Game 99 Once more James is tried against the center, but the Stanford line takes a tremendous brace and he is thrown back without gain. A moment later U. C. is forced to give the ball up on downs. Stanford's rooters wake up. " Now Cardinal, try it again!" Quickly they kick the ball out of danger, as the play has been within scoring distance of their goal. A moment later U. C. fumbles and Stanford gets the ball again. This time she does not kick. Now, on a second down, Stanford has three yards to gain. The ball is on California's forty-five-yard line. She plays close. Rawson, always scenting trouble from that Cardinal quarter, lays back. Sure enough it comes. For, suddenly, from out of the scrimmage, emerges Murray, the ball tucked tightly under his arm, running for dear life. By a miracle he has cleared the U. C. backs ; all except the full- back, running down to meet him, expectant, tense. Nearer and nearer they approach, the Stanford quarter fifteen yards ahead of his closest pursuer. The bleachers forget to yell. Now the runners are but ten yards apart. Rawson' s eyes are closely watching the movements of the other's hips. Murray gathers himself together for a dodge. It is a hard thing to tackle a dodging runner head-on. Will James do it ? They are almost together. It looks like a head-on col- lision. With a sudden plunge, James dives at him full length. Lightning-like the other side-steps, hopping right - from between Rawson's embrace. The latter's outstretched, clawing hand grasps the other's shoe. A jerk. The run- ner stumbles, but is up again and off. James, too, is up in a flash, casting a piece of leather out of his hand with an air of disgust. Two other U. C. pursuers are balked by the dodging, and before either James or they can grasp the ioo For the Blue and Gold fleeting form it has fallen exhausted, after a forty-five-yard run, between the California goal-posts. A mighty, simul- taneous roar breaks the intense silence, and for minutes the Cardinal yells rend the air, only calming down for the goal kick, then breaking out anew : Rah ! Rah ! Rah ! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah ! Rah ! Stanford ! James stands disconsolate, digging his toe into the ground. He has lost the game for his college. Oh, how can he ever look his mates in the face again ? They' 11 take him out now, and his cheeks burn with shame. If a kindly hole would only open up and engulf him. Hawley approaches and pats him on the shoulders encouragingly. "Good try, old man. Brace up! We've taken their measure." Percy, likewise, cheers his chum up. ' * They're dead ones, Jim, after this half." Thus the Californians go about and hearten up one another, "while Al bustles around with sponge and water-bottle. The goal has been kicked, and the score is : Stan- ford, 6 ; California, 0. Twelve minutes of play left of the first half. Once more they line up. California kicks off. There is grim determination written in the poise of every U. C. player. Rawson's kick-off is returned by Murray. James follows suit with a fair catch and a free kick, which the Cardinal full-back runs in to her forty-five-yard line before he is downed. This clever display of punting is cheered lustily, especially by the California rooters, for their new man has held his own pretty well in the exchange of kicks The Big Game 101 with the much-feared Cardinal quarter. There has been all too little of this clean kicking on California gridirons. Soon after begins, once more, that slow, but sure advance toward the Stanford goal. The Cardinal forwards grit their teeth. James gets the ball for repeated bucks, low and hard, and the Stanford center gets, with interest, what Murray had not. Reeling with the impacts, he clutches blindly at the flashing canvas shoulders and long legs as they are hurled upon him. Hoskins has at last found the weak spot in the opponent's line, and he skil- fully launches his plays at it with remorseless regularity. Occasionally the program is varied, as when Percy is sent around the end, in the hopes of a long run ; or when Hawley, on a plunging, swirling mass on tackle, bursts from the bunch and staggers full five yards before he is downed by the doughty Cardinal quarter. But the precious moments are slipping by and the ball is only approaching scoring territory, the Stanford twenty- five-yard line. The Cardinal players, their faces drawn in grim determination, play on in an agony of hope for the sound of the whistle. Between downs they slap one another on the back, and speak words of encouragement to the dazed, dogged center. U. C. pounds feverishly on against time. "Jim, we must put it over this half! " pants Percy, recklessly throwing away his head-gear as an imped- iment. Rawson grits his teeth and his eyes gleam hotly out of his dirt-streaked face. Once more the linesmen move up, and the ball is just over the Stanford twenty-five-yard line. But the moments are fleeting fast. After the next down, Hawley whispers in Rawson' s ear. The latter nods shortly. In the momentary 102 For the Blue and Gold silence, the quarter's clear, young voice floats across the field : "17-85-42." James drops back a few feet. Hoskins steps to the side. The center tosses the ball back, true and not too high. James catches it in position. The line blocks long and hard as he takes unhurried measurement, with eyes for nothing but the ball. "Punk!" his toe meets the ball. Squarely, and cleanly and easily it sails, above the heads of the onrushing blockers, between the goal- posts, barely clearing the cross-bar. And the score is 5 - 6 ! The kicker does not see the result, for, barely has the ball left his toe, before he goes down below the opposing guard who has broken through, and, leaping at Rawson, strikes him heavily on the chest. But the roar of the multitude announces the result. Every U. C. sympathizer is on his feet yelling like mad. Flags wave frantically. In quick succession the rooters reel off their yells, ending up with ' ' three cheers for Jim Rawson ! ' ' Stanford tries to outyell them, barely realizing what has happened. Indeed, so unexpectedly and quickly has it happened that it is hard even for the Californians to realize that, in a moment, the score has been almost evened. In the midst of the uproar, the whistle blows. The first half is over. Quickly the players trot for their quarters, Stanford relieved that it is half over with the score in her favor, and each California heart exulting in the thought of 1 ' what we will do in the next half. ' ' "Nice work, Jim," congratulates Garrett, slapping him on the back. "Shake, Jim! You did yourself proud," says Percy. But these ten minutes are not given over to the throw- ing of bouquets. This is the coach's own time for ripping The Big Game 103 things up the back. Garrett is talking as fast as he can, chiding, correcting, pointing out weak spots in their own and in their opponent's play, and outlining and revising the policy for the next half. Al and the doctor are every- where. Old bandages are renewed, new ones put on, gear is readjusted. Soon the ten minutes slip away, and, with a few more tense words, they trot out for the second half, refreshed in body and strengthened in spirit, to do or die. Stanford kicks off. The first down brings evidence that, with two fresh men in her line, the Cardinal has taken a mighty brace. California loses the ball on downs, and then, for a while, Stanford turns the tables and gives U. C. some gruelling practice on the defensive. Slowly, fighting desperately for every inch of ground, the Blue and Gold is forced back from one white line to another. Frantically the rooters exhort : " Hold them, California ! " And as if in answer, although they hear no word of it all, the line takes a tremendous brace, and in quick succession piles two plays up in a heap, without a foot of gain. Now California has the ball, and once more her offense comes into play. But she has a long journey to travel. The second half begins to wear away as the battle ebbs and flows, although nearly always in Stanford territory. Both sides are beginning to show the results of the forceful impacts, and after almost every down a man is seen lying on the ground and time is taken out, while the trainers run to and fro with bandages, sponges and water-bottles. Stanford replaces her left half and California loses her first man in the right guard, who is supported, limping, to the side lines, cursing his luck, while his substitute joyously pulls off his sweater. 104 For the Blue and Gold And now, although California has had the ball in her opponent's territory for almost two-thirds of the time, mat- ters begin to look serious for her. James has just been tried for another field goal and has missed, and, as a result, the ball is again in the middle of the field, although in Cali- fornia's possession. It hardly seems possible that U. C. will accomplish in the last fifteen minutes of play what she has failed to do in the first twenty. Stanford is fighting savagely, desperately, as for her very life. Her line throws every pound of its superior weight into every play, with the utmost abandon. The California rooters grow hoarse from their exhortations, but abate not one whit in volume. Is their prize team, trained by Garrett, going to lose, and by one point ? No, it cannot be ; and every voice swings into, "How can they beat us, beat us ? M And then, with super- human energy, "Now is the time to score ! " But to no avail. California loses on downs, and des- perately the Cardinal forces her back, yard by yard. Stan- ford is using her fresh half for all he is worth, while his par- tisans on the bleachers ask why he wasn't put in at the beginning. No fancy plays are attempted, only solid line bucking. The gritty U. C. line, tortured in every limb as by the rack, holds the best it knows how. Dazed, light- headed, it braces itself to meet each onslaught. Little Hos- kins backs his line up like a demon. The halves and full, tensely strung, watching the ball as best they may, chafe at their inaction. Once a Stanford half shows out around the end, but Percy pounces on him like a cat. The minutes, filled with agony, slip away, as, back, back, goes the ball. The Cardinal rooters are in an ecstacy of yelling. The Big Game 105 On California's thirty-yard line she holds. A blocked kick and Burton is lying with the ball hugged tightly to his breast, seven yards farther from his goal. New life and hope spring up in the breasts of the grim eleven and their supporters. They slap one another on the back with words of encouragement. Now for a last effort ! "Line up! Line up!" automatically Hoskins slaps the center's muscular back, runs his finger-tips over his tongue and glances behind him to see that the backs are in place. A criss-cross and Hawley is around like a flash, staggering and wriggling. "Second down; one yard to gain." "Hit 'em again, boys, harder ! " Twice the linesmen shift their ground and the ball is but eight yards from the center. Now, on a first down, California has been thrown back. " Second down ; six yards to gain." Hawley admonishes the bleachers to silence, so that the signals may be heard. " Line up, boys ; line up, quick ! " As before, the quarter's clear, young voice floats across the field: " 5 27 18. " James has dropped back. Hoskins has stepped aside. "A kick ! A kick ! ' ' call the Stanford players. Their full drops further back and the halves, turning, race down the field. "A fake! A fake!" But too late. Across to the quarter and back to James flashes the ball. The latter is on his toes. He speeds behind Hoskins and Hawley, his interference. The opposing tackle is boxed. Hawley blocks the opposing end, who is sent sprawling out of it. And James is clear of the line. But the two Stanford halves 106 For the Blue and Gold are running up. One tears Hoskins away. Hawley clev- erly blocks the other, and the California full-back is dashing down the field but one player between him and victory for the Blue and the Gold ! Tightly hugging the ball, his breath coming easily, and his long legs working like pistons, Rawson bends his head, and, snorting like an unbridled stallion, he surges forward. Exultation reigns supreme in his heart. " Now is the time to show them ! ' ' But there, like an evil fate, comes the Stanford full-back, tensely, to meet him. The rest are scat- tered, pulling and hauling, full fifteen yards behind. Nearer and nearer approaches the gritty full-back, his teeth clenched. His the task to win or lose the game for his beloved college. He approaches with no attempt at deviation. Nor does James relax speed nor alter his path. Freely he is coursing, low and hard, the ball tightly hugged to his right side. His left arm stiffens unconsciously as he calculates the other's approach. Behind him, he can hear the thump, thump, of the pursuers, but he shuts them out of his mind, leaving there but one object the tense figure now so near. Fifteen yards ! Ten ! Five ! It looks like a head-on collision. James adds a spurt. The other dives forward. James' left arm, outstretched, open-handed and rigid, meets him. A whirl and a straight-arm. The red-stockinged figure goes down, clutching wildly. Rawson gathers him- self together, the goal-posts, thirty yards away, now the only object in his vision. He has lost his stride in the collision, and the ' ' thump, thump " of a pursuer who has gained on him sounds painfully distinct. His right arm hugs the ball more tightly as he bends to his work. As he The Big Game 107 becomes conscious that lungs and legs are not working so easily, he adds additional effort to his going. The ' * thump, thump" from behind sounds louder, nearer, cannot be ignored. James can hear his pursuer's sharp panting. He tries to focus his attention on the whitewashed lines and goal- posts in front. ' ' Will those white lines never pass behind ? Three ! Two ! Oh, that last one ! It is receding ! " Sum- moning all his strength, James throws himself forward. Not a second too soon. With a desperate dive, the pursuer does likewise. James feels the clawing grasp close over his ankles and worms himself forward on the ground. But no need, for at last that final white line has disappeared. Panting and distressed, James Rawson lies half over it, hugging the precious ball tightly to his breast. The game is won for California ! What words could describe that frantic, dancing, waving, shouting mass of blue and gold ? With one tremendous, exultant yell it announces the result. Then the rooters explode in a series of roars and barks. With tremendous energy they ask, as one man, " What's the matter with Jim Rawson?" And no dissenting voice is heard. They calm down for the goal-kick. James has pulled himself together. Al is sponging his face and neck, and offering him water. Carefully the lull-back directs Burton, who is lying full length on the ground, the ball held lightly, top and bottom. "Punk!" It is over. California 11, Stanford 6. Pandemonium again ! What matters the rest? Stanford grit, under certain defeat, holds to the end. And, although, as the final whistle blows, the ball is once again safely in her possession, io8 For the Blue and Gold the Cardinal contests the last down just as fiercely as she contested the first. When the final whistle does blow ! It seems as if the enthusiasm has only begun. Dejectedly the Stanford players seek their dressing-room and coach. In a moment the field is overrun by a jubilant, surging mass of California rooters. A rush is made for the eleven tired, happy players. Lifted high aloft by hundreds of eager arms, with Garrett at their head, and preceded by the band, they are paraded around the field to the tune of " Palms of Victory." A serpentine is formed, zigzagging dizzily after, shouting, yelling, taunting the Stanford ad- herents ; like mad, the joy-intoxicated Californians dance around. The name of Rawson is on every lip. But not his name alone. That of Hawley, Hoskins, Percy, the stout- hearted men of the line, accompany it. Rawson' s lot it had been to perform the spectacular part. But his part would have been impossible but for the co-operation of his ten team-mates, every man of whom has done an equal share in the task. Team work ! That sums it up. Proud are the freshmen ! George has made his way straight for his friend. "Jim!" He can say no more. All he can say has been included in that one word. James, his head-gear pulled off, his black hair hanging straight and stiff, hair and face alike streaked with mud, smiles joyously down as he grips George's hand. " Boys, we walk down the line ! " yells the bandmaster, jumping up and down. The horses are unhitched from the coach. The players pile in. Eager hands jostle for a hold on the shaft, and the pulsating, victorious Californians start The Big Game 109 for town. Inside the coach ? We draw the curtain. But James afterwards sheepishly admitted that it was the first time he had ever seen grown-up men actually kiss one another. A long night was that Thanksgiving night. At its end James sank upon a downy bed, and for the first time in two weeks he did not play football in his sleep. CHAPTER VIII The First Lap Completed The reopening of college on the following Monday found James back in his place at Mrs. Saunders' Select Students' Boarding-house. It was hard to escape from the embarrassing adulation that almost everbody was visiting upon the football men. A hundred times a day Rawson was stopped with, "Jim, you played a great game," or, ' ' How do you feel after the ball, Jim ? ' ' Wherever a foot- ball man would appear he was immediately a magnet for a questioning, discussing group. Frat receptions and theater parties were arranged for the team and coach. Little Rob- bins felt, as his manner showed, that it was almost sacrilege to permit Rawson to wait on him. Miss Gray, meeting James in the hall, held out her hand, saying : ' * Permit me to congratulate you, Mr. Rawson, on the fine game that you played. I felt quite proud of knowing you.' ' 1 ' Thank you,' ' replied James, blushing, and he gripped her hand harder than he knew. He thought more, some- how, of this simple speech than of all the many others. Its value was enhanced by the frank, square look between the eyes, which had accompanied it. Mrs. Saunders postponed her Thanksgiving dinner until her strayed boarders had reassembled. She felt, inwardly, a great pride in having the two most prominent football men in her company, and for a brief moment The First Lap Completed thought of honoring Rawson by having him sit at the table. " But no ; there's enough fuss being made over him as it is. It'll do him good to be kept down a bit." And so James "waited" while the others ate, but he was not out of the conversation. ' ' What did you think of the game, Mr. Davis ? ' ' asked Robbins (now surer of his footing), with a rising inflection. "Take your queries to the sphinx, Bobby," came from the other end of the table. ' * Davis was digging for the exes all day Thursday, weren't you, Davis? " "No," curtly. ' ' He was in the rooters' section. ' ' "I didn't see him there/ " No, I hear that they didn't have any rooters' hats at the Coop that would fit you, Davis. Isn't that so ? " " Your sense of hearing, Shields, is almost as acute as your sense of humor painfully acute," replied the "joshed" one, with asperity. "Why haven't you gone in for college spirit in your senior year, Davis ? ' ' asked Hawley. ' ' All h'm well, digs there, it's out, seem to wake up and take an interest in outside affairs during their last year." " I don't see that I haven't got college spirit. College spirit is the spirit in which we come here the spirit of work. I like to see a football game once in a while, and I'm glad enough that we won, but football spirit isn't col- lege spirit." ' ' Look at Warren now, ' ' continued Hawley. ' ' When a man's playing he doesn't, as a rule, hear much of the rooting, and he doesn't see much when he looks at the bleachers. But once, when they were taking out time, I ii2 For the Blue and Gold happened to glance up at the rooters' section, and there was Warren, waving his rooter's hat, his fine baritone voice lifted out from all the rest in an ' Oski-Wow ! ' " 1 ' Where did he learn the yells ? ' ' " Practiced them before the mirror." "No, he didn't. He attended all the rooters' meet- ings." "Warren's cultivating popularity so that they'll give him a good send-off when he receives the medal," inter- posed Davis, smiling. "You see, I haven't gone in for that sort of thing.'' After the Thanksgiving dinner Mrs. Saunders broke all her previous records by having turkey breast and mince pie left over for next day's lunch. Her ambition then took wing, and she announced with her utmost gracious- ness ' ' a little gathering next Saturday evening, at which we will be most pleased to have all the young ladies and gentlemen if you have no other engagements." Again did Mrs. Saunders do herself proud. " Where did the old lady corral all the pretty girls?" ' ' Dunno ; maybe she hired them for the occasion. ' ' This was the first occasion on which James had met co-eds, other than Mrs. Saunders', socially, and he was treated to much uncomfortable lionizing. " Oh, Mr. Rawson, you did play beautifully ! Wasn't it fine when you punted the touchdown ! Dear me, wasn't I afraid that they had hurt you when they jumped on you ! How brave you football men are ! " And almost as embarrassing, the co-ed who was Blue and Gold, struck. ' ' Such a funny thing happened in class-room the other day. I was so ashamed. * * * The First Lap Completed Now, wasn't that dreadful ? I'm so afraid lest the B. and G. should get hold of it. Mamma would be awfully angry. Oh ! what have I done ! I hope you're not on the staff, Mr. Rawson ? ' ' " No ; I'm only a freshman," smiling. " Is that so ? I thought sure you were a junior. Did you ever hear the story of how Miss Brown got her picture in two successive B. and G. 's ? That was such a piece of conceit. She traded on the fact of her name being so common, you know," etc., etc. * ' Miss Gray, may I have the pleasure of the next dance ? ' ' " Don't look so serious, Jim ; you're not bucking the line," whispers 'Hawley, as he whirls past. " That was a great feed, hey, Bobby ? " "You bet, the old lady did herself proud. Isn't she loosening up lately ? ' ' " I wonder if she'll serve the rest of those stuffed olives for dinner to-morrow ? " For a while football remained the all-absorbing topic on the campus. The score was chalked up on North Hall bulletin-board and painted on the fences. This and that possibility of the game was discussed, and the might- have-beens thoroughly canvassed. On the whole, the college was satisfied with the outcome, although it had expected a more decisive victory, the result of an under- valuation of its opponents. However, post football-game talk hardly survived a week as the "sole topic of conversation," for soon all minds were turned to the mid-year examinations. The "digs" redoubled their "digging," the "bums" sud- denly awoke with a jar to realize that the term was drawing For the Blue and Gold to a close, and that three months' work had practically to be done (if at all) in as many weeks. Seats on North Hall steps were no longer at a premium ; seats in the Library frequently were ; ' ' ponies ' ' and other crutches were simply non-quotable. No class of students (save perhaps the bum) had more hard work before it than had the football players. James plunged into his studying and writing up of note- books with a will, to make up for lost time, and night after night Percy and he were at it until midnight, "digging" math, English, German, physics, so as to have them down "cold." Some there were, of Finley's kind, who wasted the labor that would have carried them through the whole, in canvassing and determining on selected parts that the instructor would be liable to pick out for the examination test. Finley was much in demand for this sort of guess- work by all who took his courses, as he was credited with the gift of intuition. " Say, Fin, what sort of an ex do you think that we'll get?" 1 * I was talking with a junior and a senior who took the course in their sophomore year, and they say that he pays most attention to the development of the drama. Any- how, I'm reading over that chapter in Brooke. They tell me that another favorite question of his is about the influ- ence of the French Revolution on the various authors. I'm sure he'll give us that, because it's in the last chapter, and you remember the other day he said twice over to be sure and read that last chapter." "Sure, that's so." Nor was this figuring on probabilities indulged in only The First Lap Completed 115 by the bums and shirkers. Of course, it occupied nearly their entire thoughts. But good students, some of whom would receive first sections, spent much time on this sort of calculation. In fact, it was almost universal. Two such ' digs ' ' as Warren and Davis, meeting, would discuss what sort of an ex they would get in a certain course, although they both "had it down cold." In the Occident office James listened to a discussion of examinations in the abstract. ' ' As long as a fellow has done his daily work during the term he has nothing to fear of any ex. It's the fellows who have been cutting all term and have big gaps in their work that have something to fear. They are pretty sure to be called upon to fill in one of the gaps. It ought not to take a fellow longer to prepare for an ex than it does for an ordinary recitation, if he has no gaps in his work." "What's a man to do if his work is all gaps ? " " He can sit and gape when the questions are put on the board." "Throw him out !" " Turn the hose on him ! ' ' " Give him the dictionary ! " "Arthur, you ought to write one of those books something like ' Every Man His Own Memorizer ; or, the Royal Road to First Sections;' or 'How Not to Get Cinched."' At last the anxiously awaited examination schedules appeared. They were eagerly grasped, and each anxious student searched his schedule to locate the dates and hours of his various trials. There was much grumbling when any one found his exes all located in the first few days, or n 6 For the Blue and Gold bunched together at any time, or if they ran out too near Christmas time. It is pretty hard to please in this matter of the examination schedule in fact, nobody tries to be pleased with anything pertaining to final exes. They are a nuisance, and that settles it. Oh, for the good old days when you could get excused from the final exes with a one ! "Hullo, Jim, how do you make out?" queries Percy, as he approaches, schedule in hand. " Pretty well, considering. I've got five in the first eight days, and that will let me out a week before Christ- mas. How is it with you?" " Not so well. Here I've got one in math the first rat- tle out of the box, and then they're strung along, until on the very last day I've one in chemistry lab, and that's two days after the team's supposed to leave for our Christmas game in Portland." "Well, you can get that set forward, all right. So you've decided to go north over the holidays on the football junket?" "Yes. It won't cost me a cent, and I find that my funds will hold out until next May. So I might as well see the country. Have you settled that you won' t go, Jim ? ' ' "Yes, this time it holds. Dick has said it's all right, It'll be a good thing to give the sub a chance after his hard work. I must earn a little money. If it hadn't been for that baggage smashing that I did Saturdays for the stu- dents' express I would have had to borrow on my expecta- tions, like the fellow in * The School for Scandal.' As it is, I've barely got the price of a car ride. I must put in a month's hard work and get something ahead and there are those two Latin conditions." The First Lap Completed " Oh me, oh my, but you've got troubles, Jim. Here comes Cub, looking happy. Got a doctor's certificate, George, that you're too feeble to take the exes ? " "No, but if I'd made the schedule out myself it couldn't fit in better." " Put him in alcohol quick ! He's the Dodo. " "Say, George, while your friend was making that schedule, you might have thought of us." "What's the cause of your rejoicing ? " 1 ' Why, I've got one a day at nine o'clock, and they're arranged by degrees of hardness, so that I'll have time to work up to a climax." " Beautiful nature ! Isn't he easily satisfied ? " " Say, Cub, you want to be sure that you don't make an anti out of that climax of yours. ' ' ' ' You bet I won't. I'm going to sit up ' ' digging ' ' all night for that ex, and I've got a fellow who's going to stay with me. We'll get that down cold." * ' Regular old-fashioned wet-towel party, hey ? ' ' When the examinations once get under way the ordeal is not as hard as has been anticipated. In the course of the first couple one gets hardened, and goes to the succeeding ones without any perceptible increase in heart action. This was the case with James. He passed such a satisfactory test in English that he gained confidence, and so, even in Latin, felt that he was not going to flunk. Before they knew it they were all through, and the erst- while echoing corridors of North Hall quieted down. For a while would "Jimmy Potatoes " cease from tolling the North Hall recitation bell. And the moving, pushing crowd in halls and on stairs, coming from recitation? closed and u8 For the Blue and Gold going to recitations about to open it would cease to bustle for a while. If there is one place more than another that resembles a graveyard at midnight, it is a college hall wrapped in the stillness of vacation. Only in the recorder's office is there a semblance of life. There the mills of the gods are grinding small and fine first sections to some, cinch notices to others, which shall presently swoop down upon quiet hamlets and homes and cause tumult in many an anxious, waiting breast. The Three are gathered together in James' room for a final experience-intention-meeting. "Well, boys, if there's anything that moves along faster than a college term, I'd like to know it." "Yes," responds James, "my days are quicker than a weaver's shuttle, but filled with joy. Job ought to have come to Berkeley when he lost his stuff. It seems but yes- terday since I first set eyes on this old place." "Yes, and you'll find yourself a jolly sophomore, too, be- fore you know it. Seniors tell me that it passes like a dream. ' ' "Cub, declare yourself. What are you going to do with all this four weeks when your friends are not around to take care of you ? ' ' "I've got my job in the Risdon Iron Works cinched. I'm going to hand out hot rivets on a pair of tongs. It just came about in the nick of time. Prof Thomas rec- ommended me. If I come over Sunday afternoons, Jim, will you give me a boost in "digging" now and then? " "Sure." "And you, Percy?" " Tomorrow we leave for the web-foot state." "And Jim?" The First Lap Completed 1 ' He's going to don his overalls and drive a grocery wagon during the holiday rush, and thereby line his vest- pockets with shekels. The old lady wants me to hang right on. She uses me as a sort of burglar alarm. That suits me, because I'll have to dig up that Latin evenings and Sundays so as to pass the exes for the disabled when college opens. I'm going to get a little coaching." 1 ' From whom ? " "H'm well Miss Gray isn't going to leave, and she promised to help me out a bit." "She's a sort of private tutor to you, isn't she, Jim? I hope you mind her real well, and stick to business. ' ' " Don't fear. She's business, all right. She's got the greatest head on her of any girl I've ever seen." "But I don't see," interposes George, "how she suc- ceeds so in hiding her light under a bushel. You say that she's in line for the medal, but you never hear her men- tioned." "Well, she isn't wearing her report cards on her sleeve and then, you know that in every race you have to look out for a dark horse." "But she's gray." "Throw him out!" "Well, boys, here is where we get off." They had walked up to Stiles Hall. "So long, until next term, and may the Lord smile on us all," and James chants in a low, sepulchral voice : ' " When shall we three meet again ? In thunder, lightning or in rain?" He stands a minute, looking over toward the campus 120 For the Blue and Gold where, through the border of trees, the Gym and South and North Hall loom up faintly in the glimmer of a late moon. "So long, old campus." The first lap is completed, and he feels himself running strongly, with the race well in hand. CHAPTER IX The Clans Regather and Do Some Politics ' * Why, hullo, Percy, where did you drop from ? Glad to see you back. " "Hullo, Jim, old man, how's the world been using you? Here we are again. 'Tis good for the eyes, this old campus and your old mug. How's Cub? How'd the recorder treat you ? How did you make out in the grocery biz? How did you make out in the Latin ex? How many hours are you going to take ? ' ' "I'll take a day off to answer your questions. George is O. K. I've seen him every Sunday. He'll be back tomorrow for registration. All the rest is O. K., too, although Latin is yet in the balance. The recorder gave me reports on three half-year courses two ones and a two. How did you fare ? " " Ones, hey ? none in mine. I got a straight two, and I'm satisfied. Ones ! Aren't we a dig ! Let's stroll up the line." "Yes, it's all here. No more gridiron, though. Any changes? " " Feel as if you'd been away a year, hey ? Nothing to speak of. Some new lockers, and odds and ends. By the way North Hall is still there. The Coop's got a bigger safe.' ' For the Blue and Gold Once more the campus was springing into life. As they walked they met friends and classmates, with many a hearty hullo and grip of the hand. The invariable first question was, how did the recorder treat you ? or what did you get in such and such a course? Warren was causing much wear and tear on his wallet by flashing his report card in and out to exhibit a "straight one." "Ah there, Fin, did you get a report in Dutch?" "That I did." "A three?" "Sure enough, and there was another in English to keep it company. Guess I'll have to take a brace this term." " Want to renew your subscription to the California^ Fin? I'm taking orders." "Well, I don't know. I think of swearing off. It takes time from study. Say, Charlie, that was a funny josh that Dutch sprung one morning. We have him at 8:30, and as we just get our Calif ornians, there's lots of ads to read. There are more Californians than "Schillers" around the room. One day we had a punk recitation. Everybody was reading about an A. S. U. C. meeting. Soon Dutch up and says, ' I have an idea. I will contract with the editor of the Californian to have our assignment of ninety lines printed in the paper each day. Then I will be able to get a decent recitation. ' Funny guy, isn't he? Come to think of it, Charlie, you might as well put my name down. So long." North Hall steps were already well occupied withbaskers in the ' ' soul-enlarging ' ' sun of a California mid-winter. There were plenty of notices on the bulletin-board to read, ' The Clans Regather 123 and the " cinch rack " was full. Percy and James made the rounds, went over to the recorder's office, and James found that he was safely through the preparatory Latin. Percy, impersonating George, was informed that the latter, likewise, had passed in English 14. 11 Won' the be glad?" "Well, Jim, I'll have to mosey along now, and get our chewing club forces into line again. I don't suppose you're ready to join us yet? We'll be there when you are." " No, not yet. But next year I will, all right. Won't we have some big times then ? By the way, Perce, Samp- son has made me one of his assistants on the business staff of the Occident, and I'm going around rustling up subscrip- tions and ads twenty per cent, rake-off.'* " Good enough, Jim ! ' James was just prying his knife into the oyster's shell. There are many little ways at California, as at every college, by which a student can add to his income some connected with the two papers and the magazine, reporting for the daily papers, coaching, a few student-offices, agencies of one kind or another, jobs down town. But with all these, there are not many openings to the freshman. It usually takes a year to establish an individuality. In his sophomore year, things begin to be accessible to the student who is going to make his presence felt in college. So James was doing pretty well. Of course football had helped him, and would have helped him in a great many ways if he had cared to take advantage of its opportunities. But he had principles about trading on his athletic reputation. The money that he had made during vacation had 124 For the Blue and Gold enabled him to remember his folks with several little Christ- mas gifts, and there was an astonished and delighted family down in Riverside. None more so than younger brother Tom, as he kicked a real "varsity" football along the road and told his friends tales of his big brother's prowess. " Looks as if Jim was making out O. K. up in college, mother, doesn't it, if he has money to spend on Christmas presents? " "You ought to know Jim," returns the proud mother. " If this isn't Cub Thornton, with the grime of honest toil upon his hands ! Howdy, George. By the way, you passed in English 14." " Holy smoke, you don't mean it ! How did you find out?" "Recorder told me." "Shake, fellows Jim, Percy, shake! Now my troubles are all over." < ' Well, let's go up and register. " All was hustle and hurry in North Hall. Mid-year registration is not so elaborate a process as is that in August, for some of the courses continue during the whole year, and this limits the amount of thinking and juggling that has to be gone through with in January. But the instructors are all keeping open house in their little offices, granting and denying, and staving off bluffs. And there is much scurrying to and fro. Recitations begin that afternoon ; loose threads are gathered up again, and things soon settle down to business. Then, for a while, the only question heard is, ' ' How many hours are you taking ? ' ' v'l The Clans Regather 125 " Come up to my room tonight, boys, and we'll discuss a box of Riverside navels," invites Rawson. " Don't mention it ! We'll be there. ' ' Besides Percy and George, James had also invited little Robbins and Herbert Edwards, two of Mrs. Saunders' boarders, freshmen, who had had him out to dinner New Year's day. Robbins looked up to James (both figuratively and literally) as to a god. He followed the tall fellow around whenever he could, like a spaniel. His shyness had worn offunder James' treatment of him as a man and an equal. He now could say, " Rawson, what do you think of this ? " or, "Jim, what do you make out of this?" in the most mat- ter-of-fact way, although he felt a fine little thrill each time that he did it. During a lull in the consumption of oranges, Robbins managed to make himself heard. " Calm down a bit, fellows, I want to say something for the good of the order." "Fire ahead, Bobby." Robbins, slightly embarrassed at their scrutiny, began : ' * We are soon going to elect class officers for the second term the Bourdon term. Well, I have it on good authority that a certain push whom nobody but itself likes is laying wires to get control of the whole works. I've seen their fine hand already myself. It won't be for the good of the class to put them in power. What we want for class president is a man who doesn't hobnob with any special push, frat or otherwise, and we want a man who is popular with the main body of the class a fellow who isn't kiddish either " "Well said, Bobby, who's 'It?'" exclaimed George and Edwards. 126 For the Blue and Gold "I have in my mind," continued Robbins, throwing out his chest, "a man not a hundred miles from here, who suits the office to a T, and I ask permission to present the name of Mr. James Rawson. ' ' "Wow! Good boy, Bobby! that's the thing i" shout Percy, George and Edwards in unison. James gives evidence of embarrassment. " Jim, you accept ! " " But look here, fellows, I'm not after that sort of thing. I haven't the time, and I don't know the first thing about presiding, even if they should elect me, which they won't." " We'll attend to the electing all right. You invest in a copy of 'Robert's Rules' and you'll soon be on to your job." ' ' Now, see here, Rawson, you're the oldest and most settled-down fellow in the class. I'm looking out for our own good, not yours. Would you rather have a fellow like Chet Holland get it?" 1 ' Not on your life ! ' ' shout the others. "Well, it's settled then," announces George. "For president, Jim Rawson, of Riverside," and James, seeing no good reason for refusing, subsides. " We'll cook this thing all up," asserts Robbins, with conviction, and various imprecations being heard to issue from surrounding rooms to " quit that noise, and let a fellow study," the company once more falls silently upon the box of oranges. "Have you heard the very latest from the political field, boys ? ' ' queries Chester Holland to the Kappa Chis, lounging about their cozy bumming room. " Here's that kid, Robbins, and Cub Thornton a-booming Rawson for The Clans Regather 127 class prex. That's a representative brace for you ha ! ha ! " " He'll make a pretty strong run on his football record, don't you think?" "His football record! That's a good one! or, I should say, a bad one. Didn't he have to be literally kicked into the game? Why, if it hadn't been for my brother" . 4 * Oh, quit that, Holland ; don't you know when an issue's dead?" sharply rebukes Windom, a senior, from the lounge. "Just the same, that hoosier won't be prex if the Kappa Chis know it." Holland did not notice that his assertion met with no affirmation from the other Kappa Chis. He had set his mind on it, and was simply crazy to be class president and preside at the Bourdon. Nothing less would suit him, nor could he wait for the succeeding years. In fact, upon entering college, hehad had dreams, inspired by his elder brother, of holding most of the prominent offices in the gift of class and of college. He thought that it was due to his social position that he pick out the very best office in the gift of the class. It had taken a deal of insinuating to make known his desires to some of his followers, but now things were all arranged for his nomination and his followers were already going around making "trades" for support with candidates for other officers. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Chet. Let's nominate another member of the sweater brigade to pull some of the co-ed muscle worshipers away from Rawson. That's the largest element that we have to fear. Get a fellow with a good shape and the co-ed vote will be split up." 128 For the Blue and Gold " But we expect to poll a strong co-ed vote ourselves. My cousin is going to get the Sigma Tau Alphas in line." "That's all right. You'll get the ones that can be reached from the sororities, and the others our dummy nominee can take. There won't be much of anything left for Rawson. Remember, almost half of the class is co-eds, and it's a vote that can be worked like putty. " It sounded well, and was agreed upon. The proudest moment of little Robbins' life came when he stood up before all his classmates to nominate "our friend, James Rawson," which nomination was eagerly sec- onded from several quarters. Holland's program went through as agreed. Imagine the surprise of Ralph Evans, champion hammer thrower, when he was placed in nomina- tion for class president by Roland Chinn, who belonged to a frat that had unsuccessfully ' * rushed ' ' Evans a few months before, and was supposed to be a little sore on the one that had secured him. Evans* brain did not move as quickly as his muscles and he had not succeeded in sizing the situation up, whereby so unexpected an honor had come to him from so unexpected a source, before the nominations were declared closed, and he found himself shaking hands with the smooth Mr. Chinn. " See here, Chinny, what sort of a game is this?" he expostulated. 1 * No game at all, old man. Remember this is the Bour- don presidency, and we need a 'man representative in every way for the job a fellow whose social position and per- sonal appearance will do us proud. I didn' t speak to you before, because I believe in the office coming to the man. But you won't lack for support. Look, here is Miss Hollis The Clans Regather 129 already come to pledge allegiance. How do you fancy our next president, Miss Hollis ? ' ' " Splendid, splendid, Mr. Evans, and such a surprise ! But you won't find any lack of supporters. Permit me to congratulate you." Evans shook hands in a perfunctory way. "But, see here, won't you? I don't know anything about being prex." "You'll learn," replies Chinn, with conviction. " You didn't always know how to throw the hammer or put the shot, did you ? ' ' "N no," assented Evans. He didn't like argu- ments. "But I won't make a fight. Take it out of my hands, Chinny." "We'll fix that up, all right," calls Chinn, as with a wave of his hand he turns aside. Evans finds other well-wishers, and stands embarrassed, exchanging hand shakes. He presents a fine figure in his well-tailored gray suit, close-cropped hair and tall collar, " well-groomed " the athlete personified. Perhaps there is a little too much emphasis in neck and shoulders. He well looks, though, as if he would confirm the expectations of Holland's supporters by making a run on his shape. The question is, ' ' Will his run be in a direction parallel to Holland's or to Rawson's ? " James had not attended the meeting. When Robbins and George came to tell him what had happened, he, too, was surprised. " Don't you think that three of us are too many ? ' ' "Yes, two too many. But by the time the votes are counted there will be only one left." 130 For the Blue and Gold "But I don't like the idea, boys, of making such a fight out of this. It'll be bad for the class. Evans is a good fellow. Let him fight it out with Holland. He ought to beat him. Everybody likes Ev." 4 'Yes, but they don't admire the qualities in the ' baby ' that they want in a Bourdon prex. If you drop out, Holland will pull wires enough to beat him." This from George. " That's so," acquiesces Robbins, "and I've got a sort of sneaking notion that that's what Ev is up there for to serve as stalking-horse for Holland. Why, look here ; who nominated him? Roland Chinn. And since when isn't Chinn friends with Holland? Why, look at the way Ev turned the Beta Sigmas down last term and Chinn in par- ticular, when they were rushing him. Chinn was with him day and night. He never let up worked like a beaver. Then one night he had him up in the house, in the parlor, holding him down, while the others voted on him in a back room. Soon the 'phone rang, and the call was for Evans. He comes back with his hat. ' Excuse me, I'll have to go down to the Phis. I'm one of them, you know.' He never came back. Yes, it's fishy, all right," and Robbins shakes his head wisely. " " Where' d you get that, Bobby ? " "Oh, a fellow told me it's straight, all right." "I won't play into Holland's hands, that's sure," announces James. And so the fight is on politics on a small scale, removed from the real article only in degree, not in kind. For a few days every freshman is either button- holing or being buttonholed. Chinn even makes up to the Y. W, C. A. through its secretary (in whose interests it is The Clans Regather 131 needless to say), but does not get much encouragement. One of their number had taken that entrance ex with Holland and Rawson and she tells her friends about it. "Does Mr. Rawson belong to the Y. M. C. A?" is asked. " Well, I can't say. But I saw him with one of those little blue books in his hand." Holland attempted to engage the services of the Call- fornian to further his ambition, but to no avail. The edi- torship had changed hands. His methods furnished the text for a notice in the Occident^ but not of the kind that he wanted. It began, "What are we coming to?" and went on to say that the " raw politics that is being done by cer- tain freshmen does not speak well for the refining influences of the higher education," etc., etc. As for big, good-natured Evans, he was just letting things take their own course. The presidency didn't appeal much to his imagination, and he took no active steps to secure the office. His friends (and some supposed ones) kept egging him on, however, so that he did not withdraw, although he knew James well and would not have been dis- pleased to see him president. His frat brothers were mak- ing an active canvass in his behalf, but Mr. Chinn was not much in evidence. The day after the nominations Evans had met him. " Now, I look to you, Chinny, to do what is necessary. I'm no good for this sort of thing." " H'm well, of course, I'll do everything that I can, Ralph, to help you, but you know that Holland also has claims on my support. I'll do the right thing, never fear. By the way, Ev, a fellow, knowing that I'm interested in your fight came to me no, I won't mention names, but he 132 For the Blue and Gold is on the team and said that he thought that a proposition could be worked up, under certain circumstances, to put you up for track captain next year. What do you think ? ' ' " If the track boys want me, they'll elect me." Little Robbins was working like a beaver, but in a way that called for nothing but favorable comment. He had a busy, earnest manner about him that was taking. He would stand a classmate up in a corner and attempt to con- vince him of James' superiority by sheer force of logic, marking off his points on his fingers. Warren, passing, voiced his approval. ( ' That kid is all right. He talks as if he'd had formal logic." The taking of that course was the open sesame to Warren's regard. On every occasion Robbins would intercept James to report progress. The latter felt the humor of the situation, that is, the physical incongruity of it. Little Robbins, who came up to the top button of Rawson's vest, was making the latter' s fight, and walking by his side, his head thrown back, talking earnestly into the air. This appealed to James, and he took the situation so good-naturedly as to please those who observed, and this won him some votes. Otherwise he made no show of an active canvass. "I do believe," announced George (who was no less active in James* behalf than was Robbins) that that guy, Holland, has traded off his soul to be class prex. At every turn I run up against fellows who are going to be this or that if Holland gets it. All the Bourdon speakerships have been promised at least twice over. Won't there be a picnic if he should get elected and it comes to delivering the goods!" The canvass was short. That is one good feature about The Clans Regather 133 college elections. Nominations had been made on Friday, and now (Tuesday morning), the voting booths were in place down in the front of North Hall basement. The ballot-box stood on a table, and the judges, with a catalogue of students in place of a great register, were presiding over the voting. Workers and friends of each candidate were hovering about the polls, looking out for this or that interest, and doing what missionary work was possible at the last moment. Recitation "cutting" was the order of the day with the political "push." Co-eds were no less interested in the election than were the men students. The practical workings of woman suffrage are observable at a co-educational college election. Happy and im- portant the freshman that day who had a large co-ed bowing acquaintance. Such a one was Roland Chinn, suave and smiling, as he stood at a point of vantage where he could round-up the voting co-ed. It didn't take a blind man not to observe in whose interests Chinn was working. As James approached to cast his vote for the minor offices, during a pause between recitations (he was losing none on that day more than on any other), he observed Chinn, his hat describing semi-circles from head to knee, advance to offer the ' ' glad hand ' ' to the two co-ed fresh- men who boarded at Mrs. Saunders' . Unknown to James, they had been enlisted in his service by Robbins, and had done stout work for him among their friends. ' ' Good morning, Miss Wilson, morning Miss Free- land ; I suppose you are on the right side for class prex ?" " Oh, yes, I guess we are, aren't we Julia ?" and they smiled knowingly at each other. 134 For the Blue and Gold ' ' And that is, if I may be bold to supply the words, Mr. Holland's." ' ' Not exactly. We are for Mr. Rawson. We all stop at the same house, you know. ' ' James heard this part as he hurried past, a little red on the ears, also a snatch of the following : "Now, ladies, permit me to tell you that you're in the wrong car. Get into Mr. Holland's ! His will take a flying switch into the presidency," etc., etc. For the most part, the votes came dribbling in, but once and a while, at the close of a recitation, a small dele- gation of partisans, preceded by a leader, would be mar- shaled up to the polls. This is a great day for little Robbins. The first batch that he leads up is composed of the freshmen members of the Whist Club, of which Rob- bins, too, is a member. They advance from the basement, single file, in lock-step, keeping mark with "We are for Jim Rawson, son, son, son." The others' adherents guy them, but they keep on. Pretty soon George comes along with some of the freshmen members of the "mining push." There is no question as to which way these will vote. Holland cuts his recitations en bloc and hovers about the polling place keeping tab. He is conscious that it is bad form, and so does not come up too close, except in occa- sional, apparently casual strolls. Every once and a while he retires around the corner for a follower's report on the situation. "Those Sigma Tau Alpha co-eds are doing great work. Almost every one has been up with a friend or two. I wonder where those Y. W. C. A. girls are keeping themselves? Not a single one has shown up yet.' ' Toward the close of the polls, Evans, who has been The Clans Regather 135 practicing a new whirl with the hammer all morning, recalls that it is election day, and that he is up for president. "Guess I'll go up and vote and see what's going on." On the way up the campus he meets George. ' ' Hullo, Cub, how goes the election ? ' ' "Jim Rawson's got it in a walk, saving your presence. By the way, Ev, who is supposed to be making your fight?" "Well, so far as a fight has been made, I suppose the Phis have been doing their part. Chinn's been interested, too; you know he put me up. But I haven't been taking much interest in the thing. I'm sort of sorry now that I didn't withdraw. I suppose a fellow ought not to go into a thing without trying to win." ' * No. And if you think Chinny has been your friend in this you're badly mistaken. He's been doing all he could for Holland on the Q. T. There's been a report around this morning that you were out of it, whatever that may mean. It's hard to tell who got it up. On the strength of it, he's up there now working tooth and nail for Holland." "I didn't withdraw. Has he been giving me the double cross ! " ejaculated Evans. "Why, he nominated me!" 1 ' Yes, I guess he's been playing you for a sucker, all right." "I'll crack his jaw ! " The significance of past events was beginning to dawn on Evans slowly. He turned red about the neck, and placed his finger up to loosen his collar. A slow-gathering wrath is a stormy one. "We'll go up and see about this." Approaching the polling place, a 136 For the Blue and Gold group of students was observed gathered about a speaker. The speaker was Roland Chinn. "Now, there's every reason, fellows, why we should elect Chet Holland. He comes from a good family. He has dough enough to do things up brown, and he's ready to do it. It's a pipe that his brother will be major of the battal- ion. He's in with the proper push." Raising his voice to imitate a showman's : "Step up now, gentlemen, ard cast your vote for the right man." " And who may that be, Chinny ? " Evans breaks through, his mien full of menace, his face becoming each moment more red. " Hullo, Ev, where'd you drop from? " " I dropped from being a sucker, and I want to know what sort of a dummy you thought you were nominating for president? What was your low-down game, anyway? " " Oh, come along, Ev, don't get hot. I had it straight this morning that you were out of it, and I'd rather see Chet in than Rawson." Then, trying to pass it off with an audacious joke : "Well, step up, anyhow, and vote for yourself, and don't say that I didn't get you one vote." Evans turned livid. The others fell away as he made a grab for Chinn, grasping him tightly by the coat-collar and shaking him roughly. " You little shrimp ! I'll teach you to make a fool out of me." Violent shaking. "Now, you get out of this with your snide tricks, or I'll wipe the ground with you," and he pushed the limp Chinn, stum- bling, twenty feet away. The politician recovered himself, and, moving further off with each word said, with a sickly smile: The Clans Reg at her 137 "You take these things too seriously, Ev, I'll give you a chance to cool off. ' ' ' ' Now, see here, fellows. You see what sort of work that scamp and his candidate are up to. Don't elect him, whatever you do. Vote for Jim Rawson. He's the best man in this fight. Hear, now, I withdraw in his favor. Evans withdraws in favor of Rawson." And he raised his voice excitedly : " Here, you, run and put that on a sign ! There's time yet to elect him ! " At this juncture a group of Y. W. C. A. co-eds appeared, timidly approaching the polls. "Good after- noon, Miss Powell," began Evans in an aggressive voice. " I want you ladies all to understand that Evans has with- drawn in favor of Rawson. Don't vote for machine politics. ' ' "We won't, Mr. Evans," was the response. The news soon spread that Ralph Evans had broken loose at the polls and licked Roland Chinn. A crowd gathered from all sides, with the effect of bringing up many stray votes. Evans held his ground, relaxing nothing in his endeavors to elect Rawson. He found ready sympathizers and converts. Nearly three-quarters of the vote cast after three o'clock was for James. But if the truth had been known, he had been running ahead from the start. At five o'clock Robbins rubbed his hands delightedly. He did not appear for dinner. That evening, as James was studying, he heard a clatter on the stairs, and Robbins and George burst into his room. " You're it, Jim ! Shake ! You're the thing ! " they shouted, and producing a strip of paper, Robbins read, impressively : " Holland, 169 ; Evans, 76 ; Little Jim Rawson, 222. Wow!" CHAPTER X "How the Other Half Lives " By the way, Jim, the Gammas are going to have a little blow-out for the football push tonight, and the boys wanted me to ask you around. First chance we've had to bore the team as a whole, but it's better late than never. Percy's going to come over to dinner. Suppose you join him. I'll call for you." " I'm afraid that I won't be able to go, Charlie. Thanks just the same." ' ' That's no excuse. What's to prevent ? ' ' " I can't get off so early. Have to be on hand for dinner." 11 Yes. You can come if you want to. It's Saturday, and they'll all go over to town." " Well, I have some digging to do." " Digging be hanged ! Come along, it'll keep." ' ' There are other reasons. ' ' "There are ? Oh, I see. Maybe you've got an anti-frat sourball ! Spit it out." "That's about the size of it," admitted James, laugh- ing. "I don't know much about them, and I don't know that I want to. Anyhow, I don't tog up fit to mix in frat company." "Ha, ha, that's a good one ! You just ought to see us in undress uniform. Come any way you want. I won't "How the Other Half Lives" 139 take a 'no* now. We'll have to remove that sourball. Ask Percy. He used to have one, too. He'll tell you to come. So long. I'll call for you at six," and Boyce walked off. "Yes, I'd go if I were you, Jim/' advised Percy. ' ' It's a phase of college life that you haven't seen, and you won't appreciate either it or the whole until you've seen it. They're a fine set of boys, even if some of them are hand- icapped by being rich men's sons. They'll treat you well. I used to think that they were snobs, but I guess I was rather touchy about my fallen fortunes.'* "Whatfratisit?" "Gamma Delta Epsilon, up on Bancroft Way. It's one of the nicest frats in college. Mostly rich men's sons from preps down San Mateo and Belmont way. It's neither sporty nor ultra-fashionable." "Coming over to the Gammas tonight, Jim ? " queried Hawley. "Yes, guess I will." "Here we are," announced Boyce, as they paused before an imposing brick building, surrounded by a well- kept lawn. This is where the Gammas hold forth. Come right up, boys." He took them directly across a hard- wood floored and be-rugged hall to a broad room opposite. "This is our bumming room. It's where we put in most of our time." It was a fine, roomy, comfortable apartment, with a large table occupying the middle ground. Comfortable couches, piled high with pillows, filled in the corners, and cozy chairs were scattered invitingly about. An ample fire- place was throwing out a cheerful blaze. In one corner 1 4 o For the Blue and Gold stood a piano, at which a youth was sitting, idly drumming out the latest coon song. Several others were lounging over the table, throwing dice. " I'll introduce you, boys," and they went around the room. " Glad to meet you, Mr. Rawson. We all feel as if we knew you without an introduction. Football men are the common property of the whole college." "Yes, and class prexes just as much," chimed in the man at the piano Burton, left end "as you'll find out, Jim, before you get through. ' ' Dinner was now announced. As they entered the dining-room, the other Gammas stepped up to be introduced to James. Percy, nearly all of them knew, this not being his first visit. Boyce placed Percy at his left and James at his right, near the middle of the table. ' ' Our motto here is everything in its place. See those sober-looking mugs at that end? They're all seniors. They get served first and have the choice of everything best rooms in the house and all. Next to them are the juniors, then comes my crowd, and, at the other end you see the poor- little freshies, who have to take what's left and supe for everybody. ' ' At this the Chinese waiter came in with the soup. He placed the first two plates before Percy and James. "But I'm not a senior ; didn't he make a mistake ? " inquired James. " No, you're a visitor. They come first. And Wong knows one as far as he sees him. Why, during the rushing season, when we have a new freshman or two in here almost "How the Other Half Lives" 141 every evening, you'd think he'd get rattled, but he is right on every time. He never misses his cue." A voice from across the table : "What's that about Wong missing his queue? That was a narrow escape the monkey had, wasn't it ? Tell Mr. Rawson the whole tail (h'm, excuse me), Charlie, you know the time when we initiated him into our service, and we near succeeded in cutting his pig- tail off." James has been inquisitive as to what sort of conversa- tion will pass around the table. There is not much talk about college work, such as he has heard from the new fresh- men about the Oski-Wow board. Football talk is indulged in to some extent, owing perhaps to the presence of Percy and James, but the main topic of conversation, recurred to again and again, like the motif in an opera, has to do with an escapade in which several of the Gammas have captured a freezer full of ice-cream from the kitchen of a neighboring frat, during an entertainment. This is viewed and reviewed from all sides, each participant adding some phase, telling his part or asking another's. Burton, the only varsity football man in the frat, has been the hero of the ice-cream episode. Indeed, he seems to be the hero in general of the frat, judging from the number of times his name is handled, and he is appealed to. " You'd ought to have seen Burt's angelic smile when he returned to the open window with that freezer. I thought he'd split his face." " My, wasn't that a good one on Windom ! I heard him inviting Miss Thompson around, and, as an extra inducement, he was a-telling her that they'd have a freezer of Mason's best, her favorite dish. And then when we get For the Blue and Go la back, Burt goes to the 'phone, rings up the Kappas and asks for Miss Thompson. ' Hello, may I call for you on your way home, Miss Thompson? You may be thirsty, and we have a fine can of Mason's best over here.' " "It'd been a great one on the Kappas if she'd a come. "Yes, that was too bad. But the ice-cream was all nght, hey, Burt ? You've got traces of it on your sweater yet." " Who put them there ? " " Say, fellows, it'd be a great josh if we took that empty freezer back and sneaked it into the kitchen again. What do you say to that, Burt? " "I'll go you." "'Phone, 'phone, wake up, there, freshman, step lively." "Yes, it's his job to answer the 'phone," explained Boyce. "Each freshie has something special to do. I carved last year, and I tell you I was glad to graduate from it. Here, freshman, what sort of a slice is that to give to company? You couldn't carve a roll of butter." Dinner over, the company adjourned to the bumming room. "What do you say to a look around the house, Jim, before the fellows come? Everybody's stupid after dinner, anyhow." Boyce and Burton took James in hand for a tour of the ouilding from the cellar, where the smokers were held, and where the keg was cooling off for the evening, up to the newest freshman's room in the garret. They showed everything, with greatest particularization and pride. Every room was decorated to its utmost college flags and "How the Other Half Lives" 143 banners, posters, photographs, sporting implements, and trophies of one sort or another the tastes, if not the charac- ter, of each inmate being easily read in the adornment of his apartments. Everywhere were pictures of the football team, collectively and individually. From many a wall James saw himself in his football togs, with a big C standing out from his breast, looking down upon himself. "Here's our den," announced Burton. " Charlie and I bunk together." A large banner, with California spelled upon it in letters a foot high, covered one side. Opposite, a hammock netting was stretched flat against the wall a receptacle for photographs. "That thing's beginning to sag, Burt. We'll have to have a clearance sale soon. " Large photographs of the two teams on which Burton had played covered the space between the windows. "There," said Burton, pointing to the picture in which he was lying down in front, and James standing up in back, "is the best team team, mind you that California has produced, even if we did play on it." " Here's Ransome's nose-guard, Jim," taking it down from a corner of the bureau. "Touch it reverently. That was the greatest footballer that California ever sent out. Ever hear how he stood out in the pouring rain and kicked the goal from the side of the field that saved the day for us ? Well, he walked around that ball for more than five minutes as a cat walks around a mouse. The people were simply crazy with the suspense. But that didn't hurry Ransome. He just stood there in the slush, the rain beat- ing down on his bare head. The second half whistle had blown a minute after the touch-down, and it was 6-4 144 For the Blue and Gold against California. Well, after an age I thought that I would smother Ransome got good and ready. He backs off, wipes the mud from his toe, and thump it was over. But if there' d been a splinter on that goal-post the ball wouldn't have gone by. I was a prep then. That kick decided me to come to California. " " It must have been great." ' ' Look over here, Jim. This is our collection of pro- grams of past student blow-outs. We sponge most of them off our fratres in urbe. They're a good record of the part that the Gammas have played in student activities mental as well as physical. See those two junior farce programs ? Farces by North and Howard both Gammas. Here's the collection of Bourdon invitations. You'll be getting one out yourself pretty soon. You're welcome to the use of these if you want some pointers. There's a procession of Gammas on those programs that shows the standing that our men have had with their classes. See, there's one, there's another and another. Bacon there was class prex. Here are several Kappa Chis, too. That's Holland's frat. We're proud of things like these, but here's the other side of the picture our invitations to the sessions of the com- mittee on student affairs." " Tell the truth, Burt ; you know that you're proud of those, too." "Let's be getting down-stairs. They'll think we're lost." The bumming-room and the billiard-room adjoining were filling up. The air was thickening with tobacco smoke. The table had been removed, and its place was taken by several rows of chairs, well occupied. "How the Other Half Lives'" 145 Now came the event of the evening. The keg was broached and soon perspiring freshmen, their sleeves rolled up, were darting to and fro with trays full of beer steins. " Hey, freshie, this way, zwei ! " " Get a move on, now ! " "Here, don't spill that beer all over my pants ! " ' ' Say, ask that freshman down cellar where he learned to draw beer." "This seems like the days before Thanksgiving. Day,*' smiled Hawley, contentedly puffing away. " No, we'd be sucking oat meal water through a straw, and going through signal practice in our sleep. Ugh, I don't see how I can ever bring myself to that again." " You will next year, just the same. There are worse things and it gives a fellow a proper appetite for this. ' ' ' ' A song, clear the way for a song ! Our friend Brick Reddy will now sing us a song and dance. ' ' " Now stand by your glasses, steady ; For here's to the dead already ; Three cheers for the next man who dies ! " "Good boy, Brick. Hit 'em again, harder," which was an encore. " Now the only German Siamese twins will do their stunt." As announced, this was the "representation of two Germans returning from a ' feetball ' game. ' ' "Ach, didt you benotice dot gazell Pete as he made der kangeroo ? ' ' ' * I saw me no kangeroo. Dot war no kangeroo, dot war ein touch-unter. ' ' "Oh, nit, es war ein feel-down, so dey called it. When dey all tumbled mit one anoder over und under. Ach, it 146 For the Blue and Gold war great, no, don't you tink ? " And so on ad infinitum until pipes tumbled out of mouths, and beer out of steins. Good feeling reigned supreme. The songs became general and the piano was being thumped into paralysis. " Palms of Victory, " " California's Bound to Win " the whole repertoire, including the football yells, was rehearsed. It harked James back to those stirring Novem- ber days just preceding the great game, when, his time of stress over, he had lived in a rare atmosphere, tense with action and enthusiasm. A glow of good-fellowship suffused him, and he sang and shouted with the loudest. " Here are some Kappa Chis, fellows, attracted over by the scent of beer." A group entered and was soon circulating about the room, asking for tobacco and receiving tankards. Those who were unacquainted were being intro- duced. Suddenly, as James glanced up, he saw Burton leading Chester Holland by the arm. The latter seemed to be holding back. "Here, Chet, I want to introduce you to Jim Rawson. Mr. Rawson, this is Mr. Holland. Shake, now, and don't you forget it." "I'll shake," began James, rising to his feet and holding out his hand. " So'll I." Holland stretched out his. "That's proper talk. We're all members of one family." Holland braced himself up very straight : "I want to say, Mr. Rawson, that as president of the class, you will have my support in every measure for its benefit." He was red in the face as he haltingly forced this speech out. "How the Other Half Lives" i 47 "Thank you. Pm glad to know that I can call on you." They shook again as Holland was pulled away for another introduction. Over in a corner Holland spoke to Burton. "What made you do that? Don't you know we're enemies?" "Go along, Chet. That's kid's talk. Enemies! You must have been reading dime novels. We don't have enemies in this chapter-house. Rawson's a mighty white fellow, and the sooner you recognize it, the more your friends will think of you. ' ' " Well, I'll bury the hatchet if he will." "That's proper talk." Soon the party began to break up. " Before you go fellows : 'Here's to you, my jovial friend ' to the team," and the steins were raised. " Here's to you Dick Hawley ! Here's to you, my jovial friend ! And we'll drink before this God-forsaken company ! We'll drink before we part ! Here's to you Dick Hawley ! " And so on down the line until : " Here's to you, Jim Rawson ! Here's to you, my jovial friend ! " James felt a strange thrill run through his frame, as, keeping time to the slow intonation, the steins nodded to him in unison. ' * Do you think the fellows really care so much for us, Jim ? ' ' Percy asked when they were outside. ' ' I think they do, Percy, ' ' was the answer. And they walked on in silence. 148 For the Blue and Gold " Where were you keeping yourself last night, Jim ? I was looking for you," queried George the next morning. 1 ' I was over at the Gammas' house. ' ' " So ? Trying to pull your leg for Bourdon appoint- ments ? " "I hadn't looked at it in that way. No, I don't think they were. They had all the football push over there, and entertained us. Did it up brown, too. ' ' "Well, I don't go much on those frat guys. They think they're better people than the rest of us. They want to run the whole college, though they're only a small frac- tion of the whole. They haven't any use for a non-frat unless they want something from him. ' ' " I don't know as to that, George. It may be that they want to use me, but they didn't show it. There was no word mentioned out of the way, and they struck me as a mighty fine lot of boys gentlemen, all of them. It's an ideal sort of life those fellows live there they 're just like brothers." ' ' It may be ideal for them, all right, but just because they have a little dough is no reason why they should set themselves apart. I don't take much stock in this frat business. Those fellows haven't got proper college spirit. It's frat first, and college next. A lot of them don't wear a class pin on their lapels ; some not even a California pennant, but you don't find one without his frat pin on his vest. They don't want to know a college man, unless he's a frat man, and they won't mix with any that are not. The frat system is clannish and makes snobs out of fellows. It ought to be abolished. Now, look at the way they treated Percy. Four months before he came here they "How the Other Half Lives" 149 would have been glad to have had him. But they had no use for him when they found he'd lost his stuff. No frat in mine." And George, having run out of denunciatory material, ended his philippic. " Percy was admitting, only last night, that he'd prob- ably been a little too touchy about that. I guess the fel- lows would have been glad to have him. They seem to think a good deal of him, but they knew he couldn't afford to live the way he would have to if he had joined their frat." "That's just the point of it. They have no use for him if he hasn't the dough, no matter how fine a fellow he is." ' ' Yes, they have ; and they think just as much of him so far as I can see. You don't want to run away with that idea. But we have to face the fact, Cub, that there are some things a fellow can't have without dough. It involves no loss of self-respect to the fellow who hasn't the price. He does without it, unless he wants it pretty bad, and then he goes to work and raises it. If he makes his stuff in a clean way, why he can enter his frat and they'll be glad to have him, and forget that he didn't always have the price. You see, the frat, like other terrestrial institutions, is on a sort of monometallic basis of 1 to 1 (it gives one for one) , and not 16 to 1, or any other ratio. It has its house and furnish- ings, food and help to pay for, and that takes money ; so it can't give them away (however much it would like to) for any less than they cost. The more things there are to pay for (the ratio being stable), the more dough it takes to pay for them. In other words, the law precludes our get- ting the something that the frat has for nothing. Of 50 For the Blue and Gold course, the frat might make its headquarters out on the campus and eat grasshoppers, but then there wouldn't be anything for a fellow to work for at least as things are now ordered. I'm not setting up for a champion of frats, but just pointing out what might be urged in their defense. " " Oh, it's all right for you to work off a long-winded jolly like that, but it wasn't ages ago since we agreed pretty well on the frat question ! ' ' ' ' Give a man the privilege of changing, George," laughed James. "Talk of men changing, you can't guess whom I shook hands with last night ? ' ' ' * How should I know ? Anything was liable to hap- pen to you last night. With Cap Holland, or his sneak brother, for all I can guess." " Sure enough, with the latter. Burt played angel of peace and brought him up. He went through the ordeal like a man, though, and volunteered to support me in any measures for the good of the class. We shook. It made me think better of him. ' ' "I guess that was it." George nodded his head sagely. "Holland wants to pull your leg for a job on the Bourdon. You must have been hypnotized last night, Jim," and George walked away highly disgusted. ' ' George thinks that they want to pull my leg for appointments, Percy," said James, meeting the former a while after. "That's one way of putting it," assented Percy. ' ' Maybe, though, they only wanted to give you a chance to judge for yourself whether they were not worthy of it and an important enough factor in college to have some positions come their way. Lots of the Gammas have been "How the Other Half Lives'" 151 on former Bourdons. Freddy Bacon, a few years back, was Pontifex Maximus. They've cut a prominent figure in college activities. ' ' "Yes, Charlie and Burt were showing me some pro- grams, and they pointed out their men. But George seems to think that Holland is looking for something. ' ' " I hardly think Burt had any such thought when he brought him up to you. Burt's not that sort of a fellow." " No, I don't think that for a minute." " But I tell you what, Jim, if you want to follow the custom, I don't see how you can escape offering a speaker- ship, at least, to your defeated rival for the presidency. It's the usual thing, and if you don't do it, it will look as if you're letting your personal prejudices interfere." " That's so. I didn't know that. Well, if it's the proper thing, I don't intend to omit it, though I can't say that I like the idea of mixing up so thick with Holland. And then, if I give him a place, there'll be talk. Cub is my friend, and you see how he takes it." " Well, there'll be talk if you don't, too. You can't stop people from shooting off their mouths." " That's true. But if I offer Holland a place I'll have to offer Evans one, also." "I guess so, though he's not exactly a defeated candi- date. But Ev's a Phi Tau Kappa, and it will be recognition for them if you do. Besides, he did the white thing by you." "Yes, he did. Well, that's settled." A few days after, Rawson met Holland on the campus. * ' Good morn- ing, Mr. Holland." James held out his hand. " Good morning, " a little stiffly. 152 For the Blue and Gold " If you're not in a hurry, I'd like to say a few words.'* "Well?" He was making it a little difficult for James to begin. "I'd like you to be one of the Bourdon speakers." Holland did not relax. "Thank you. I'll have to think it over. I'll let you know tomorrow. Will that be time?" "Plenty. No hurry. There are no strings to it." "Good day." Holland started off, hesitated. "One minute, Mr. Rawson. I don't want you to offer this I want you to take it back, if you do it only because you feel you have to, because it's the proper thing." "No have to about it," James shook his head con- vincingly. "It's all want to. Goodbye, see you later." Holland put out his hand. Another interview followed a few days later. At first coldness, reticence. A gradual thaw. Acceptance at last. A heartier hand-shake at part- ing. ' * Not such a bad duffer, after all. The Berkeley air is reducing his head." (James' thought.) * ' Not such an uncouth guy as I thought. Guess college is taking off some of the roughness." (Holland's thought.) Evans, while declining a speakership, took a place on the executive committee. George did likewise. It was some time before James could mollify him. Robbins, invested with the duty of Glorificatio, began to think up all that he could say in favor of Minto and Bourdon. But soon James' planning for Bourdon was rudely interrupted by an event, that, for a time, cast from his mind thoughts of all else but rough house, rope and tied-up sophomores. CHAPTER XI Trouble on the Hill Charter day, the university's birthday, was approach- ing, and with it the smoldering fire of antagonism between freshman and sophomore began to flame up again. This had seemed to have burned itself out pretty well after the first rush, and had only flickered up now and then, as the sophomores baited the freshmen in little ways peculiar to their kind, such as breaking up a freshman class meetiiig by turning on the fire hose through the window, or when the freshmen had provoked a ' ' back-stop ' ' rush down on the baseball field by painting their class number on the ' ' back- stop " and daring the sophomores, like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, to paint it out, which they promptly did. But occasions such as these had been purely informal . Now another formal occasion was coming. Student custom decrees that, on the night before charter day, the freshmen should paint (or otherwise display) their class number on a certain knoll among the hills east of the campus, and maintain it there during charter day against the sophomores' endeavor to obliterate it. The result a rush. If the freshmen should win (by tying up the sophomores and paroling them atterwards) the number stays put, the admiration of all who come to the charter day exercises, and of the city students arriving on the train the next morning. If the sophomores should win well, the class number on the hill is then diminished by one. For the Blue and Gold This ceremony usually begets a desire to display class numbers in other places, and as a consequence, the quiet people of Berkeley awake on March 23d to find their fences, barns and sidewalks besmeared with ill-shapen numbers as tall as a man, usually in flaring red paint, and the campus fences are closely covered with the same. One more formal collision is to occur at the freshman Bourdon in April, and then the sophomore will cast aside his weapons (ripe eggs and rope ends), and, donning his gray plug, begin to take a fatherly interest in the new freshman class, while the present freshman will assume the tyrannical role of him whom he now so heartily despises. Queer things, these student customs unwritten laws with whose origin or reason nobody concerns himself. They are blindly, universally followed, for the fun that is in them, by every college student in his day. You will find precisely the same relations existing between freshman and sopho- more in every college in the land not to speak of other lands. Their clashes produce no ill-will, although for the time the participants are in deadly earnest. When the time to quit comes, the erstwhile opponents graduate quickly into staid upper classmen. Seemingly queer things, indeed, but not so queer when one realizes that these customs exist simply to furnish an escape valve for the overflowing spirits of youth. "Are the starters ready, Jim? " asks George. " All is prepared. We go up by the light of the moon, and we will grave our number so deeply and guard it so stoutly, that not all the sophs in sophdom shall get at it." " Is that barrel of Portland cement where it won't get wet if it rains? My, won't we show those sophs some- thing new in numbers ! ' ' Trouble on the Hill "Sure, they won't pick our number out with a tooth- pick/' "And are you sure that Percy isn't on? " * f No, I don' t think he is, though he was trying his best to snoop around. He was out gathering pollywogs for his zoo lab when the deed was done." Here, as at the first rush, the triumvirate had been parted by class affiliations, James and George with the freshmen, and Percy with the sophomores. They had entered into a good-natured rivalry, and were doing their best to circumvent each other in the interests of their classes. Had James only known it, Percy's search for pollywogs had brought him far afield, and he had unearthed a strange specimen. Rawson was to head the expedition, as a matter of course, for he was now looked upon as the natural leader, combining, as he did, the position of class president with the character of all round strong man. The force was a picked one, composed of about eighty lusty freshmen, the "rough-house push." Shortly before eleven o'clock they formed up at the end of Dwight Way, in the shadow of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum's wall. They lined up three abreast, with James in front, Evans on his right side and George on his left. A motley assemblage it was ! A cross between a picnic party and the night-shift of a mine going on duty. The picnic feature was furnished by three score loaves of bread, almost as many cans of sardines and deviled ham, cloth bags full of ground coffee, and of sugar, a large wash- ing tub in which to concoct the preceding, tin cups strung on a rope, and much else not in plain sight. Little Robbing i 5 6 For the Blue and Gold was staggering under a California cheese as large as a drum. All this was to furnish refreshment to the party after it had completed its labors in the early morning and was waiting for the enemy to appear, which he usually did at dawn. There was enough to feed a regiment, but then it would not come amiss, for there are other ways of utilizing food than by merely eating it. The mining feature was lent by short-handled shovels, picks, numerous buckets, most of them filled with broken rock. Besides, many pockets carried lengths of clothes- line, although the few accompanying juniors were the principal custodians of this useful article. It had taken a deal of levying and foraging to gather all this paraphernalia. Old clothes-bags had apparently been laid under tribute to furnish the costumes. Coats were worn inside out. Not a few overalls were in evidence. The most apparent articles of attire were bicycle caps and sweaters. In the front line, had the coats been thrown open, two blue "C" sweaters (much-sought-for badges of athletic prowess), could have been observed on the persons of Evans and James. The night was clear and crisp, and the late moon was just beginning to show when the party began to advance. Its course lay due north to the university tank at the foot of the hill, where, so the word was being passed, something fine for making class numbers was safely hid. Presently the water tank came to view, and James called a halt. Detaching himself from his companions, he hurried up along the pipe-line to a little gully, snugly concealed by over- growing branches. In a moment he was heard to utter a sharp exclamation, and the others quickly joined him. "It's gone ! " he gasped. Trouble on the Hill 157 " What ? " a chorus. They gathered close about him. "A barrel of Portland cement to make our number with." "Oh!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "Percy Hunter, I bet !" exclaimed George. "The scamp! I bet it was. But it's gone, sure enough, and that's the end of it," and James, tilting his cap, scratched his head disconsolately. Suddenly, " Does any fellow here know where we can beg, borrow or steal some cement ? ' ' " I do." All eyes were turned on little Robbins, who was there only on his own invitation. ' ' Where ? ' ' asked everybody. "Down Dwight Way, about a block from where we formed. They're building, and this is for the sidewalk. There are a whole lot of barrels under a cloth." " Sure, I know where it is," assented George. " Boys," said James, "we simply have to have some of that cement to complete our happiness. We won't beg or steal it ; let's borrow a barrel and return another tomorrow night." " It's a go," is the response. " But we'll have to make a start on digging the num- ber. Let every other man drop out with the tools and go up the hill. The rest of us will rustle up the cement. The exact place for the number is marked by the scar. We'll only have to change the second number and deepen the first. George will do the outlining. Some can dig, and the others gather wood and arrange for the feed. The sophs are agreed not to interrupt until daylight. Robbins, you show the way." 158 For the Blue and Gold Cautiously the foraging party retraced its steps. When it came back to D wight Way and Waring Street it paused to reconnoitre. A block away was the unfinished house, and sure enough there was the row of barrels standing out by the curb. But there, too, was the light of a lantern shining, around by a tool-shed toward the rear of the building. "A watchman!" " So it seems," answered James. " Let's be cautious and win by strategy. I have it. We'll divide forces and deploy a party to distract his attention. Half of you fellows circle around toward the west and get into that empty lot over there. Then you make preparations to build a bonfire, and the watchman will come over to see what's up. We'll go around the opposite way and corral that cement. You hold him as long as you can, and when we're safely off we'll give you the cry and you can break away. That all right? " "That's O. K.," assented the others, and they divided accordingly. James stayed to lead the party that was to secure the cement. They circled around the block, and came out again on Dwight Way, facing east. As they approached the building they made out some shadowy forms moving over in the empty lot. Soon branches began to crackle, and a small flame appeared. With this the watchman's lan- tern began to move, and his form was made out plodding over toward the fire. "Now's the time to score," whispered James, and quickly they swooped down upon the cement barrels. Eager hands grasped a handy one, and were soon rolling it away out of danger with "heavy mass plays." Around the corner they hurried and back along the asylum wall. Trouble on the Hill 159 The cry was now sounded, but they pushed steadily on. That barrel would not move quicker than it wanted to, no matter how many willing feet and arms circled it, watch- ing a chance for an onward shove. Presently the other party joined them, with many a laugh at the puzzled old watchman. Now, leaving Evans to superintend the movement of the barrel, James, with some others, advanced to see how the number was getting on, and to prepare a place for mix- ing the cement. They found an active crew at work on the symmetrical outline of two immense figures, laid out on the most conspicuous point of the hill a slope, facing south- east, visible from town and campus. There was much to be done before the cement arrived. The channels of the num- bers were dug V-shape, to the depth of almost a foot. Then the broken rock, which was the foundation for the cement, was laid in for eight inches, wet, and tamped down. The rock had been deposited in the buckets, at the tank, almost a quarter of a mile down the slope. A line was now formed to pass it up, a man every fifty feet. Each would take his bucket of broken rock, and, stumbling up the slip- pery slope, pass it to the next, returning for another. This was done like clockwork. George and some of the other freshmen belonged to the "mining push," and James had had their assistance in perfecting the arrangements. They were now seeing that things were done according to the most approved methods just learned from the book. George it was, who had thought of the plan of putting in a number so that it could not readily be obliterated. Former classes had been content with merely outlining their num- bers with newspapers or whitewash. 160 For the Blue and Gold An hour had passed since James' arrival. The Library clock was striking one, when, with many a puff, and last revengeful kick, the barrel of cement was pushed up to the tank. " Phew ! Golly ! But that was a push for you ! " per- spired Evans. " It's a wonder we didn't shake the ribs off that darn thing." However, this was play, so in a few minutes they were as lively as ever. A level mixing place had been cleared. The cement barrel was knocked to pieces, and, directed by George, the boys were soon mixing up a fine, stiff paste. The bucket line was again formed, and the prepared cement passed up. Everybody redoubled his energies the sooner the job was finished, the longer the cement would have to set and the sooner they would get at that ' ' feed. " Many a freshman had not done so much hard work in a year, and wouldn't for a year to come. James was everywhere, uphill and down, tirelessly subdividing the forces and helping and directing the various operations in turn. The Library clock had not long struck three when the work was declared finished, and everybody gathered to inspect the job. * ' The finest number that was ever on the hill, ' ' was the delighted cry. Each man advanced and tried the hardness of the cement with his finger. A fire was built between the two numbers to hasten the drying, and part of the workers sat down around it to rest, while the others busied them- selves over the cooking fire . Soon the waiting ones got impatient. " We want coffee ! " " We want sandwiches ! " came the cries, and they bustled up to the fringe of trees, before which the spread was being prepared. Everybody offering his services, Trouble on the Hill 161 compounded the confusion. The huge tub was filled with boiling water, brought up in the same buckets that had carried rock and cement. Coffee was thrown in, tied in cloth bags, sugar was poured in, and all well mixed with a shovel handle. The other things were spread out. Then they fell to, and for a while there was comparative silence. When the food had been disposed of, a ring was formed around the fire, and the songs sung, and the yells yelled but these latter not to their full pitch. Then stories were told, first by a junior, who seemed to be an inexhaustible well of funny yarns, and, after he had positively refused to respond to further encores, by the freshmen themselves whose tongues had been loosened by his example. Thus pleasantly passed the time, while the freshmen were keeping awake and warm and waiting for their foe to come. They had almost succeeded in forgetting him, when the paling east recalled them to a sense of the serious business on hand. James called for attention. "Within the hour, fellows, the sophs will be on us, and we must prepare to meet them. As you know, they will come over the hill and swoop down on us. All the advantage of ground will be with them. We could lay for them at the top, and fall down on them, but we mustn't leave our number. No, we must stay by the number, even though it gives them, the advantage of ground. We can beat them if we want to, hard enough ! Remember the first rush ! You know the plan two squares, the outer one to swing round the attack and try to keep it moving down the hill, the inner one to stay as long as possible to guard the number. ' ' A rumbling cheer of approval meets James' remarks. " We'll do 'em, all right, this trip." 1 62 For the Blue and Gold Places were then assigned, with an outpost to herald the enemy's approach. The squares were such in name only, as the fourth side of each one, that side facing the bottom of the hill, had been left out. This was the formation : Number It seemed an age to the tensely waiting freshmen since the Library clock had struck five. It was beginning to get cold. Rush-fright seized upon the chilly limbs, almost as bad as during the wait before the first rush. It was so uncer- tain. What were the sophs up to ? How many would they have ? But hark ! The alert sense caught a rustling noise down below. The outpost echoes back a warning whistle. ''Steady, boys, they're coming," is the word. Presently the outpost comes scurrying back. " It sounds like a million of them. They're coming around from the other side of the creek. ' ' " Give them all their time, boys," cautions James, who stands before the outer square. In a few minutes the nearer sentries come scampering back. "They're not so many, but they're armed ! " "Oh, that Percy! He told them what to bring for the number. ' ' Now for a few moments the rush-fright takes a harder grip. Then just as the Library clock echoes six the sopho- more class-yell breaks out, and they gain the brow of the hill, a compact, scrambling mass. Trouble on the Hill 163 " Now, steady, boys, let them come." With no pause for breath, they are down, with an impetuous rush ; sixty picked sophomores, led by three members of the varsity football team, including Percy. On, in a wedge-like mass, they come at the square formation, throwing forward hatchets, hammers and cold chisels, so as to leave hands free. But it is a square no longer, for, in time with the sophomore movement, the outer square has spread out like a whirling lasso, and, clear of the number, is encircling the sophomore advance. The latter see the movement too late to check their speed. Crash ! They come together. The sophomores, with superior impetus, tumble whatever they strike over like nine-pins and themselves roll over on top, everybody clutching at the long grass. But now, Crash ! again, and the sophomores get some of it themselves, for there are thirty impetuous fresh- men on top of them. With this last impact, the whole mass begins to roll down- hill. Pushing, struggling, grasping at the long grass, only to pull it up by the roots, with muffled cries of rage and pain, they start down the backbone of the knoll, away from the number, straight for the tank. Just what the freshmen had hoped for. At a little crevice half-way down, some of the sophomores catch and try to hold on, but the freshmen push and grab for dear life. Out of the exigencies of the conflict, the policy of each has unconsciously shaped itself. The freshman idea is to get their adversaries down the hill and keep them there. The sophomores realize this inten- tion and try vigorously to combat it. But that last fresh- man impact has been too much for the equilibrium, and the 164 For the Blue and Gold sophomores, between two layers of freshmen, are being pulled and pushed to the bottom. "Say, stop pulling my leg, you freshman ! " A kick, and the freshman is dislodged, but he takes a shoe with him, and is back for the other. "Let go my hair, blast you, you're pulling it out !" snorts Finley. ' c Ought to have used some hair tonic before you came into this ! " pants George. As they approached the level ground at the bottom, the engagement spreads out, and the contest becomes more individual. Now the tying up is to begin. The freshmen's numerical superiority here has effect. They have learned by dear experience that it takes at least two to tie a man up, and now do their best to cooperate with one another. The juniors are hopping about, offering rope and advice. Now the space about the tank is thickly studded with small groups of struggling, squirming combatants. There is slugging, wrestling, pulling, hauling, mingled with cries, grunts, curses, and expostulations. The juniors dance around, waving their rope and urging on the freshmen. George is performing prodigies of tying. Now he is kneeling right on the " C " sweater of a football tackle, trying to bind his arms up, while two other freshmen sit on the victim's feet. " Git off my stomach, blank you ! " "Your stomach isn't there. Quick, Jack, more rope!" and George, panting, pulls his victim's arms together. " Hammer-lock him ! Hammer-lock him ! " " Help, Tom ! " calls the sophomore to another near him. Tom throws his man off and launches himself at Trouble on the Hill 165 George, but the third freshman is on Tom like the old man of the sea, and off he conies. Soon George's victim is tied up, arms and legs, and they roll him over to the tank like a log. Now they rush upon Tom and he is soon out of it. The freshman majority amounts to a third of the sopho- more's force. These extra twenty men, by skilfully doub- ling up, are deciding the combat. The number of logs over by the tank quickly grows when it once gets started, and now the freshmen have a small guard to spare to prevent any untying. Percy and Charlie Boyce are amongst the untied. They happen to be on the edge of the fight, and, having corralled little Robbins, are making short work of him. "It's all up with us," whispers Boyce. " Yep. Let's make a sneak, and take a whack at the number while we can." "Good." They dart off, dodging into the gully and clambering out of the upper end. Robbins rolls himself over to some busy freshmen. " Quick, untie me, fellows ! " He stands up, looking wildly around for James. Whose is that tall form up on the hill? Rawson's ! Now he bends over and lifts something up. Have they got at the number ? Robbins darts up the other side of the knoll after Percy and Boyce. They are nearly up, and now they divide and come at James from opposite sides. He sees them, and, quickly placing his captive on the ground, gives him a sharp roll down. Over and over he goes, bumping and wriggling. But nobody has time to watch him. Percy makes a cautious approach upon James, grinning maliciously. He hopes that the latter will plunge at him, 1 66 For the Blue and Gold when they would both roll down and leave Boyce to finish the number. No, James divines the ruse and stands waiting, wiggling his finger inelegantly at his friend. Percy, cautiously nearing, makes a sudden jump for James' feet and grasps him about the ankles. James doubles up on him like a jack-knife. No, they are not going to roll. ' ' Quick, Charlie, we'll tie him up," pants Percy from underneath. Boyce pounces upon Rawson, completing the sandwich, in which James is the meat. Now they begin to struggle mightily. James' long arms and legs lash and curl in all directions to prevent their rolling him down. And he does. He begins to roll them sideways instead. Percy is trying to grasp James by the arms so that Boyce can tie his feet. Clothes rip and tear into shreds unnoticed. Rawson has never exerted his strength like this before, and Percy, himself with muscles of steel, has had no conception of such power. "Ouch, my ribs," groans Boyce, as, for the second time, he feels the freshman's force. James, with a desperate struggle, has worked him off and crushed him down on Percy. The freshman is no longer the meat, but the upper layer of bread ! * ' Kiss and be friends, ' ' he pants. With his long arms he manages to encircle their struggling forms, and he winds his legs about their limbs like a creeping vine. ' * But what shall I do with them now ? And some- body may be getting at the number ! ' ' " Here, Jim, rope, quick ! " feverishly pants little Robbins, kneeling down. James does not lift his head from where it is boring into the small of Boyce's back. "A noose, under them," he gasps. ' ' Oh ! I haven't enough,' ' cries Robbins. Trouble on the Hill 167 " In my pocket," pants James. With trembling fingers Robbins knots the two lengths together, and forces the loop down beneath Percy's shoul- ders, then over them, grating the skin from James' nose in his endeavor to get the rope between the latter and his captives. " Pull tight." Robbins braces his foot on Boyce's shoulder-blade and pulls his best. Then James slips out one arm and completes the job. In a like manner, but with more difficulty, the squirming feet are bound, and James jumps up just as some freshmen, who have noticed the struggle, come running to his assistance. "Hooray ! Look at the Siamese twins ! " he shouts, and dances before the two, bound together in tight embrace. They keep silence. "Robbins, you're a dandy," he exclaims, turning to his assistant, and gripping him hard. Even with the pain in his finger-joints Robbins beams his satisfaction. Now follow explanations of how it all came to happen. Robbins explains his appearance, James his presence up by the number : ' ' Well, you see, I was down with the rest of you, trying to tie a chap up, when another soph grabs me, and this first one breaks away. Up the hill he scoots, and I saw what he was up to. I managed to shake the other one off, and was up after the first. We had a great old tie-up up there right by the number, and I was just for carrying him down when I saw those two coming, and I had to give him a roll for his health. Hope he's all right." "Yes, and we've got the whole push tied up down there." 1 68 For the Blue and Gold Percy and Boyce were packed down to join their class- mates. It was in truth a comical sight ! Lining the tank, were two layers of sophomores, tied arms and feet. Some were sullen, others were taking it good-naturedly. There was many a scratched nose and cheek among them, and not a few black eyes were beginning to show. Likewise a bloody nose or so was still dripping its gory tribute to King Rush. And their clothes ! Pajamas showed where trousers' legs had been wrenched off. Coats were minus sleeves and were ripped up the back. There were going to be some scared mammas if these sophomores did not manage to get into their rooms unobserved. But, for that matter, the freshmen were no better off than the others in the matter of bruises, abrasions and wrecked wearing apparel. But what mattered that ? The day was won ! And they danced around their captives like wild Indians, yelling and singing. James was anxious to get home, so after a while he managed to calm his exuberant classmates. Terms of parole were arranged with the sophomore leader, and the number was safe, the glory and pride of the fresh- man class and the admiration of the charter day visitors. Shortly after seven James arrived at Mrs. Saunders'. That worthy matron looked at his nose quizzically, but said naught. On arising she had gone out to the porch to see what number was on the hill. CHAPTER XII "Drill Te Carriers 11 Say, Jim, I've got the heart disease. I'm going to join the signal corpse." " Cold in the feet, the feet, the feet, hey ? " "Yep, that must be it," admitted Percy, laughing. But, just the same, I got a transfer, and today I drill with a saber." "I envy you. Isn't there some way of my getting out of the rear rank of G?" "Can't give you any encouragement, " replied Percy, holding up his chin. ' * The ranks are full now. But you might get a job on the artillery, pulling the cannon." "I'd rather have a job pulling the lieut's leg." "You can't. That's reserved for the commissioned officers or those about to be. ' ' "I have it," exclaimed Percy. "Pull the lieut's leg for a permanent excuse on account of that mashed finger of yours that you got in the game. Tell him you can't hold your gun properly." "I'll try it." James brightened up. He held out his bad finger, and examined it critically. "Try to get it so that it'll wiggle like it was out of joint, ' ' suggested Percy. ' ' Or you might chew some chalk, so as to get your tongue coated white, and go up to the Doc He'll ask to see your tongue first. Jack Maginnis worked For the Blue and Gold that fake. Or you might smoke perique all night, and work up a tobacco heart. Anyhow the football push ought to get permanent excuses from drill. Don't we do enough for the college without chasing ourselves around the campus two hours a week for three years ? Why do they only give us a measly few weeks during the football season? It ain't right. We ought to get permanent excuse from drill and gym." "I wouldn't mind gym, but drill somehow won't go down, " sighed James. " I'm so hanged awkward. My captain said the lieut was onto me, and wanted to know why I was drilling in the rear rank, half a head taller than the fellow in front. He told the lieut that I took too long steps in the front rank, and had to have a fellow before me. " " I wouldn't like to be the fellow. Bet his heels are raw." "Say, just look how it's clouding up," broke in George. " Maybe it'll rain before 11:15." "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." * ' Fond one, didst ever know it to rain on Monday or Wednesday mornings ? ' ' "Can't say that I did, but that's no reason why it won't." From which it may be inferred that our three friends were not overjoyed at having to don a blue uniform twice a week, and, shouldering a gun, play tin soldier, tramping up and down the dusty campus. But it had to be done, if one could not find an outlet, such as has just been discussed. Drill earns five units of credits, and these are required for graduation. Nor were the three alone in their disaffection. IT i o "Drill Te Tarriers" 171 There is scarce a student in college who drills cheerfully, or takes drill seriously. Exceptions are those who covet the tinsel and power of the commissioned officer. The fresh- men, too, start in with well-meant enthusiasm. If you listen to a group of first term freshmen lunching under the trees after drill you will hear nothing but military talk. "Our captain says so and so," or "my corporal is a false alarm and couldn't drill a hole," or " you can't pull the leg of Company H's first sergeant." It is sometimes asserted that the freshmen companies drill better than the sopho- more. It is the usual thing for a freshman company to carry off the honors at the annual inspection. " But say, Jim," continues George, "do you remem- ber that long time ago, almost eight months back, when we freshmen lined up for the first time? " 1 * That I do, for it was a mighty uncomfortable hour. There were the seniors marching up and down, joshing us for further orders, and telling us how the sophs were going to chew us up. They were looking us over for big men, too. And there were the cripples lots of sophs didn't drill that day a-sizing us up for rush purposes. That was their first chance to see us all together, lined up. Too bad, Percy here missed that." ' ' Yes, you' d ought to have heard the seniors calling to Jim, here : ' Take your thumb out of your mouth, little freshie,' and Jim didn't know what to do with his hands. Then they yelled out : ' Freshies, you'll need nipples on your canteens, freshies ! ' When they got^ through sorting us by sizes, with Jim at one end of the line and me at the other, they counted us, and a soph up and braced the officer, ' How many ? ' He went back whistling." 172 For the Blue and Gold "But we did you just the same, freshman." " Oh, I don't know. How about the hill rush ? ' ' * ' The real fun began when the corporals got us out in squads, without guns, to teach us the facings." " Our squad with all the big galoots in it went right down in front of North Hall where there were a lot of co-eds eating lunch under the trees. The corporal ordered ' right about face ; ' half of us turned off in one direction, the rest in another. How the co-eds giggled. And the corporal grew so polite. ' ' "Well, there are others. Didn't E's first lieutenant shout ' Rights forward ; fours left? ' " "Yes, and wasn't he hot when the fellows started to do it ? He didn't know how to get them back again. " ' * He might have dismissed them, and then ordered, ' Company assemble,' as I heard a guy did once." "Stow your chin, there, it's 11:15 and all's dry. Get ye to the Armory for your pieces. " Down in the locker-room the city students are violating the proprieties, wildly struggling into their tight, blue trousers. Freshmen, however, excepted. They usually wear their military trousers home to the city. That is one way they have of telling a freshman on the boat Mondays and Wednesdays. The bugle rings out sharply in the bracing, early April air, and the white-gloved cadets, guns in hand, are dodging hither and thither in the space between North and South Halls and the JJbrary, each heading for his company. Important-looking officers strut up and down. Seniors, cripples and co-eds lounge about on their several steps, reveling in the luxury of the state of non-combatant. "Drill Ye T'arriers" 173 Sight-seeing townspeople are beginning to arrive, and fond parents and relatives of students come panting up the campus from the eleven train, to feast their eyes on Tom, Dick, or Harry, standing up so straight and marching so fine. Now follows a period of unrest for Tom, Dick, or Harry, who, in a moment of weakness, has invited all the family over to witness the drill. " See, see, there is Tom! " cries little brother Johnny in delight. "Is his gun loaded, mamma? Will I be like that some day, mamma?" and the folks try to catch Tom's eye for a smile of recognition, while Tom is turning red around the collar, and his companions whisper " Don't let it go off, Tommy." Soon the eight companies are marching in different directions, each to its appointed place on the campus. Or perhaps it is a battalion drill, when they all gather down on the gridiron. Down under the trees the band is practicing a new tune, and up between North and South Halls the signal corps, that last resort of the " bum " who can not get out of drill, is listlessly wigwagging signals derogatory to its officers or otherwise irrelevant, immaterial, and incompe- tent. However, everybody is now taking a last brace, preparatory to the annual inspection, with its competitive drill by companies. Captains of sophomore and junior companies are endeavoring to work up lagging company spirit, and are, in a way, succeeding, for the rivalry of com- petition, and pride besides, is bracing up even the juniors, who now count the days that will let them, out of drill for good, and figure on how much a shiny uniform will bring. They do not want to be out-drilled by the freshmen, yet it begins to look that way. Another sign of the hour is the 174 For the Blue and Gold prevalence of Upton's Tactics, now in great demand by ambitious freshmen and sophomores who are going to stand the examination for corporals and sergeants. Military talk is in the air once more as it was at the beginning of the year. And spring is in the air, too. The second college term is on the wane, and the student body is gathering itself together for the last two intercollegiate contests of the year field day and debate which both occur on the same day, the last Saturday in April. ' ' Field day is a pipe ' ' is the opinion universally held at California. "It's only a question of how large a score we will pile up." Traditions and prestige are all in favor of U. C., also athletic material and methods of training. Preps who have made a good beginning at track athletics come to California, likewise those whose inclination runs strongly in this direction. They want to be on the side that can show them most, train them best, and, above all, on the side that is going to win. Down on the cinder path, morning, noon and evening, are sparsely clad, bare-legged athletes sprinters, hurdlers, distance runners, mile walkers, pole-vaulters, jumpers and weight men. The squad numbers fully seventy -five aspirants, and even if they be not all chosen, the exercise is doing them good. Many of the football men are there, for some there be for whom one kind of game is not enough, nor hardly three, including baseball. Percy is trying his hand at the pole-vault and broad jump. This is his first attempt, but he is promising material. Evans has endeav- ored to initiate James into the intricacies of the hammer throw, but the latter is not eager. "One branch of athletics is glory enough for me," he declares, although "Drill Te Tarriers" 175 nearly every evening he is out loping around the track, or leaping the high hurdles, "just to let off steam." This latter performance, to the great amusement of the onlookers, and the profit of the Blue and Gold photographer. Down in the Occident office gathers the "debating push," speculating on the composition of the team, and on the propositions in the question. Windom, the chairman of the debating committee, is oracle, and dilates hilariously on how surprised the Stanford team will be, the night of the debate, to find the full significance of their own question. California has had the choice of sides, and Stanford is com- mitted to proving the practicability of a theoretical means of goverment reform a hard task, as every debater knows. The last Saturday in April finally went out in a blaze of blue and gold. Out on the fog-swept cinder path near Golden Gate Park, events went to California with such regularity from the first pistol crack, that finally the rooters grew wearied. Stanford, hoping against hope for the tie that the Sequoia's athletic editor had figured out, trotted forth her carefully guarded "phenom" for the quarter, only to see him wilt in the heart-breaking finish. While his friends on the track were getting in their work, Evans, out in midfield, whirling like a dervish, was breaking the coast record for the hammer throw, and Percy was taking a second in the pole-vault. At the end the Blue and Gold rooters burst forth like a torrent, while the Cardinals crept silently away score, 82 to 32. Down town at Metropolitan Hall, one had to come early to get a seat for the annual intercollegiate debate. This is about the only opportunity of the year that San Francisco has for estimating what sort of intellectual product ij6 For the Blue and Gold she is getting for the money that is going into the State University. On which point there is great curiosity abroad, not untinged with skepticism in certain quarters. The debate is a potent agent for the removal of this latter. For it is an enlightening spectacle, that of these six young men, in dress suits, upon the rostrum, pouring forth, in good English, arguments generally sane, which bespeak an acquaintance with those larger underlying principles that the educated man takes cognizance of in forming his opinion. One side of the gallery is already filled with California rooters. A section down stairs is red with those from Stanford. The rest of the hall, to its utmost limit, rapidly fills up with partisans, friends and the "public." There is much mutual joshing before the debate, inter- spersed with yelling. Ha! Ha! Ha! Call for nia! U. C. Berkeley ! Zip ! Boom ! Ah ! Conies from the gallery at the yell leader's signal, and the very beams shake. Quickly is flung back a sharp : Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Stanford ! By the time the first four speakers have finished, the difference between the two teams is clearly marked. Stanford's representatives excel their rivals in oratory in neat phrases and figures, in eloquence, in fire. Their two "Drill Ye Tarriers" 177 speeches have each been effective efforts, but similar in their style and argument. They have appealed somewhat to the popular prejudices on the subject, and argued with rather more ardor than soundness. California's speakers are logicians of a high order. The first, calm, suave, convincing, points out what he and his colleagues expect to do, and also some of the points they will require their opponents to defend. He then proceeds to establish a few simple propositions relied on by the negative. The second speaker impresses one equally by his solid scholarship and his ease of manner. He continues the negative argument so clearly that people wonder how any one could disagree with him ; then, with relentless logic, he points out the absurdities, the inconsistencies, and the omissions, in the Stanford argument. Analyzing their position carefully, he shows that it involves much more than one might suppose, and imposes on them a burden of proof that staggers all by its immensity. Stanford is not dismayed, having great faith in her last speaker. He, like his colleagues, is an orator, but an orator uniting much homely common sense, keen wit, and cogent argument with his eloquence. He ridicules the California argument as an attempt to make him defend a "universal affirmative of every question that was ever discussed in politics." Instead, he narrows the question skilfully, claiming that the negative has left one gap in which he can insert the match which will explode its whole argument. California's last speaker, Clarkson, who combines the logical skill of his colleagues with the earnestness and force of his opponents, can scarce wait for the Stanford applause to subside. He springs to the center of the stage and 1 78 For the Blue and Gold proceeds literally to tear the arguments of his opponents into shreds. He completes the argument left unfinished by his colleagues, and then reviews the whole debate so as to show that, while his opponents have left the greater part of the question without any argument at all, the little argu- ment they have advanced is worthless, when tried by their own test. As he finishes the audience rises and cheers him to the echo, for they know that, although Stanford's first speaker has ten minutes to reply, he can do nothing after Clarkson's terrible smashes. A slim young man, seated off in a corner of the hall, tugs restlessly at his mustache. His is the fine Italian hand that raises up a little band of skilled debaters every year from whom the teams are chosen. And a dozen or so of juniors and seniors scattered about through the hall smile contentedly ; they are the ''scrubs" whose compe- tition has kept Clarkson and his team-mates at their best the anvil on which the team has been hammered out. So it is that, before the judges leave their seats, the majority of the audience has settled upon the decision. When the learned three return in a few moments and the spokesman, advancing to the front, begins a long-winded speech, the suspense is, nevertheless, intense, although the shortness of the judges' absence had made it more certain for California. The speaker plays with the audience as a cat with a mouse. Slowly he tells of the gratification that they all should feel at the splendid exhibition of mentality that has been placed before them. It has been hard to decide which side has made the better showing. But, con- sidering, not the justice of one side or the other, but simply the points made, it has seemed to them ' ' California wins. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " "Drill Te Carriers" 179 Pandemonium breaks loose, fit to shake the reeds out of the large organ. " Say, fellows, I hear that Stanford won tennis/' " We'll give it to 'em. Funny josh, though, isn't it? Strong man's college to lose football and win tennis the co-eds' game. Ha! Ha!" "Well, this winds up the account for this year not a bad one for dear old California hey, Jim ? ' ' " We could have done worse." CHAPTER XIII Bourdon Bourdon ! The freshman's last chance to distinguish himself; to overcome the machinations of his hereditary enemy ; to send his class out of its freshmanhood and up to sophomority in a blaze of glory. Bourdon ! The sopho- more's last chance to bait the freshman ; to turn to naught the latter' s strenuous endeavors to burn his Minto and Bourdon (those tormentors of freshman English and math), in a manner grander and less interrupted than had been vouchsafed to him (the sophomore) the year previous. As Bourdon prex James found a multitude of affairs resting on his shoulders. He had had the appointment of officials for that ceremony, and of an executive committee to conduct it, of which he was chairman. The final exes were fast approaching, and he could ill spare the time to attend the numerous committee meetings for the disposal of details, and the equally numerous trips to Oakland to arrange for paraphernalia. " This is no snap, being Bourdon prex, ' ' he said to George. But once in it he was bound to see it through. The trouble began when the invitations were issued a grewsome thing, with a black border and a picture of a devil standing over a coffin, pitchfork in hand. It was for the most part worded in dog Latin. Each freshman was to get some to send to his friends. The sophomores tried to Bourdon \ 8 1 get them so as to have burlesque substitutes printed to send to their friends. When James received the batch from the printers, he carried it, by an error of judgment, up to North Hall and secreted it in his locker, so as to have the invitations handy for the meeting. He thought that he was unobserved, but Percy had spied him out. An hour later a group of sopho- mores was assembled down in the locker-room. " Which is it, Percy?" "That upper one, there." A short length of scantling was produced, and the lock quickly knocked off. But this made some noise. A fresh- man was attracted. He ran like a hare, shouting a rallying cry : " Ninety odd, this way ; ninety odd ! The sophs are at the lockers ! " Some freshmen were on the steps. They sprang to their feet. Others seemed to appear from all sides as the cry resounded: "The sophs are at the lockers." All knew in a moment what they were there for. James was, by chance, coming down the path from the Library. He started off on a run, cramming his note-book into his pocket. " Quick, Jim, they're at the invites ! " He worked his way in front of the bunch of freshmen as they tumbled down into the locker- room, shouting, * ' Some of you go around the front way, so they can' t get out. ' ' Percy, standing on another's back, was just grasping the coveted package when the freshmen jumped them with a savage cry. In a moment they were in a fierce mix-up. The space was narrow, and as they slugged and struggled they went crashing into lockers, breaking the panels into splinters, and tumbling out books and uniforms. 1 8 a For the Blue and Gold '* Rough house ! Rough house ! " went up the rallying cry, and freshmen and sophomores came reinforcing. But the original attacking party of freshmen was stronger than the locker riflers, and, after James had secured the bundle of invitations, they worked the sophomores out toward the front door. Here the other freshmen tackled them, and between them they bustled and harried the sophomores until the latter were glad to escape around the corner of North Hall. Then, forming a strong body-guard around James, the freshmen conducted their invitations down the campus to a place of safety. That year the sophomores got out no mock invitations. Instead they used their money to pay for repairing damaged lockers. "Now, boys, the problem is to get that coffin and truck safely stowed away in our hiding-place in Berkeley without the sophs getting onto us. Once we are in the barn, I don't suppose that we can keep it secret from them long. Our lay then will be to have such a strong force of defenders on guard all the time that they won't be able to get at us. That is the easier problem of the two, for we will then have the whole class to call on, whereas now there are merely the ten of us who are responsible for getting the stuff up to the barn. If too many of us are seen together, they'll be on, sure. Strategy's the word." Thus spoke James at the last meeting of the Bourdon committee. It was the day before the event, and many things were to be done, and under the utmost difficulties at that. The sophomores and their mentors, the seniors, were developing great activity. Scouting parties of from eight to a dozen were to be met on the campus and streets at Bourdon 183 almost every turn. Already a half dozen small impromptu rushes had taken place between these scouting parties and the freshmen, in which the latter had been uniformly victorious. For their whole class was in the affair to do or die, it would be a dreadful stigma to permit the sophomores to break up their Bourdon. While the number of the latter who were interested in offensive measures was, of course, considerably smaller, yet it was made up of the lustiest members of the class the "rough house " element, fairly craving for a mix-up, and was by no means to be despised. Percy was one of the most active of the aggressors. He was bound to get even with James for that defeat on the hill. After dinner that evening, in a drizzling rain, the party of freshmen which was to escort the coffin and stow it and the truck safely away in the barn on Telegraph Avenue, started singly, by roundabout ways, for Oakland. George got away, only after he had, by strategy, locked Percy in their room. James went cross-lots, by way of the back fence, to the astonishment of Mrs. Saunders and the disap- pointment of Percy, who, having jumped out of his window, was waiting behind a tree across the street from Mrs. Saunders'. Holland had had to go over to San Francisco that afternoon in order to escape the hounding of his sophomore frat brothers. They all managed to meet at the carpenter's about 8 : 30. Here the piece de resistance a miniature coffin about a foot and a half long, made of stout oak, thoroughly saturated with oil, to render burning swift and certain, was handed over to them by the amused workman. " Who's a-going to carry this here parcel? " he asked. They pointed to James. For the Blue and Gold "I thought so. Last year's fellows did the same, and nigh lost theirs. Here, you," addressing James, "take a dummy like this," reaching for a piece of board, "cling to it for dear life, while we'll give the real thing to this little man,"- indicating Robbins. "How's that? " "That's all right. But now we'll have to cling to Robbins." So they started off on foot, by a roundabout way. Once or twice they came across single students whom they recognized, but these gave the determined-looking party a wide berth. Further out they met the truck with its four powerful truck horses. In the bottom were the loose boards, cut to form the stand from which the speakers would talk, and the coffin and the fireworks be burned. Soon after they reached the barn in a lot off Telegraph Avenue, about a half mile from the university. ' * Now we're safe, for the time being, anyway. ' ' James heaved a sigh of relief. " Let's bury this thing first off." They deposited the coffin in an inside corner of the barn, and heaped loose hay upon and around it, up to the very rafters. "There, they won't find our needle so easily. Now, Ev, suppose you go up and fetch the first gang of watchers. ' ' After stalling the horses, they worked the truck into its place, lengthwise across the broad doors. When they got it in position there was not much room to spare in the barn. Then the carpenter was fetched to nail the box-like structure together, which was to rise from the floor of the truck. The driver, meanwhile, sorely doubting, but guar- anteed as to loss, was weaving lengths of twisted wire on his harness. Bourdon 185 Before long the sound of tramping feet and subdued voices was heard and the barn was swarming with a roughly dressed, flushed and excited crowd of freshmen. ' * We met two gangs of sophs, about a dozen in each, and they had to tackle us no way out. We didn't do a thing but tie up every man jack of them. Then we took their shoes and pants off and tossed some of 'em into gardens, and the rest over fences into vacant lots. Oh, those sophs won't be looking for any Bourdon coffin tonight ! What's the matter with " "Here, quit that, fellows," remonstrated James. "We're all right, but this isn't the time to tell folks about it." The excited freshmen, having tasted blood, were not easily composed, but after they had looked into everything, they all set to work. Amateur painters started in on the transparencies ; others cut garden-hose into yard lengths, while still others strung barb-wire plentifully before the door and window." "Now we're ready for them. At six o'clock you fellows will be relieved. Go home in a bunch so far as you can. You're due again tomorrow at noon." It being past two in the morning, and everything in a satisfactory state, James started off for home. From many a window peered forth many an anxious freshman next morning upon a gray, drizzling sky and muddy earth. " Bad day for Bourdon. " At eight o'clock James was down at the barn. Every- thing here appeared to be in ship-shape order, the new gang of guards being in possession. Along the wall leaned a row of newly finished transparencies. Soon after, Rawson left to 1 86 For the Blue and Gold attend a recitation. A length of barb- wire was removed from before the door, and this was cautiously slid back a foot. James crawled out, looking carefully around for the enemy. As class prex and principal Bourdon speaker, the sophomores would have been glad to capture him and hold him until after the ceremony. As, in fact, they would have been to capture any or all of the speakers, this being one of their ways of breaking up the Bourdon. James had not proceeded more than two blocks, when, looking across a lot, he perceived approaching him at a right angle a crowd of fellows, roughly dressed. " Sophs ! " he exclaimed, stopping short. He saw that they had noticed him, for, although the crowd kept on walking as if unaware, several had involuntarily started at the sight, but had felt the restraining hands of their cooler fellows. ' * Which way shall I go ? " James rapidly measured possibilities. "Up to Berkeley? I'll have to cross their track and they'll nab me. No, I must retreat. " Suiting the action to the thought, he wheeled and started back at a trot. They were barely one hundred yards away. Simula- tion was discarded the moment James started. They sprang into a run. James increased his speed as they did theirs. Some of the sophomores leaped ahead of the others and slightly closed the distance. James burst into full speed. The barn was yet a block off. If they reached him before he could get safely in he was a goner, as there were probably a score of the pursuers. James put on more steam. <( That's the limit," he thought. The gap between him and the leaders opened slightly, then it contracted again. The barn was still a hundred yards away, with a fence between. James cleared the fence without a break in his stride, thanks Bourdon 187 to the hurdling practice. The others balked more or less. He saw the look-out up at the small window, and shouted, 4 'Open!" The heads disappeared. "Would they uncouple the door in time ? ' ' He doubted it. ' ' Open the door !" he shouted, pounding away. " The sophs are after me !" and he gave the password. There was scuffling inside and the door rolled back. At the same time the line of wire was removed and James plunged and squeezed through, aided by eager hands. The wire was replaced. The door pushed to, but before the bolt could be slipped the sophomores' hands were grasping the door and tugging it back. They had a better chance for a hold than the men inside. With a combined wrench the sophomores made an opening and got their bodies in it. Then the door flew open, tumbling them down. But they were not in, for the closely stretched barb-wire barred the way, and behind that the truck with its stand, filling the space entirely. The freshmen had simply let the door go as of slight impor- tance, and, grabbing their lengths of hose, had taken up their stations upon and about the truck. Several sophomore feet, heavily booted, were imme- diately aimed at the wire. Their owners stumbled back under a shower of hose strokes, hats knocked into the mud. ' ' The nippers ! The nippers ! ' ' was now the sopho- more cry. The nippers were produced, but before the hand that held them could close them over the wire they were sent flying into the mud by a sweeping hose-stroke, and the sophomore was jumping up and down, wringing his hand and cursing. Again they tried, but there were a dozen sweeps of hose for every sophomore who got within striking 1 88 For the Blue and Gold distance. Biff! bang! went the swishing hose, and sopho- mores drew their heads in like turtles. Realizing the futility of their present means of assault, they retired. Just then a second band appeared, of numbers equal to the first, and, like them, dressed for the rough work. They got together for consultation, and were soon seen wrapping their hands in handkerchiefs, caps and other articles. Then, with a mad yell, they charged, regardless of consequences, right for the flesh-tearing barb-wire. Biff ! bang ! went the defenders' hose, but the sophomores hung on. Charlie Boyce, in the van, his hands encased in gloves, had made a running jump at the barrier, and was hanging on, tugging away at the topmost wire, notwithstanding the rain of blows that were being dealt him. "Pull, fellows, pull! I'm caught ! " he cried in mingled rage and pain. They caught hold of his legs. A lurch, and Boyce came down, the wire in his hand, his clothes catching and tearing as they pulled. A sophomore yell went up. Boyce wrung the torn gloves off of his lacerated hands. Another rush was formed and still another, despite the shower of hose-strokes that raised welts upon heads and shoulders. The barb-wire began to hang loose, and there were gaps in it. But the freshmen fought savagely, though at a disadvantage. For, although the sophomores were no stronger numerically, they had the advantage of position, in that they could use all their strength in each assault from the open ground, while but a few freshmen at a time could get at the opening from on top of the truck. The ground about the barn had been churned up into a thin, sticky mud by the tramping, and had plentifully besmeared the sophomores, head and foot. The wire was Bourdon 189 now well trampled. The sophomores retired for another consultation. With a yell they returned to the third and strongest assault. The rush was for the truck. It closely barred the way, but if they could work out the front wheels they would be able to get at both truck and freshmen. Now, as they struggled with the wheels, the freshmen had a better chance at them. " Pull 'em in, boys ! " yelled James, and a sophomore came tumbling into the barn. Others followed. Their cries, as heard without, bespoke no gentle reception. Then the sophomores dragged a freshman out and rolled him in the mud as for a dumpling. Now, at last, the front wheels of the truck were worked around. "In at 'em, boys!" was the sophomore yell. ' ' Out at 'em ! " the freshmen's. They crashed together at the doorway. The freshmen gave way and the sophomores crowded into the barn. Here, within the narrow limits, began a wild scene. The freshmen outnumbered the invaders but slightly. On the other hand the sophomores were a picked crew. The barn floor became a mass of struggling arms and legs. The space was almost too confined for action. The horses took fright and stamped and tugged at their halters. But what was that cry ? None of the combatants heard it, until like catapults a score of freshmen scrambled over the truck and bounded upon the sophomores. In a minute hay rope began to be in requisition. Some of the sophomores, fearing themselves overwhelmed, broke out of the struggle and ran for it. Percy was among this number. The rest were soon in bonds. When they had been carried to the loft, stripped of shoes and stockings and left with a 190 For the Blue and Gold guard, the truck was put back into place and things tidied up. " Well, I guess the sophs won't try that again today," James remarked, mopping his brow. " But where in the world did you fellows drop from ? ' ' to the late comers. ' ' We were in at math when a fellow opened the door and yelled, * Run for the barn the sophs ! * We jumped for the door as one man. Say, I wonder if this means a cinch?" More than an hour had passed with this little diversion. Soon James announced: "I've got a 10:20 that I don't want to cut, too. ' ' " Better stay awhile, Jim. They might tackle you. " " No, I guess they've gone off for repairs. Nearly all of them were pretty well bunged up." So he started off, accompanied by George, Holland and Edmunds. "They won't take us in a swallow." Up near the end of Telegraph Avenue, a few doors from the Oski-Wow Eating Club, stood a vacant house, with a store down-stairs, likewise vacant. The shuttered doors stood both half-way open. The four freshmen approached this spot, with James on the inside, next to him Holland, then George and Edmunds. As they came in front of it, James glanced curiously in. At the same instant three men jumped from behind each door and made for him. He struggled. The others came to his assistance, but in a thrice fully a dozen more sprang out and surrounded the four. James, lashing out with vigor, nevertheless felt himself bustled into the shop. He tripped at the step, and with that they had him indoors. The others were fighting vigorously, but without avail. The attacking party had E our don 191 divided and separated the four freshmen. Holland was forced in with James in the struggle. George and Edmunds found a half dozen sophomores between themselves and the door, which was suddenly slammed and locked before their noses. The sophomores, closing about them, blustering, told them to move on. They demurred, but not seeing how they could fight the whole six, were backed off from the scene toward the campus. Meanwhile, within the dark, bare store, a lively tussle was in progress. Sophomores seemed to spring up from every corner. They filled the room, surrounding James and Holland on all sides. James fought toward the door. "Here, now, let me out of this," he demanded, *' I have a recitation at 10:20." "Not on your necktie," was the decisive answer. "You'll cut everything today, even Bourdon." "We'll keep you out of the wet so you won't take cold or get hurt tonight, Jim," Burton, footballer, spoke. He and James had been pretty thick during training season. "This is going too far, Burt. I've got my work to attend to." "I'll notify your boss, Jim, that you're detained by urgent business." It was Percy. James had not noticed him, for his eyes were not yet accustomed to the darkness. "Now, come along without a row." James and Holland each felt a noose suddenly close down over their arms and drawn tight. James decided that the time for opposition was not yet ripe. So he allowed himself to be led. The captives were conducted across a back yard, through an opening in a fence and toward a two-story 1 92 For the Blue and Gold house. Then upstairs to a small back room, empty, save for a bed and two chairs. "Make yourselves miserable, gentlemen. " James threw himself on the bed. He was mad clear through. But a few moments' reflection put him in a better frame of mind. "It's all in the game, and they haven't kept us over the Bourdon yet.' ' Holland sat sullenly on a chair. He resented the insult to his dignity. " You fellows will pay dearly for this, all right." "Oh, shut up, Holland, or we'll gag you ! We don't want any of your lip." Percy approached the bed. " Sorry, old man, but we needed you worse than the freshmen did. I'll ask Mrs. Saunders to send your dinner around. Any other message?" No answer. "Well, so long. I'll tell you all about the Bourdon tomorrow. You fellows watch him close." Percy went out whistling cheerfully, locking the door behind him. Six sophomores squatted along the wall in front of it, producing tobacco-bags, pipes and cigarette papers. Holland sat glowering sullenly before him. James lay with his face to the wall, apparently asleep. A mighty cheer rose up from exulting freshman throats as the truck rolled forth from the barn, drawn by four powerful horses and preceded and followed by the entire male portion of the freshman class and some juniors in an advisory capacity. " Hoop la, hoop la ! Ninety odd, " resounded the class E our don 193 yell. Guarding the truck on every side were freshmen brandishing yard lengths of hose ; up on top o the miniature house, where the precious coffin reposed, and from where it and the fireworks were to be touched off; on the miniature porch from which the speeches were delivered ; on the seat ; along the sides; on the back defenders bristled every- where ; while behind marched the men with the transpar- encies, also guarded ; and bringing up the rear the rest of the class, ready for any sophomore aggression. From every side streamed the Berkeley small boy and the Berkeley tough, the "town muckers," as pestiferous as the sopho- more himself. But when they had fairly cleared the barn and were out in the open, with no means of protection but that furnished by their own prowess, the freshman mood changed. Their bravado suddenly and completely deserted them, and for a few minutes the line moved on in silence, save for the rumble of the truck. There was not enough gumption left in the ranks to raise a class yell. This sudden reaction in spirits was caused by the strangeness, the unfamiliarity of the surroundings. Weird is the only word that approximately conveys an impression of the effect of the conditions upon the freshmen. Every- thing was so unlike its daytime aspect. The rain had ceased and the stars were shining brightly and coldly. The electric lights at the corners threw their confusing rays upon the puddles. Trees, fences, empty lots and buildings were blotted off into inky blackness or were casting deceptive, startling shadows upon the surroundings. Every dark spot or shadow secreted a sophomore foe. The freshmen had not bargained for this weird effect, and, for a time, it took 194 For the Blue and Gold the starch out of them. But the exigencies of the situation soon, partially at least, brought them to themselves. The transparencies were the freshmen's especial priue. Upon them were worked out, in large letter and crude picture, his criticism and comment on certain professors, and all his scorn for the tribe of sophomore, in general and in particular. It is part of the Bourdon program that the truck shall parade as large a territory as possible before entering the campus. This to exhibit the glory to the good people of Berkeley and to show the sophomore that nobody's afraid. The fraternity houses are all lighted up and thrown open, and the procession aims to pass them all, with mutual cheers and fireworks. When it gained Dwight Way the fun began. Sud- denly from the shadow dashed a group of sophomores. With Indian whoops they rushed upon the wagon. ' ' Down with the freshies ! " Straight for the horses they made with open knives. The horses began to rear and plunge. " Guard the harness!" "Stay with the wagon!" were the freshman cries, and hose blows rained down on sophomore heads and shoulders. The leather was cut before the sophomores could be beaten off, but the wire held. After a liberal series of thumps this sophomore band was left in the road, but it caught up again, aiming mudballs and stones at the transparencies. From this point on the freshman advance was a bed of thorns at one point almost literally so. The sophomores had sprinkled tacks on the road. A party of twenty-five dashed out as the rear-guard of the procession passed. With a spring they had detached a dozen freshmen. Bourdon 195 Knives flashed ; shoes were slit down the back seam, and thus loosened, easily pulled off and tossed over fences. The first freshman put his stockinged foot down. ' ' Ouch, ouch !" A yell of pain, as it met a tack. Others found the same points. " Tacks, boys, tacks ! " they called. The sophomores smiled grimly. "Those freshmen are out of it," remarked Charlie Boyce. But not so. Breaking away, they ran for a cross street and 'joined the procession a block up, continuing in their stocking feet. And so the progress of the procession was interfered with, but not stopped, by marauding bands of sophomores, employing guerilla tactics. But the worst was yet to come, as every freshman understood, when these bands united within the grounds for a final stand. Then the ripe eggs would come into play, deadliest of weapons. Up one street and down another went the truck with its noisy following, past the frat houses on Piedmont Way and Bancroft Way, and thence to the campus entrance down by the Gym. Barely in time the driver pulled up his horses with a curse. "How d'ye expect me to drive through that?" he exclaimed. A bunch of freshmen ran forward. "They've wired up the entrance, " was the cry. Sure enough, from post to post stretched a tangle of barb-wire tightly drawn. "Nippers, who has nippers?" But none were forth- coming, their use on this occasion being confined to sopho- more circles. ' ' Drive around to the Center Street entrance and knock out the posts." The procession proceeded, followed 196 For the Blue and Gold by hoots from unseen sophomores, which bespoke the certainty of trouble beyond the entrance. Scouts were sent in advance to report on the state of this means of ingress. It was found to be worse blocked up than the first, not only with barb-wire, but with stumps of trees which the workmen had been uprooting, and other impedi- ments. Thus in turn was each entrance visited, with no better results. The hour was growing late, and the fresh- men had no time to clear a blocked and guarded entrance. After all, it began to look as if the sophomores would succeed in preventing the Bourdon ceremony, at least as far as its performance on the campus was concerned. And there, on the baseball bleachers, were the freshmen's guests waiting for the show to begin. " If it comes to the worst, we'll touch her off right out here on the road." But no, for now comes a breathless scout and reports that way up Strawberry Creek, in back of the Dining Asso- ciation, is a poorly-blocked and unguarded entrance. With a cheer the horses are whipped up. Soon the procession is on the upper campus, passing the Library. The sopho- mores have located it, and now redouble their attentions. "Flap!" "Squash!" "Eggs, rotten eggs!" the freshmen cry in consternation. ' ' Phew ! " ' ' I got one down the neck ! " There is no escape. The freshmen are massed so closely around the wagon that if the missiles miss one they hit another. 1 'Stay with the wagon, boys!" shout the freshmen. Down the long, straight slope from the Library the disgusted driver whips his equally disgusted horses into a run, shaking things up in a lively manner, the chattering freshmen Bourdon 197 holding on for dear life. The sophomores clear the path and can hardly follow. With a swish they swing into the baseball field and come to a halt before the bleachers filled with spectators co-eds, upper classmen, friends and relations, and townspeople, all soon to share equally with their freshman hosts the bitterness of mudballs and rotten eggs. The horses are detached. The sophomores surge up about the truck, surrounding it on three sides. The freshman hose is kept busier than ever. "It's a rush, boys, a rush ! There's no way out of it. We'll have to tie 'em up before we go further." Thus speaks George, and they agree. The juniors counsel like- wise, producing rope, to show their forethought. " Rush 'em, freshmen ! ' ' * ' Oh, if Jim were only here ! ' ' That wish finds echo from more than one quarter. How has it fared, meanwhile, with the two prisoners ? Throughout the long afternoon James has lain on the bed, chafing and cursing his captors. At one time his anger rises to the boiling point, then cools down somewhat as he tries to be philosophical and put himself in the others' place. But this is hard work. His day's business and pleasure has been. rudely interfered with. "What will the old lady think of me, up to such kid's business ! And what's become of the Bourdon? Have they turned our month's work into nothing! " Throughout it all his mind has flown from one quixotic scheme of escape to another. But all have hit up against the hard reality of the six guarding sophomores, the locked door, and the second-story window. Holland has not fared so well as Rawson. His spirit is more rebellious. And the sophomores are not particularly 198 For the Blue and Gold impressed with him at best. Twice his choler has gotten the better of him ; the result an attempt to carry out the threat of a gag, and a sound cuffiing. At this James has jumped from the bed in a rage, and the six sophomores have had a few lively moments, ending with the removal of the gag. ' * Keep cool, ' ' counsels James, bending over the silently weeping Holland. "We may do them yet. There's time." Towards evening the second relay of guards showed signs of restlessness. Presently the street below began to bustle with the approach of the Bourdon procession. The six sophomores could contain themselves no longer. "Say, but Pd like to be down there." "Wouldn't I! Hunter has a nerve to keep us up here." " Let's tie them up, lock the room and light out. They can ' t get out in time for anything now. ' ' Five agreeing voices. James played possum while he was being bound, expanding his muscles as much as possible. Soon the six had left the room, with a chuckle, locking the door behind them. " Tied up, Holland?" "Yep. You too?" " Same here. Look out, Pm coming ! " With this, James rolled off the bed. Out in the street an electric light on a tall mast was shining into the room like a full moon. ' ' Lie down, now, and give me a look at your knot. Pm hungry. ' ' James knawed away patiently for ten minutes. Bourdon 199 Then Holland jerked his hands. "Hurrah! They're loose!" "Now yours." Soon they both stood up and stretched. James looked at his watch. ''There's time yet." He smiled gleefully and walked over to the window. "Nailed. This is an empty house, so here goes." A grass plat partly deadened the sound of falling glass, as James' heavily shod foot went crashing through a window. " Kind of them to leave us this nice rope. Here, catch hold and we'll test it. That'll hold. Tie it to the bedpost. Shall I go over first ? All right, if it holds me it will hold you." In a trice James was through the window. He whistled softly and Holland came sliding down. They chuckled gleefully. ' ' Won' t they be surprised to see us ! " Fiercely and savagely fought the freshmen in the defense of their Bourdon. The sophomores, although lusty rushers, were outnumbered. Besides, the freshmen, now almost sophomores, knew a trick or two that they had paid for dearly in experience. The fight was short, sharp and decisive. As James and Holland came running breathlessly across the campus, the freshmen were lifting up a shout of victory. George was the first to recognize the hatless and disheveled class prex. He had spent all afternoon in fruit- less attempts to rescue his friend. " Rawson, here comes Jim Rawson !" he shouted above the yelling. James came panting up. "Are we in time?" 2OO For the Blue and Gold " That you are, to see the sophs tied up. Now we'll do our do." An excited group gathered about the arrivals, asking how and why. " What's the matter with Jim Rawson ? " went up the cry. "He's all right, you bet, every time." It was Chester Holland's voice that led all the rest, while those about him stared in astonishment. The actual ceremony of the Bourdon came as an anti- climax after all the fuss and flying feathers that had prefaced it. However, it may be urged that the preceding fuss and flying feathers are an important part of the affair, in fact, the most important part. For if you could find a freshman who had studied the psychology of the occasion, he would probably explain to you that it was not the Bourdon itself that counted so much, but the winning from the sophomores of the contested right to hold the Bourdon. From the top of the truck the coffin was ignited, the red-light was burned, and the Roman candles fired into the air and the crowd. From the balcony the speeches began. These, as was expected, were almost unbearable, for the sophomores, even in their tied-up state, had plenty of voice left, and the town muckers ably seconded the sophomores at the hubbub. Worse than this, they caught the sophomore spirit to the extent of flinging not only mud and eggs, but rocks as well, at the truck and bleachers. In the course of the day's excitement James had lost his carefully written out speech. But as soon as he stood on the platform he realized that it would have done him no good to have kept it. Therefore, doing as he was told, James swung forth his arms and launched into a rhapsodical Bourdon 201 "jolly," which, screamed at the top of his voice, was yet hardly audible from the bleachers. ' ' Ho, you scrubby sophs ! You thought to do us up. But we put it all over you. Hurrah for the freshmen ! What's the matter with ninety odd? Sophs, you're not feeling so jolly now, are you? Ho, you muckers, we'll do you up next!" and some more, equally irrelevant (not to say irreverent) and immaterial. Thus another freshman class declared itself emancipated from the thraldom of the books that Bourdon and Minto had written, notwithstanding the machinations of its oppres- sors. With a last rattling of cheers and yells the freshman crowd dispersed ; frat men to the celebrations at their respective chapter-houses, non-frats, convivially inclined to the Wid's. James, declining Holland's invitation, went thoughtfully home to square himself with his employer. CHAPTER XIV Class Day 1 * Well, Jim, it begins to look as if this old year were on the homestretch, doesn't it?" " Sure enough. Exes Thursday, and after that we'll go out into the wide, wide world and rustle." " There's lots to happen between exes and the wide, wide world, especially for some. There's commencement week, with its swift, gay whirl of festivities, class day and commencement day themselves. You're going to stay over, of course, aren' t you ? ' ' "Yes, guess I will. There'll be things doing that I want to take in." ' ' Especially the conferring of that medal, hey ? ' ' ' ' Well, yes, that among them. Do you hear anything about that, Percy?" ' ' Nothing except what I get from you ' Read the answer in my eyes, love.' ' "Oh, letup!" " But I think she stands a show from what I hear. Even Warren has been having doubtful spells lately. One of the math profs was a-telling him, I hear, about a co-ed that has done fine work and was going to be heard from. I think some of the faculty are tucking her up their sleeves to ring in like a cold deck on Warren.'* " Well, wouldn't you like to see it ? " Class Day 203 "Yes, for my friend's sake." ' ' Shut up ! Give us a rest on that. ' ' And Percy walks off humming, "Oh, promise me that some day you'll be mine," leaving James standing a bit angry, a bit foolish, and a bit red about the ears. Bourdon over, play has ended for the year, and the freshmen and sophomores forget their differences in their common troubles. James had grabbed for his books to make up for lost time. His second freshman theme demanded instant completion, and immediately following that began digging for the exes. In truth, every evidence is now pointing to the dissolution of the college year. As at Christmas, the signs are plain, even plainer than then. The bum has vanished from North Hall steps, up in the Library ponies are at a discount. Many a student of the languages is wandering about, offering, like Richard III, " My kingdom for a pony ! " In some cases even the daily 8:30 course in the Californian has been dropped ; or, where this would be too rigorous, the reading of the advertisements is omitted. Dress-suit cases are in evidence more than usual, the most respectable vehicle for carrying soiled clothes. Around the dinner-table at Mrs. Saunders' the talk has veered from track athletics, baseball, drill and debate, to note-books, digging, back work, cinches, and examination topics in general. Now intervenes a period when everybody is studying at fever heat. These final exes, with maybe a whole year's work to review on, are anything but a ' ' snap. ' ' Then the series of decisive hours, and the year's work is over for some. Apartments are dismantled, trunks are packed, and those in a hurry take the train back home to await in 204 For the Blue and Gold suspense the arrival of the envelope containing a certain little card which has been left with the recorder. In the two weeks that intervened between closing of recitations and class day, James had divided his time between examinations and the turning of not a few honest dollars by smashing baggage for the students' express. He was, besides, with Percy, taking lessons in canvassing, given by the representative of a combination desk that they had decided to sell during vacation "Course in cheek -hardening 1A," they called it. At length class day dawned for the anxious seniors a typical California May day. Enough said. The seniors gathered early in their white duck trousers, co-ed seniors in white dresses. The festivities were divided into two parts, class pilgrimage in the morning and spectacular play in the afternoon, up in Ben Weed's Amphitheatre. The band is playing up at the flag-staff, and the outgoing seniors are forming into line. All about are the new seniors in their tall black plugs, soon to be wrecked into the proper state of limpness and disrepair. Brand-new juniors, too, are strutting about in their new-found dignity of gray plug, elaborately painted with U. C. monogram in blue and gold, frat letters if any, name of wearer's college, intercollegiate scores of the year where these have been favorable and other decorations, varying with the taste and artistic ability of the decorator. Round about stroll the new sophomores, canes in hand. " Hy, there, Jim ! There's Percy in his pluglet ! " Swish ! whistles George's cane, and Percy's plug goes flying from his head. He runs after it. Biff ! goes James' foot, and Percy has to alter his course. Stamp ! goes George Class Day 205 with both feet, and Percy's plug is crushed to earth. But all this does not exactly displease Percy, for that plug needs all the banging up it can get in order to arrive at its necessary condition of decrepitude. All over the campus now canes and sticks are swishing, or hands grabbing at heads. Plugs, black and gray, are flying hither and thither, amidst great good-nature, and owners, bareheaded, are wildly dashing to and fro to the rescue of their headgear. With a flourish from the band, the pilgrimage has started a long, trailing column of fours, with the co-eds in front. A stop will be made at each building, where the column will listen to an address, humorous, if possible, from a class representative. The first stop is made at South Hall, where the Best Beloved of all the professors gives the outgoing students, in quavering, high-pitched voice, reminiscences of the university's early days, when South Hall's corner-stone had not yet been laid, intermixed with ethical metaphors and similes, and is cheered to the echo. Standing there, bare- headed, in the strong sun, his presence and words are as a benediction upon his beloved children, going forth to face the world. This is the first sobering impulse that they have received, and their answering cheer rings out deeper, from the heart. But now they turn to lighter things to an address from the balcony of the Library, in which the ' ' Prince of Silence" and the "Co-eds' Favorite" receive their accus^ tomed mention ; to the Chemistry Building, where mock experiments are conducted ; to the Mining Building, where the jovial "mining push" receives mention and acclaim ; to the Engineering Building, and, completing the circuit, to 206 For the Blue and Gold North Hall. At each stop there is a plentiful sprinkling of joshes on professors and students. Their mistakes and their idiosyncrasies are brought up in reminiscence in true Blue and Gold style. This culminates at North Hall. 4 * Where do we come when we want to get in out of the rain ? To North Hall, you say. But where about in North Hall ? There are many dry spots in North Hall there are the deserts of math, French, history, peda- gogy all unrelieved by a single oasis. In any of them may we find refuge from the damp. But there is one particular room where it is so dry that note-books are shriveled up around the edges that is the juris room when Warren is reciting. On a wet day you may see a mob following at Warren's feet like the children after the Pied Piper. Their garments hang from them, dripping and limp. But they know where to dry off. They follow Warren to Room 19. When he once turns on his hot-air spout you can see the steam arising from their clothes. That's the dryest spot in North Hall, which means in college. It's a wonder they don' t have spontaneous combustion there some day when Warren has the class in charge. " And so on, to the great delight of the appreciative listeners, amidst whom stands Warren, smiling sourly. But his old parents, come over to sun themselves in the bright glow of their boy's distinction, can hardly restrain their amazement and indig- nation. Lastly, the procession wends its way up, between the trees, to Founder's Rock, where the father of the family draws an elaborate analogy from the beautiful prospect of the bright, sparkling bay, which is spread before and beneath them. Class Day 207 Thus ended the morning ceremonies of the class pilgrimage. The seniors have said an official farewell to the beloved old buildings, whose halls they have trodden so often in the few, quickly vanished years. But the farewell is merely official, for many a time yet will they come wan- dering back, singly, to the old scenes, to roam over the familiar haunts, now inhabited by others, with faces unfa- miliar and strange. This day the frat houses are all open to their friends. Invitations to luncheon have been given, and now the happy frat men thrice proud and happy if they happen to be white-ducked seniors promenade grandly off with their fair young guests, while others, not quite so happy, walk around explaining to distant relations, cousins of the fourth dimension, or friend's maiden aunts: "That is the Library Building," "Here is South Hall," "Down there is the gridiron." " Gridiron ? " " Oh, yes, the place where they play football !" " This is the way out. Now we will go to lunch Oh, there is Jack, now ! I say, Jack, hullo, there ! " " Good morning, Miss Gray. Have you been saying good-by ? " "Yes, Mr. Rawson, but I can't realize it. It seems but yesterday since I went wandering about the campus here, trying to locate the various buildings and wondering if there really was a poultry-yard I had heard so much about the Coop." "Ha, ha, that's a good one ! But you were lucky this morning. I didn't hear any joshes worked off on you." " No, I'm not prominent enough for that. But wasn't it 208 For the Blue and Gold cruel the way Mr. Thomson joshed Mr. Warren from North Hall steps ? His parents were standing near me, and they seemed to take it to heart. ' ' ' ' Yes, I guess they did. Most likely they think that Warren's popularity over here is in keeping with the number of ones he gets." 1 ' He is greatly misunderstood by most of the students. They incline to levity, while he is almost too serious. But he has a strong character, and will be heard from. ' ' ' ' He ought to take a P. G. course in the cultivation of the sense of humor. ' ' ' ' Yes, and that is what makes it all the harder for him to bear joshing." " Don't have too much sympathy for Warren, Miss Gray. Maybe you'll make him feel worse than all the joshing could." "Oh, that?" The color mounted to her temples. " I don't think there's much danger." ' * Yes, there is, and I that is we I mean most of the fellows, would be happy to see you get it. Your work in math deserves it." ' ' Oh, I see, you' d give the medal out on dime museum principles, to the freak co-ed who has grouped in math? " 1 ' No, not that only, its all round work. I wish I was on the faculty." 1 ' Thanks. For, frankly, I would be more than glad to get the medal. The prestige would help me to a high school and I have to get right to work." " Well, it's settled, then. If you'll take it, it's yours," and they both laughed. After lunch the crowd wends its way up to Ben Weed's Class Day 209 Amphitheater, where the grand spectacular extravaganza, "The Chase for the Holy Grail," is to be enacted by the members of the graduating class. The stage is lavishly decorated in blue and gold and the college colors in bunting are stretched from tree to tree overhead. On the rising ground, benchless, in front, and to the sides of the stage, the audience has seated itself and is squirming around trying to find soft spots of ground or endeavoring to get out of the way of the other fellow's knees and feet. The Berkeley urchin of the raggedest degree has preempted the space in immediate proximity to the stage. Up on the highest ground in back the new upper classmen are indulg- ing in amiable rough house, knocking off plugs and kicking them about. But now the blare of trumpets is heard and the advance- guard of the King is seen winding up the path ; maidens in flowing robes and sandals, hatless, their hair twined with flowers, strewing paper posies in the coming King's path ; men in knightly armor, carrying spears and battle-axes, step stiffly along to the catcalls of their friends who recog- nize them, even under the obscuring garments. They crowd the stage, with its round dining-table in its center, and fill in the time chanting of ' ' Fair Berkeley, fairer than Camelot. ' ' Now comes the King and his immediate retinue. " Hail, Arthur, spotless King ! " By his side steps queenly Guinevere ' ' Guinevere Ninetyeven, the Queen of Co-eds," as the program names her. The band plays "Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes," and Arthur takes his seat on an empty beer-keg at the head of the round table, Guinevere at his right. 2IO For the Blue and Gold "And what of the puissant knight, Sir Galahad? Hath he at last returned from his long four years' chase for the Holy Grail?" " That he hath, noble King, and even now is approach- ing," comes the chorus. " And Merlin, my good soothsayer, my standby, is he at hand to tell us what the future has in store for the hosts of ninety-even ? ' ' " .Aye, King, he is." A blare of trumpets and Sir Galahad approaches in dazzling armor. He dismounts, detaches a decrepit wooden bucket from the pummel of his saddle, and, grasping it in his hand, rushes up to the King, and, prostrating himself at his ruler's feet, holds forth the bucket, filled with rolls of parchment. "My King! The Holy Grail! At last I have found it ! " "Oh! Ah!" ' ' Faithful knight ! Pure Galahad ! Thou hast fetched the Holy Grail. We are saved ! Now we can graduate ! Tell us thy story while the Grail rests on the table, so that our faithful subjects may feast their eyes upon it." The knights and ladies gather closely around the table, their eyes fastened greedily on the bucket with its protrud- ing rolls, which they may not touch. " Speak on, Galahad, speak on ! " Galahad strikes an attitude : ' ' Four years ago, come August (ah, green was I then, as the grass that grows not on the campus !), I set out from the borders of the freshman country to search for the Holy Grail. Of all the happen- ings in those long years while I was chasing the Grail I can Class Day give no adequate account, O, King ! Sufficient that I was true to my mission. On North Hall steps I never bummed, nor appeased my thirst at the Widow's ; neither cut I reci- tation, drill nor gym, but spent my days in digging, and my nights as well. ' * Therefore, when the time had passed and the last final exes were o'er, I had penetrated up to the margin of the forest, in the depths of which stands Castle Recorder, where, as I had been led to expect, I would find the Holy Grail. Thenceforward my job was no snap, for the forest was a fearsome place, infested by many dangers. A terrible tangle of red tape barred the way at the outset, which I had to hack and hew with my good sword, Bluff. Then there was an overgrowth of petitions, of prerequisites, of group electives, and the pitfalls of the study lists committee lurked on every side, while the deep ditch of analytical mechanics yawned in front. Hither and thither flew the fearsome cinch, screeching like an owl. O King, it was no pipe ! "But, for the sake of ninety-even, I faltered not. The decisive moment came at last, and with a terrible ' Oski-Wow ' I forced my way to the innermost chamber, where sat the academic senate. Them heeded I not, but sprang for the table, where, suffusing a terrible radiance, which my eyes scarce could bear, stood the Holy Grail filled to the very neck with degrees. I shut my eyes and grabbed, and, as my fist closed o'er its handle, a delicious thrill ran through my frame ! Then my frame ran through the door, and in a minute I was out. All obstacles faded away before the potency of my treasure. King, I close. You know the rest. ' ' ' ' Well done, my true and faithful servant ! Ere night 212 For the Blue and Gold falls thou wilt sup free beer at our expense," speaks the king. Now ensues a hubbub. Knights and ladies at the table are burning to get at the contents of the Grail. ' * But no!" commands the king. "First, must we hear from Merlin, our most wise seer. Perchance some there are not worthy to receive the great boon. The test for fitness must register full 125 units and we shall see. Merlin will tell." "Hail Merlin, the wise!" This is the opportunity, dragged in by the heels, for the most enjoyable part of the entertainment the joshes on faculty and students. Merlin, the best "josher" in the class, fixed up in a tall cap and a long gown, decorated with cabalistic devices, hobbles around the stage, pulling at his long beard. The king commands him : "Merlin, let no unworthy knight or lady co-ed escape. Search their innermost hearts, and if aught unfit shows its head if any have not chastened their spirits sufficiently by taking enough hours or have cut or bluffed, proclaim it out. Now is the time to forbid the bans if any wight there be of ninety-even who is not entitled to wed his fair lady diploma." Merlin hobbles about, listening to heart-beats, using his telescope and cutting up appropriate antics with certain knights and ladies. " Here, sire, is one who hath the sin of bluffing graven on his soul," pulling forth the worst " bum ' ' in the class. "Ha!" The king's brow clouds. "Brick, what hath thou to say for thyself? Speak up, or by the keg I sit on, thou shalt languish here chained to North Hall steps Class Day 213 until the puling freshman wears a black plug. Speak and defend thyself!" "O King, most gracious ! Bluff I have. But was it not justified? Is a fellow to flunk miserably, time after time, without an effort ? No. No man of spirit would ! I would not be worthy to wear the pin of ninety-even an I did. King, it was this way : At 9 :25 I had a recitation, but preceding that, one at 8:30 in the Daily Calif ornian. After reading through its editorials, say, O King ! Can a man be fit for anything else that day ? " "Thou craven ! " shouts the King, livid with rage. ' ' Knowest thou I write them ? Dog ! I sentence thee to four years at Stanford ! Away with him ! ' ' The poor wretch grovels at his King's feet, tapping his mailed breast and moaning, ' ' My life, take my life, but send me not to such an awful fate ! ' ' The King is appalled at his own severity. He relents. ' ' Unhappy Brick ! The word is said and can not be unsaid. But Arthur is gracious. He grants that thou may there make thy group in gym and decorative art. ' ' And thus the joshing runs on, scarce one, many a mem- ber of the faculty included, escaping. Merlin foretells the future of the blushing girl graduates, to the intense enjoyment of their classmates and to the embarrassment of not a few. When the Grail has been emptied of its parchment rolls, each recipient, represented by a classmate, acknowl- edg'" i g with a typical speech, the King exclaims : "But the medal? Surely, Galahad, thou hast not failed?' 1 " Not on thy birthday, King, " assures Galahad. ' ' Even now it is approaching. ' ' 214 For the Blue and Gold Two slaves are seen working their way through the crowd bearing a litter, on which is a cushion. They advance to the King, and, kneeling, hold the cushion before him. " The medal ! " A murmur buzzes around the table. " Yes, my loyal subjects, the medal. And for whom I need not mention. ' ' "Warren, Warren !" answers everybody. "Yes, for Warren, the man who never got a second section. Step forth, Sir Warren, and receive thy long- worked -for reward. No more shalt thou be sourballed, but frisk and frolic joyfully with thy medal dangling from thy buttonhole. ' ' A morose-looking individual, caricaturing Warren, advances with measured tread. The King lifts an immense pie-plate from the cushion and holds it up. In black letters is the inscription, " Now, Give Us a Rest." He ties it by a leathern thong upon the morose individual's lapel. Instantly a transformation takes place in the latter 's bearing. For a moment he gazes, transfixed, on the pie-plate, then jumps high into the air, emitting a shout, and, coming down, bolts from the platform. The show is over. "Wouldn't it be a funny josh, Percy," exclaims James, as they walk home, "if that should be the only medal Warren gets ! ' ' " The wish is father to the thought, hey, Jim? " "Maybe it is." " So is mine, old man." CHAPTER XV The Dark Horse The remnant of Mrs. Saunders' select student boarders was gathered for its midday meal on the day preceding commencement. All the freshmen had left. Davis was awaiting his degree, with which he would make a bee- line for home. Hawley was hanging on for the rest of the festivities attendant upon graduation, although with the latter ceremony itself he had nothing in common that year. "I say, Hawley, don't you begin to wish about this time that you'd let football alone, stuck to business and gone out with the rest of us ? " "Oh, I don't know ! General Remorse does sieze my works at intervals, but I always shake him off. This is a pretty good place to spend another year at." "Won't next year be the same as this? You'll soon be taking a K. Q. course." "No, it can't really last more than one after this. Next year I'll have played four times, and if they cinch me out again, why, the year following, when there won't be any more football, I'll surely make it. I'm going to stay over and keep Jim company. You'll promise not to graduate without me, won't you, Jim ?" laughing. " Yes, I'll wait for you if you'll wait for me." "I shall use my influence with the faculty, " broke in Mrs. Saunders, "so that they won't hurry either of you. a 1 6 For the Blue and Gold I'm not going to put in a new stair-carpet as long as two prominent football men are living up-stairs. I've made that agreement with my daughter, and I hope it'll put off the day as long as possible." Mrs. Saunders was trying to be pleasant in the days of farewell. "Where's Miss Gray?" inquired Davis. "She's over in town at the oculist's. Her eyes just lasted her through her final exes. Then they went all to pieces. Anyway, it always seemed to me as if she were near-sighted and needed glasses." "There are lots of things that one needs and can't have," decided Mrs. Saunders. "There's as brave a girl as I ever saw. For the four years she has been here she has .skimped and saved and worked there's not many that know how hard so that she could get her degree and a teacher's certificate and support her little mother in comfort." " I didn't know she had a mother. She doesn't seem to have any visits from relatives. ' ' "Her mother teaches music up in Sacramento. They've seen each other just twice in four years. It costs money to travel. There's not many men would have made the fight they have. Facing it out all alone, asking favors of no one. Don't talk to me of co-eds and woman's inequality. Can you show any better men in mathe- matics your own study ? ' ' Mrs. Saunders looked around with argument in her eye, forgetting her reso- lution to be genial. "There's your chance, Davis," waived Hawley. 41 Co-education, your favorite topic. Pick up the gauntlet." "Guess not; I'm afraid of Rawson," grinned Davis. The Dark Horse 217 "What's the latest news about the medal? It gets decided today, doesn't it?" asked Mrs. Saunders of James. "Yes, they're at it now, but we won't hear of it until commencement. ' ' "I do hope that fellow Warren doesn't get it. He's so unpopular, I hear. I don't like his looks, anyhow." "He won't get it on his looks. It's a close thing, though. If Warren were a fellow that had taken a promi- nent part in student activities there's not much question but what he' d get it against an unknown co-ed young lady, I mean even if she had a few more first sections. ' ' " Most everybody thinks that Warren has a mortgage on it. But isn't it funny how prominent Miss Gray has become in the last week? Before that there was hardly any one knew her. Now she's Allah, and Rawson, here, is her prophet, " spoke Davis. 11 So would you be if you'd spent all those cozy even- ings in the parlor over math." " Don't joke him, gentlemen, you'd be lucky if it was either one of you." The last official day of the college year, the last college day for many a sober senior, had dawned at length. The big tent erected down on the gridiron for holding the com- mencement exercises was, by ten in the morning, filled to overflowing. Over at Stiles Hall the long, begowned line formed president, regents, faculty, candidates and others. Slowly, with measured tread, it wended its way across the campus, and, entering the tent, forked into two columns. The importants made their way to seats on the palm- bedecked platform at the front, while the candidates took 2i 8 For the Blue and Gold their places at either side, to right and left of the platform. The orchestra played heavy music from Wagner. "Look, Jim, there's Miss Gray with a pair of windows on ! " exclaimed Percy. James tried to turn his head not too hastily, but his eyes sought the direction indicated quicker than he meant them to. Sure enough, there was Miss Gray, looking as he had never seen her before ; in a black gown and mortar- board. From beneath the gown's hem a white, fluffy dress could be discerned, suggesting that all was not as somber as it seemed. Her brown hair was smoothed carefully around her ears. Sure enough, there was a pair of spectacles, which she shifted nervously and consciously. And the two vertical lines between her eyes, that had seemed as a frown, were gone ! "My! She wasn't frowning at all; she was near- sighted !" James ejaculated, half aloud, half to himself. " Hey ? She never frowned at you, did she, Jim? ' ' ' ' No, she never frowned at anybody. She was only trying to get a focus." " They've improved her looks like everything. She's regular Bostonese now, don't you think ? " Soon the audience composed itself as the prayer was delivered. Then some lighter music. Now the president made his * ' statement, ' ' which included some fatherly advice to the graduates. Next, a couple of addresses by mem- bers of the graduating class, one of them by Warren : "What does the University Stand For ? " "What does the university stand for?" began Warren, slowly, looking down aggressively at his audience. And his answer, though in manner typically Warrenesque, The Dark Horse 219 formally logical, was in matter so infused with what was pronounced real ' ' college spirit ' ' that his college mates listened, by turns incredulous and amazed, and at the end gave him such a rally that Warren stumbled to his seat, swallowing hard to keep the lump down. After their four years' acquaintance with the week-day Warren, repressed and misunderstood, his college mates had here gotten a flash-like glimpse of Warren, potential. And casting from their minds the Warren whom they had known practically, they were cheering lustily for him whose acquaintance they had made through the medium of his paper but fifteen minutes before. 1 ' If he' d only done that instead of merely saying it, he'd be a happier man today," whispered Percy. Now came the event of the day the distribution of degrees. As each candidate bowed up at the platform, he received a rattle of hand claps in proportion to his popu- larity and the number of his relations present. " Give her a rally, Jim," nudged George, as the presi- dent called, "Harriet Evelyn Gray." James was a little backward until he found that he was by no means alone. All over the tent co-eds were splitting their gloves in honor of the sex, and, looking across the aisle, James saw Mrs. Saunders, red in the face from her exertions. Warren, too, received liberal applause. He afterwards said : "I got nearer to my classmates in that one hour than in all the rest of the four years put together. I never thought that the fellows had so much real feeling in them." But what is that uneasy rustling that animates the audience ? The last degree has been called out, and there is a pause. " He's going to give the medal ! " 22O For the Blue and Gold The venerable president advances to the front of the platform, a square, flat, plush case in his hand. He pauses deliberately. Briefly he recites the old tale of the founda- tion of the medal and of its bestowal each year upon "the graduate who shall be adjudged to have gained the highest distinction in scholarship." He pauses and looks at the open plush box as if to make sure of the name : " Miss Harriet Evelyn Gray, kindly step forward." The audience breathes a sigh. Hands clap. Then, as a slim, black-gowned form arises from a side bench and advances to the front, the starting ripple of applause swells to a torrent, and from the rear of the tent some enthusiast, forgetting his decorum, shouts out : "What's the matter with Miss Gray ? ' ' Percy gives James an emphatic poke in the ribs. The president is not going to waste any words. ' * Miss Gray, I confide this emblem of high scholarship to your keeping, reminding you that it carries grave responsibilities with it." That was all. The dark horse had won ! She took the medal as if she were afraid of it and walked unsteadily back to her seat, amidst a din of hand- clapping and stamping. What emotions were surging through the breast of this slight girl in that minute ! Milton could scarce have sung them. Nor scarce Dante those that throbbed the temples of yon black-haired youth with the hectic flush on his cheeks. Four years of tense, unremitting struggle, to this result ! It was not possible ! But, nevertheless, he was afraid to glance to either side into the face of father or mother, sitting there with hearts of lead. The Dark Horse "That was easier given than earned, wasn't it? I guess the show is over. Let's chase ourselves," suggested Percy. "No, wait a moment. They're going to give a list of the scholarships. Let's see who get them. " The list was a long one, ' ' from Siskiyou to San Diego, from the Sierras to the sea, ' ' ranging in degree from fellow- ships of five hundred dollars per year to State of California and Levi Strauss scholarships of one hundred and twenty- five dollars. At length the reader was on this last list, and Percy was beginning to yawn, when the voice called out : "Seventh Congressional District, James Rawson, Riverside." Percy straightened up. " Hullo, Jim ! That's you ! Congrats ! You are a deep one ! Why didn't you tell a fellow about it ? " "So there wouldn't be anything to explain if I didn't get it. But don't you remember our talking about scholar- ships a month back, and my advising Cub and you to apply?" "Yes, that's so. My, but won't you be a bleed next year with this and with that? You won't stoop to go with the Oski-Wow Chewers." "Wait and see." That evening in the parlor, Miss Gray was the center of attraction. She looked flushed and tired. The reaction was setting in. At length the company had dwindled. " Well, I guess I'll finish my packing," announced Davis. "I'm off in the morning." James found himself alone in the room with Miss Gray. He rose to go, seeing how tired she looked. 222 For the Blue and Gold " I haven't had a chance yet to congratulate you, Mr. Rawson, on your scholarship. Let me do so now. You've made a fine start, and I expect you to continue at an accel- erated gait. College holds large things in store for you. ' ' "Thank you. I'm sure I couldn't do better than copy from you." "No, don't do it." She shook her head positively. " I made a big mistake in shutting myself up too much in my room. I know that everybody has thought me an owl- like dig. You have done better. You haven' t neglected your work, and at the same time have entered heartily into the life outside the recitation-room. I advise you to keep that up. Combine the two in an even balance and you won't fee^as tired as I do on your Commencement Day.' ' "But you women haven't the chance for outside activity that men have. You can't go in for rushes and Bourdons, nor play football, nor go out much at nights." " No, we can't. But there are many things we could do to make life more cheerful for one another if we'd be to one another like men are. Women make it so hard for their sex. Don't you think that I craved something more than just to dig, dig ? What was there for me to do with my own living to earn, and no nice clothes, but just crawl into my shell ? " Her speech was becoming tense. "I don't know. It's a hard problem," answered James, acknowledging that the subject was too much for him. "But now you've had the reward of your labors. Your hour of triumph has come, and it'll be easier sailing. You ought to feel pretty good. I would in your place. ' ' "No, you wouldn't," positively. "I thought just as you do now. But when I got what they call the reward, it The Dark Horse 223 was not the sweet thing I imagined at all. There's nothing now that can repay me for the four years I've been through. The work has been sweet, but the rest, oh, how bitter ! Without my mother; without anybody. I'm afraid it will last always." "Oh, no it won't! You'll soon forget the bad, and retain only the good, when you've had a little rest." "I hope so." Her voice sounded the weariness that possessed her. James started forward to say good-night. Suddenly, without a word, she threw herself upon the lounge, and, burying her head in her arms, sobbed as James had never heard a woman cry before. Her form heaved and trembled with the excess of her emotions. James did not know what to do. Here was a new phase of this strong, self-contained girl's character. He was sounding new depths of knowledge of the strangely mingled strength and weakness that is woman's. He turned aside to a small table, picking over the leaves of an album, pained and embarrassed, not knowing how to comfort her. He did not know that the best thing would have been to leave the room and let her have her cry out. It was the safety-valve of her nervous system. For several minutes, her head buried in her arms, the sobs continued to shake her frame. Gradually her emotion subsided. Slowly she sat up, her eyes shining dimly through her tears, her hair dishevelled. Quickly she tried to cover up the "traces of disorder. James turned. He could not help the thought, even in his compassion, of how alluring she looked with her hair so mussed up. "Pardon me, I beg of you, Mr. Rawson." She 124 For the Blue and Gold smiled wanly through her tears. ' ' F ve been playing baby. But I felt that I couldn't fight it off a moment longer, and it I had to have a witness, I'd rather you than anybody." She rose. James grasped her hand in both of his. " You're tired Miss Gray. Things will look better in the morning, ' ' he said, comfortingly. "I'm sure they will," she replied. James became conscious that he was still holding her hand and in an unusual manner. He dropped it suddenly, blushing. She lowered her eyes. ''Good-night, Mr. Rawson. I'll see you before we go." He walked up-stairs into his room and got into bed in a haze. " I'd never have thought it of her. She went all to pieces in a minute. She never before even talked a word about herself. Poor girl, she's had a hard pull of it ! Many a fellow wouldn't have gotten through it. It's not right to put all that on a woman." James had no friend to whom he would have confided the dreams which that night mingled with his sleep. CHAPTER XVI 0-u-t Spells Out " What do you intend to do with your vacation, Mr. Rawson? " asked Mrs. Saunders next morning. ' * Mr. Hunter and myself are going to try canvassing for the Chautauqua desk.' ' " Is there much in that ? " "I think there is. But it depends, of course, upon one's gift of gab and the hardness of his cheek. My cheek will do, but the talk part has to be tested. I've been speaking to several fellows, though, who've averaged pretty well at it. We'll get two dollars and thirty cents commis- sion for each sold. Two a day wouldn't be bad." " No ; it depends, though, on where you sell." "We've got Marin County for our territory. There are a good many Swiss and Italian farmers and dairymen there. They're all pretty well off, and, I hear, loosen up on occasions. Maybe we can hypnotize them into seeing the advantages of our indispensable article. I won't always expect the luck, though, that I had yesterday. I was in a house back in Oakland. Looking down the hall, I could see through an open door into a neighbor's back yard. There stood a little girl making pictures on the fence with a piece of chalk. I happened to have another fellow's sample, so I made a break for the front door of that house. I managed to work the mother out into the back yard, 226 For the Blue and Gold where my argument was all figured out for me on the fence. The child clapped her hands, the mother said yes, and in five minutes I had my first order. ' ' "I'm afraid that I'll have to look around for another man next year. ' ' The old lady sighed. " But I'll hold it open for you. You'll give me first call, won't you?" Another sigh. "I always wanted a son to uphold me in my old age, and, somehow some way you seem to have come nearer it than any yet." She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. James took her hand. "I'll always remember you, Mrs. Saunders, as the first friend I had here. If I work for anybody next year I'll want it to be for you." 1 ' Thank you. When do you leave ? ' ' " Tomorrow morning if we get the samples. They've been holding us back too long now." "Well, Perce, we can't cling on much longer, though it's hard breaking away. The samples have come," announced James later. ' ' Hooray ! We'll be off in a bunch tomorrow morning.' ' "Where's Cub?" " Here he is ; say, boys, I've got it !" George broke breathlessly in. "What?" " No more harvester in mine this trip." He was moving up and down as if working with a pick. " What is it ? What have you got, the jimjams ? " ' ' No, a job in the celebrated Jumper Mine, Jimtown, Tuolumne County. ' ' 0-u-t .Spells Out "Good enough, Cub !" "Shake!" "Put it there! " ' ' Hooray for the ' mining push ! ' " They caught hold of George's arm, pulling him around and slapping him on the back. " How did you get it ? " " Let go and I'll tell you. You see, I was wandering around in the Crocker Building over in town where there are offices of several mining companies. I hardly expected to get a job, but thought that maybe I could get some pointers. Pretty soon I came in front of a door lettered * Jumper Gold Syndicate of California, Limited. ' I braced in. There was a fellow hanging over a desk talking to another guy. I braced him. He sized me up. ' College student?' 'Yes, but I'm looking for work, not snaps.' He reaches over to a glass case and tosses me a couple of specimens of minerals, and tells me to name the constitu- ents. I guessed right. Well, the upshot of it is that the guy was the superintendent himself, visiting town, and he told me to report next Monday at the mine. Two and a half per. Maybe you'll make more, but I'll manage to save enough, and just think of the experience ! " George's eyes danced. " That'll give you some idea of what digging really is, hey, Cub ? " " You bet ! It'll beat digging for exes all to pieces." The full moon, mounting the tops of the hills in back, shone down upon the campus, bathing its familiar scenes in a mellow brightness, and blending strange, unaccustomed 228 For the Blue, and Gold lights and shades out of the buildings and trees. Not a breath disturbed the leaves. Nature had subsided into a peaceful, cool quiet, after the pulsating heat of the early summer day. Strangely alone and unfamiliar seemed the one living figure in all the scarcely breathing repose, though the figure itself might have been a part of the landscape, for so long time stood it motionless, looming with softened outline in the soft, white light. Nine months before had James stood on the same South Hall steps, drinking in the daytime beauty of the scene spread out below him. Then all was suggestive of life, from the animated paths of the campus to the bay out beyond, where the vessels were plowing the sparkling waters. And his mind, too, had reflected the animation of the scene, had teemed with thoughts of action, of things to be done and ends to be achieved. How quiet now the scene ! Typical of repose after labor. Old North Hall opposite, standing peacefully, with outlines softened in the mellow light, gave no suggestion of the bustle which had but ceased to echo within its halls. And down below, the oaks, not a leaf stirring in their low- sweeping limbs, stood as massive sentinels to guard the boundaries of the slumbering campus. ' ' Dear old campus ! What you have been to me in this past year I can never, never tell. " His voice choked, he felt the lump rise in his throat, and big Jim Rawson tried hard to force back two warm tears that had welled up into his eyes. The lovely scene before him had wrought so strongly on his emotions that the campus spoke to him as if alive, embodying in itself and standing as symbol for all the Q-u-t Spells Out 229 beloved things that had gone to make his first year at college the best year of his life. The memories, sweet and strong, surged through him till he tingled, and he spoke out to the campus in reply with that love which gushes when the young man meets the " first one." Had he not met the ' ' first one ' ' unknowingly ? Was it not that the spring had been tapped and that that pure love for college which was now welling up from the youth's heart was love poten- tial, which should glorify the man's life with an appreciation of what is lovable ? With a tarrying look, James turned to go, the peace of the campus lying deeply upon him, stilling for a time the currents of ambition, but not quelling them, for in the deepest channels of his being they were coursing along, unrestrained, unrestrainable. Arriving home, he discerned a woman's figure, bare- headed, leaning over the gate. "Good evening, Miss Gray. Enjoying the moon, I see.' ' "Yes, I couldn't stay indoors. It was so alluring. You don't suppose I was going to give you a monopoly of this beautiful night, do you ? ' ' " I could not be so selfish." 1 ' Have you been saying good-by to the campus ? ' ' "Well, I was just strolling over there a bit. It looks quite different in the moonlight. You'd barely think it had ever been alive.' ' "I went the rounds today, saying good-by to all the little nooks and benches. It'll probably be many a long day before I see the campus again." " Why, are you going far away ? " "Not so far. But, if I go it'll be far enough. In 230 For the Blue and Gold fact, I don't know for certain. It's not settled yet, so I ought not to say anything." ' ( You have to tell me, now that you've aroused my interest." "Well, I've had overtures (her eyes sought the ground), from the Riverside High School, but it isn't settled." " My ! oh ! isn' t that fine ! ' ' Here James became exceedingly conscious. " Why, that's where I live ! " She was silent. " If you go down, " he went on quickly, " you want to look my folks up. They'll be glad to know you for my because you know me. I'll write tomorrow." "You're anticipating, Mr. Rawson. I told you it isn't settled. It may come to nothing." "Oh, it'll be all right ! They're all anxious to get the medalist. The old saying, you know ' nothing succeeds like success. ' ' ' "I'll know definitely next week. If you tell me where to address you I'll drop you a note about the result." ' ' That' s a go San Rafael post-office. And you just tell me where you are if you don't go to Riverside. But you'll make it all right." He nodded decisively. "And I'm coming down for the last couple of weeks of vacation. I expect to find you the best of friends with my mother. I know she'll like you." This same mother would have been surprised had she heard this determination to visit home in the light of the letter regretting its impossibility that she had just received from her son. They had turned and were walking up the path to the 0-u-t Spells Out 231 house. " I suppose you'll be off early in the morning, Mr. Rawson?" "Yes, we'll be off with the birds." " Well, then, good-by. I wish you every success, and feel confident that you will gain the best." James grasped the proffered hand tighter than he knew. " Good-by, Miss Gray. I thank you for what you have done for me. I have been better for knowing you." " So have I for knowing you. Strength is catching." She smiled. " You won't forget to write ? " " I won't." "Good-by." A perfect May morning. The air is a tonic. The birds are chirping cheerily in the quiet trees. The town is not yet awake. Two bicycles leaning up against the fence, with luggage strapped on handle-bars and behind seats, give evidence that a departure is about to be made. James Rawson comes out of the front door and walks down to the gate. His step is buoyant ; he throws his chest back and expands his lungs with the pure air. Confidence, calm realization of strength shine from the clear eyes, and are graven in the set of the lean jaw. And good cause. Handicapped, without assistance, he has just passed the first mile-stone in the journey of the larger life. Look at him ! Does he appear as if the journey had distressed him ? No. His wind and limbs are strong, have been strengthened in the process. He has not kept his nose to the ground as he went ; he has taken time to look around and up, and to enjoy the beauties of the roadside. 232 For the Blue and Gold As he goes down the walk two glistening eyes follow him from a half-closed shutter above. " Isn't he a man ! " comes from a heart full of conflict- ing sighs. " Percy, we're off! Cub, good-by ; take good care of yourself. Don't get cold from the fire-damp, and write at least once." "Good-by, boys." The wheels are taken to the curbstone ; the tires tested with thumbs ; legs are thrown over saddles ; from the doorway a handkerchief waves. "Good-by, Mrs. Saunders." " So long, George." " A California yell, fellows. All together." Clear and sharp rings out upon the quiet morning : Ha! Ha! Ha! Cali for nia! U. C. Berkeley ! Zip ! Boom ! Ah ! THE END. Robertson s Publications A. M. Robertson i 26 Post Street San Francisco ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS Speeches and Orations of D. M. Delmas A large octavo, severe classic binding, gold top, deckle-edged paper. Limited edition. Price $2.50. Observations on Chinatown By ROBERT HOWE FLETCHER Author of "MARJORIE AND HER PAPA" and "JOHNSTOWN STAGE," illustrated with ten drawings by Ernest Peixotto, large quarto, beautifully printed from type, boxed, a notable example of bookmaking. Only 750 copies printed. Collectors of unique books are advised to secure a copy. Price $3.50. Idyls of El Dorado By CHARLES KEELER ' ' Mr. Charles Keeler celebrates the grandeur and loveliness of his surroundings. He sings to the ocean and the redwood tree, to the Alaskan glacier and the canyon severing the hill, to the dove mourning and the flower found in the woods, to San Francisco and the University of California." The Sun, N. 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