Kitabı oku: «The Diary of a Freshman», sayfa 17
XVII1
Most of the time I was on my knees. There were only two moments of relief in the painful march; they came when the crowd stopped to pull out two other unfortunates and hurl them, as I had been hurled, from their respective front doors. For the time being (it was a very short time, however) the rest of us were neglected; but as soon as the arms of our fellow neophyte were linked in ours, the irresistible impetus from behind began once more and we continued our perilous way.
At last all ten of us were shoved – a dazed and gasping semicircle – up the steps of Claverly Hall, and our names were cheered in the order of our election. With the exception of Berri, I had n't known before who the others were. In the darkness and excitement it had been impossible to see. There was something ominous and depressing in the cheers they gave us. Berri said, in talking about it the week afterward, that it was as if the cannibal band should cheer the missionary. Then the crowd melted away with vague threats as to what was to come, and I was taken back to my room, weary and stupid, by Dick Smith. He was to be my guide and only friend during the week that was to follow. Before he left me, he told me the conditions of my servitude.
* * * * * * *
That week was the longest and most absolutely wretched of my life, I think; although now that it is over, I would n't give up the memory of it for almost anything. Even in the midst of it the idea of chucking the whole thing, as I suppose I might have done, never occurred to me. I could at times conceive of my giving out, but never of my giving up. The first day of my "running," as it is called, from six in the morning until ten o'clock at night, was one long embarrassment, mortification, and mental agony to me. I set my teeth and forced myself through it doggedly. The days that followed were just as bad, – even worse, perhaps, – but I did n't have to compel myself to do things. I went through them mechanically; where almost everything was a hideous nightmare, no one incident, after a time, had the power to overwhelm me as at first. I was too tired and dirty and unshaven and cowed to care particularly what they made me do, or to have a feeling of any kind, other than one of hopeless submission. In the morning after an early breakfast at The Holly Tree * * * * * * * * * * *
Then some one, usually three or four, would get hold of me and make me do perfectly awful things in the College Yard or on the streets. I had to perform so many crazy acts that I can't remember them all, or on what days they came, and, as I said, I grew perfectly indifferent to what I had to do or who saw me do it.
One warm afternoon they made me put on three soft, thick sweaters and then took me to a drug-store in the Square, where they poured over me half the contents of a long line of perfumery bottles on the counter, – white-rose, heliotrope, patchouly, musk, ylangylang, violet, bay-rum, and several kinds of cologne, – all the deadly scents that one investigates while waiting for a prescription to be put up. Then we got on an electric car, – the fellows who were running me at one end, and I at the other. They of course (after instructing me to snuggle up to my fellow passengers, – refined old ladies and peevish middle-aged gentlemen in particular) pretended to ignore me. But the other passengers did n't. Everybody I sat next to would turn, after about three seconds, look at me with a slight contraction of the nostrils, and then move away; in less than ten seconds more they would be on the other side of the car. It was not long before I had one side of the car all to myself. Then – this also I had been ordered to do – when we reached the edge of the bridge, I jumped up and, as a sort of climax, "threw a fit." Passengers in street cars always find this very trying, especially if you fall down in the aisle foaming at the mouth and clutch at their feet. Before my five days of running were over, I grew exceedingly expert at throwing fits. I certainly had enough practice at it. Well, when we got across the bridge I was hustled out of the car into a drug-store, where I recovered in time to catch the next car back – and do the whole thing over again.
It was on the evening of that day, I think, that they took me to the theatre – or, I should say, the theatres, as we visited several. (They had in the mean time taken off the perfume-soaked garments, not through consideration for my feelings, but for their own.) One might think that, under the circumstances, going to the theatre would have been a delightful rest. But it wasn't. I had a seat all to myself down in front, and the fellows who took me sat ten or twelve rows back. Beyond the fact that the first play we went to was a nice, staid performance that had attracted a large and very "dressy" audience, I have no recollection of it; for my thoughts were all centred on the dreadful thing that was going to happen at the end of the first act.
The curtain went down; there was a polite flutter of applause, and then, while the orchestra was getting ready and the house was perfectly quiet except for a murmur of talk, I stood up, facing everybody, and exclaimed in a loud, distinct voice, —
"This show is bum, and I want my money back."
The effect was electrical. All conversation stopped instantly, and I could actually hear the craning of necks from one end of the theatre to the other.
"This show is bum, and I want my money back," I declared again, louder than before. Some men near me began to laugh; the ladies looked scared to death, and from the gallery came a wild clapping of hands and yells of, "That's no lie," and "He's all right." Whereupon (as per instructions) I began to yell the thing over and over again at the top of my voice, and kept it up until four ushers skated down the aisle and threw me out, still yelling. I had visions, as I flew along toward the exit, of white-faced women indulging in hysterics. I did this at two other shows, and the fellows regretted very much that there didn't happen to be any five-act plays in town, for they said my technique got better and better as the evening went on.
Then I spent whole afternoons in creeping up behind the sparrows in the Square and endeavoring to put salt on their tails; in going from shop to shop trying to get the clerks to change a cent; in holding up baby carriages, kissing the occupants and then remarking that I was "passionately fond of animals." (I kissed fifty-six babies on Commonwealth Avenue in one afternoon.) I stalked Indians with a little bow and arrow in the Yard one morning between lectures (cutting lectures is n't allowed), craftily creeping from tree to tree, hiding a moment, peeping out warily, and finally exclaiming as I shot an arrow and dashed into the open, —
"Bang – and another red-skin bit the dust."
This was one of the few times (except in the evening) that I saw Berri during the entire week. He was walking up and down the stone parapet of Matthews with a silly little false red fringe of beard around his neck, proclaiming to all the passers-by, —
"Listen to me; I am a Berrisford of Salem."
In a pair of green tights and on horseback, I distributed armfuls of the "smuggled" cigars from Santa Bawthawthawthoth to the inhabitants of Cambridgeport, and when a great crowd had collected around me, delivered a lecture on the evils of smoking. I intercepted at various times many respectable old ladies on their way across the streets, for the purpose of confidentially whispering, —
"Madam, I regret to inform you that you are holding your skirts just a leetle too high."
I also had to stop car after car, put my foot on the step, tie my shoestring, and then stand back, saying to the conductor, —
"Thank you, you may go on now." This is an old game, but it's a great favorite.
Two things happened (and only two) that I liked. One was when I had to call on a girl in town – I had never seen her before – and write all my part of the conversation on a slate. She was very pretty and good to me; for instead of being disgusted at my appearance (she had every reason to be) and having me put out of the house, she made me sit down and ordered tea (I realized, for the first time, how nice tea could be) and was altogether a perfect peach. She said, among other things, that she had been at the theatre the night I made the row. I wrote on the slate, "Which one? The performance was given by special request at three different places," which made her laugh. I stayed talking, or rather writing, to her for more than half an hour. The fellows who had brought me to the door were very angry; for, thinking that I would be chased away by a husky footman at the end of a minute or two, they had n't told me how long to stay and were waiting outside to see what happened. When at last I got up to go, the pretty girl held out her hand very graciously and said, —
"We'll meet again someday, I'm sure," and I wrote on the slate, —
"It will not be my fault if we don't. Good-by!" She took the slate and the pencil, drew a line through the last word, and wrote under it, —
"Au revoir." Then I left. I did meet her again very soon afterwards, at the Beck spread on Class Day. She was the prettiest girl there. She 's going abroad in three days, and as papa let me engage passage for our trip (he and mamma and Mildred will be here to morrow), it did n't take me long to decide on the steamer. When he found that I had picked out, for no apparent reason, one of the old Cunarders sailing from Boston, he was perfectly furious. But it's too late for him to change now.
The other thing I enjoyed during my running was the day that Mr. Fleetwood stole me away from some fellows and took me up to his room overlooking the Yard. He is an old Dickey man himself, and had as much right to my services as any one. I embarrassed him at first, I think. Strangely enough, I appreciated this a little even then, when I had no business to be appreciating anything beyond the fact that I was a mere grovelling worm. He sat down, when we went into his room, and looked at me curiously, diffidently, for a moment, as if he did n't quite know how to begin. Then he said with something of an effort, as if he considered himself a little foolish to say anything, —
"What, pray, is your name?" I gave the required answer, at which he smiled – rather sadly, I thought; although I did n't see what reason he had to look that way. Then he asked me to do several things, – old, old things that neophytes probably had to do when the Dickey was first started; things that have become conventions; the kind of things you are always asked to do by fellows who have n't enough imagination to think of anything new. He gave his commands (with him, however, they became requests) slowly, as if he couldn't remember just how they went. And he didn't always express them the way the fellows do. I could n't help feeling that if Shakespeare had ever tried to torment a neophyte, he had done it in very much the same way. He scarcely noticed my attempts to do what he asked. He was interested, I think, not so much in discovering my feeble talents as in recalling the general situation. But he stopped doing even this in a short time, and got up and went over to the open window and looked out into the wilderness of elm leaves and down at the cool, shady stretches of grass and the yellow paths of the Yard.
I really think he forgot all about me, for I stood there an interminable time waiting for him to turn around. Just before he did turn, he yawned and said listlessly to himself, —
"Well, I suppose it's as it should be." He must have said this to himself, as he seemed surprised to find me standing patiently in the middle of the room where he had left me.
"My dear boy, sit down, sit down," he exclaimed, – "that is, unless you would rather go away." I answered that I should rather stay there if he did n't mind. It was so cool and quiet and safe in his room; I knew that no one could ever find me, and I was very tired.
"I have some themes to read," Fleetwood went on, "but you won't disturb me. Do whatever you want to, and if you feel like it, talk."
We did talk a little. Then I stretched out on his divan and tried to read; but before I had finished half a chapter I drifted away into the most blissful sleep I 've ever had. I can just remember the whispering sound of footsteps on the pavement under the windows, and the rustle of the crisp new leaves. When I awoke the room was dark. There was a sheet of paper pinned to my coat, and when I got into the lighted corridor I saw written on it, —
"In reply to any questions as to your disappearance, you may truthfully explain that you did a difficult and important bit of work for W. J. Fleetwood." I don't know yet what he meant. Some day next year I think I 'll ask him. I don't believe I know any one who is so very clever and so very kind.
The next night – the last – the night of the * * * * * * * * * * * *
XVIII
It was only natural, I suppose, that for a week or so after we had become full-fledged Dickey men the First Ten should have stuck pretty close together. We had such a lot to talk about, – things that we could n't very well talk about to outsiders. To tell the truth, the rest of the class for a time seemed like outsiders to me. They had n't been through what we had, and I confess that I could n't help looking on our little crowd as something apart from the others and, taken all in all, rather extraordinary. I don't know that I thought this in so many words, but I did feel it; and it was Berri – of all persons – who brought me back to earth one day with a jerk. I forget just what I said to call forth his remarks, but it was something in the nature of a complaint that the fellows at the table did n't seem to have as much time for me, so to speak, as they once had. Berri puffed at his pipe for a while and stared at the ceiling, and finally said, —
"Of course, I see what you mean; but it's not them, you know – it's us."
"I'm sure I don't think – " I began defensively.
"No, I don't believe you do realize the true state of affairs," Berri interrupted. "Lots of fellows would, and then pretend all the time that they did n't; that's what I do. But you don't. You just have the big-head from pure delight, and go around swelled up like a hop-toad without in the least knowing it. Your old friends know it, though, and it naturally makes them a dash tired. And besides, what do you expect them to do, anyhow? Run after us? Of course they won't do that. In the first place, we 've both become rather obnoxious; I don't mind it in myself, but with you it's scarcely in character. And in the second place, none of the fellows at our table are swipes, and if any advances are made, well, they won't make them. So there you are!"
There was nothing much to say to this, because, after a few minutes of resentment, I felt all over that it was perfectly true. I did n't say anything, but you bet it was n't more than a day or two before the fellows seemed to me just the way they always had seemed. I think I had a pretty close call; I might have turned into a Dick Benton.
Three days before Class Day, who should blow in but Duggie? He literally did blow in, come to think of it, as he crossed from Cadiz in a sailing-vessel and was as brown as a Spaniard. He brought Mrs. Chester a black lace shawl, and told her that if she 'd drape it around her head and sit at her upstairs window some evening, he 'd come and serenade her. To which the old girl responded with one of her roguish little digs at Duggie's ribs, and exclaimed, —
"Land sakes, Mr. Duggie, you can't sing, and never could."
Duggie wanted Berri and me to dine with him that evening, but Berri's last examination was to come the next morning (I had finished all of mine) and he could n't. I did, though, and we walked out to Cambridge afterwards in the moonlight. He told me all about his trip, and when I let him know that we were going abroad for the summer and that Berri was going over with us to join his mother at Dinard, he said, —
"I had a letter from Berri in answer to mine. I don't often keep letters, but I 've kept his. I suppose you know I did n't think much of Berri at first, but I don't mind confessing that I sized him up all wrong."
It was such a beautiful night that when we got to our gate, it seemed like wasting something to go in the house. Berri had finished his grind and was leaning out of my window. He said that his brain felt like a dead jellyfish (I think that was the pretty simile), and told us not to go in, as he would put on his coat and come down to us. So we strolled, all three, over to the Yard, and sat on the steps in front of one of the Holworthy entries. It was very late, but the finals were not yet over, and the yellow of many windows blurred through the trees. The long quadrangle was flecked with moonlight, and little groups like our own were sitting in front of almost every doorway. The Yard, except on great occasions, is rarely noisy, and that night it seemed particularly quiet, – a kind of lull before the crash of Class Day and Commencement.
Duggie and Berri and I sat there talking until the air and the sky had changed from summer night to summer morning. Even then a few of the windows were still glowing.
