Princeton Stories

High up over Clio Hall hung a moon, which a night or two before had been full. Over there, on the balconies of Witherspoon, blue and red and green lights were flaring. On the grass-plot in front was a huge black circle. This was made up of the College of New Jersey.

Their hats were off, and the red and the green and the blue mingled with the moonlight and glared upon the bare heads and the white of the faces with an effect as ghastly as it sounds.

The elms over toward Reunion and West cast long ugly-looking shadows. Beyond these everything seemed far away and dark and silent. Yet only a few hours before this same spot had served the innocent purpose of batting up flies and kicking footballs for points, with fellows shouting in loud, careless voices, "Aw! Come off! That was over the line!"

The circle was not yet perfectly formed. The crowd shivered and fidgeted, and borrowed lights of one another. Those behind called "Down in front!" And everyone wished it would begin. Some fellows kept edging in and were shoved back again by those appointed for that purpose. A few were moving about inside the circle displaying rolls of bills with which they made bets, and a great impression on under-classmen of a certain sort. The night was to be clear and frosty, and the strain on the nerves tremendous. So all those who believed in artificial warmth had it in their pockets, and some who did not.

For a month it had been, next to football, the most discussed topic at dinner-tables. Almost as soon as the rush was over--the annual cannon rush of the second night of the term without which the freshmen would not have considered themselves a class, while the underclassmen were still occupied in hazing and being hazed, and putting up and pulling down each other's proclamations throughout the state, and painting and repainting water-towers, and losing sleep in other good causes; in short, early in the term the candidates for the spreeing positions went into training, and they had been spreeing vigorously every night since--the freshmen back of the chapel and the sophs on the South Campus, about where Brown Hall now stands.

All sorts of rumors and counter-rumors had floated about the campus. The sophomores were frightened about a hinted-at dark horse of the freshmen, only they did not show it; and the freshmen were scared to death at the confident air of the well-known champion of the sophomores, and tried not to show it. And each was awed at the mysterious air of the other, and both had betted more than they had any business to on the result, and were now lined up in front of Witherspoon. All were as excited as they cared to be, and they had been cheering for themselves since nine o'clock. The cheers echoed in the frosty air from dark West and bright Witherspoon, and from far away first Church.

The sophomores were closely massed in the segment of the circle on the higher ground toward Reunion. Their cheering sounded blatant, and to the freshmen sickeningly confident. And the freshmen--they were opposite, with their sweet scared faces still more closely huddled together. Each freshman had his little cap safely tucked away in his innermost pocket, and none of them was saying a word, except when he opened his mouth to cheer with all his heart for his dear class. It was all new to them. They only waited and waited with the same aching suspense that you had on Thanksgiving-day, when you saw the referee toss the coin and one team take the ball while the other crouched, and then waited and waited, and you felt certain that something awful was the matter, but you did not know what.

Presently, though no official sign was given, every one felt that the important moment was at hand. The cheering sounded as if reinforcements had arrived. A compact circle was now formed by composite consent. Those in the front row sat down on the grass and caught cold. The next row kneeled. Those behind leaned on them, and so on back to those who stood on tip-toe and craned their necks for an occasional glimpse. Outside the circle, over by the Witherspoon lamp-post, leaned Proctor Matthew Goldie, Esquire, in a careless attitude.

Everyone's heart jumped up a little when a voice cried, "Here they come!" as though it were he who had to spree.

Led by their coachers, the two light weights scudded out mysteriously from different wings of Witherspoon with overcoats wrapped about them. As they crossed the light, the crowd, which had hushed for a moment, broke out in wild prolonged cheering; the two upper classes, who were not immediately interested, joined in. So did the sporting gentlemen of the town, and even the little muckers cheered shrilly for their favorite class.

A path was forced through the crowd, and the two nimble light weights began peeling their sweaters. The sophomore was dressed in black, the freshman in pure white. They resined their hands. Everyone felt things.

The referee held out the stout piece of hickory called cane by courtesy. He put the freshman's hands outside. The cheering ceased. Mat. Goldie stretched and changed his position.

There was a hurting stillness as they stood there with their feet braced, frozen in the ghastly glare, the one in white and the one in black, while the referee said, in earnest tones, "Are you ready, freshman?"

You could see his chest filling up from the bottom as he answered, "Um."

"Are you ready, sophomore?"

"Yes."

"Spree!"

One of them dropped as if shot, the other followed him down, both turned over, each began struggling and straining; the coachers began coaching, the referee dropped down on his knees to see fair play, and then someone in the rear said, "Down in front!" in healthy, human tones, and you came to yourself and remembered that this was only a struggle for class honor, after all, and that whichever way it came out it was not going to kill you. Then you breathed.

Meanwhile, locked up in a room in East Middle Witherspoon, wrapped in sweaters and blankets, were five other freshmen, and to them the strain was worst of all. These were the other freshmen spreers, the light weight, the middle weight, and the three substitutes. They could only wait and listen and try to guess from the sound of the cheers which side had the advantage. It was too far off to distinguish anything but a ring with something undefined inside. The juniors said they must not go out on the balcony or get excited. This was easy to say.

While the crowd was in the room and fellows were clattering up and down the stairs and everyone was talking and the crowd outside was making a noise, it was not so bad. But now it was so silent they could almost hear the two contestants straining and wrenching below. Now and then the shrill, earnest voice of a coacher would cut through the silence. "Now! Now!" with an echo from the Presbyterian Church. "Right over with him. Remember what I told you." Once the middle weight arose from the divan; then he sat down again. A little later one of the subs whistled two bars of a tune and stopped as if he had forgotten something. Once in a while someone glanced at one of the others and then looked away again. They did not say much.

The only one who did not seem to mind it was Hill, the substitute heavy weight, and that was only because he had not sense enough. He was a big, thick-headed, sleepy-looking farmer, and the only reason he was up here with these nimble athletes was that he was such a tremendous buck and so stupid that when once he put his big hands on the stick he would not let go. But he would be used only in case the regular heavy weight died or had a fit or something before time was called, and that was improbable.

But Hill was enjoying everything. He thought the colored lights were "pretty," and he considered it good fun, loafing in this large, luxurious room. He glanced approvingly at the water-colors and examined the photographs and knocked down a few of them, and looked over the mugs and the foils and the antlers and the usual dust collectors of a well-furnished room. Then, because he approved of what he saw, he grinned.

He had grinned at the staring crowd when, half an hour before, it had stood to one side for him and the other spreers to pass by on the way back from weighing at the gymnasium. He thought lots of things were funny. He grinned broadly when, before the spree began, an excitable junior approached him in the corner where he was sitting alone and said, in jerky, tremulous tones, "Say, which do you think will win?" This was before the crowd was put out. That was the funniest thing of all--the way Cunningham put the crowd out. "Dash it! I wish to dash you fellows would dash quickly get to dash out of here. This is my room and, dash it all, I loaned it to the dash freshmen spreers and not to the whole dash college, dash it!" That was so funny that Hill let loose his huge laugh and filled up the room with it. This caused the other freshmen to look at one another and smile pityingly. But Hill did not notice it.

The other freshmen had little in common with Hill. It was not so much because he was uncouth as that he had no class spirit. He had entered college two days late, and those two days are like two years in some respects. He had missed the class meeting, where freshmen get a first sight of one another which lasts always, and he had missed the class rush about the cannon, where freshmen are so closely pressed together that they never after get quite apart. But the farmer should have wakened up by this time. Lack of class spirit is never pardonable. This is the way Hill happened to be here this evening.