Chapter XV: The End of It

"Hello, here comes Deacon Young with a brand new orange-and-black blazer on!"

"Yea-a-a," interrupted one fellow in a loud, shrill voice, and the others all joined in and yelled, "Yea-a, Deacon!" and ran at him and pounded him on the shoulders, jumped on his back and made other signs of pleasure at seeing a classmate once more, while they asked him what kind of a vacation he had had, and told him he looked as though he had been training for football all summer. Will laughed and told how he had trained.

"It must be great to work on a farm," said Lee, punching the Deacon's shoulders.

"Come on," one of them shouted, "we're taking a walk about the old place to see how everything looks. Let's gather a crowd--Ninety-blank this way!"

They shouted the old cry in concert and started off together.

"What are you going to do this year, Deacon?" It was Todd who happened to be marching next to Young.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, are you going to pole or loaf or be a dead-game or what?"

"Well," answered Young, "I'm going to do some of the first and combine some football with it if I have good luck; but I am not going to try any more of the last. I don't know as I need tell you that, Todd." He wanted to say more, but only frowned as he thought of how hard it would be to accomplish what he had resolved to accomplish with the club this year.

Todd said, "I'm glad you told me, though. I think the whole club made a fool of itself last year. It needs to take a big brace."

Young turned and looked at him. Todd had spoken in his usual quiet, careless manner, but Young thought his words implied something.

"Do you think--say, Todd, do you think there's much hope of its bracing?"

"Not unless they're made to," laughed Todd. "Perhaps," he said, looking the other way, "we can make 'em if we pull together. What do you say, Deacon?"

"Let's try," said Young. He held out his hand.

Todd took it in an embarrassed manner, and then shouted: "Hi, there, you fellows in front! Let's go down to meet the 2.17. There'll be a lot of the class in on that train. Start up a song, somebody."

They all marched off across the campus singing, with loud happy voices:

"Here's to Ninety-blank--
Drink her down--drink her down."

Arms were thrown carelessly over shoulders and perhaps they swaggered a little as they marched. But it feels very good to be a Sophomore, especially the first day.

And all this fraternal joyousness, together with the superabundance of orange and black, greatly impressed one of the very green Freshmen who happened just then to be scurrying by with wonder in his eyes. And it happened to be at about the same spot in the walk that another Freshman had met another crowd of Sophomores and was called "Deacon" for the first time in his life. But that was a whole year ago.

Young had learned a good deal in that year, he was thinking. "Not all of what you are taught at college," he said to himself, "comes out of the text-books--especially in Freshman year."

By Jesse Lynch Williams

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The Stolen Story And Other Newspaper Stories

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Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers

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By Jesse Lynch Williams

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Princeton Stories

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