The Plastic Age Percy Marks (read full novel txt) 📖

the chair and stretched hugely. “You’re a good egg, Hugh,” he said in the midst of a yawn, “but you’re a damn fool.”

Hugh started. That was just what he had said to Morse.

He never caught Carl in a confidential mood again. The next morning he was his old flippant self, swearing because he had to study his Latin, which wasn’t “of any damned use to anybody.”

In the following weeks Hugh religiously clung to Morse, helped him with his work, went to the movies with him, inveigled him into going on several long walks. Morse was more cheerful and almost pathetically grateful. One day, however, Hugh found an unstamped letter on the floor. He opened it wonderingly.

Dear Hugh [he read]. You’ve been awfully good to me but I can’t stand it. I’m going home today. Give my regards to Peters. Thanks for all you’ve done for me.

Bert Morse.

VII

For a moment after reading Morse’s letter Hugh was genuinely sorry, but almost immediately he felt irritated and hurt.

He handed the letter to Carl, who entered just as he finished reading it, and exploded: “The simp! And after I wasted so much time on him.”

Carl read the letter. “I told you so.” He smiled impishly. “You were the wise boy; you knew that he would get over it.”

Hugh should really have felt grateful to Morse. It was only a feeling of responsibility for him that had made Hugh prepare his own lessons. Day after day he had studied with Morse in order to cheer him up; and that was all the studying he had done. Latin and history had little opportunity to claim his interest in competition with the excitement around him.

Crossing the campus for the first few weeks of college was an adventure for every freshman. He did not know when he would be seized by a howling group of sophomores and forced to make an ass of himself for their amusement. Sometimes he was required to do “esthetic dancing,” sometimes to sing, or, what was more common, to make a speech. And no matter how hard he tried, the sophomores were never pleased. If he danced, they laughed at him, guyed him unmercifully, called attention to his legs, his awkwardness, urged him to go faster, insisted that he get some “pash” into it. If he sang, and the frightened freshman usually sang off key, they interrupted him after a few notes, told him to sing something else, interrupted that, and told him “for God’s sake” to dance. The speechmaking, however, provided the most fun, especially if the freshman was cleverer than his captors. Then there was a battle of wits, and if the freshman too successfully defeated his opponents, he was dropped into a watering-trough that had stood on the campus for more than a century. Of justice there was none, but of sport there was a great plenty. The worst scared of the freshmen really enjoyed the experience. By a strange sort of inverted logic, he felt that he was something of a hero; at least, for a brief time he had occupied the public eye. He had been initiated; he was a Sanford man.

One freshman, however, found those two weeks harrowing. That was Merton Billings, the fat man of the class. Day after day he was captured by the sophomores and commanded to dance. He was an earnest youth and entirely without a sense of humor. Dancing to him was not only hard work but downright wicked. He was a member of the Epworth League, and he took his membership seriously. Even David, he remembered, had “got in wrong” because he danced; and he had no desire to emulate David. Within two days the sophomores discovered his religious ardor, his horror of drinking, smoking, and dancing. So they made him dance while they howled with glee at his bobbing stomach; his short, staggering legs; his red jowls, jigging and jouncing; his pale blue eyes, protruding excitedly from their sockets; his lips pressed tight together, periodically popping open for breath. He was very funny, very angry, and very much ashamed. Every night he prayed that he might be forgiven his sin. A month later when the intensity of his hatred had subsided somewhat, he remembered to his horror that he had not prayed that his tormentors be forgiven their even greater sin. He rectified the error without delay, not neglecting to ask that the error be forgiven, too.

Hugh was forced to sing, to dance, and to make a speech, but he escaped the watering-trough. He thought the fellows were darned nice to let him off, and they thought that he was too darned nice to be ducked. Although Hugh didn’t suspect it, he was winning immediate popularity. His shy, friendly smile, his natural modesty, and his boyish enthusiasm were making a host of friends for him. He liked the “initiations” on the campus, but he did not like some of them in the dormitories. He didn’t mind being pulled out of bed and shoved under a cold shower. He took a cold shower every morning, and if the sophomores wanted to give him another one at night⁠—all right, he was willing. He had to confess that “Eliza Crossing the Ice” had been enormous fun. The freshmen were commanded to appear in the common room in their oldest clothes. Then all of them, the smallest lad excepted, got down on their hands and knees, forming a circle. The smallest lad, “Eliza,” was given a big bucket full of water. He jumped upon the back of the man nearest to him and ran wildly around the circle, leaping from back to back, the bucket swinging crazily, the water splashing in every direction and over everybody.

Hugh liked such “stunts,” and he liked putting on a show with three other freshmen for the amusement of their peers, but he did object to the vulgarity and cruelty of much that was done.

The first order the sophomores