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

know what’s good for you.”⁠ ⁠… “Freshman! go up to Hill Twenty-eight and put the beds together.”⁠ ⁠… “Freshman! come up to my room. I want you to hang pictures.”

Fortunately the labor did not last long, but while it lasted Hugh was hustled around as he never had been before. And he loved it. He loved his blue cap and its orange button; he loved the upper-classmen who called him freshman and ordered him around; he loved the very trunks that he lugged so painfully upstairs. He was being recognized, merely as a janitor, it is true, but recognized; at last he was a part of Sanford College. Further, one of the men who had ordered him around the most fiercely wore a Nu Delta pin, the emblem of his father’s fraternity. He ran that man’s errands with such speed and willingness that the hero decided that the freshman was “very, very dumb.”

That night Hugh and Carl sat in 19 Surrey and rested their aching bones, one on a couch, the other in a leather Morris chair.

“Hot stuff, wasn’t it?” said Hugh, stretching out comfortably.

“Hot stuff, hell! How do they get that way?”

“Never mind; we’ll do the ordering next year.”

“Right you are,” said Carl decisively, lighting a cigarette, “and won’t I make the little frosh walk.” He gazed around the room, his face beaming with satisfaction. “Say, we’re pretty snappy here, aren’t we?”

Hugh, too, looked around admiringly. The walls were almost hidden by banners, a huge Sanford blanket⁠—Hugh’s greatest contribution⁠—Carl’s Kane blanket, the photographs of the “harem,” posters of college athletes and movie bathing-girls, pipe-racks, and three Maxfield Parrish prints.

“It certainly is fine,” said Hugh proudly. “All we need is a barber pole and a street sign.”

“We’ll have ’em before the week is out.” This with great decision.

IV

Carl’s adviser had been less efficient than Hugh’s; therefore he knew what his courses were, where the classes met and the hours, the names of his instructors, and the requirements other than Latin for a B.S. degree. Carl said that he was taking a B.S. because he had had a year of Greek at Kane and was therefore perfectly competent to make full use of the language; he could read the letters on the front doors of the fraternity houses.

The boys found that their courses were the same but that they were in different sections. Hugh was in a dilemma; he could make nothing out of his card.

“Here,” said Carl, “give the thing to me. My adviser was a good scout and wised me up. This P.C. isn’t paper cutting as you might suppose; it’s gym. You’ll get out of that by signing up for track. P.C. means physical culture. Think of that! You can sign up for track any time tomorrow down at the gym. And E I, 7 means that you’re in English I, Section 7; and M is math. You re in Section 3. Lat means Latin, of course⁠—Section 6. My adviser⁠—he tried pretty hard to be funny⁠—said that G.S. wasn’t glorious salvation but general science. That meets in the big lecture hall in Cranston. We all go to that. And H I, 4 means that you are in Section 4 of History I. See? That’s all there is to it. Now this thing”⁠—he held up a printed schedule⁠—“tells you where the classes meet.”

With a great deal of labor, discussion, and profanity they finally got a schedule made out that meant something to Hugh. He heaved a Brobdingnagian sigh of relief when they finished.

“Well,” he exclaimed, “that’s that! At last I know where I’m going. You certainly saved my life. I know where all the buildings are; so it ought to be easy.”

“Sure,” said Carl encouragingly; “it’s easy. Now there’s nothing to do till tomorrow until eight forty-five when we attend chapel to the glory of the Lord. I think I’ll pray tomorrow; I may need it. Christ! I hate to study.”

“Me, too,” Hugh lied. He really loved books, but somehow he couldn’t admit the fact, which had suddenly become shameful, to Carl. “Let’s go to the movies,” he suggested, changing the subject for safety.

“Right-o!” Carl put on his freshman cap and flung Hugh’s to him. “Gloria Nielsen is there, and she’s a pash baby. Ought to be a good fillum.”

The Blue and Orange⁠—it was the only movie theater in town⁠—was almost full when the boys arrived. Only a few seats near the front were still vacant. A freshman started down the aisle, his “baby bonnet” stuck jauntily on the back of his head.

“Freshman!”⁠ ⁠… “Kill him!”⁠ ⁠… “Murder the frosh!” Shouts came from all parts of the house, and an instant later hundreds of peanuts shot swiftly at the startled freshman. “Cap! Cap! Cap off!” There was a panic of excitement. Upper-classmen were standing on their chairs to get free throwing room. The freshman snatched off his cap, drew his head like a scared turtle down into his coat collar, and ran for a seat. Hugh and Carl tucked their caps into their coat pockets and attempted to stroll nonchalantly down the aisle. They hadn’t taken three steps before the bombardment began. Like their classmate, they ran for safety.

Then someone in the front of the theatre threw a peanut at someone in the rear. The fight was on! Yelling like madmen, the students stood on their chairs and hurled peanuts, the front and rear of the house automatically dividing into enemy camps. When the fight was at its hottest, three girls entered.

“Wimmen! Wimmen!” As the girls walked down the aisle, infinitely pleased with their reception, five hundred men stamped in time with their steps.

No sooner were the girls seated than there was a scramble in one corner, an excited scuffling of feet. “I’ve got it!” a boy screamed. He stood on his chair and held up a live mouse by its tail. There was a shout of applause and then⁠—“Play catch!”

The boy dropped the writhing mouse into a