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

peanut bag, screwed the open end tight-closed, and then threw the bag far across the room. Another boy caught it and threw it, this time over the girls’ heads. They screamed and jumped upon their chairs, holding their skirts, and dancing up and down in assumed terror. Back over their heads, back and over, again and again the bagged mouse was thrown while the girls screamed and the boys roared with delight. Suddenly one of the girls threw up her arm, caught the bag deftly, held it for a second, and then tossed it into the rear of the theater.

Cheers of terrifying violence broke loose: “Ray! Ray! Atta girl! Hot dog! Ray, ray!” And then the lights went out.

“Moosick! Moosick! Moo-sick!” The audience stamped and roared, whistled and howled. “Moosick! We want moosick!”

The pianist, an undergraduate, calmly strolled down the aisle.

“Get a move on!”⁠ ⁠… “Earn your salary!”⁠ ⁠… “Give us moosick!”

The pianist paused to thumb his nose casually at the entire audience, and then amid shouts and hisses sat down at the piano and began to play “Love Nest.”

Immediately the boys began to whistle, and as the comedy was utterly stupid, they relieved their boredom by whistling the various tunes that the pianist played until the miserable film flickered out.

Then the “feature” and the fun began. During the stretches of pure narrative, the boys whistled, but when there was any real action they talked. The picture was a melodrama of “love and hate,” as the advertisement said.

The boys told the actors what to do; they revealed to them the secrets of the plot. “She’s hiding behind the door, Harold. No, no! Not that way. Hey, dumbbell⁠—behind the door.”⁠ ⁠… “Catch him, Gloria; he’s only shy!”⁠ ⁠… “No, that’s not him!”

The climactic fight brought shouts of encouragement⁠—to the villain. “Kill him!”⁠ ⁠… “Shoot one to his kidneys!”⁠ ⁠… “Ahhhhh,” as the villain hit the hero in the stomach.⁠ ⁠… “Muss his hair. Attaboy!”⁠ ⁠… “Kill the skunk!” And finally groans of despair when the hero won his inevitable victory.

But it was the love scenes that aroused the greatest ardor and joy. The hero was given careful instructions. “Some neckin’, Harold!”⁠ ⁠… “Kiss her! Kiss her! Ahhh!”⁠ ⁠… “Harold, Harold, you’re getting rough!”⁠ ⁠… “She’s vamping you, Harold!”⁠ ⁠… “Stop it; Gloria; he’s a good boy.” And so on until the picture ended in the usual closeup of the hero and heroine silhouetted in a tender embrace against the setting sun. The boys breathed “Ahhhh” and “Ooooh” ecstatically⁠—and laughed. The meretricious melodrama did not fool them, but they delighted in its absurdities.

The lights flashed on and the crowd filed out, “wisecracking” about the picture and commenting favorably on the heroine’s figure. There were shouts to this fellow or that fellow to come on over and play bridge, and suggestions here and there to go to a drug store and get a drink.

Hugh and Carl strolled home over the dark campus, both of them radiant with excitement, Hugh frankly so.

“Golly, I did enjoy that,” he exclaimed. “I never had a better time. It was sure hot stuff. I don’t want to go to the room; let’s walk for a while.”

“Yeah, it was pretty good,” Carl admitted. “Nope, I can’t go walking; gotta write a letter.”

“Who to? The harem?”

Carl hunched his shoulders until his ears touched his coat collar. “Gettin’ cold. Fall’s here. Nope, not the harem. My old lady.”

Hugh looked at him bewildered. He was finding Carl more and more a conundrum. He consistently called his mother his old lady, insisted that she was a damned nuisance⁠—and wrote to her every night. Hugh was writing to his mother only twice a week. It was very confusing.⁠ ⁠…

V

Capwell Chapel⁠—it bore the pork merchant’s name as an eternal memorial to him⁠—was as impressive inside as out. The stained-glass windows had been made by a famous New York firm; the altar had been designed by an even more famous sculptor. The walls, quite improperly, were adorned with paintings of former presidents, but the largest painting of all⁠—it was fairly Gargantuan⁠—was of the pork merchant, a large, ruddy gentleman, whom the artist, a keen observer, had painted truly⁠—complacently porcine, benevolently smug.

The seniors and juniors sat in the nave, the sophomores on the right side of the transept, the freshmen on the left. Hugh gazed upward in awe at the dim recesses of the vaulted ceiling, at the ornately carved choir where gowned students were quietly seating themselves, at the colored light streaming through the beautiful windows, at the picture of the pork merchant. The chapel bells ceased tolling; rich, solemn tones swelled from the organ.

President Culver in cap and gown, his purple hood falling over his shoulders, entered followed by his faculty, also gowned and hooded. The students rose and remained standing until the president and faculty were seated. The organ sounded a final chord, and then the college chaplain rose and prayed⁠—very badly. He implored the Lord to look kindly “on these young men who have come from near and far to drink from this great fount of learning, this well of wisdom.”

The prayer over, the president addressed the students. He was a large, erect man with iron-gray hair and a rugged intelligent face. Although he was sixty years old, his body was vigorous and free from extra weight. He spoke slowly and impressively, choosing his words with care and enunciating them with great distinctness. His address was for the freshmen: he welcomed them to Sanford College, to its splendid traditions, its high ideals, its noble history. He spoke of the famous men it numbered among its sons, of the work they had done for America and the world, of the work he hoped future Sanford men, they, the freshmen, would some day do for America and the world. He mentioned briefly the boys from Sanford who had died in the World War “to make the world safe for democracy,” and he prayed that their sacrifice had not been in vain. Finally, he spoke of the chapel service, which the students were