"That"s my cla.s.s," he said to himself, and then he turned to his books again because he had not come to college to have a good time, but to study. But he sighed a little.
Now the voices began singing to the tune of "Balm of Gilead":
"Here"s to Ninety--blank--Drink her down--drink her down--
"Here"s to Ninety-blank-- Drink her down--drink her down, Here"s to Ninety-blank-- For she"s always----"
something that rhymed with the other part of Ninety.
Young put down his book for a minute.
They were coming still nearer.
He could hear some of the individual voices now.
Up d.i.c.kinson Street they came.
They turned the corner at Ca.n.a.l Street.
Now they halted.
Then a shrill voice shouted, "Now then, altogether, fellows, Hip! hip!"
"Ninety-blank! this! way!!" the many shouted in unison. It made a great noise.
Young opened his window.
"Once more," cried the shrill voice.
The call was repeated.
Young stuck his head out.
"Now then, fellows, a good rousing cheer for the honor of your cla.s.s.
Let everybody talk. Hip, hip!"
And the cheer fairly shook the house.
"Now then," commanded the clear, shrill voice, "Ninety-blank this way again once more--Hip, hip!"
Young drew his head in from the window and the next minute he was running downstairs three steps at a time. He could not help it.
Two other Freshmen joined him from neighboring houses on the way to the corner.
There, with the street light glaring dimly upon them, stood the Freshman cla.s.s, or most of it, closely drawn up four abreast, cheering for itself with all its might. The Juniors were leading the cheers with energetic waving of the arms; other Juniors were marshalling the forces.
Young and his two unknown companions began to run as they drew nearer, and those in the rear ranks hearing their footsteps gave a yell of welcome. It sounded like a prolonged "Yea-a-a."
The three new-comers modestly fell in at the rear. A quick-stepping nervous Junior came down the line looking each row over as he came along. He wore gla.s.ses, Young noticed, and a faded orange-and-black blazer.
"Here, you big fellow, you"ll do to go in front," he said, in a voice husky from cheering, and with that Young was taken by the arm, led way up to one of the front rows, shoved in beside three other fellows, and the Junior said, "Now, Tommy, that row"s complete."
The Freshman next to Young grabbed him by the coat-sleeve and locked an arm through his as if they had been comrades for four years instead of just about to be.
He had on a soiled canvas football jacket and was hatless. His hair was long. "How much do you weigh, old man?" he asked in an excited manner.
There was a lull in the cheering; everyone seemed to be whispering and chatting nervously; some of those in the rear were laughing at what one of the Juniors was telling them.
"About one hundred and eighty-five pounds," said Young to his neighbor wondering who he was and what kind of a fellow.
"Good! I weigh a hundred and seventy-nine and a half, stripped, just now--go up, though, after training awhile. You play football, I suppose?"
Young had never seen real football played, but he did not like to say so--and he did not have to, for just then another cheer was demanded and they both joined in with the rest of the cla.s.s, shouting with all their might, and then the command to march was given, and the line started forward, irregularly at first and with much treading upon heels, until one of the Juniors shouted, "Spread out, fellows, spread out; you"ll have" (laughing) "all the close rank work you want when you get on the campus," and then someone put them in step by saying, "Hep!... Hep!...
Hep!" And when the column was in step, a Junior in the rear who had a high tenor voice started up the famous marching time of
"Hoorah! Hoorah!
The flag that set us free.
Hoorah! Hoorah!
The year of jubilee."
only the words they used were:
"Na.s.sau! Na.s.sau!
Ring out the chorus free-- Na.s.sau! Na.s.sau!
Thy jolly sons are we.
Care shall be forgotten, all our sorrows flung away, While we are marching through Princeton!"
"Oh, we"ll do "em!" remarked Young"s comrade, excitedly, at the conclusion of the song.
Young wanted to say something in reply, but he did not know who "they"
were or how they were to be done. So he only said, "Think so?"
"Dead easy--we outnumber them three to two."
Soon the main street, Na.s.sau Street, was reached; and by that time, after much cheering and many "This ways," nearly two hundred Freshmen were in the ranks and shouting like good fellows.
The line turned down toward the main college gate.
Along both sides of the streets walked a crowd of onlookers: upper-cla.s.smen in flannel clothes seeming mildly interested in what was to them an old story; little town boys in short trousers shouting "Ray for de Freshmans!" and looking forward with excitement to what was never an old story to them. The shopkeepers were standing in their doors to see them pa.s.s. Upstairs windows opened and heads stuck out.
In a pause between the verses of a song Young heard, far off in the distance, the quick eager: "Ray! Ray! Ray! Tiger, siss, boom, ah!" of the short cheer. It was much more sharply and crisply given than the cheers he had joined in, and on the end of it came the numerals of the Soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s.
Now, he had understood vaguely that there was to be some sort of contest between his cla.s.s and the Soph.o.m.ores, but this blatant, confident cheer away off somewhere in the distant, indefinite darkness, gave him a start; just for a moment he felt frightened. He was not the only one.
"Oh, we"ll do "em," said the man next to Young.
"Dead easy!" said Young, this time.
They had pa.s.sed the first gate by the Dean"s house and were marching in good order down the broad old street.