Stover at Yale | Page 8

his plate.
"Stover from Lawrenceville?" said Dana.
"Yes, sir."

The captain's eye measured him carefully, taking in the wiry, spare
frame, the heavy shoulders, and the nervous hands, and then stayed on
the clean-cut jaw, the direct glance, and the rebellious rise of sandy
hair.
"End, of course," he said at last.
"Yes, sir."
"About a hundred and fifty-four?
"One hundred and fifty, sir, stripped."
"Ever played in the back field?
"No sir."
"Report with the varsity squad to-morrow."
"Yes, sir."
There's a type of man we're proud of," said Le Baron. "Came here from
Exeter, waited at Commons first two years; every one likes him. He has
a tough proposition here this year, though -- supposing we dig out."
In the room the laughter was rising, and all the little nervous noises of
the clash of plate and cutlery. Stover would have liked to stay, to yield
to the contagion, to watch with eager eyes the opposite types, all under
the careless spell of the beginning year.
The city was black about them as they stepped forth, giant elms
flattened overhead against the blurred mists of the night, like curious
water weeds seen from below.
They went in silence directly toward the campus. Once or twice Le
Baron started to speak and then stopped. At length he said:
"Come this way."

They passed by Osborne Hall, and the Brick Row with the choked
display of the Coop below, and, crossing to the dark mass of the Old
Library, sat down on the steps.
Before Stover stretched all the lighted panorama of the college and the
multiplied strewn lights against the mysteries of stone and brick --
lights that drew him to the quiet places of a hundred growing
existencies -- affected him like the lights of the crowded restaurant and
the misty reflections of the glassy streets. It was; the night, the
mysterious night that suddenly had come into his boyish knowledge.
It was immense, unfathomable -- this spectacle of a massed multitude.
It was all confounded, stirring, ceaseless, feverish in its brilliant gaiety,
fleeting, transitory, mocking. It was of the stage, theatric. It brought
theatric emotions, too keenly sensitized, too sharply overwhelming. He
wished to flee from it in despair of ever conquering, as he wished to
conquer, this world of stirring ambitions and shadowy and fleeting
years.
"I'm going to do for you," said Le Baron's voice, breaking the charm --
"I'm going to do what some one did for me when I came here last year."
He paused a moment, a little, too, under the spell of the night, perhaps,
seeking how best to choose his words.
"It is a queer place you're coming into, and many men fail for not
understanding it in time. I'm going to tell you a few things."
Again he stopped. Stover, waiting, heard across from the blazing sides
of Farnam a piano's thin, rushing notes. Nearer, from some window
unseen, a mandolin was quavering. Voices, calling, mingled in softened
confusion.
"Oh, Charley Bangs -- stick out your head."
"We want Billy Brown."
"Hello, there!"

"Tubby, this way!"
Then this community of faint sounds was lost as, from fence, a
shapeless mass beyond began to send its towards him.
When freshmen first we came to Yale Fol-de-rol-de-rol-rol-rol.
Examinations made us pale Fol-de-rol-de-rol-rol-rol."
What do you know about the society system here?" said Le Baron
abruptly.
Why, I know -- there are three senior societies: Skull and Bones, Keys,
Wolf's-Head -- but I guess that's all I do know."
"You'll hear a good deal of talk inside the college, and out of it, too,
about the system. It has its faults. But it's the best system there is, and it
makes Yale what it is to-day. It makes fellows get out and work; it
gives them ambitions, stops loafing and going to seed, and keeps a
pretty good, clean, temperate atmosphere about the place."
"I know nothing at all about it," said Stover, perplexed.
"The seniors have fifteen in each; they give out their elections end of
junior year, end of May. That's what we're all working for."
"Already?" said Stover involuntarily.
"There are fellows in your class," said Le Baron, "who've been working
all summer, so as to get ahead in thecompetition for the Lit or the
Record or to make leader of the glee club -- fellows, of course, who
know"
"But that's three years off."
"Yes, it's three years off," said Le Baron quietly, "Then there are the
junior fraternities; but they're large, and at present don't count much,
except you have to make them. Then there are what are called
sophomore societies." He hesitated a moment. "They are very
important."

Do you belong? " asked Stover innocently.
Yes," said Le Baron, after another hesitation. "Of course, we don't
discuss our societies here.