Stover at Yale | Page 4

across the aisle turned in his direction, wondering who could be the freshman whom Le Baron so particularly took under his protection.
"Isn't he a king?" He said enthusiastically to Regan, with just a pardonable pleasure in his exuberance. "He made the crew last year -- probably be captain; subtackle on the eleven. I played against him two years ago when he was at Andover. Isn't he a king, though!"
"I don't know," said Regan, with a drawing of his lips.
Stover was astounded.
"Why not ?"
"Don't know."
"What's wrong?"
"Hard to tell. He sizes up for a man all right, but I don't think we'd agree on some things."
The incident momentarily halted the conversation. Stover was a little irritated at what seemed to him his companion's over-sensitiveness. Le Baron had been more than kind in his proffer of help. He was at a loss to understand why Regan should not see him through his eyes.
"You think I'm finicky," said Regan, breaking the silence.
"Yes, I do," said Stover frankly.
"I guess you and I'll understand each other," said Regan, approving of his directness. "Perhaps I am wrong. But, boy, this place means a great deal to me, and the men that are in it and lead it."
"It's the one place where money makes no difference," said Stover, with a flash, "where you stand for what you are."
Regan turned to him.
"I've fought to get here, and I'll have a fight to stay. It means something to me."
The train began to slacken in the New Haven station. They swarmed out on to the platform amid the returning gleeful crowd, crossing and intercrossing, caught up in the hubbub of shouted recognition.
"Hello, Stuffy!"
"There's Stuffy Davis!"
"Hello, boys."
"Oh, Jim Thompson, have we your eye?"
"Come on."
"Get the crowd together."
"All into a back."
"Back again, Bill!"
"Join you later. I've got a freshman."
"Where you rooming?"
"See you at Mory's."
Buffeted by the crowd they made their way across the depot to the street.
"I'm going to hoof it," said Regan, extending his hand, "Glad to have met you. I'll drop in on you soon.
Stover watched him go stalwartly through the crowd, his bag under one arm, his soft hat set a little at defiance, looking neither to the right nor left.
"Why the deuce did he say that about Le Baron? He thought, with a feeling of irritation.
Then, obeying an impulse, he signaled an expressman, consigned his bag, and made his way on foot, dodging in and out of the rapidly filled hacks, where upper classmen sat four on the seat, hugging one another with bearlike hugs.
"Eli, freshman, take off that hat!"
He removed his derby immediately, bowing to a hilarious crowd, who rocked ahead shouting back unintelligible gibes at him.
Others were clinging to car steps and straps.
"Hello, Dink!"
Some one had called him but he could not discover who. He swung down the crowded street to the heart of the city in the rapid dropping of the twilight. There was a dampness underfoot that sent to him long, wavering reflections from early street-lamps. The jumble of the city was in his cars, the hazy, crowded panorama in his eyes, at his side the passing contact of strangers. Everything was multiplied, complex, submerging his individuality.
But this feeling of multitude did not depress him. He had come to conquer, and zest was in his step and alertness in his glance. Out of the churning of the crowd he passed into the clear sweep of the city Common, and, looking up through the mist, for the first time beheld the battlements of the college awaiting him ahead, lost in the hazy elms.
Across the quiet reaches of the Common he went slowly, incredibly, toward these strange shapes in brick and stone. The evening mist had settled. They were things undefined and mysterious, things as real as the things of his dreams. He passed on through the portals of Phelps Hall, hearing above his head for the first time the echoes of his own footsteps against the resounding vault.
Behind him remained the city, suddenly hushed. He was on the campus, the Brick Row at his left; in the distance the crowded line of the fence, the fence where he later should sit in joyful conclave. Somewhere there in the great protecting embrace of these walls were the friends that should be his, that should pass with him through those wonderful years of happiness and good fellowship that were coming.
"And this is it -- this is Yale," he said reverently, with a little tightening of the breath.
They had begun at last -- the happy, care-free years that every one proclaimed. Four glorious years, good times, good fellows, and a free and open fight to be among the leaders and leave a name on the roll of fame. Only four years, and then the world with its perplexities and grinding trials.
"Four years," he said softly. "The best, the happiest