Regan’s, Hungerford’s, and Stover’s voices rose above the uproar:
“Bully, Bob!”
“Good work!”
“Hooray for you!”
Almost immediately Regan received the eighth tap for Bones, and went for his room amidst the thundering cheers of a popular choice.
“Well, here we are, Dink,” said Hungerford.
“You’re next.”
About them the curious spectators pressed, staring up into their faces for any sign of emotion, struggling to reach them, with the dramatic instinct of the crowd. Four more elections were given out by Bones—only three places remained.
“That settles me,” said Stover between his teeth. “If they wanted me I’d gone among the first. Joe’s going to get last place—bully for him. He’s the best fellow in the class.”
He folded his arms and smiled with the consciousness of a decision accepted. He saw Hungerford’s face, and the agony of suspense to his sensitive nerves.
“Cheer up, Joe, it’s last place for you.”
Then another shout.
“Bones or Keys?” he asked of those around him.
“Bones.”
“Charley Stacey.”
“Thirteenth man.”
“I was sure of it,” he said calmly to himself. Then he glanced up at the window. Her eyes had never left him. He straightened up with a new defiance. “Lord, I’d like to have gotten it, just for Jean. Well, I knocked against too many heads. I don’t wonder.”
Suddenly Hungerford caught his hand underneath the crowd, pressing it unseen.
“Last man for Bones now, Dink,” he said, looking in his eyes. “I hope to God it’s you.”
“Why, you old chump,” said Stover laughing, so all heard him. “Bless your heart, I don’t mind. Here’s to you.”
Above the broken, fitful cheers, suddenly came a last swelling roar.
“Bones.”
“Last man.”
The crowd, as though divining the election, divided a path towards where the two friends waited, Hungerford staring blankly, Stover, arms still folded, waiting steadily with a smile of acceptation on his lips.
It was Le Baron. He came like a black tornado, rushing over the ground straight toward the tree. Once someone stumbled into his path, and he caught him and flung him aside. Straight to the two he came, never deviating, straight past Dink Stover, and suddenly switching around almost knocked him to the ground with the crash of his blow.
“Go to your room!”
It was a shout of electrifying drama, the voice of his society speaking to the college.
Someone caught Stover. He straightened up, trying to collect his wits, utterly unprepared for the shock. About him pandemonium broke loose. Still dazed, he felt Hungerford leap at him, crying in his ears:
“God bless you, old man. It’s great, great—they rose to it. It’s the finest ever!”
He began to move mechanically towards his room, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. He started towards the library, and someone swung him around. He heard them cheering, then he saw hundreds of faces, wild-eyed, rushing past him; he stumbled and suddenly his eyes were blurred with tears, and he knew how much he cared, after the long months of rebellion, to be no longer an outsider, but back among his own with the stamp of approval on his record.
The last thing he remembered through his swimming vision was Joe Hungerford, hatless and swinging his arms as though he had gone crazy, leading a cheer, and the cheer was for Bones.
That night, even before he went to the Storys’, Stover went out arm in arm with Hungerford, across the quiet campus, so removed from the fray of the afternoon.
“Joe, it breaks me all up,” he said at last. “You and I waiting there—”
“Don’t speak of it, old fellow,” said Hungerford. “Now let me talk. I did want to make it, but, by George, I know now it’s better I didn’t. I’ve had everything I wanted in this world; this is the first I couldn’t get. It’s better for me; I know it already.”
“You were clean grit, Joe, cheering for Bones.”
“By George, I meant it. It meant something to feel they could rise up and know a man, and you’ve hit pretty close to them, old boy.”
“Yes, I have, but I’ve believed it.”
“It shows the stuff that’s here,” said Hungerford, “when you once can get to it. Now I take off my hat to them. I only hope you can make your influence felt.”
“I’m going to try,” said Stover solemnly. “The thing is so big a thing that it ought not to be hampered by bug-a-boo methods.”
Brockhurst joined them.
“Well, the smoke’s rolled away,” said Brockhurst, who likewise had missed out. “It’s over—all over. Now we’ll settle down to peace and quiet—relax.”
“The best time’s coming,” said Hungerford. “We’ll live as we please, and really enjoy life. It’s the real time, everyone says so.”
“Yes,” said Brockhurst, rebel to the last, “but why couldn’t it come before, why couldn’t it be so the whole four years?”
“Well, now, old croaker,” said Hungerford with a little heat, “own up the old college comes up to the scratch. We’ve surrendered the sophomore society system, and the seniors showed today that they could recognize honest criticism. That’s pretty fine, I say.”
“You’re pretty fine, Joe,” said Brockhurst to their surprise. “Well, it’s good enough as it is. It takes an awful lot to stir it, but it’s the most sensitive of the American colleges, and it will respond. It wants to do the right thing. Some day it’ll see it. I’m a crank, of course.” He stopped, and Stover felt in his voice a little note of bitterness. “The trouble with me is just that. I’m impractical; have strange ideas. I’m not satisfied with Yale as a magnificent factory on democratic business lines; I dream of something else, something visionary, a great institution not of boys, clean, lovable and honest, but of men of brains, of courage, of leadership, a great center of thought, to stir the country and bring it back to the understanding of what man creates with his imagination, and dares with his will. It’s visionary—it will come.”
Colophon
Stover at Yale
was published in 1912 by
Owen
