I assured her I would be delighted, so at five o’clock next morning, the four of us set out on a dog sled (This was before the days of surf boards) and drove to the home of an Italian family named Chianti who lived in penury.20
There were fourteen Chianti children, so Mrs. Grudge kissed their father and then handed him an odd-shaped bundle.
“I’ve brought you a bird,” she said, “and I wish you a merry Christmas.”
Afterwards, on the sled, she asked me what kind of bird I thought she had given him.
“Well,” I said, “I suppose a family of that nationality would prefer a guinea hen.”
“Nevertheless,” said Mrs. Grudge, “what I gave him was a gull. He will open the bundle thinking it is a turkey or something else edible, and when he sees what it is, he will tell his kiddies the joke and the laughter will be general all day.”
“Last year,” spoke up Vera, “mother pulled an even better one than that. She gave a great big package to a starving family by the name of Weaf, saying ‘Here is a goose for you,’ and there was nothing in the package but a picture of Goose Goslin of the Washington ball club.”
“Sis-boom-ah!” commented Bera.
When we got back to the Grudge home, there were three horses in the living room, Doc’s gift to his two daughters and son Jack.
“Oh, father!” shrieked Jack. “Just think! Three of them!”
“A horse apiece,” remarked Mrs. Stevens, peeping in from the laundry.
It was now time to examine the stockings. In mine I found an orange, a flashlight, a mechanical toy (A Negro that did the Charleston), a box of crayons, some candy and a miniature chess set.
“Oh, Mrs. Stevens,” I cried excitedly, “see what I found in my stocking!”
“And see what I found in mine,” she replied.
I looked. It was a run.
XI
How I Swam the Hudson
The Holidays were over and it was time to go back to Yale, then located, as I have said in a previous chapter, at Lancaster, PA. The first hazard was the Hudson River, which was quite difficult to cross in those days of no boats. I asked a handsome, big traffic policeman how to set about it.
“Take the Desbrosses Street ferry,” he advised.
At Desbrosses Street and the River, however, I learned that no ferries were running because no boats of any kind had yet been invented. I found out afterwards that the traffic policeman was none other than A. D. Lasker, famous two years later as the designer and builder of the first boat. At the time he spoke to me, he was doubtless so full of his dream of boats that he thought they were already actually in existence.
On the corner of Hudson and Spring Streets, I asked directions of a friendly looking vendor of shoe laces.21
He told me to walk way up past Troy on the East bank of the river, and look for a Ford. After what seemed to me a rather tedious stroll, I passed through Troy and began looking all over for a Ford, but couldn’t find one—or any other kind for that matter. I told my troubles to a farmer, who laughed heartily and said:
“Mon, mon! (He was a Scotchman) Ye are long before ze day of ze automobile. When your New York friend said ‘Ford,’ he meant ‘a place in a river where it may be crossed by wading.’ ”
Embarrassed and chagrinned, I walked down to the river bank and removed my shoes, stockings and plasters, as this seemed as narrow and shoal a point as any other.
“What’s the idea?” inquired a deep voice which I discovered belonged to a white-bearded old fisherman who was dredging for chocolate covered almonds.
When I told him my plan, he tried hard to discourage me.
“You will never make it. No Yale man ever has, and only five Princetonians.”
“What Princeton can do, so can Yale!” I replied, and sang two stanzas of the Yale song—“Beulah, Beulah!”
Covering myself from head to foot with grease, I stepped boldly into the treacherous stream, which at that juncture is twenty-eight feet wide and knee deep. In less than half a day, I was on the west bank, but wish to state that I owe my success quite as much to the encouragement given me by Whiteman’s orchestra, which accompanied me in a tug, continuously playing “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” and “Abide with Me,” as to my fine physique and mastery of the crawl stroke.22
Unable to break off the habit all at once, I crawled down to Albany and caught the night boat back to New York.23
From New York, I crossed to Jersey by ferry and decided to enter Princeton, as it was closer and I had heard there were vacancies there on the hockey team and the mandolin eleven. Also I was attracted by the promise of an occasional glimpse of my late host’s daughters, Vera and Bera Grudge, co-eds at Old Nassau.
Our hockey season began inauspiciously. In the first place, the athletic association had neglected to provide a Puck and the local newsstands had sold out. On the opening night of practice, we played with a copy of Godey’s Lady’s Book, but it proved unwieldy. Moreover, it was an open winter in New Jersey and the lake was not frozen over.
“There is no ice,” I said one evening to Bera Grudge, who had inquired how we were doing. “We ought to have some ice.”
“Ring for a bellboy,” was her view of the episode.
Perhaps I ought to explain, before proceeding, that hockey was not played quite the same in those days as it is now. The players numbered only two and their positions were, respectively, Go Way Back and Sit Down. The records
