The Plastic Age · Chapter 12 (2/2)

“Hey, quit yelling and sit down.” He got up, shoved Hugh back into his chair, and then sat down again. “I want to make one of the Big Three; I’ve got to. I don’t believe that either Nu Delt or Kappa Zete is going to bid me. See? This is my only chance⁠—and I think that I’m going to take it.” He spoke deliberately, staring pensively into the fire.

“I don’t see how you can even think of such a thing,” Hugh said in painful wonderment. “Why, I’d rather never join a fraternity than buy myself into one.”

“You aren’t me.”

“No, I’m not you. Listen, Carl.” Hugh turned in his chair and faced Carl, who kept his eyes on the dying fire. “I’m going to say something awfully mean, but I hope you won’t get mad.⁠ ⁠… You remember you told me once that you weren’t a gentleman. I didn’t believe you, but if you buy yourself into that⁠—that bunch of⁠—of gutter-pups, I’ll⁠—I’ll⁠—oh, hell, Carl, I’ll have to believe it.” He was painfully embarrassed, very much in earnest, and dreadfully unhappy.

“I told you that I wasn’t a gentleman,” Carl said sullenly. “Now you know it.”

“I don’t know anything of the sort. I’ll never believe that you could do such a thing.” He stood up again and leaned over Carl, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Carl,” he said soberly, earnestly, “I promise that I won’t go Nu Delt or any other fraternity unless they take you, too, if you’ll promise me not to go Alpha Sig.”

Carl looked up wonderingly. “What!” he exclaimed. “You’ll turn down Nu Delt if they don’t bid me, too?”

“Yes, Nu Delt or Kappa Zete or any other bunch. Promise me,” he urged; “promise me.”

Carl understood the magnitude of the sacrifice offered, and his eyes became dangerously soft. “God! you’re white, Hugh,” he whispered huskily, “white as hell. You go Nu Delt if they ask you⁠—but I promise you that I won’t go Alpha Sig even if they bid me without pay.” He held out his hand, and Hugh gripped it hard. “I promise,” he repeated, “on my word of honor.”

At seven o’clock Saturday evening every freshman who had any reason at all to think that he would get a bid⁠—and some that had no reason⁠—collected in nervous groups in the living-room of the Union. At the stroke of seven they were permitted to move up to a long row of tables which were covered with large envelopes, one for every freshman. They were arranged in alphabetical order, and in an incredibly short time each man found the one addressed to him. Some of the envelopes were stuffed with cards, each containing the freshman’s name and the name of the fraternity bidding him; some of them contained only one or two cards⁠—and some of them were empty. The boys who drew empty envelopes instantly left the Union without a word to anybody; the others tried to find a free space where they could scan their cards unobserved. They were all wildly excited and nervous. One glance at the cards, and their faces either lighted with joy or went white with disappointment.

Hugh found ten cards in his envelope⁠—and one of them had Nu Delta written on it. His heart leaped; for a moment he thought that he was going to cry. Then he rushed around the Union looking for Carl. He found him staring at a fan of cards, which he was holding like a hand of bridge.

“What luck?” Hugh cried.

Carl handed him the cards. “Lamp those,” he said, “and then explain. They’ve got me stopped.”

He had thirteen bids, one from every fraternity in good standing, including the so-called Big Three.

When Hugh saw the Nu Delta card he yelled with delight.

“I got a Nu Delt, too.” His voice was trembling with excitement. “You’ll go with me, won’t you?”

“Of course, Hugh. But I don’t understand.”

“Oh, what’s the dif? Let’s go.”

He tucked his arm in Carl’s, and the two of them passed out of the Union on their way to the Nu Delta house. Later both of them understood.

Carl’s good looks, his excellent clothes, his money, and the fact that he had been to an expensive preparatory school were enough to insure him plenty of bids even if he had been considerably less of a gentleman than he was.

Already the campus was ringing with shouts as freshmen entered fraternity houses, each freshman being required to report at once to the fraternity whose bid he was accepting.

When Carl and Hugh walked up the Nu Delta steps, they were seized by waiting upper-classmen and rushed into the living-room, where they were received with loud cheers, slapped on the back, and passed around the room, each upper-classman shaking hands with them so vigorously that their hands hurt for an hour afterward. What pleasant pain! Each new arrival was similarly received, but the excitement did not last long. Both the freshmen and the upper-classmen were too tired to keep the enthusiasm at the proper pitch. At nine o’clock the freshmen were sent home with orders to report the next evening at eight.

Carl and Hugh, proudly conscious of the pledge buttons in the lapels of their coats, walked slowly across the campus, spent and weary, but exquisitely happy.

“They bid me on account of you,” Carl said softly. “They didn’t think they could get you unless they asked me, too.”

“No,” Hugh replied, “you’re wrong. They took you for yourself. They knew you would go where I did, and they were sure that I would go their way.”

Hugh was quite right. The Nu Deltas had felt sure of both of them and had not rushed them harder because they were too busy to waste any time on certainties.

Carl stopped suddenly. “God, Hugh,” he exclaimed. “Just suppose I had offered the Alpha Sigs that cash. God!”

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t?” Hugh asked happily.

“Glad? Glad? Boy, I’m bug-house. And,” he added softly, “I know the lad I’ve got to thank.”

“Aw, go to hell.”

The initiation season lasted two weeks, and the neophytes found that the dormitory initiations had been merely child’s play. They had to account for every hour, and except for a brief time allowed every day for studying, they were kept busy making asses of themselves for the delectation of the upper-classmen.

In the Nu Delta house a freshman had to be on guard every hour of the day up to midnight. He was forced to dress himself in some outlandish costume, the more outlandish the better, and announce everyone who entered or left the house. “Mr. Standish entering,” he would bawl, or, “Mr. Kerwin leaving.” If he bawled too loudly, he was paddled; if he didn’t bawl loudly enough, he was paddled; and if there was no fault to be found with his bawling; he was paddled anyway. Every freshman had to supply his own paddle, a broad, stout oak affair sold at the cooperative store at a handsome profit.

If a freshman reported for duty one minute late, he was paddled; if he reported one minute early, he was paddled. There was no end to the paddling. “Assume the angle,” an upper-classman would roar. The unfortunate freshman then humbly bent forward, gripped his ankles with his hands⁠—and waited. The worst always happened. The upper-classman brought the paddle down with a resounding whack on the seat of the freshman’s trousers.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes, sir.”

Another resounding whack. “What?”

“No⁠—no, sir.”

“Oh, well, if it doesn’t hurt, I might as well give you another one.” And he gave him another one.

A freshman was paddled if he forgot to say “sir” to an upper-classman; he was paddled if he neglected to touch the floor with his fingers every time he passed through a door in the fraternity house; he was paddled if he laughed when an upper-classman told a joke, and he was paddled if he didn’t laugh; he was paddled if he failed to return from an errand in an inconceivably short time: he was paddled for every and no reason, but mainly because the upper-classmen, the sophomores particularly, got boundless delight out of doing the paddling.

Every night a freshman stood on the roof of the Nu Delta house and announced the time every fifteen seconds. “One minute and fifteen seconds after nine, and all’s well in the halls of Nu Delta; one minute and thirty seconds after nine, and all’s well in the halls of Nu Delta; one minute and forty-five seconds after nine, and all’s well in the halls of Nu Delta,” and so on for an hour. Then he was relieved by another freshman, who took up the chant.

Nightly the freshmen had to entertain the upper-classmen, and if the entertainment wasn’t satisfactory, as it never was, the entertainers were paddled. They had to run races, shoving pennies across the floor with their noses. The winner was paddled for going too fast⁠—“Didn’t he have any sense of sportsmanship?”⁠—and the loser was paddled for going too slow. Most of the freshmen lost skin off their noses and foreheads; all of them shivered at the sight of a paddle. By the end of the first week they were whispering to each other how many blisters they had on their buttocks.

It was a bitterly cold night in late February when the Nu Deltas took the freshmen for their “walk.” They drove in automobiles fifteen miles into the country and then left the freshmen to walk back. It was four o’clock in the morning when the miserable freshmen reached the campus, half frozen, unutterably weary, but thankful that the end of the initiation was at hand.

Hugh was thankful for another thing; the Nu Deltas did not brand. He had noticed several men in the swimming-pool with tiny Greek letters branded on their chests or thighs. The branded ones seemed proud of their permanent insignia, but the idea of a fraternity branding its members like beef-cattle was repugnant to Hugh. He told Carl that he was darn glad the Nu Deltas were above that sort of thing, and, surprisingly, Carl agreed with him.

The next night they were formally initiated. The Nu Delta house seemed strangely quiet; levity was strictly prohibited. The freshmen were given white robes such as the upper-classmen were wearing, the president excepted, who wore a really handsome robe of blue and silver.

Then they marched upstairs to the “goat room.” Once there, the president mounted a dais; a “brother” stood on each side of him. Hugh was so much impressed by the ritual, the black hangings of the room, the fraternity seal over the dais, the ornate chandelier, the long speeches of the president and his assistants, that he failed to notice that many of the brothers were openly bored.

Eventually each freshman was led forward by an upper-classman. He knelt on the lowest step of the dais and repeated after the president the oath of allegiance. Then one of the assisting brothers whispered to him the password and taught him the “grip,” a secret and elaborate method of shaking hands, while the other pinned the jeweled pin to his vest.

When each freshman had been received into the fraternity, the entire chapter marched in twos downstairs, singing the fraternity song. The initiation was over; Carl and Hugh were Nu Delts.

The whole ceremony had moved Hugh deeply, so deeply that he had hardly been able to repeat the oath after the president. He thought the ritual very beautiful, more beautiful even than the Easter service at church. He left the Nu Delta house that night feeling a deeper loyalty for the fraternity than he had words to express. He and Carl walked back to Surrey 19 in silence. Neither was capable of speech, though both of them wanted to give expression to their emotion in some way.

They reached their room.

“Well,” said Hugh shyly, “I guess I’ll go to bed.”

“Me, too.” Then Carl moved hesitatingly to where Hugh was standing. He held out his hand and grinned, but his eyes were serious.

“Good night⁠—brother.”

Their hands met in the sacred grip.

“Good night⁠—brother.”