Page 12 - The Adventures of a Freshman

said, "Now, Tommy, that row's complete."

The Freshman next to Young grabbed him by the coat-sleeve and locked an arm through his as if they had
been comrades for four years instead of just about to be.

He had on a soiled canvas football jacket and was hatless. His hair was long. "How much do you weigh, old
man?" he asked in an excited manner. There was a lull in the cheering; everyone seemed to be whispering and
chatting nervously; some of those in the rear were laughing at what one of the Juniors was telling them.

"About one hundred and eighty-five pounds," said Young to his neighbor wondering who he was and what
kind of a fellow.

"Good! I weigh a hundred and seventy-nine and a half, stripped, just now--go up, though, after training
awhile. You play football, I suppose?"

Young had never seen real football played, but he did not like to say so--and he did not have to, for just then
another cheer was demanded and they both joined in with the rest of the class, shouting with all their might,
and then the command to march was given, and the line started forward, irregularly at first and with much
treading upon heels, until one of the Juniors shouted, "Spread out, fellows, spread out; you'll have" (laughing)
"all the close rank work you want when you get on the campus," and then someone put them in step by
saying, "Hep!... Hep!... Hep!" And when the column was in step, a Junior in the rear who had a high tenor
voice started up the famous marching time of

"Hoorah! Hoorah! The flag that set us free. Hoorah! Hoorah! The year of jubilee."

only the words they used were:

"Nassau! Nassau! Ring out the chorus free-- Nassau! Nassau! Thy jolly sons are we. Care shall be forgotten,
all our sorrows flung away, While we are marching through Princeton!"

"Oh, we'll do 'em!" remarked Young's comrade, excitedly, at the conclusion of the song.

Young wanted to say something in reply, but he did not know who "they" were or how they were to be done.
So he only said, "Think so?"

"Dead easy--we outnumber them three to two."

Soon the main street, Nassau Street, was reached; and by that time, after much cheering and many "This
ways," nearly two hundred Freshmen were in the ranks and shouting like good fellows.

The line turned down toward the main college gate.

Along both sides of the streets walked a crowd of onlookers: upper-classmen in flannel clothes seeming
mildly interested in what was to them an old story; little town boys in short trousers shouting "Ray for de
Freshmans!" and looking forward with excitement to what was never an old story to them. The shopkeepers
were standing in their doors to see them pass. Upstairs windows opened and heads stuck out.

In a pause between the verses of a song Young heard, far off in the distance, the quick eager: "Ray! Ray! Ray!
Tiger, siss, boom, ah!" of the short cheer. It was much more sharply and crisply given than the cheers he had
joined in, and on the end of it came the numerals of the Sophomore class.

Now, he had understood vaguely that there was to be some sort of contest between his class and the