Page 27 - The Adventures of a Freshman

CHAPTER VI

WORK--PLAY--"PROCS"

"PRINCETON, N. J., Sunday.

"DEAR MOTHER: Yes, the Sophomores have hazed me a good many times since I first wrote about it, but I
do not mind it much now. Honestly I do not. They mean it all in joke. You must not worry. I ought not to have
told you anything about it. I am seldom homesick, and am very happy here at college."

And so he was. For each hour of discomfort there were many other hours that were exceedingly comfortable
and satisfactory, for he was working with all his might at what he had always wanted to work--he was getting
a college education. And when all is said and done there is nothing like hard work and a good digestion to
make a fellow happy. That is if the work is congenial and the food is good; and they were.

His work was so congenial that his recitations sometimes made the fellows in the front rows turn and look at
him, the same fellows that had turned and looked at him during that first frightful recitation; but their faces
wore different expressions now. He was getting a reputation for being one of the "keeners" of his division.

And as for his food, it was good--and so were the table-mates, for now that the shyness was rubbing off he
was beginning to enjoy meeting and sitting down at the table with those dozen classmates more than any part
of the day, if only that long, thin fellow who was studying for the ministry would not say, solemnly, after
Young had handed the bread, "Thank you, marm." However, he did not mind even that quite so much as at
first, because he was learning how to take good-natured chaff now, and, more than that, to answer it. And that
is something one is likely to be taught at college if he learns nothing else.

The letter continued:

"A Junior manages, or runs, our club; that is, he gathered in us twelve Freshmen during the first day or two of
the term, and brought us to Mrs. Brown's table. I told you how several club managers asked me to join their
clubs the first day? Most of them were too expensive, though. This boarding system is a good bargain for the
ladies who supply the tables, for they cannot collect the students themselves, and a good bargain for the
managers, for they get their board free, and so save the largest item of expense at college."

Young was finding out that there were, as the minister had told him, a great many fellows at college who had
to consider items of expense seriously, but he was surprised to find it so hard to tell which ones did and which
did not.

"Everybody talks as if he were 'dead broke' all the time, and you would think all were, to look at them. It is
not the thing to dress well here. A student is made fun of if he tries it. I wear the black cut-away coat only on
Sundays, as I used to, instead of every day, as you thought I should have to do. I did not have to buy a new
hat. I bought a flannel cap instead, such as all the fellows wear."

At first Young was rather shocked at the slouchy way these college men dressed, and he made up his mind
that he would not wear corduroy trousers when he became an upper-classman. But there were not only many
long months, but a very serious problem to go through with, before he became an upper-classman, or even a
Sophomore. However, he had money enough in the bank to scrape along for awhile; the term was only just
begun, and things might turn up before it ended, and meanwhile he did not want to think about that, because it
always reminded him of his father's attitude in the matter. "Huh! We'll see how long you stay there with those
dudes."