CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Changing of the Guard

The student seated to Adam’s right in geometry recitation nudged his arm with a discreet elbow and, while the tutor was engaged in helping a student at the blackboard, slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand.  Keeping one eye on Mr. Nolen, Adam glanced down and saw “Read and pass on” scrawled on the paper.  He opened it cautiously and read the inside message: “Rush on Library St. tonight at 7 p.m.”  He looked quizzically at the man who had passed the note to him, but just then the tutor turned back to face the class and, like all the other students, Adam feigned instant attention.  Lowering his hand, he tapped Lucas on the knee and passed the note on to him.

“‘Rush on Library Street?’” he asked Lucas as soon as they were dismissed from class.  “What is that supposed to mean?”  Thanks to having had an older brother at Yale, Lucas was often a good source of information about college matters.

Before Lucas could respond, however, another classmate laughed.  “A chance to show those vile sophomores who’s the better class,” he said, “and every man must be there to defend the freshmen’s honor!”

“We’ll be there, never fear,” Lucas promised.  The other freshman saluted him and walked over to another circle of students, no doubt discussing the same vital topic.

“Maybe you will,” Adam snorted, “but I want to know more about this rush business before I commit myself.”

“As do I,” Jamie said, coming up to them.  Since he sat on the front row in recitation, he had received the note early, but had been as mystified as Adam by its cryptic message.

“You will be there!” Lucas declared stoutly.  “You won’t be able to show your faces on campus tomorrow if you don’t—and—and I’ll wash my hands of the both of you!”

“Sounds serious, doesn’t he?” Adam said with a wink at Jamie.

“It is serious,” Lucas insisted.  “Ah, good.  Here’s Marc, so I’ll only have to explain this once.”

“Do it as we walk to dinner, please,” Jamie suggested.  “A bout with Euclid tends to leave me famished.”

“And Latin has the same effect on me,” Marcus, who was in a different section from the other three, said with a grin.

“It’s a bout I’m trying to tell you about,” a clearly perturbed Lucas sputtered, “a bout with the sophomores.”

“Do you mean a fight?” Jamie asked.  “If you do, count me out.”

“Nothing so gruesome as that,” Lucas scoffed.  “More like a simple shoving match.  Both classes line up opposite each other—on Library Street this time—and we rush at the fool sophomores and sweep them from the street.”

“A shoving match!” Adam exclaimed.  “In Virginia City we call that a free-for-all!”

“Well . . . yes,” Lucas admitted, “but it’s all in good, clean fun, Adam, I assure you.  It’s a substitute for the freshman-sophomore football game, which the faculty, in its infinite lack of wisdom, saw fit to abolish four years ago.”

“They approve of this, instead?” Adam asked incredulously.

Lucas grinned a bit sheepishly.  “Well . . . not exactly.”  He chuckled.  “If you see a teacher, yell a warning—then run for your life!”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t participate, then, if the faculty disapproves,” Jamie suggested tentatively, and Marcus, biting his lower lip, nodded.

“That, sir, is not done,” Lucas snapped.  “Every man must support the honor of the class.”  He cast pleading eyes on each of his friends.  “Don’t you see?  It’s the only way to get back at those blasted sophomores.”

Jamie and Marcus looked to Adam for advice.  “They do need taking down a peg,” Adam agreed.

“Of course, they do.  I knew I could count on you!”  Lucas beamed with triumph.  “Now, keep quiet at dinner.  I’m sure that Warington and Miller will try to bait us, but we ignore them.  Let them show themselves for the empty bags of air they are.  We’ll show what we’re made of tonight!”

* * * * *

            The night air was chilly, and even in his wool jacket, Jamie shivered as he and Adam made their way toward Library Street.  “I know Lucas is right: the other freshmen will see it as a betrayal if we don’t participate, but if this turns into an out-and-out brawl, I can’t helping thinking I’ll be more liability than asset.”

“If you’re not comfortable with participating, don’t,” Adam said plainly.  “No one whose opinion matters will think any the less of you.”

Jamie laughed sharply.  “Meaning you, of course.  Somehow, I think Lucas and even Marc might well think less of me.  But I’m not going against my will, Adam.  I do think those sophomores deserve a dose of their own medicine.  I just hope it is all in good, clean fun, as Lucas says.  I’d hate to see even a sophomore injured.”

Grinning almost as impishly as Lucas himself might have, Adam gave Jamie’s back a light clap.  “And that, my charitable friend, is what makes you a better man than I.  I could quite cheerfully knock a few sophomore heads together.”

“Oh, you’re not serious,” Jamie chuckled.

“Oh, but I am!”  Adam declared, though he laughed as he said it.

“Adam!  Over here!” a sturdy voice called, and Lucas waved his arm wildly to attract the attention of Adam and his companion.

Adam and Jamie hurried over to join Lucas and Marcus.

Lucas pumped both their hands.  “I knew I could count on you.”  He eyed both Jamie and Marcus soberly.  “Look, you two lightweights had better keep behind me and Adam.”

Marc’s nostrils flared with evident offense. “Lightweight or not, we’re here to do our part.”

“And so you shall, my boy; so you shall,” Lucas assured him.  “Just not in the front line.  The sophs will put their biggest men up front, so we can’t do less.”

“Adam’s not that big,” Marc argued.

Lucas grabbed Adam’s arm and pounded his biceps.  “But he’s rock hard.  No doubt due to punching cattle.  Those sophomores won’t know what hit them.”

The quartet of friends laughed, and Jamie and Marcus agreeably took their places behind the other two to await the signal for the rush to begin.

Puffs of fog escaping his lips each time he exhaled, Adam took deep draughts of air in preparation for the rigorous work to come, and he could feel his heart rate rising in expectation.  Then a loud voice shouted out, “Look alive, Sixty-five!”

In response, another voice hollered to his freshman classmates, “Break ‘em like sticks, Sixty-six!”

With a mighty roar the class of ’66 rushed forward, and with a bellow of outraged superiority, the sophomores charged back at them.  Adam felt his left shoulder crash into one equally solid.  For a moment he and his opponent grappled; then the momentum of the men rushing behind pushed them past one another.  No one made a fist or struck a blow at a fellow student, but many a cap was snatched from a freshman’s head and many a sophomore lost his silk plug in the scuffle.  Adam managed to keep his hat, but felt a sudden breeziness about the shoulder when a sophomore grabbed his coat sleeve as he pushed past.

Eventually, everyone made their way through the opposing line and immediately turned to line up again and make another rush at the other class.  The results were largely the same.  Neither side had emerged the clear victor, so a third rush was called for, and yet another wild melee of flying arms and legs met in the middle of Library Street.  Suddenly, someone on the outskirts of the tangle screamed, “Faculty!  Faculty!” and everyone broke for the side streets and alleys.

Adam searched frantically for Jamie; then, spotting him, he rushed over, snared his friend by the arm and dragged him into the nearest alley, where they crouched behind a pile of wooden crates.

“Fancy meeting you here,” a low voice chuckled, and the two roommates turned to see Lucas’s smiling face.

“You look the worse for wear,” Adam said, cocking his head to examine Lucas’s bruised cheekbone.

Lucas reached out to finger the rip in Adam’s coat sleeve.  “Not looking so nobby yourself, chum.”

Glancing down, Adam shook his head in disgust.  “Pa would chew me up one side and down the other—with good cause,” he muttered.  “I just hope it can be mended.  I can’t spare the money for another coat.”

Jamie assessed the damage carefully.  “I think it just pulled apart at the seam, Adam.  A tailor would do a better job, but I can sew it for you.”

Lucas meanwhile had peered over the crates.  “Looks like it’s all quiet now,” he said, still keeping his voice low.  “Safe to make a try for our rooms, I think.”  He stood up, and the others slowly joined him.

“This was idiocy,” Adam grunted, rubbing his sore left shoulder.

Lucas doubled his fist and punched the other boy in the arm.  “Yes, but it’s jolly fun idiocy.”

Adam laughed.  “You’re incorrigible—and a decidedly poor influence.”

“You loved every minute of it, admit it,” Lucas challenged.

Giving his shoulder another rub, Adam grinned, “Well, not quite every minute.”

“But most,” Lucas pressed.

Adam chuckled.  “Most.  Now, how do we get home without being spotted by the faculty?”

“Follow me,” Lucas advised.  “I know all the back streets to your place.”

“I’ll just bet you do!”

Whether due to Lucas’s familiarity with back streets or just plain luck, Adam and Jamie made it to their lodgings without being spotted.  A few freshmen and a couple of sophomores were not so fortunate.  Nabbed by the faculty, each received heavy demerits for participating in the fracas, and when he heard that news whispered in chapel the next morning, Adam offered up sincere thanks that he had not been caught and would not have anything of that nature to report to Pa in his next letter.

* * * * *

            Adam and Jamie were seated at their adjoining desks, comparing solutions to a proposition from Euclid, when a rap sounded on the door to their shared room.  Instantly their eyes communicated the same concern.  Sophomores again, up to their usual harassment, perhaps in payback for injuries inflicted in the recent rush?  With set lips Adam crossed the room and opened the door, while Jamie turned in his seat to watch him.  The silk hat and cane did immediately identify their visitor as a sophomore, but this time the man only inquired politely, “Mr. Cartwright?”

When Adam nodded, the man bowed and extended a black-edged envelope.  Adam took it, managing to get past his surprise in time to mumble “Thank you” before the visitor turned and left.

“What is it?” Jamie asked.

Adam gave him a crooked grin.  “I’m about to find out,” he said, carefully opening the envelope at its seal.  From it he took a black-edged card with an emblem that resembled a Greek cross with five bars between each point of a star.  In its center was a shield of black with the letters KSE and “Yale” printed on it.  He read out the text on the card:

Mr. Cartwright:

You will be waited upon at your room this evening and be presented for initiation into the dark and awful mysteries of Kappa Sigma Epsilon.  Surrender yourself only to the person bearing the matching half of this card.  Per order.

Jamie jumped up from his chair.  “Oh, Adam!  You’ve been accepted into Sigma Ep!”

“So it seems,” Adam said, quietly setting aside the notched card.

“Aren’t you excited?” his friend asked.

Adam pulled out his desk chair and sat down.  “Not yet.”

Jamie came to stand behind him.  “You mean because I don’t have one?”  He rested his hands on Adam’s broad shoulders.  “That doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” Adam said gruffly.  “I will not join without you.”

“That is ridiculous,” Jamie sputtered.  “I will not hear of you giving up such an honor.  Think what it can mean for your college career.”

“To join any society foolish enough to reject you would be genuinely ridiculous,” Adam snorted.  “Now, can we please get back to Euclid?”

“Adam!” Jamie protested, but his friend silently buried his nose in the geometry text.

About an hour later a second knock sounded at the door.  Adam looked up, his countenance clearing.  “Maybe we’re arguing over nothing,” he suggested.  “You open the door this time.”

Jamie did and soon turned around, smiling and waving an identical black-edged envelope.  “Apparently, Sigma Ep is not a ridiculous society, after all.”

“It must be the wisest of all societies,” Adam exulted, “even if it is initiating a couple of idiots tonight.”  Jamie threw his arm around his friend and joined in his self-deprecating laughter.

* * * * *

            Having been advised to forego supper, the two roommates spent extra time grooming themselves scrupulously and, while waiting for their conductors to arrive, drilled each other on their latest Latin assignment.  About 7:30 the blast of tin horns assaulted the occupants of Mrs. Wiggins’ boardinghouse, the more elderly of which loudly expressed their low opinion of college shenanigans.  Within minutes two young men appeared at Adam and Jamie’s door and asked them to present the cards they had received that afternoon.  Each was notched differently, so that it perfectly matched the cutout on the card of the designated conductor.   The mate to Adam’s was held in the hand of the sophomore who had taken charge and stopped the smoking out when he saw that Jamie was in real physical distress.

As the four young men exited the boardinghouse, they separated.  Jamie and his conductor went one direction, while Adam and his went the other.  “I’m Percival Demmings,” the man at Adam’s side said as they walked toward the docks.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Demmings,” Adam replied.  “Am I allowed to ask about the activities of the evening or do I simply accept them as they unfold?”

Demmings laughed.  “Mostly, the latter, Freshie, but it’s only fair to tell you that you are expected to treat your conductor to a light repast first.  Oysters sound good to me, if you’re willing.”

“I’m willing . . . indeed, happy to treat you,” Adam returned pleasantly.  He deliberately put off until a more appropriate time calculations of what he might have to give up later to provide his conductor with the expected meal.

Near the harbor they turned into a small oyster house, where the prices were quite reasonable, Adam was glad to note.  Over bowls of succulent stew and cups of hot coffee, they had an agreeable conversation about the benefits of the society to which Adam was now pledged.  Pushing aside his empty bowl, Demmings asked soberly, “Does your little friend have a weak heart, as well as weak lungs?”

Adam’s brows knit together with concern.  “Not that I’m aware,” he said slowly and then asked, “Just how bad is this likely to get?”

Demmings wagged his finger beneath Adam’s nose.  “Can’t tell you, Freshie.”  Then, seeing Adam’s concern and guessing that it wasn’t for himself, he relented.  “You needn’t worry about your chum, though; I warned everyone to take it easy.”

“I’m grateful for that,” Adam said earnestly.

Demmings grinned impishly.  “Ah, but I didn’t say it would go easy for you, now, did I?”

Adam grinned back, just as broadly.  “I can take it, as long as I know Jamie’s all right.”

Demmings smiled with warm admiration.  “You’re a true friend, Freshie.”

Adam’s initiation began the instant they left the oyster house.  A black scarf was tied around his eyes, and in the sudden blackness the toot of a tin horn sounded directly in his face.  “Follow the sound,” Demming ordered.

A horrible feeling of vulnerability washed over Adam, but he balked for only a moment.  He could see nothing as he stepped forward.  The horn sounded again, and again he walked forward, each step a small act of courage.  He was trusting his life, or at least his limbs, to this barely known sophomore, and one never knew what sort of bedevilment a sophomore might be capable of.  Walking him into a wall or off a pier might merely amuse a creature capricious as that!  He had no idea where he was headed or even which direction they were going.  His only clue during a journey that seemed everlasting was the whistle of a train, which told him they were close to the depot.  Not long after that the horn stopped sounding and he was pushed through a doorway.  Though his blindfold was removed, he still couldn’t see anything, for the room was pitch black.  Hearing voices whispering all around him, he surmised that this was a holding area for the new society inductees.  “Jamie!” he called.  “Are you here?”

“Adam?” came a voice from across the room.  “Is that you?”

“Yes.  Keep talking, and I’ll come toward you.”  Calling back and forth to one another, the two friends finally bumped into each other and each clasped the other’s arm in the darkness.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?” Jamie asked, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Adam assured him, taking Demmings at his word.  “They may try to scare us, but I don’t think it’ll get too bad.”

“I hope it’s not another smoking out,” Jamie said with a shudder.  “I’ll fail for certain.”

“You’ll be fine,” Adam said firmly, patting his friend’s shoulder.  “Don’t let your imagination get the best of you.”

“No, I won’t,” Jamie said with solid resolve.

Adam felt his own resolve weaken when a door creaked open and a supernatural voice that seemed to echo from far away called out his name.  When he hesitated, again its ghostly tones summoned, “Adam Cartwright . . . present yourself.”

Adam gulped.  “Yes . . . I’m . . . here.”  As he walked toward the light, two figures appeared in the doorway.  Neither was likely to alleviate his apprehensions.  One was dressed in a red devil suit, complete with horns and forked tail; the other was all in black, except for the skeletal bones painted on with eerily glowing phosphorus.

“Are you ready to enter into the august and ancient mysteries of Kappa Sigma Epsilon?” demanded the skeleton.

“I’m ready,” Adam declared staunchly.

The devil uttered a fiendish cackle.  “He thinks he’s ready; the overconfident fool thinks he’s ready.”

As the skeleton joined in the mocking laughter, he presented Adam with another blindfold.

Adam accepted it and began to wrap it around his eyes.  Someone—he couldn’t tell who at this point—evidently didn’t trust him and took the trailing ends from his hands and pulled them tight.  “None but the brave can enter into the august and ancient mysteries of Kappa Sigma Epsilon,” said a voice he recognized as that of the devil.

Expecting the horn in his face again, Adam was surprised when, instead, his arms were grabbed on each side and the devil urged, “Hurry, Freshie, hurry.”  Then he was practically raced across the room and up a flight of stairs he could not see.  After stumbling his way to the landing above, he felt himself propelled down what he presumed was a hall.  “Run, Freshie, run!” his guides demanded.

Without warning, they released him.  Adam tried to stop himself, but he lurched forward and suddenly there was nothing beneath him but air.  Arms flailing, he tumbled into blackness, too surprised to do anything but gasp as the air whistled past his ears.  He landed on some yielding surface and was immediately thrust upward again.  Not far, for he soon bounced back into something soft, but solid.  His hand brushed against scratchy fabric, and he smiled in relief.  A blanket—he was being tossed in a wool blanket, that’s all.

“Do you remember Sweet Betsy from Pike?” an unknown voice asked soberly.

“What?” Adam asked, his head turning toward the sound.  “You mean the song?”  Up he went again in the blanket.

“No, foolish Freshie, the girl.”

“No, no, the song,” another voice rang out.  “Sing us the song, Freshie.”

“Uh—okay,” Adam panted.  He struggled to remember the words, but found it hard to think when every few seconds he again found himself airborne.  “Do you . . . remember . . . sweet Betsy . . . from Pike?” he quavered in a voice far less steady than his usual strong baritone.  “Who crossed the”—for the life of him he couldn’t remember the next phrase, although he’d known the trail favorite from the time he and Pa had started west.

Hoots of laughter met his frustrated ears.  “For shame, Freshie . . . and you a westerner, too!”

“Try another test,” called one of his tormentors.

“Yes, another!” echoed around him as the blanket continued to bounce Adam up and down.

“Which is sillier, a freshman or a goose?” demanded one inquisitor.

“A—a goose!” Adam shouted.

Resounding laughter met this response.  “Wrong again, Freshie!”

“Shake him up; his wits are addled,” someone demanded.

The blanket tossed him higher this time.  Adam spun in the air and landed on his stomach.  It’s only a blanket toss, he reminded himself, but that didn’t ease his mounting nausea.  Just when he thought he could no longer keep down his oyster stew, the blanket grew taut and then was slowly lowered to the ground.

“Oh, poor Freshie,” someone said, and then two sets of arms lifted him by the elbows and set him on his feet.  “There.  Better now?”

“Yes—yes, thank you,” Adam said with shakiness he tried to conceal.

“Well done, Freshie, well done, but you must be tired.  Here, have a seat.”

Adam, still blindfolded, was guided to a chair, but as he gratefully sank into it, his bottom fell through the open frame into a bucket below and he winced as his buttocks hit something cold and wet.

“Oh, I don’t think he wants a rest, after all,” someone taunted.

“Perhaps he’d rather lie down,” another suggested.

“Yes, yes!  Lay him down!”

Adam was jerked up from his uncomfortable perch; then hands were all over him—arms, legs, torso, head—bearing him away, he knew not where, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t find it any more restful than the chair had been.  He was laid on some flat surface with his neck cradled in something hard and curved, but before he could guess what it was, his blindfold was whipped off and he screamed as he saw a sharp, silvery blade rushing down toward his bare throat.  It jerked to a stop a foot above him.  “Rest in peace, Freshie,” the skeleton said in spectral tones.

“Rest in peace,” the others all repeated ghoulishly.  Again and again they echoed the words as his body was lifted from the guillotine and placed solemnly in a nearby coffin.  The lid was put on, and there was a sound of hammering on the lid.  Inside, Adam chuckled, loud and long.  Did they honestly think they could fool a country boy, well acquainted with the sound of nails going into wood?  There were no nails here, just bare hands pounding on the coffin.  Like the guillotine, it was a sham, and compared to that, this was nothing.

“He’s laughing!” someone cried, and within moments Adam was resurrected from his mock burial and being patted on the back for his exemplary display of courage.

Percival Demmings, his face painted like an Indian on the warpath, stepped up to shake his hand.  “Well done, Freshie.  You were as good as your word; you pass the initiation.  Now, wear your coat inside out the rest of the evening.”

“Is this what happens to everyone?” Adam asked him softly as he removed his coat and turned it inside out.

“Relax,” Demmings whispered back.  “I promised, didn’t I?  Stand back and watch the fun now; you’re entitled.”

One by one, the other initiates were dropped through the trapdoor in the ceiling into the blanket below, while sophomores in a variety of bizarre or grotesque disguises asked ridiculous questions or made impossible demands.  Each inevitable failure earned the freshman another bounce toward the ceiling.  What happened after the obligatory blanket tossing, however, varied from man to man.  Only a few underwent as thorough an initiation as Adam, and he began to wonder if his rough treatment had been part of the bargain for letting Jamie off easily.  Lucas Cameron, however, suffered even harsher treatment, for in addition to everything Adam had endured, he was also placed in a pillory and reviled with every insult an inventive sophomore could conceive.  He didn’t even scream when the guillotine blade descended, though, and that won the sophomore’s respect.  He wasn’t placed in the coffin, but simply congratulated and welcomed into the society.

Instead of the guillotine, Marcus was presented with a noose around his neck, but though he paled as one end was tossed over a rafter, he didn’t flinch, and the noose was never tightened.  After the typical burial and resurrection, he turned his coat outside in and joined Adam and Lucas.

The next freshman fared well enough until he was placed in the coffin, but then he completely lost control.  Screaming maniacally, he pounded on the coffin and begged to be let out.  Though the sophomores released him almost instantly, the boy was pale and shaken and could barely stand on his own two feet.  He was weeping in shame as he was escorted outside, but after a couple more freshmen had been initiated, he was brought back in, smiling and wearing his coat inside out.  His acceptance into the society significantly raised Adam’s opinion of sophomores, who apparently were not creatures completely without mercy, after all.

Adam immediately recognized the high-pitched yell when Jamie fell through the trapdoor into the blanket, and he leaned forward, intensely interested to see what his friend would experience and ready to intervene if it got out of hand.  His friend’s blanket-tossing was short-lived, and Jamie was next escorted to the pillory.  He didn’t suffer the scorn Lucas had endured, however, but only the sort of silly questioning that Adam had received while being tossed in the blanket.

Demmings led the examination.  “We all remember, Freshie, how you failed at reciting Euclid for us, so we won’t bother with that.  I’ve heard, however, that you’re quite the Latin scholar.  True?”

“I—I try to be,” Jamie replied, a most modest answer, since he was acknowledged by everyone who’d ever heard him recite to be the best in the class.

“Then you won’t mind translating a few phrases for us?”

“No,” Jamie said, but he sounded cautious.

“Give us the Latin for ‘I am ridiculous,’” Demmings demanded.

“Ridiculus sum,” Jamie replied with a slight smile, for at that moment, with his head and hands in a pillory, he thought the statement quite accurate.

Demmings nodded acceptance of the phrasing.  “Translate this: Mens mea Euclidis impar est.”

“My mind isn’t equal to Euclid,” Jamie said.

“He admits it!” cried another sophomore.

“What else do you admit, Freshie?” called yet another.

Demmings waved his hand to silence the other inquisitor.  “Another translation, please,” he suggested.  “Imbecillitas mentis meae par pulmonum.”

Adam stiffened.  How could they ask his friend to say that?  They were only words, of course, but still . . .

Jamie, on the other hand, hesitated but a moment before translating, “My mind is as weak as my lungs.”  He looked up earnestly.  “Though I hope it’s not.”

“I hope not, as well,” Demmings said gravely, though there was a twinkle in his eye.  “Now, be a polite little Freshie and say, ‘Please toss me in a blanket again.’”

“Utinam ne pergatis,” Jamie said softly.

Adam couldn’t restrain his proud grin, for his friend had not complied this time.  He had, instead, said, “Please don’t.”  Would the sophomores accept that response as an indication of courage and character, or would they treat it as defiance deserving of punishment?

“Oh, all right, Freshie, we’ll let that pass, since you ask so politely,” Demmings chuckled, “but only if you can successfully translate one more phrase: ‘I will follow the Sophomores’s rule.”

Jamie favored his inquisitor with a beguiling smile.  “Praeceptis Sophormorum non per aeternitatem sed hic et nunc oboediam,” he said.

Demmings laughed out loud.  “What?  Not forever . . .  only here and now?  You’ve got a lot of cheek, Freshie.  And do you know what that means?”

Jamie tried to shake his head, but the pillory inhibited his movement.

Demmings laughed again at the futile attempt.  “It means, you self-proclaimed ridiculous Freshie, that you are now a member of Kappa Sigma Epsilon!”  He released Jamie from the pillory and helped him turn his coat inside out and put it back on again.  “Join your friends and watch the fun,” he said.

There wasn’t much fun left to watch, though, for only a couple of freshmen had not yet been initiated.  Once they were, the evening became more ceremonial.  The new members pledged to observe the secrets of the society and several, Jamie included, were ordered to make speeches, which were exuberantly, if somewhat mockingly, applauded.  Then everyone was ordered to assemble at Brewster Hall the following evening for their first meeting.

“I wonder why they didn’t ask you for a speech,” Jamie said as he and Adam walked home.

Adam had a secret opinion about that, but he didn’t share his suspicion that the speech was another part of the bargain for an easy initiation.  “They were probably impressed with your quick thinking during that Latin quiz,” he suggested.

Jamie’s face brightened.  “You think so?”

Adam threw an arm around his friend’s shoulder.  “I know I was impressed.”

“I’m sure you were equally impressive,” Jamie said with a pat to his friend’s back.   “I wish I could have seen your initiation.”

Adam felt a shiver ripple up his spine as he recalled his first sight of that guillotine blade rushing toward him.  If you only knew, my friend, he thought.  If you only knew.

* * * * *

            “We’ve certainly had a full week,” Jamie observed as he walked beside Adam along the quiet paths of Grove Street Cemetery.  Though they had intended their next outing to take them somewhere further and, perhaps, more scenic, the activities of the preceding night and those anticipated for this evening had made a shorter jaunt more appealing.

“That we have,” Adam agreed.  “Unfortunately, most of it isn’t the sort of thing I can write home about!”

Jamie laughed.  “Why not?  I intend to tell Father all about the initiation—in person, I hope, but by letter, if not.”

Adam smiled quizzically, thinking that if his initiation had been like Jamie’s, he might be writing home the details, too.  But he didn’t dare share his experience.  He could just imagine how quickly Pa would order him home if he heard about that business with the guillotine!  Avoiding that subject, he arched an eyebrow and asked, “And the rush?  Do you intend to tell your father that you were involved in a faculty-frowned-upon brawl?”

Jamie winced.  “Well, perhaps not,” he conceded.  “All that and studies, too—we have been a busy pair, haven’t we?”

Adam dropped down to the browning turf beneath a towering elm.  “I do think we’re developing a routine, though.”

“With rather a lot of deviations,” Jamie chuckled.

“Like tonight’s meeting, you mean?”  Keeping his legs straight, Adam stretched forward to touch his toes.  “That’ll soon be a part of the weekly routine, as well.”

“It had better be!” Jamie exclaimed.  “You and I, my friend, cannot afford the fine for missing a meeting.”

“No, we can’t.”  Adam bounced to his feet and reached for Jamie’s hand to pull him up.  “And as much as I’m enjoying this, we can’t afford to stay longer, either.  We have assignments to complete before our first Sigma Ep meeting.”

* * * * *

            Adam carefully pinned Jamie’s society badge to the left side of his vest, near his shirt collar.  Actually, the badge wasn’t Jamie’s, any more than the one affixed to Adam’s vest belonged to him.  Though they both had paid their society fees and purchased pins that afternoon, those were not engraved yet.  Each of their conductors, however, had kindly loaned them his own pin until theirs were ready.  In fact, all the freshmen would be wearing borrowed insignias tonight.

“They’re beauties, aren’t they?” Jamie observed, eyes aglow.

“Definitely a symbol to wear with pride,” Adam returned.  He stepped back to admire Jamie’s pin.  On a surface of gold, about one inch in diameter, was a black enamel shield like that which had adorned their invitations to the initiation.  On the five bars, between the points of the star were a fasces, a caduceus, an anchor, a torch and an olive branch.  “We’d better get going, though,” he suggested, “or we’ll be feeling something other than pride.”

Jamie nodded, taking his coat from the bedpost.  “I agree.”

The sky was clear and the temperature cool, with only a slight breeze to add a bit of chill to the air as they walked the five blocks to the southeast corner of State and Chapel.  Entering the Brewster Building, they found the sophomore members stretched out on the carpet in an aspect of complete relaxation.  Curls of smoke enwrapped their heads as they laughed and chattered companionably in the center of a circle of freshmen, seated on the floor.  Adam pointed out a spot on the far side that seemed to be furthest from the heavy smoke, and he and Jamie claimed a place there among their peers.  Marcus and Lucas came in later and made their way to the others.

“So, what happens tonight?” Adam asked Lucas in an undertone.

Lucas shook his head.  “My brother never would tell me anything about the society.  All those secrets we’re never supposed to reveal, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Adam chuckled.  “Just as long as it doesn’t involve a second initiation.”

Lucas grinned back.  “No, I don’t think so.  We’re in now and, therefore, brothers.”

“With sophomores?” Marcus teased.  “Now, there’s a thought!”

Lucas shuddered.  “ Remarkable notion, isn’t it?”

“Ah, but you forget, Lucas, that we are all brothers under God,” Jamie intoned solemnly with a sidewise wink at Adam.

“No preaching tonight, parson,” Lucas ordered, wagging his finger beneath Jamie’s nose.

While there was no preaching, the meeting did begin, like many church services, with singing.  The sophomores were, of course, familiar with the songs of Sigma Ep, but they handed around songbooks for the freshmen, who sang out lustily as they caught on to the tunes.  Adam picked the songs up more quickly than most, and those nearest him, freshmen and sophomores alike, leaned to their neighbors to whisper admiring comments about his rich, melodious tones.  After several choruses a sophomore stood in the very center of the circle and introduced himself as the president of the society.

“For a few more minutes!” called one of his laughing classmates.

“Indeed,” the young man said.  “Tonight—not without trepidation, I might add—we deliver our eminent society into the inexperienced hands of mere striplings.”  He waved down the hoots of outrage from the outer circle.  “It was gratifying to hear that some of you, at least, can carry a tune.  It gives us hope.”  For a moment his eyes rested on Adam, and then he continued.  “Our first order of business tonight will be the reading of our constitution by the outgoing secretary.  Mr. Osgood, if you please?”

A lanky youth stood and read a typical club constitution.  Much applause greeted its completion and the president invited each new member to affix his name to the document.  Once each freshman had signed the constitution, a short comedic play was presented by the sophomores, and then the president led the new members through an election for his successor.  Adam was unacquainted with the man who won, but he seemed to be a popular fellow.

“Our work now is done,” the retiring president announced, “and so we bid you good evening, gentlemen.  The other sophomores rose as one and formed a line.  Then with many a friendly wave, they marched out singing, to the tune of Yankee Doodle, “Oh, Kappa Sigma Epsilon; oh, Kappa Sigma Ep.”

The freshmen stayed only long enough to elect their remaining officers before adjourning.  They all seemed to have come from the same New England preparatory school and had, undoubtedly, been acquainted long before they reached Yale.  “It’s a shame we’ve met so few of our classmates yet,” Jamie said.  “You’d make a wonderful president, Adam.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Adam said modestly, but as he lay in bed that night, he wondered if he might ever win such an honor from his classmates.

~ ~ Notes ~ ~

While modern students retain membership in the same fraternity for life, the men of Yale in the nineteenth century joined different societies each year, and these were composed only of men of their own class.  They did, however, preserve warm feelings and ties with those they left behind as they progressed through college, particularly their freshman societies.