Princeton Stories

Princeton Stories

By
Jesse Lynch Williams

FOURTH EDITION

Charles Scribner's Sons
New York = 1895

Copyright, 1895, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

To '92

TABLE OF CONTENTS

⁂Acknowledgements are due Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to republish "The Scrub Quarter-Back" and "When Girls Come to Princeton."

THE WINNING OF THE CANE

The modern Cane Spree is held in broad daylight on University Field. It is a vastly different affair from the Spree we used to watch with chattering teeth at midnight, kneeling on the wet grass in front of Witherspoon, with a full moon watching over West College and Mat. Goldie and two assistants waiting by the lamp-post to join in the fierce rush which followed each bout.

Nowadays it is one of the regular events of the Annual Fall Handicap Games, and is advertised in large special feature letters on the posters hanging in the shop windows and on the bulletin elm. It is a perfectly proper and legitimate proceeding, and is watched like any other field event from the bleachers and Grand Stand, with girls there to catch their breath and say "Oh!" The class that wins is glad. They cheer awhile and then watch the final heat of the 2.20.

In our day you could seldom see much of anything, and there was nothing proper about it. But it was one of the things a fellow lived for, like Thanksgiving games and Spring Term. To win a cane for one's class was an honor of a lifetime, like playing on the 'Varsity, or winning the Lynde debate. Men are still pointed out when back at Commencement as the light or middle weight spreers of their class, and a member of the faculty is famous for having "described a parabola with his opponent." This trick and a book called "Basal Concepts in Philosophy" bear his name, though it is maintained by some that he is more proud of the book.

This is to be a story of "How we used to do when we were in college." It would not do to revive the ancient cane spree. Things have changed since then. We are a university now. We mustn't behave like a college any longer. Besides, it was bad for the football men and training hours. But all the same, those old times were fun while they lasted. Weren't they?

High up over Clio Hall hung a moon, which a night or two before had been full. Over there, on the balconies of Witherspoon, blue and red and green lights were flaring. On the grass-plot in front was a huge black circle. This was made up of the College of New Jersey.

Their hats were off, and the red and the green and the blue mingled with the moonlight and glared upon the bare heads and the white of the faces with an effect as ghastly as it sounds.

The elms over toward Reunion and West cast long ugly-looking shadows. Beyond these everything seemed far away and dark and silent. Yet only a few hours before this same spot had served the innocent purpose of batting up flies and kicking footballs for points, with fellows shouting in loud, careless voices, "Aw! Come off! That was over the line!"

The circle was not yet perfectly formed. The crowd shivered and fidgeted, and borrowed lights of one another. Those behind called "Down in front!" And everyone wished it would begin. Some fellows kept edging in and were shoved back again by those appointed for that purpose. A few were moving about inside the circle displaying rolls of bills with which they made bets, and a great impression on under-classmen of a certain sort. The night was to be clear and frosty, and the strain on the nerves tremendous. So all those who believed in artificial warmth had it in their pockets, and some who did not.

For a month it had been, next to football, the most discussed topic at dinner-tables. Almost as soon as the rush was over—the annual cannon rush of the second night of the term without which the freshmen would not have considered themselves a class, while the underclassmen were still occupied in hazing and being hazed, and putting up and pulling down each other's proclamations throughout the state, and painting and repainting water-towers, and losing sleep in other good causes; in short, early in the term the candidates for the spreeing positions went into training, and they had been spreeing vigorously every night since—the freshmen back of the chapel and the sophs on the South Campus, about where Brown Hall now stands.

All sorts of rumors and counter-rumors had floated about the campus. The sophomores were frightened about a hinted-at dark horse of the freshmen, only they did not show it; and the freshmen were scared to death at the confident air of the well-known champion of the sophomores, and tried not to show it. And each was awed