Burt Standish - Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale

"Ah, there, Merriwell!"

Frank Merriwell was crossing the campus at good old Yale, and this cry, in a familiar voice, sounded from Durfee Hall.

He turned his eyes toward the favorite dormitory, and seated at an open window on the ground floor he saw his classmate, Jones, he of the famous nickname, "Dismal."

"Hello, Dismal," called Frank, "aren't you going to come out and shake hands with a fellow?"

"I would if it wasn't for the shower," responded Jones, whose usually solemn face was graver than ever.

"Shower?" repeated Frank, looking up in surprise at the perfectly clear sky.

"I see that you've just arrived, so that you probably haven't noticed it," said Dismal, coming out of his window to avoid going around through the hall.

He came slowly across the grass plot that lay between him and Frank and held out his hand, saying:

"How are you, Frank? I'm glad to see you."

Frank, who had just come from the railway station, had a gripsack in each hand. He set them down upon the grass and shook Dismal's hand warmly.

"There it goes!" exclaimed Dismal, with something like animation, "the shower's begun again."

Frank's brows wrinkled in perplexity.

"I don't see any signs of a shower," he said.

"That's because you haven't been here all the morning," returned Jones, solemnly. "I've been sitting there in my window for fully three hours watching it; it's been a perfect rain of gripsacks on the campus. Every fellow that comes along stops to shake hands with everybody he meets, and every time he stops, down goes his gripsacks."

Frank laughed.

"You're the same old cheerful joker, Dismal," he said. "But you're beginning early. If you keep up this sort of thing you'll actually get caught laughing before the end of the junior year."

There was a faint shadow of a smile on Dismal's face as he responded:

"Well, anyhow, Frank, I'm glad to see all the fellows come trooping back. Are you glad to get here yourself?"

"Why, of course I am."

"Had a good time during the vacation?"

"I always have a good time," said Frank. "Don't you?"

"Oh, yes, in my way. To tell the truth, I spent most of the summer dreading the day when I should have to come back to the confounded old books, and lectures and examinations; but I got here yesterday, and now I'm dreading the time I shall have to go away again."

"Then I see that you're sure to enjoy yourself during the junior year," said Frank, stooping to pick up his gripsacks.

"When I've got my room in order I'll come around and go to luncheon with you."

"Do!" replied Dismal. "I'll go back to my window seat and watch the shower. Hello! there comes Browning, and he's loaded down with gripsacks, too. My, but there'll be a perfect torrent!"

Big Bruce Browning came up with friendly words of greeting, and as Dismal had predicted, he set down his gripsacks in order to get his hands free.

"It's getting worse and worse!" remarked Dismal, as if worried about it, "for here comes Rattleton and Diamond from one direction and Harold Page from another."

The last named students were on their way, just as Frank had been, to their respective rooms, and each carried more or less baggage, except Diamond, who, being something of an aristocrat, had sent all his traps to his room on a wagon.

Seeing Frank standing near Durfee, they all turned toward him, and in a moment there was a lively exchange of greetings and small talk.

Four of these students, Merriwell himself, Jack Diamond, Bruce Browning and Harry Rattleton, had not been long separated, to be sure, but after a sporting trip which they had undertaken across the continent, it was like meeting after a long absence to find themselves together again at Yale.

It was the beginning of a new college year, and members of all classes were trooping back to begin their work.

While these juniors were discussing all manner of things that interest students, such as the prospects of the football eleven, the make-up of next year's crew, and the coming elections into secret societies, members of other classes were scattered about the campus chatting in much the same way.

Among those who appeared upon the famous quadrangle were many who belonged to the incoming freshman class. It was easy to recognize them, for, as Rattleton observed:

"You can tell a freshman with the naked eye."

They were either proceeding in a fearful hurry, as if they thought they were in danger of getting in late to an examination, or they were standing in awkward idleness looking at the strange buildings and evidently not knowing which way to turn and dreading to ask anybody a question.

The juniors smiled indulgently as a group of three or four candidates for the freshman class passed them.

The newcomers were discussing an examination from which they had just come, telling each other how they had answered certain questions and wondering if they would get marked high enough to pass.

"I can sympathize with them," remarked Diamond. "I know just the kind of shivers they're suffering from."

"What jolly good subjects those fellows would be for a quiet hazing," remarked Page.

"You mustn't forget," said Frank, "that we're juniors now, and therefore out of it so far as hazing is concerned."

"That's right," added Browning, "the freshies are nothing to us; they're far beneath us."

"Except in one sense," said Frank. "The sophomores, you know, will get even for the hazing we gave them, by taking it out of the freshies, and so it becomes our duty, in a way, to take care of the freshmen and see that they get fair treatment."

Speaking of this it may be well to explain that in all colleges the juniors take this attitude toward the freshmen.

As a rule the freshman receives the attention of a junior with a great deal of gratitude, but also as a rule he does not find that it amounts to very much.

The junior is ever ready to give him a good deal of solid advice, and a great deal more ready to get the freshman to do errands for him, and all manner of odd jobs that the freshman is quite sure to do, until, as the boys say, he tumbles to the fact that after all the junior is really making game of him.

"Speaking of hazing, though," said Page, suddenly, "I've got a new room."

"Have you? Where is it?" asked Rattleton.

"It's up High Street a way, in one of the oldest houses in New Haven."

"Good room?" asked Browning.

"Capital! I've got to do some grinding this year and the room will suit me exactly for that, but there'll be hours when the books can be forgotten, and then you fellows'll find that the room is a corker for cards or any sort of jollification."

"I don't see what that's got to do with hazing," remarked Merriwell. "You said that the hazing reminded you of it."

"Yes, I'll tell you why, or rather I'll show you. There's something about that room that would be perfectly immense if we were sophomores now. Come down and see it, will you?"

"Better wait a week," said Browning, picking up his bags, "I'm busy now."

"How extraordinary!" remarked Dismal Jones. "If the faculty should hear that Browning was busy they'd give him a warning!"

Browning frowned in mock anger and Frank, putting on an expression quite as solemn as Dismal's own, and laying his hand on Dismal's shoulder, said:

"The fact is, boys, Jones has become ambitious. He knows that the election of class-day officers is only a little more than a year away, and he's getting himself into training for one of the positions."

"Oh, go on, it isn't so!" exclaimed Dismal.

"That's just his modesty," continued Frank, "for of course he doesn't want to push himself forward, but he's quietly waiting for his friends to recognize his great ability, and as we're his friends we just want to boom him from now on, and I take this occasion of nominating Dismal Jones, Esquire, as class wit."