Charles Flandrau - The Diary of a Freshman

The parade to the police station must have been several blocks long – I heard about it afterward. First there was me with an escort of two officers, all the muckers in Cambridge, and the Freshman class in a body, who started a collection on the way over with which to bail me out. Then there was a German band playing the "Blue Danube," and after that "a vast concourse" (as Berrisford called it) of Sophomores, upperclassmen, and law students with another German band playing the "Washington Post" in their midst.

I was almost paralyzed with fright, and my head ached dreadfully from the blow I had given it against the building; but although I did n't show it I could n't help feeling furious at Berrisford. He stayed right behind me on the way over and kept saying at intervals, —

"It's all right, old man. Don't worry – there's no use worrying; just leave everything to me."

Perhaps, after all, my troubles were for the best. It was not my fault that I fell into the hands of the law; nothing was further from my thoughts than a desire to be disorderly. Of course the teasing I have had to endure is pretty hard, and it is most annoying to acquire a nickname at the outset (everybody calls me "Trusting Thomas" or "Tommy Trusting"), and although I realize now that I was pretty "easy" to do what Berrisford told me to, my conscience has been untroubled from the first. That, after all, is the main thing.

Berrisford, I think, would have tried (as he said) "to smooth it all over" at the police station, but very fortunately the arrival of the Regent and my adviser and the iron-gray man at once took the matter out of his hands. I don't know what they did to the officers, but I was quickly transferred from the police station to the room of my adviser. It was more or less impossible to return the money that had been collected from the class to bail me out with, so just as I left a fellow with a loud voice proposed amid great cheering to give it to the Freshman Eleven.

There had been something spectacular and brilliant about my progress from the Yard to the lock-up that, terrified though I was, I could not help appreciating in an abject, wretched sort of a way. But the silent walk down a back street to the hall in which my adviser lives was just common or garden melancholy. The sidewalk was broad, so we swung along four abreast. No one followed us, of course, and we went the entire distance in almost unbroken silence. Once the Regent cleared his throat and said in hard, cheerful, deliberate tones, —

"I see by the evening paper that Japan will not accede to the request of the Powers." No one answered for about a minute, and I began to fear that neither my adviser nor the iron-gray man would take advantage of the opportunity to exclaim, "What a wonderful little people they are!" I was vaguely disappointed; for of course when the Japanese are mentioned one instinctively waits for somebody to say this. However, just as I was beginning to lose hope and had almost made up my mind to risk the comment myself, the iron-gray man burst out with, "What a remarkable little people they are!" and my foolish heart was reassured!

I must say that when we reached our destination and the inquisition began, they were – all three of them – mighty fair and square. The circumstances of my capture were decidedly against me, and my defence, I realized, sounded simply foolish. (At one point my adviser jumped up abruptly and closed a window; I think he was afraid he was going to laugh.) There was nothing for me to do but tell my story: how I had watched the rush from the bottom of the steps; how I had gone over to hear Mr. Duggie's speech, and how Berrisford (I didn't give his name, however) had come up to me with the helmet in a newspaper and told me we were playing a game and that I was It. I felt very earnest and tremulous when I began, but by the time I finished I could n't help wanting to shut a few windows myself. That – out of the whole howling mob – they had succeeded in seizing one miserable, little half-dead Freshman who had taken no part in the actual disturbance, struck me as being like something in an imbecile farce. It impressed the others, I think, in much the same way, although the iron-gray man, after a moment of silence, said: "Do you really expect us to believe all this?"

"No, sir," I answered; "I don't see how you conscientiously can." But they decided to believe it, nevertheless. My adviser asked me if I knew who gave me the helmet, and on learning that I did, he intimated that he would like to know the man's name. I preferred, however, not to tell; and they were very nice about that, too. (I shouldn't have told even if they had chosen to be disagreeable about it.)

As far as I am concerned I don't believe any action will be taken. There is no end, though, to the ominous rumors of what the Faculty will do in general. One day we hear that the two lower classes won't be allowed to play football this year, and the next, that all the Freshmen are to be put on what is called "probation;" everybody, in an indefinite sort of way, is very indignant. To tell the truth, I don't see why; but as all the rest are, I am, too.

Berrisford has been very nice ever since that Monday night. At first I think it was a desire to "make amends" that caused him to spend so much time in my room and ask me to do so many things with him and his friends; but of course he never put it that way. He was very much worried when I told him that my adviser and the Regent had tried to find out who had given me the helmet, and he wanted to rush and confess. It took me a good while to persuade him not to. In fact, I did n't persuade him exactly, but only got him to agree at length to let Mr. Duggie decide. Mr. Duggie thought the matter over for a moment, and said that as my refusal to tell hadn't, so far as he could see, made me a martyr on the altar of friendship, he thought it would be unnecessarily theatrical for Berrisford to give himself up.

One day Berrisford asked me where I ate, and when I told him I had been trying the places in and about the Square, he said: "Why, you silly thing – why don't you join my crowd at Mrs. Brown's?" He spoke as if the idea had just occurred to him, but that same morning when he introduced me to a man who came up to his room, the fellow said: "I hear you 're coming to our table. That's good." So it must have all been arranged beforehand. Berrisford 's awfully generous and impulsive and kind, only he's so scatter-brained and eccentric you never know what he 's going to do next.

I 've done no end of interesting things since I last wrote in my diary. I bought a song called "Love's Sorrow" at a music store, had the man play it for me five or six times, learned the words and then attempted to sing it at the trial of Glee Club candidates. I 'm sure I sang all the notes and I remembered the words without a mistake; but something was wrong. For after I stopped singing the fellow at the piano went on playing the accompaniment several minutes. And when I took my seat I heard one of the judges murmur as he wrote something on a slip of paper: "Fourth heat; Tommy Trusting shows heels to the bunch and wins in a canter." They told me I would see my name in the "Crimson" when they wanted me for rehearsal. It hasn't appeared yet and that was some time ago.

Then one morning I borrowed a jersey and some moleskins from a fellow at our table and went over to Soldiers' Field to try for the football team. First we lined up for short sprints of twenty yards or so; then they divided us into squads and made us practise falling on the ball (I found chloroform liniment very good for this; but Berrisford maintains that there's nothing like osteopathy). Afterward we practised place kicks, drop kicks and punts; candidates for tackle were lined up against one another and tried breaking through; quarter-backs and centre-rushes practised passing and snapping back the ball. I tried everything – even the dummy.