"Oh, my dear sir," said the Reverend Ponsonby, jumping up and grabbing a
hatbox, "you don't mean to tell me that he will use violence?"
"Violence nothing!" I yelled, picking up four pieces of baggage. "He
won't use violence. He'll just eat you alive, that's all. He's awful
that way. Come, quick!"
"Oh, my word!" said Diggsey, grabbing his other five bundles and piling
out of the car after me.
The train was slowing down for the crossing west of Jonesville, and I
judged it wouldn't hurt the great collector of Western local color to
roll a little. So I yelled, "Jump for your life!" He jumped. I swung off
and went back till I met him coming along on his shoulder-blades, with a
procession of baggage following him. He wasn't hurt a bit, but he looked
interesting. I brushed him off, cached the baggage--all but a suitcase
and the hatbox which he hadn't dropped for a minute--and we began to
edge unostentatiously into Jonesville.
For an hour or more we dodged around in alleys and behind barns, while
up on the campus the boys burned a woodshed, an old fruit-stand, half a
hundred drygoods boxes and half a mile of wooden sidewalk by way of
celebration. The glare in the sky was wild enough to satisfy any one,
and when some of the boys got the old army muskets that the cadets
drilled with out of the armory and banged away, I was happy. But how I
did long to be close up to that fire! It was a cold night in early
November, and as I lay behind woodsheds, with my teeth wearing
themselves out on each other, I felt like an early Christian
martyr--though it wasn't cold they suffered from as a rule. As for the
Reverend Pubby, he wanted to creep away to the next town and then start
for England disguised as a chorus girl, or anything; but I wouldn't let
him. We sneaked around till nearly midnight and then crept up the alley
to the Eta Bita Pie House, wondering if we would ever get warm again.
I've seen some grand transformation scenes, but I never saw anything
more impressive than the way the Eta Bita Pie House had been done over
in two hours. We always prided ourselves on our house. It cost fifteen
thousand dollars, exclusive of the plumber's little hold-up and the
Oriental rugs, and it was full of polished floors and monogram
silverware and fancy pottery and framed prints, and other
bang-up-to-date incumbrances. But in two hours thirty boys can change a
whole lot of scenery. They had spread dirt and sand over the floor, had
ripped out the curtains and chased the pictures. They had poked out a
window-light or two, had unhung a few doors, and had filled the corners
with saddles, old clothes, flour barrels and dogs. You never saw so many
dogs. The whole neighborhood had been raided. They were hanging round
everywhere, homesick and miserable; and one of the Freshmen had been
given the job of cruising around and kicking them just to keep them
tuned up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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