Harvard Stories: Sketches of the UndergraduatePost, Waldron Kintzing
History
Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate
Post, Waldron Kintzing
College stories, American; College students -- Fiction; Harvard University -- Fiction
On the following day the Harvard forces began to move on Springfield.
The game was to be played on Saturday, but many men went on Friday
afternoon, for there is great joy to be had in Springfield on the eve of
battle. The Glee Club always gives a concert, after which there is a
very fine ball, one of the Springfield Assemblies, I believe. There is
also apt to be another ball, a "sociable" of the something-or-other
coterie. Holworthy and Gray were on the Glee Club, and were going to the
Assembly. The others decided to go to Springfield on that night also,
and attend the other ball.
"Down with the bloated silk-stockings," declared Burleigh. "Let the
kid-gloved dudes dally with the pampered aristocracy. We are the people;
we'll go where we can turn in our waistcoats, stick our sailor-knots in
our shirt fronts, and be right in the top flight!"
The Glee Club men had rooms engaged. Hudson was on the shooting-team,
and therefore also had a room secured, and the two Jacks, Rattleton and
Randolph, were going on one of the club sleeping-cars. Burleigh and
Stoughton had no rooms, but were willing to take their chances of
getting one. Indeed, these two very rarely failed on an expedition of
this sort in getting the best of everything. They were both sons of the
energetic West, besides which Stoughton was famed for his craft, and was
the recognized Ulysses of "the gang." They had a very effective method
of working together in a crowd. Ned Burleigh was six feet three, and his
weight had never been accurately ascertained by his friends. Dick
Stoughton, on the other hand, was of a slight and active build. On
arriving at any town where there was a rush for the hotels, Burleigh
would breast the crowd with all the weight of his broad front.
Stoughton, following close at his back with both the portmanteaus, would
swing them, one on each side of Burleigh's legs, about knee high. Thus
they would cut their way through any crowd, and arriving at its front,
Ned would take the baggage and come along by slow freight, while Dick
dashed for the hotel.
This manoeuvre was successfully executed at Springfield, and Stoughton
secured the last room at the Massasoit House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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