"All right," said Channing, but he turned to the Freshman as he started off and remarked, threateningly, "We'll meet again, you big, green Freshman." "I hope so," promptly returned Young, "you little, mouthy Sophomore." And this was the very worst thing he could have said, as he was afterward taught, if he had wanted to avoid hazing. He did not know that the best way to get along with the Sophomores was to take their initiating--not humbly, which was almost worse than getting mad about it--but laughingly and good-naturedly, for as soon as he acknowledged the fact that he was only a Freshman and recognized that he belonged to the lowest of four grades of college importance, they would let him alone. But Young was not of a sort readily to acknowledge subordination to anybody, and he had never been hazed and he knew very little about college custom and all that, because he had been a college man less than twenty-four hours and the tray of his trunk was still unpacked. It was Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the term, and he was on his way to chapel to attend the opening exercises of the college year, the first real college duty of his life, and he had almost reached the quadrangle when he was interrupted by the Sophomores and the disagreeable voice which called, "Hi, there, Freshman," at him, and which he thought he would never forget. And now he went on up the stone walk under the tall elms, wiping his brow and telling himself that he was not homesick, but that he did not propose to let anybody talk to him that way, even if he was green and from the country, and he would show them. He was from the country, to be sure, but that had nothing to do with it. He was guyed because he was a Freshman. * * * * * He was from the country, and he had come here to get a college education, and he had worked hard to come. He meant to make the best of his opportunities, and you could see that by the energetic way he strode through the quadrangle and up the broad path to chapel and took his place with two hundred others, who also were Freshmen and as green, many of them, as he was, and trying just as hard not to show it, though he did not know that. He thought they were upper-classmen and knew ever so much, and were looking at him. CHAPTER II THE "BIG, GREEN FRESHMAN FROM SQUEEDUNK" There were very important reasons why this particular Freshman had made up his mind to do well at college. He had done very well at the High School out at home, and it was one of the best in all Illinois. But that was not the reason, nor had he graduated first in his class, indeed; one of the girls did, as usual, though, to be sure, Young had done outside studying with the minister and that was a handicap. He had a different sort of reason for wanting to do well, now he was here at last.