o were to make him a brother, dead
or alive. On the third night we of Eta Bita Pie were to take the remains
and decorate them with our fraternity pin after ceremonies in which
being kicked by a mule would only be considered a two-minute recess.

We fellows knew that when it came to initiating Ole we would have to do
the real work. The other frats couldn't touch it. They might scratch him
up a bit, but they lacked the ingenuity, the enthusiasm--I might say the
poetic temperament--to make a good job of it. We determined to put on an
initiation which would make our past efforts seem like the effort of an
old ladies' home to start a rough-house. It was a great pleasure, I
assure you, to plan that initiation. We revised our floor work and added
some cellar and garret and ceiling and second-story work to it. We began
the program with the celebrated third degree and worked gradually from
that up to the twenty-third degree, with a few intervals of simple
assault and battery for breathing spells. When we had finished doping
out the program we shook hands all around. It was a masterpiece. It
would have made Battenberg lace out of a steam boiler.

Ole was initiated into the Alfalfa Delts on a Wednesday night. We heard
echoes of it from our front porch. The next morning only three of the
Alfalfa Delts appeared at chapel, while Ole was out at six A. M.,
roaming about the campus with the Alfalfa Delt pin on his necktie. The
next night the Chi Yi Sighs took him on for one hundred and seventeen
rounds in their brand new lodge, which had a sheet-iron initiation den.
The whole thing was a fizzle. When we looked Ole over the next morning
we couldn't find so much as a scratch on him. He was wearing the Chi Yi
pin beside the Alfalfa Delt pin, and he was as happy as a baby with a
bottle of ink. There were nine broken window-lights in the Chi Yi lodge,
and we heard in a roundabout way that they called in the police about
three A. M. to help them explain to Ole that the initiation was over.
That's the kind of a trembling neophyte Ole was. But we just giggled to
ourselves. Anybody could break up a Chi Yi initiation, and the Alfalfa
Delts were a set of narrow-chested snobs with automobile callouses
instead of muscles. We ate a hasty dinner on Friday evening and set all
the scenery for the big scrunch. Then we put on our old clothes and
waited for Ole to walk into our parlor.

He wasn't due until nine, but about eight o'clock he came creaking up