it was only when I showed a trace of anger that the sophomores
finally released me and took me over to the gymnasium to give me a
sweater and a pair of old pants, much too big for me, to wear until my
other suit was dry.

I went home from that first day jubilant, excited, sure of my coming
four years. I had proven to myself and to all these others that I was
ready to take a joke, to share it and enjoy it even when it was "on me."
I had come out of it all with a tame but conclusive triumph of patience
and good nature.

I told my aunt of what had happened, when we sat down to dinner. She was
shocked at the recital. She wanted to know what sort of boys these
sophomores were--were they of good family and all that? Otherwise, if
they were ruffians, common street boys--she was going to write a letter
of complaint to the Dean of the university. I had a hard time
restraining her from it: I only did succeed by maintaining stoutly that
hazing was part of the social scheme, and was indulged in only by "boys
of the best families!"

The next morning, when I had traveled uptown to the college site, I was
met by more than one sophomore and upper classman who gave me a broad
smile or a humorous wink. The story of my dousings had probably gone the
rounds of the campus.

That night there was to be a reception given to the freshman class by
the college Y. M. C. A. I had arranged with Aunt Selina that I would not
be home until late.

There was a baseball game between the two classes in the afternoon. The
sophomores won, of course--as I believe they almost always do in that
first game. But after that there was a class rush around the flag pole.
I was light enough to climb up, stockinged-feet, upon the shoulders of
some of the taller classmates. I managed, somehow or other, to reach
that silly little flag and to tear it down, and then to dive down into
the twisting, jammed crowd below me, hugging the rag to my breast in
bulwarked hiding. And when the whistle blew I was still in possession of
it.

Popularity is a heady wine--and I had my fill of it that day and
evening. I--little I--had won the class rush for the freshmen. Everybody
seemed to know my name, to recognize me, to want to speak to me. At the
reception, later on, I was surrounded by a great group of freshmen too
shy to stand by themselves. Under ordinary circumstances, of course, I
should have been more shy than any of them--but these were not ordinary
circumstances. I was