croquet. And rushing a Freshman is as near like love as
anything I know of. It isn't that we love the Freshman so much. When I
think of some of the trash we fought over and lost I have to laugh. But
we couldn't bear the idea of losing him. To sit by and watch another
gang win the affections of a young fellow who you know is designed by
Nature for your frat and the football team; to note him gradually
breaking off the desperate chumminess that has grown up between you in
the last forty-eight hours; to think that in another day he will have on
the pledge colors of another fraternity and will be lost to you forever
and ever and ever, and then some--what is losing a mere girl to some
other fellow compared with that? Of course I realize now that, even if a
Freshman does join another frat, you can eventually get chummy with him
again after college days are over if you find him worth crossing the
street to see; and I find myself lending money to Shi Delts and
borrowing it from Delta Whoops just as freely as if they were Eta Bites.
But somehow you don't learn these things in time to save your poor old
nerves in college.

[Illustration: Naturally I was somewhat dazzled
_Page 147_]

When I was in school the Alfalfa Delts, the Sigh Whoopsilons and the Chi
Yis were giving us a horrible race. I'm willing to admit it now, though
I'd have fought Jeffries before doing it ten years ago. Each fall was
one long whirlwind. The President of the United States in an
office-seekers' convention would have had a placid time compared with
the Freshmen. We didn't exactly use real axes on each other and we
didn't actually tear any Freshman in two pieces, but we came as near the
limit as was comfortable. No frat was safe for a minute with its guests.
If you tried to feed 'em there was kerosene in the ice cream. If you
entertained them some frat with a better quartet worked outside the
house. If you took them out to call the parlor would fill up with
riffraff in no time; and if you took your eye off your victim for a
minute he was gone--some other gang had got him. I sometimes think some
of the crowds knew how to palm Freshmen the way magicians do, from the
way they disappeared.

Even the girls took a hand in it. When I was a Sophomore I was intrusted
with the task of leading a Freshman three blocks down to Browning Hall
to call on one of our solid girls, and before I had gone a block two
Senior girls met us. They were bare ac