n the trees. It was all so beautiful. It
was the promised land and I was within its gates.

The giddy knowledge of it buoyed me up and sent me across the campus
humming to myself one of the alma mater songs which I had so religiously
learned from that "Freshman Bible." I was on my way to my first class.
Directly ahead of me was the broad, lofty door of the recitation
building and, a little to the left, a fountain's water spilled itself
singingly over into a shallow marble basin.

Suddenly a trio of sophomores bounded out from behind a clump of bushes.
They came about me in a whooping circle, took me by the head and feet
and tossed me into the fountain.

I clambered out, dripping, spluttering, but--be it said to my
credit--still smiling. I had heard that this was the customary hazing
which all freshmen must endure--and I knew enough to take it with as
good a grace as they gave it.

I started on my way to the recitation hall again, my clothes leaving a
trickling line behind me on the walk. But they pulled me back and
thumped me into the water again. It happened a third time before they
let me go. And then one of them--a big, stocky fellow who wore a thick,
rolling sweater on which the college letter was emblazoned--laughed
heartily and thwacked me on the back and roared that I was a good kid,
even for a Jew!

The kindness of his remark was perhaps deeply meant. I've no doubt, he
thought to be paying me a compliment--but I went away, wetter than ever,
fast contracting a cold--and with a lump in my throat for which the cold
was not at all responsible.

In the class room I found a number of my new classmates in quite as
damp a condition as I. I was glad to be among them, to know that I had
not been singled out--and, being miserable, enjoyed their company. The
instructor seemed to be making a point of paying no attention to our
wetness. It made me wonder how the faculty felt about hazing. Evidently
they shut their eyes to it.

The class was soon over, since we were only kept for a preliminary
explanation of the course and a few words of supercilious greeting on
behalf of the young instructor. We came out upon the campus again,
locked arm in wet arm, paradoxically proud of what we had suffered.

But some more sophomores were waiting for us. We had to go into the
fountain over and over again. My own personal score was nine times. Nor
did my good nature--kept at what a cost!--serve to bring me any
leniency.

In fact