This initial experience did not frighten me. I came up to the first day of college in the firm and joyous belief that here, if anywhere, that old bugbear of my past school days would be absent. I came into sight of buildings that were new to me, and oh, how stately to my freshman eyes! I came across a campus that was golden with the autumn grass, where red leaves filtered down from old elms, and where, from heights, I caught glimpses of the university's private parks, still green and soft, and of the river beyond—and of the clean flanks of white stone buildings and marble colonnades, half hidden in 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 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 a suddenly awakened hero, a wolf who had thrown off his meek lamb's outfit.

As I was leaving for home, full of ice cream, punch and much self-conceit, a junior came toward me hesitatingly. He seemed to be near-sighted, for he groped rather pitifully for my sleeve, and thrust his face close to mine.

"Aren't you the freshman that won the rush?" he asked me.

I told him promptly that I was.

"Well, won't you come around for lunch tomorrow at our fraternity house? We'll be mighty glad to have you."

I had learned a little of fraternities at school. They had not amounted to anything there; but I knew that college fraternities were different—were big, powerful organizations which could make or break a man's college career. My aunt had spoken to me of fraternities, too; she wanted me to join one which should give me—and her—a deal of social prestige. And I, hungering for new experiences and—as every boy does—for things that are mysterious and secretive, wanted, too, the distinction and glory of making a fraternity. It seemed to my freshman mind the most important thing upon the horizon.

And so, when this upper classman invited me to luncheon, my heart bounded high with expectation. I knew from other college men that an invitation to lunch was but the beginning of the usual system of "rushing" a prospective member: the preliminary skirmish of festivities which would prelude the final invitation to join the fraternity. And I was going to lunch at one of the most influential and exclusive of the university's fraternities.

It is needless to say, I was dressed in my Sunday-best the next morning. And, after my 11 o'clock recitation, I hurried out to find the upper classman waiting for me by the side of the fountain which had been the scene of my yesterday's wetting. I smiled indulgently at the thought of it. How changed everything was since then! The upper classman waited for me to come up to him. I saw that he did not recognize me at once, and a tremor of suspicion came over me. What if it were all a hoax—another bit of hazing?

He was immensely cordial; took me by the arm and marched me across the campus, down a side street and into the palatial, pillared house of his fraternity. On the way, his genial face full of a stupid, expansive smile, and his near-sighted eyes twinkling vacantly, he told me of the men I should meet.

Inside, in the magnificent hall, with its weathered oak beams and mission furniture and bronze plaques upon the tapestried walls, I met a host of good-looking, well-dressed men. There was evidently a "rushing committee" of upper classmen, who took me about and introduced me to all the others. There were one or two freshmen, too, whom I recognized; and these were wearing in their lapels a strange, gleaming little button. I was to learn later than this was the "pledge button" which announced that these men had been offered membership to the fraternity and had accepted it.When we went into luncheon the near-sighted junior sat me next to him. He seemed tremendously embarrassed. Once or twice he leaned over to whisper to other men; then he would steal a glance at me and blush a brick red, his inefficient eyes puckering to squint closely.

The other men, for the most part, disregarded me. A classmate—one of the pledged freshmen—spoke to me now and then, but loftily and as if it were an effort of hospitality.

As I felt the coldness increase, I grew glum and silent. My new-found confidence oozed out into bewilderment. What had I done? What had I said to insult them all, to hurt my chances of election to their midst? I could not figure it out.

They were courteous enough. They were what they claimed to be: a crowd of young gentlemen. But I could sense, electric in the air, the disapproval and amusement which they felt.

And after lunch was over, I did not join the others in the big, leather-walled smoking room. I made a mumbled apology and went. They accepted it blandly, smiling, smirking a little, and let me go.

I had just gone down the steps and towards the campus when the near-sighted junior came after me, redder than ever of face, his eyes, blinking very hard. He hurried up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder."See here, 'fresh,'" he said thickly, "I owe you an explanation. I don't want the other fellows to see me giving it to you. Come on, walk along with me."

At the corner, out of range of the windows of his fraternity house, he began his hurried, jumbling speech.

"I could see," he said, "how uncomfortable they made you. They tried to be decent, honestly they did. But they—they've never had—never had to entertain a—one of your sort before, don't you see? We—we don't ever take—well, it's all my fault. I'm so darn near-sighted that I didn't realize. I couldn't see—I didn't know—"

He could not go on, for his dull, honest face was fearfully distressed.

"What didn't you know?" I demanded.

"That you were—now, don't get sore, because I like Jews as much as any folks—and I can't see why we don't take them in our fraternity. Only—"

"Only you didn't realize I was a Jew," I said hotly.

"That's it—I'm so near-sighted that I—"

I did not wait for his stammered finish. I went swiftly away and home, my heart well-nigh bursting.