The Adventures of a Freshman Part 14

"Well, I'll help you stick 'em up. It'll remind us of pasting procs, eh?"

One morning, a few days later, the whole University, on its way to and from recitations and lectures, saw a poster on the Bulletin Elm. It had two black letters on it, C. C. There was nothing else there. They glanced at it, wondered what it meant, and pa.s.sed on.

The next day a new one was there in letters twice as big, C. C. Again the college wondered what it meant; but this time some of them did not pa.s.s on until they had asked someone else, "What's that thing for?"

"What's the meaning of that?" No one could answer.

A snow-storm washed it off during the afternoon.

A fresh one was put up the next morning.

"Here's that queer poster again," said the pa.s.sers-by. "What's it for, anyway?"

"n.o.body seems to know."

The next morning the same letters on larger-sized paper were found not only on the bulletin-board, but tacked up on all the available trees of the campus, and in the town on all the billboards, old barrels, tumble-down sheds, and stalled wagons. On the way to recitation, or lectures, every one saw C. C. half a dozen times. They saw it on the tree-boxes along the street. When they took walks they saw it on old barns down toward Kingston.

Now at Princeton, what there is of a town is little more than a setting for the University. There are no outside distractions, such as theatres and the like, as at most large inst.i.tutions of learning. The campus life is the only life, and the college students are dependent upon the college world for all their amus.e.m.e.nts and between-hour interests.

Everyone keeps in touch with everything that is going on.

So when this poster with its brief legend continued to appear and reappear every day, and no one deciphered its meaning, the college began to get interested--all the more so because it was midwinter, and therefore neither football nor baseball was absorbing the undergraduate interest.

"What's going to happen?" everyone asked. "What's the meaning of this mystery?" And no one could answer.

The thing had now kept up for over a week. The _Daily Princetonian_ commented upon it. Even the faculty began to inquire, in a dignified way, as to "the meaning of those cabalistic symbols." The undergraduates had begun to make up words to fit, and rumors floated about the campus.

"C. C.--college clowns," said someone; "it's to be a horse minstrel troupe."

"No, that's not it," said another, "it's Curious Customs:--a new book by a member of the faculty."

"What nonsense!" sneered a wise Senior, "it's only a hoax perpetrated by some under-cla.s.smen who think themselves funny; it isn't worth talking about," and he went on down to the club and talked half through dinner about it himself.

Those who considered themselves humorous began to make jokes about it.

"Look, here," one would say, and the other would reply, "I C. C."

And now suddenly the posters disappeared. None could be found in any part of the town; Bronson, a Junior, paid half a dollar for one to put in his sc.r.a.p-book. "What's become of it!" they asked.

"C. C.--can't come," answered a funny man.

They were still talking about its disappearance when, a few days later, the posters again appeared, more of them than ever, and this time it was a poster to make the undergraduate world excited. It was in the college colors, for one thing, the paper being orange and the letters black.

That alone was enough to lend fresh interest, but that was not the most important change. Under the letters C. C. were the words:

"TO-MORROW, THE 12TH, AT NOON, BY THE CANNON."

The Cannon is the centre of the front quadrangle and the hub of the campus life. At half-past twelve o'clock all the morning lectures and recitations of both upper and lower cla.s.ses are over, and no one has anything immediate to attend to. The next day, by the time the bell in the Old North had finished announcing the noon hour, nearly the whole university found it convenient to be in the neighborhood of the Cannon.

Old Jimmy Johnson, the ancient negro fruit-and peanut-vender, stood beside the Cannon, against which leaned his wheelbarrow heaped high with a ma.s.s of small orange-and-black objects, and over them waved an orange banner on which were two big black letters, C. C. That was all there was to look at; and old Jimmy was as silent and bored-looking as ever.

The crowd drew nearer. The orange-and-black things were small pasteboard boxes, shaped like miniature bricks. On one side of them was printed these words, "Made from the purest materials, in the most careful manner, by a secret receipt in the possession of Fraulein Hummel of New York." On the other side appeared the words, "Delicious College Caramels, five cents a box," and on either end, "C. C." Old Jimmy kept on looking solemn and silent.

At first the crowd seemed inclined to laugh--not at Jimmy or his load so much as at themselves, for being so worked up over a small affair. "Is that all it is?" everyone thought, and some noisy Soph.o.m.ores began to shout, in loud voices, "Sold!" "Leg-pull! Leg-pull!" "Let's go," said someone else; "all over!"

But curiosity had been whetted too strongly during the past fortnight not to have it satisfied as fully as possible. Besides, the boxes looked very neat, and the simple inscription on them sounded very attractive.

Also it was several hours since breakfast; a number of fellows were observed to swallow something when reading the word "delicious."

First, three jocular Juniors, who prided themselves on always doing as they pleased, strode over to Jimmy's wheelbarrow, arm in arm, announcing to everybody as they did so, "We are going to have some C. C. We must have C. C.," and bought a box, which they proceeded to open, and the contents of which they ostentatiously and with much smacking of lips devoured before the a.s.sembled crowed.

"Oh, we like C. C.!" shouted the three Juniors. "Give us some more, Jimmy," and then they marched through the crowd munching and saying, "We are the first to see C. C. We are the first to see C. C. Three cheers for C. C.!"

By this time several other Juniors, grinning to show they, too, were joking, went over to the wheelbarrow and put down five cents each.

Then other Juniors, then some of the Soph.o.m.ores--who always like to do what Juniors do--and after that a few Freshmen, made bold to approach the wheelbarrow, and finally even a Senior or two, "just to see what they were like, anyway," sampled C. C., and they immediately stopped looking superior and remarked, "By Jove, they are good! Try them."

That was what everybody seemed to think, for within half an hour old black Jimmy, who almost turned white making change, found his wheelbarrow empty, and went toddling off to have it replenished; while the undergraduate body of the University of Princeton strolled off to its mid-day meal, chewing.

Two of the crowd who lagged behind seemed pleased about something, and one was quietly punching the other in the ribs, and saying: "Well, well!

Deacon, well, well! Your little scheme is certainly working, in spite of my prediction. I hope it will keep on working."

"Stop punching me, Lucky!" the Deacon said, but he laughed excitedly in spite of himself. "It'll keep on working all right, you see if it doesn't. There wasn't any good candy here, and all this needed was an introduction."

"Aren't you glad now you went home Christmas with me?" said Lucky, exultingly; "otherwise you wouldn't have heard us talking about that old woman and her bully caramels."

For a week or so C. C.'s were sold as fast as they could be supplied.

They had become "the thing." Students munched them in their rooms, during their walks, on the way to lecture-rooms, and even inside. They sent them home to their sisters and to their roommates' sisters. They told the story in their letters, and their friends sent stamps and requests for other packages of "those delicious things."

Of course the first boom died down, as Young knew it would; but there remained a good, steady, normal demand for them, and before long he had cleared, in all, $150.

"Now," thought Will Young, "I am going to lean back and enjoy life like Todd and the rest of them. Seems to me I have a right to."

Of course it had leaked out by this time, as such things always do, who was at the bottom of the C. C. business, and the college said: "What!

that big, sober-looking green Freshman that did up Ballard? He's quite a boy, isn't he?"

Now, when this got around to the Invincibles, and so to Will Young, he only scowled and thought: "I don't see why they still call me green. I should think by this time"--then he looked down the table. "Are you coming up to get in the game this evening?" he heard Billy Drew murmur to Minerva Powelton.

They did not ask the Deacon, and for some reason the Deacon resented it. Why? A few months ago he would have resented it if they had asked him.

One wet, muddy day toward the end of the winter two dignified Juniors, Jimmy Linton, the philosopher, and Billy Nolan, the football man, were walking across the quadrangle to a four o'clock lecture.

"Billy," said Linton, "a Freshman is a funny thing. You never can tell how they are going to turn out. See that fellow ahead there?"

"Why, that's Young the Freshman guard. Say, Jim, that boy's going to make the Varsity before he gets out of college."

Linton said, "He may make the team, but he's going to make a fool of himself first."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, it's the same old story," Linton smiled. "He's in with a sporty crowd and is beginning to try to act the way they do. He's a Freshman."