Andy at Yale Part 1

Andy at Yale.

by Roy Eliot Stokes.

CHAPTER I

A HORSE-WHIPPING

"Come on, Andy, what are you hanging back for?"

"Oh, just to look at the view. It's great! Why, you can see for twenty miles from here, right off to the mountains!"

One lad stood by himself on the summit of a green hill, while, a little below, and in advance of him, were four others.

"Oh, come on!" cried one of the latter. "View! Who wants to look at a view?"

"But it's great, I tell you! I never appreciated it before!" exclaimed Andy Blair. "You can see----!"

"Oh, for the love of goodness! Come on!" came in protest from the objecting speaker. "What do we care how far we can see? We're going to get something to eat!"

"That's right! Some of Kelly's good old kidney stew!"

"A little chicken for mine!"

"I'm for a chop!"

"Beefsteak on the grill!"

Thus the lads, waiting for the one who had stopped to admire the fine view, chanted their desires in the way of food.

"Come on!" finally called one in disgust, and, with a half sigh of regret, Andy walked on to join his mates.

"What's getting into you lately?" demanded Chet Anderson, a bit petulantly. "You stand mooning around, you don't hear when you're spoken to, and you don't go in for half the fun you used to."

"Are you sick? Or is it a--girl?" queried Ben Snow, laughing.

"Both the same!" observed Frank Newton, cynically.

"Listen to the old d.i.n.kbat!" exclaimed Tom Hatfield. "You'd think he knew all about the game! You never got a letter from a girl in your life, Frank!"

"I didn't, eh? That's all you know about it," and Frank made an unsuccessful effort to punch his tormentor.

"Well, if we're going on to Churchtown and have a bit of grub in Kelly's, let's hoof it!" suggested Chet. "You can eat; can't you, Andy?

Haven't lost your appet.i.te; have you, looking at that blooming view?"

"No, indeed. But you fellows don't seem to realize that in another month we'll never see it again, unless we come back to Milton for a visit."

"That's right!" agreed Ben Snow. "This _is_ our last term at the old school! I'll be sorry to leave it, in a way, even though I do expect to go to college."

"Same here," came from Tom. "What college are you going to, Ben?"

"Hanged if I know! Dad keeps dodging from one to another. He's had all the catalogs for the last month, studying over 'em like a fellow going up for his first exams. Sometimes it's Cornell, and then he switches to Princeton. I'm for the last myself, but dad is going to foot the bills, so I s'pose I'll have to give in to him."

"Of course. Where are you heading for, Andy?"

"Oh, I'm not so sure, either. It's a sort of toss-up between Yale and Harvard, with a little leaning toward Eli on my part. But I don't have to decide this week. Come on, let's hoof it a little faster. I believe I'm getting hungry."

"And yet you would stop to moon at a view!" burst out Frank. "Really, Andy, I'm surprised at you!"

"Oh, cut it out, you old faker! You know that view from Brad's Hill can't be beat for miles around."

"That's right!" chorused the others, and there seemed to have come over them all a more serious manner with the mention of the pending break-up of their pleasant relations. They had hardly realized it before.

For a few minutes they walked on over the hills in silence. The green fields, with here and there patches of woodland, stretched out all around them. Over in the distance nestled a little town, its white church, with the tall, slender spire, showing plainly.

Behind them, hidden by these same green hills over which they were tramping this beautiful day in early June, lay another town, now out of sight in a hollow. It was Warrenville, on the outskirts of which was located the Milton Preparatory School the five lads attended. They were in their last year, would soon graduate, and then separate, to go to various colleges, or other inst.i.tutions.

School work had ended early this day on account of coming examinations, and the lads, who had been chums since their entrance at Milton, had voted to go for a walk, and end up with an early supper at Kelly's, a more or less celebrated place where the students congregated. This was at Churchtown, about five miles from Warrenville. The boys were to walk there and come back in the trolley.

They had spent two years at the Milton school, and had been friends for years before that, all of them living in the town of Dunmore, in one of our Middle States. There was much rejoicing among them when they found that all five who had played baseball and football together in Dunmore, were to go to the same preparatory school. It meant that the pleasant relations were not to be severed. But now the shadow of parting had cast itself upon them, and had tempered their buoyant spirits.

"Yes, boys, it will soon be good-bye to old Milton!" exclaimed Chet, with a sigh.

"I wonder if we'll get anybody like Dr. Morrison at any of the colleges we go to?" spoke Ben.

"You can't beat him--no matter where you go!" declared Andy. "He's the best ever!"

"That's right! He knows just how to take a fellow," commented Tom.

"Remember the time I smuggled the puppy into the physiology cla.s.s?"

"I should say we did!" laughed Andy.

"And how he yelped when I pinched his tail that stuck out from under your coat," added Ben. "Say, it was great!"

"I'll never forget how old Pop Swann looked up over the tops of his gla.s.ses," put in Frank.

"Dr. Morrison was mighty decent about it when he had me up on the carpet, too," added Tom. "I thought sure I was in for a wigging--maybe a suspension, and I couldn't stand that, for dad had written me one warning letter.

"But all Prexy did was to look at me in that calm, withering, pitying way he has, and then say in that solemn voice of his: 'Ah, Hatfield, I presume you are going in for vivisection?' Say, you could have floored me with a feather. That's the kind of a man Dr. Morrison is."

"n.o.body else like him," commented Andy, with a sigh.

"Oh, well, if any of us go to Yale, or Princeton, or Harvard, I guess we'll find some decent profs. there," spoke Ben. "They can't all be riggers."

"Sure not," said Andy. "But those colleges will be a heap sight different from Milton."

"Of course! What do you expect? This is a kindergarten compared to them!" exclaimed Frank.