BARCLAY'S BONFIRE
Copyright, 1898, by THE YOUTH'S COMPANION. All rights reserved.
Cobb, 1901, assistant editor of the Daily Quarmazi, left the office,crossed the road and entered the college yard by the simple expedientof placing one hand on the fence and vaulting over upon the forbiddengrass. Cobb had a Latin book under one arm--for even if one labors ona college paper to mold undergraduate opinion, he is not exempt from acertain amount of class attendance--and carried an open letter in hishand. His round, good-natured face wore a broad grin; and whenever helooked at the letter the grin increased.
He entered the first entrance to Grays Hall, bounded up two flights ofnarrow stairway, and pounded at a door. An invitation to enter camefaintly through two thicknesses of oak, and Cobb confronted the singleoccupant of the room.
"How are you, Barclay? Thanks, no, can't stop! Just dropped 'roundto leave this with you. Got it in this morning's mail at the office.Said to myself, 'Just one man in college who'll take interest in this;that's Barclay.' So I brought it to you. Might answer it, eh? Goodidea, seems to me. Hope you'll be able to do something about it. 'Bye!"And Cobb, grinning like a jovial satyr, was gone.
Barclay, '99, laid his pen aside with slow deliberateness, marked hisplace in the big Greek lexicon beside him, and took up the letter. Itwas addressed to the editor of the Quarmazi, and was signed "Hiram G.Larkin, Yale, '99." The writer asked to be put in communication withsome student in the rival college who was interested in checkers. Hedwelt enthusiastically on the formation of a dual checker league. Hepointed out the fact that although chess, whist and other games ofskill and science were recognized and participated in each year byteams representing the two universities, the noble game of checkers hadbeen hitherto wofully neglected. He suggested that teams be formedat each university, and that a tournament be played to decide thechampionship.
When Barclay laid aside the letter, his long and ascetic face heldan expression of enthusiastic delight. The one dissipation and hobbyof Barclay's studious existence was checkers. He held a college-widereputation as a "grind" of the most pronounced type. Barclay did notlook down on the usual pleasures and frolics of the undergraduate;they simply had for him no appeal. He had nothing against football orbaseball or track athletics; but he felt no enthusiasm for any of them.
Of course he was always glad when the college teams won; he was"patriotic" to a high degree, and sometimes, when the bonfires burnedand the students cheered and sang, he acknowledged a wish, lying deepdown in his heart, that he, too, might be able to derive pleasurableemotions from such celebrations. Barclay, in short, loved Xenophanesand Xenophon; and next to them, checkers.
Before he went to bed that night he answered the Yale man's letter;indorsed the project voluminously; pledged immediate cooperation, andremained fraternally his, Simonides P. Barclay.
I have no intention of specifying in detail the steps which resultedin the formation of the Intercollegiate Checkers Association. Barclayand Larkin wrote to each other at least every other day, and at the endof three weeks the matter was settled--not, perhaps, just as they hadhoped for. Barclay had labored heroically to find a membership for theCheckers Club, but without avail. None wanted to join. Many scoffed,and instead of enthusiasm, he awakened only ridicule. And the Yale manreported like results. So when the rival teams met in a private room inYoung's Hotel one December day, they consisted of just Larkin, Yale,'99, and Barclay.
The tournament was held behind tightly closed doors; consequently I amunable to report the play for the reader's benefit. Enough that deepsilence and undoubted skill held sway until dusk, at which time thetwo teams passed into the dining-hall and ate a dinner, at which muchgood feeling was displayed by both, and at which the day's play wasrehearsed scientifically, from oysters to coffee. The teams then shookhands and parted at the entrance.
Barclay boarded a car and returned to college, filled with overwhelmingtriumph. He had won three out of the seven games and drawn two. Thecheckers championship rested with Harvard!
Such a spirit of jubilation possessed Barclay that when he reachedhis unadorned room and had changed his gold-rimmed glasses for hisreading spectacles, he found that Greek for once did not satisfy. Hetried light reading in the form of a monograph on the origin of Greekdrama, but even then his attention wandered continually. He laid downthe book, wiped his glasses thoughtfully and frowned at the greenlamp-shade. Plainly something was wrong; but what? He pondered deeplyfor several minutes. Then his brow cleared, and he settled his "specs"over his lean nose again; he had found the trouble.
"The victory," said Barclay, soberly, to the lamp-shade, "demands acelebration!"
The more he thought of it the more evident it appeared that the day'striumph over the Yale Checkers Club deserved some sort of a publicjubilee. He might, considered Barclay, put his head out of the windowand cheer. But he wasn't sure that he knew how. Or he might shoot off arevolver--if he had one. Or he might start a bonfire--ah, that was it;a bonfire! The idea appealed strongly to him; and he remembered that asa boy on a New Hampshire farm bonfires had ever moved him strangely.
He arose and thrust his feet into a pair of immense overshoes, tieda muffler about his long neck, donned his worn ulster, turned downthe lamp, and passed out of the room. Yes, he would celebrate with abonfire. A victory over Yale at checkers was quite as important inBarclay's estimation as a triumph over the blue-stockinged footballwarriors.
Fifteen minutes later a window at the upper end of the college yard wasslammed open, and a voice bawled into the frosty night:
"Heads out! All heads out!"
Then up and down the quadrangle, casements were raised and broad beamsof light glowed out into the gloom, while dozens of other voicespassed on the slogan:
"Heads out, fellows! Heads out!"
"What's up?" cried a thin voice from an upper window of Thayer.
"Bonfire in front of University!" was the answer.
"Bonfire in the yard! All heads out!" sped the cry.
"Everybody get wood!" shouted a voice from Weld.
"Everybody get wood!" shouted half a hundred other voices.
Then windows were shut and eager youths clattered down-stairs andinto the yard, and suddenly the quiet night had become a pandemonium.In front of University Hall a lone figure fed, with shingles and oddbits of wood, a small bonfire, which cast its wan glow against thewhite front of the sober pile, as if dismayed at its own temerity. Forbonfires in the yard are strictly forbidden, and it was many yearsbefore that the last one had sent its sparks up in front of University.Barclay knew this, and welcomed the danger of probation or dismissal asadding an appropriate touch of the grand and heroic to his celebration.
"Everybody get wood!" "What's it for?" "'Rah for the bonfire!" "Who'sdoing it?" "Wood, wood, get wood, fellows!"
One of the first to reach the scene was Cobb, 1901. A dozen others wereclose behind him.
"Hello, what's up? What we celebrating?" he asked breathlessly; thenhe caught a glimpse of the thin, bespectacled visage of Barclay, andgasped, "Why, why, it's old Barclay!"
"'Rah for Barclay, old grind!" shouted another. "He's the stuff!Everybody get wood!"
At that moment a worn-out hen-coop arrived suddenly on the scene, and ashower of sparks told that the fire was gaining courage.
"But, say, old man, what's it all about?" asked Cobb.
"We are celebrating a victory over Yale," answered Barclay, soberly,as he adjusted a plank with his foot. There was no undue excitementexhibited by this tall figure in the long ulster, but underneathhis calm the blood raced madly through his veins, and a strange andwell-nigh uncontrollable joy possessed him as the flames leaped higherand higher. He stooped and picked a brand from the edge of the fire.He waved it thrice about his head, sending the flaring sparks over theever-increasing crowd.
"Hooray!" he yelled, in queer, uncanny tones.
"'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!" answered the throng. "Everybody get wood!"
"But what'd we do to 'em?" asked
Cobb, wonderingly. "What was thevictory?"
"Won the checker championship!" answered Barclay, proudly.
A roar of laughter went up; fellows fell on their neighbors' necks andgiggled hysterically; a football man sat down in the fire and had to berescued by his friends; Cobb hugged Barclay and patted him on the back.
"Good old Barclay!" he gurgled. "Oh, good old Barclay! Won the checkerchamp--champ--champ--oh, dear, oh, dear! Somebody hit me beforeI--I----"
"More wood!" bawled some one. "'Rah for Barclay, the championcheckerist! Everybody cheer for Barclay!"
And everybody did, many, many times. More wood leaped from out thedarkness and fell upon the flaming heap, which now rose to the fellows'shoulders and crackled right merrily. The vicinity of the bonfire wasblack with yelling, laughing students; and every moment their numbergrew, as the light was seen at distant dormitories or the shouting washeard across the avenue.
"Speech!" cried the throng. "Speech! Speech!" And Barclay was quicklyelevated to the shoulders of Cobb and another, and from there spokefeelingly of the inception and growth of the Checkers Club; of thetournament and of the victory. Very few heard all that speech, for itwas cheered incessantly; and those at the edge of the crowd yelled:"Who's the fellow that's talking?" "What'd he do?" "It's Dewey!" "No,it's----"
At that moment some one started a song, and by common impulse thestudents formed in line and began the circuit of the yard, Barclay,on the shoulders of the two riotous friends, leading the procession.Thrice around they went, singing the college songs, cheering on everyprovocation, clasping arms and swinging ecstatically from side to sideand raising such an uproar as the old college had not often heard.
"The most gorgeous bonfire since we won the boat-race!" panted asenior, at the end of the parade. "And the biggest celebration; but I'dlike jolly well to know what it's for!"
"Join hands!" was the cry, and soon three great rings of dancing,striding youths were circling the fire, their fantastic shadows leapinggrotesquely across the front of the buildings. And just when the frolicwas at its height, and the fire was crackling more joyously than ever;just when the quiet winter stars were hearkening for the fiftieth timeto the hoarse cheers in honor of Barclay, the dean and three professorswalked into the circle of radiance, and the throng melted as if bymagic, until Barclay, spectacleless, hatless, but exultant, was leftstanding alone by his bonfire.
"Ah, Mr. Barclay," said the dean, pleasantly, "will you kindly call onme to-morrow?"
* * * * *
"I think we will let the matter drop," said the dean next day, hidinga smile under an affected frown, "if you will promise, Mr. Barclay, toindulge yourself in no more--ah--" the dean's voice failed him, andhe swallowed spasmodically twice before he found it again--"no morecelebrations of victory."
And Barclay, very remorseful and chastened this morning, promised, andhurried off to his beloved Greek.
Both Barclay and the Yale Checkers Club graduated from their respectiveuniversities the following spring, and consequently the IntercollegiateCheckers Association died. But although gone, it is not forgotten; and"Barclay's bonfire" is still spoken of as "the most gorgeous thing thatever happened."