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THE HAZING OF VALIANT
Anonymous
She was a small girl, but her sense of the ridiculous was tremendous. All summer long she sat on the sand and was nice to two boys, a sub-freshman and a sophomore. The sub-freshman's name was Valiant; he had a complexion that women envied, he was small and dainty and smelled sweet. The other, whose name was Buckley, was bigger and much more self-assertive.
One day the girl decided it would be fun to make them hate each other, and after that, when they were all three together, the sophomore would tell her how hard his class would haze the freshman in the Fall, while the sub-freshman only gazed out over the water and smiled. But one day the sophomore made a remark about "pretty pink-cheeked boys," which had better been left unsaid. Then arose the younger one and shaking impressively a slender pink-nailed finger he spoke, "You had better not try to haze me, Will Buckley."
In the good old days, you had only to casually drop a word to a freshman on the way to recitation to wait for you when evening came, and he would turn up promptly, take his little dose meekly and go back to bed a better boy for it. But all that is changed now.
Twice had Buckley waited near the house where Valiant ate his dinner. He had tried several ways of getting into the house where Valiant lived, but without success; then for three successive nights he waited in an alley nearby; on the third night Valiant came but with him an upperclassman friend. Buckley kept in the shadow but Valiant called out, "Oh, is that you, Mr. Buckley? How do you do? Aren't you coming in to see me?" Which was decidedly fresh.
"Not now, I'll drop in later. Which is your room?"
"That room up there, see?"
The next night Buckley got his gang together. They decided that a dip in the canal would be excellent for Valiant's health; if he felt cold after that he could climb a telephone pole for exercise. It was nearly two o'clock when they carried a ladder into the alleyway. This was a particularly nervy go. A young professor and his young wife had a suite of rooms in this house; it was moonlight, and a certain owl-eyed proctor was pretty sure to pass not far away, but if they hurried they thought they could send a man up and get away without being caught.
Buckley was to get in the window, which was open, it being a warm night, the others were to hustle away with the ladder, and wait for him at a street several blocks distant. There was no doubt but that Valiant would have to come with him.
Buckley climbed up, got one foot over the sill, and was in the room. He leaned out and raised his hand. Silently the ladder disappeared. He turned and started across the room; when a soft voice said, "Is that you, dear?"
Then before all the blood in his body had time to freeze, he stepped out of the moonlight into the shadow and whispered, "Shsss!" Instinct made him do this.
Across the silence, the soft voice came again, "Oh, I'm not asleep. But why did you stay so long, Guy dear?"
Buckley heard the squeaking of a bed-spring and as his knees stiffened he spied coming toward him something white with two black streaks hanging halfway down, which as the thing came into the moonlight, he saw to be long braids of dark hair. It was a tall, slender figure clothed in a white garment. The face was young and beautiful. Buckley closed his eyes. But it came nearer and nearer. He stood up perfectly rigid in the darkness as two soft arms reached up and met about his neck.
Buckley did not budge and the soft voice began, "You have not forgiven me yet." It began to sob. "You know I did not mean it. Won't you forgive me? Tell me you do forgive me. Say it with your own lips, Guy dear. Speak to me, my husband!" Buckley didn't. A soft, fragrant hand came up along his cheek, which tingled, and over his eyes, which quivered. For fully a half minute he tried to think what to do, then he gritted his teeth and placed one arm about her waist and threw the other around her neck in such a way that he could draw it tight if necessary. Suddenly she raised her head, gave one startled look into his face, and with a shuddering gasp, she recoiled.
"For Heaven's sake, don't scream—I can explain!"
"Ugh, oh, let go! Who—let me go, or I'll screa-ch-ch-ch!"
Buckley pressed on the windpipe, feeling like three or four murderers as he did so. "Oh, please, if you scream it'll only make things awfully awkward. I got in here by mistake. Oh, please keep quiet. Promise me you'll not cry out, and I'll let you go."
"Yes, yes, I promise," said the scared voice. Buckley released his grasp. She fled across the room. He thought she was making for the door and sprang to stop her, but she only snatched up an afghan or something from the sofa, and holding it about her, retreated to the dark part of the room, moaning, "Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
"I don't know who you are, but I wish you wouldn't cry. Please be calm. It's all a big mistake, I thought I was coming to my own room—"
"Your own room!"
"I mean my classmate's room,—I mean I thought a freshman roomed here. You aren't half so sorry as I am—oh, yes, you are—I mean I'm awfully sorry, and wish to apologize. I didn't mean anything."
"Mean anything!"
"Really I didn't. If you'll only let me go down and promise not to wake the house before I get out, why no one will ever know anything about it and I'll promise not to do it again."
"Just as soon as I get my breath I mean to wake up the whole house, and the whole town if I can." Buckley started across the room.
"Stop!"
"You promised not to scream."
"You forced me to promise. I am going to scream."
The bold, bad sophomore went down on his knees with his hands clasped toward the dark where the voice came from. "Oh, don't, please don't. Have pity on me."
"You stay right there in the moonlight."
"Right here?"
"Right there, and if you dare to move I'll scream with all my might." Buckley shivered and froze stiff.
And then he began to plead. "Please, oh, please, whoever you are, won't you forgive me and let me go? I wouldn't harm a girl for the world. I'll be fired—I mean expelled from college—I'll be disgraced for life. I'll—"
"Stop! While it may be true that you did not break into my room with the intent to rob or injure a defenseless woman, yet, by your own confession you came to torment a weaker person. You came to haze a freshman. And when my husband—"
"Have mercy, have mercy. If I'm fired from college I'll be disgraced for life. All my prospects will be blighted; my life will be ruined, and my mother's heartbroken."
She gave a little hysterical sob:—
"For your poor mother's sake, go!"
"Oh, thank you with all my heart. My mother would too if she could know. I don't deserve to be treated so well. I shall always think of you as my merciful benefactress. I can never forgive myself for causing you pain. Oh, thank you," and Buckley the proud sophomore groveled out of the room.
Next morning he received a letter, which read as follows:
"Just as a tall woman looks short in a man's make-up, so does a short man look tall in a woman's make-up, and you should know that blondes are hard to recognize in brunette wigs. You ought to know that a real girl wouldn't have behaved quite that way. You see you still have a number of things to learn, even though you are a soph. Hoping that you will learn to forgive yourself, I am,
"Your merciful benefactress,
Finish
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