Grif's Candidate
Willis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan 1879
From
The Beta Theta Pi for November 1884
Quote:
|
The editor, William R. Baird, said: "So far as is known to the editor, this was the first fictitious story dealing with a fraternity subject ever written."
|
When Grif Ormsby took the floor in chapter-meeting, the presiding officer having announced that the next order of business was "proposals for membership" not one of the sixteen other Betas present could have guessed what he was going to say. The year was half gone; there hadn't been a new name proposed for half-a-dozen meetings; the boys had been rather more successful than usual in the fall campaign, and the chapter membership was already pretty large, according to the Beth-peor standard; above all, not one of them could call up a single name in college that he would care to have added to the list; they had certainly canvassed all the possibilities long ago. But it would be like Grif to propose Black George, the janitor of Terry Hall, or Joey Bates, the town fool, and follow up the proposal with a speech of recommendation that would be fun alive. So the chairs began to tilt back against the wall, and their occupants to choose positions that would offer as little hindrance to mirthfulness as possible. For Grif never failed of a hearing in fraternity meeting, though he was only a sophomore, and not at the head of his class, either.
This time, however, he disappointed the back-tilted chairs. It wasn't a funny speech after all. But it took the house by surprise more completely than the most unexpected joke could have done.
"Mr. President and brothers," he began in the formal way the chapter always taught its members to address the meeting. "I rise to propose for membership in our beloved chapter and fraternity, Mr. Karl Welling of the Sophomore class."
Several of the chairs dropped upon their front legs again, especially such as had only got half-way back. Somebody emitted a plaintive though aspirated whistle, which was responded to from the opposite side of the room by a gasp that narrowly missed being a groan. Only two or three, and those of the older members, looked serious and held their peace. Meanwhile Grif was going steadily on with his speech.
"I know that most of you have never even thought of Welling as a possible Beta; I never did until lately. But I have been studying the fellow a good deal and am convinced that he has in him the making of a first-class fraternity man. I have been with him in all his classes for a year and a half, and know his style pretty well. He's an even, clear-headed fellow, who does about as well in all his studies as he does in any one, which is saying a good deal, and works one day as well as another. He is well read, too. He floored old Durham the other day on a point about Henry VI, or some other medieval moke, and did it easy. Of course you all think he's an unsocial kind of bird - "
"Why, Grif," broke in Roy Carter, "he's a wooden man! He's the worst mucker in all Beth-peor. I'd as soon fraternize with a fall rain as with Karl Welling!" And Roy's face expressed the disgust he left unspoken.
"No," said Grif, "he's nobody's wooden man, either. If I thought he were, I'd keep still. I don't care to have the chapter go into the lumber business any more than you do, I suppose: am not just that kind of folks, myself. But you're wrong about Welling. It is true, of course, that he has made but very few friends in college, and that his own apparent lack of congeniality is the reason for it. Still, I stick to my first statement, that he has in him the making of an A-1 fraternity man. The whole trouble with him is just like this - he's a fellow who has never learned the value of friendship. I don't know anything about his home life; he doesn't come from my part of the state. But I'll bet the oysters for the chapter to a package of cigarettes that he had never had an intimate friend in his life, and that personal confidences and displays of affection are not the rule in his father's family. I feel sure that Welling would like to be as social and companionable as other fellows, if he only knew how; but he doesn't know how, and is conscious of it, and chooses to exaggerate his natural offishness rather than display any clumsiness in accepting or responding to the advances that otherwise might be made to him. Once fairly broken in to live on intimate terms with other people, he would be one of the best fellows going. I don't often make a set speech in chapter-meeting, boys, but I have taken a great deal of interest in studying Welling's case lately and I believe I have got the right diagnosis of it. And it seems to me it would be a good thing if our chapter were to take hold of Welling, and give him an education in the affections, so to speak; it would pay us, and be the making of him. Of course I know that no action on his name can or ought to be taken right away. But I wish the boys would take the trouble to study up the facts of the case in a quiet way, and see if I'm not right. We can afford to do that much, at least, and Welling need be little the wiser for our passing him in review before us." And Grif sat down in a silence that was not altogether a protest. His little speech had clearly had its effect.
Pretty soon Walter Bennett, one of the seniors, arose and said, cordially: "I think this is about the best speech Grif has made us. I confess Welling has never seemed to me a very attractive fellow, but I am not at all sure the account we have just heard of his case is not the true one, and that we could not make out of him a Beta of the real Beth-peor stamp. At any rate I suggest that we give Grif's candidate a chance, and that each of us make it his business to arrive at a more definite and careful judgement in the matter, with the purpose of reporting upon the same at a future meeting."
And they did. And it is surprising how swiftly and accurately a group of fraternity men can take the measure of a fellow when once they set about it; surprising, also, how many new traits in a man's character seem to be developed by the simple operation of holding him steadily in view for a while.
However, the boys took their time to the Welling investigation; and the new light they obtained did not come all at once. Starting, as we have seen, with the almost universal feeling that the man was a stick, and quite lacking in the first and most indispensable requisite of a fraternity man, it was some time before they began rightly to appreciate the justice of Grif Ormsby's shrewd bit of philosophy, and to see in "Grif's candidate" the qualities his sponsor had discerned before them. Meanwhile, as Grif had foreseen, Welling himself was quite ignorant of the inspection he was undergoing. The boys were expert in the art of reconnaissance, and though the object of their fixed regard must have been dimly conscious that rather more wearers of a certain fraternity badge crossed his path, in a casual manner, than he had been used to meet with, the circumstance did not draw a theory in its train.
It was customary in the Beth-peor chapter never to take a formal ballot on a candidate until every member of the chapter had expressed his readiness to vote; for it was a chapter by-law that no name, once black-balled, could be proposed again during the same college year; and the desire to give all nominations a fair chance prompted to deliberation in recording the final verdict. Accordingly some weeks passed by before the name of Karl Welling came up for action. One by one the boys had been coming around to Grif's way of thinking, and making up their minds, with more or less of curious expectancy in the make-up product, that the experiment he proposed was worth trying. And when at last the decisive vote was taken, and the sergeant-at-arms drew the slide in the ballot box to show the result to the presiding officer, there were only white balls in the box. The election was formally declared, and Grif Ormsby appointed as a committee of one to notify the candidate. Grif protested, with a vigor that was half comic and half desperate, his unfitness for the task. But the chapter would not have it otherwise, and he had to accept the commission, though he felt sure, so he said, that he would prove just clumsy enough to flush the bird instead of bagging it.
In sober truth, Grif's reluctance was by no means all assumed. Though still convinced that he had been right in proposing Welling's election, and thoroughly glad the chapter had come at last to his position, it now appeared to him, upon closer view, that the task of fairly presenting the case to Welling himself was likely to be one of uncommon difficulty - an "awkward business," to use his own inward description of its aspect. But Grif never put off a duty very long because of its difficulty - and the evening of the day following his appointment found him standing in the hall outside the door of Karl Welling's room in Frankenburg Street, wandering whimsically, as he tapped on it, whether it was likely he should ever become a familiar visitor there.
"Come," and he opened the door and went in. Karl was at his study table, in dressing gown and reading-visor, but rose at once when his visitor entered.
"Oh, it is you, Ormsby? Come in. I'm glad to see you!" It was not quite the first time Grif had been in his room, and he had a real admiration for his bright-faced quick-witted classmate - as indeed, all had who knew him; for Grif was undeniably popular.
"You were at Plautus, weren't you?" said Grif, after they had talked a minute, and glancing at the book on the table. "Well, I shouldn't mind trying a whirl at that gifted heathen, myself. Suppose we go on together."
So they sat down side by side, and spent a quarter of an hour over
The Captives, getting more and more friendly as they read, and laughing together every now and then at Grif's running commentary on the play. Grif felt that there was a slight thaw in the weather, and determined not to lose time in taking advantage of it.
"Welling," he said, as they closed the book and pushed back their chairs, and the final laugh subsided, "I've something rather particular to say to you tonight, and I may as well say it while it's fresh in my mind. You were last evening elected, by a unanimous vote, to membership in our fraternity, and I was appointed to notify you of the fact. I hope, with all my heart, that you will accept the election, and make one of our number." And he spoke with a hearty frankness which warmed his words as they went.
To say that Karl was astonished, both by the words and manner of this brief speech, would be to use a very simple term to describe a very complex sensation. In after days, he himself often laughed and abandoned the attempt when he tried to explain his feelings at this sudden and bewildering turn of affairs. He sat now, quite still, his face slowly changing color, his hands fumbling for something on the table, and his voice quite failing to do its duty.
"Why, Ormsby," he said at last, "I - I - you astonish me; I hardly understand - that - is - I don't know what to say," as he clearly didn't - nor had he a very good tongue to say it with, just then, if he had known.
"Well," said Grif quietly, "there isn't any great hurry, you know; you have all the evening before you, and my time is cheap. I'll wait."
Karl laughed, in a nervous, excited way, then growing sober again rose and walked slowly to the mantel, where he stood looking into the open grate for several minutes, with his hands in his pockets and the firelight playing on his half-averted face. Grif who was watching him closely, was surprised at the change wrought in his usual plain and quiet appearance.
After a while - a good long while, it seemed to his guess - Karl began speaking, without taking his eyes from the fire, and in a voice that he was clearly trying to force into its ordinary tone, but that had to be allowed to stop from time to time as he went on:
"I think," he said slowly, "that your fraternity has made a mistake. You have taken me so by surprise that maybe I shan't be able to make it quite clear as it seems to me, but I'll try. Please understand that - that I am very grateful to you all, and that I do not undervalue the honor you have offered me; the standing of the men in your fraternity here in college is certainly a very high one, and there is no student in Beth-peor who might not be proud to be associated with them. But I don't in the least understand why they should have thought of
me in the light of a fellow fraternity man. I have never been very well acquainted with the men of your crowd; I know you better that any of the rest, and yet even we have not been thrown together much. And it seems to me I am not the sort of man for a fraternity-member, anyhow to tell the truth. I am not very social by nature, I think, and have never been used to living on very confidential terms with other fellows." (Grif smiled a little, to himself, as Karl used almost his own words to the boys, that first night in chapter meeting.) "Not that I really dislike companionship; you know better than that. But it has just never been my way to have much of it. And I truly believe that I never miss it, in the way many people would. This has become to me 'the natural way of living', you see."
"No," said Grif, interrupting for the first time, though there had been several pauses in Welling's speech before, "no; it
isn't the natural way of living, at all, not even for you. It is true, perhaps, that you have never known any other way, but that makes no difference; you have simply missed something that you ought not to have missed, and that no one
ever ought to miss. Now listen to me for a while." And Grif went on, in earnest way, to tell what his fraternity friendships had been, and were, in his own life - how they made a sacred inner court in it, that seemed a center of all sweet and strong influences - how the arms of brotherly friendship seemed always to be about him, making all delights dearer and all ills easier to bear. As he talked, there came, all unconsciously, a mist into his eyes, and a tenderness into his voice that affected his listener more powerfully than any logic into which mere words can be shaped could possibly have done. It was not an argument, but a revelation. And Welling began to feel that his whole nature was being made over in the presence of it. He was bewildered by the change yet he could not but wish it might go on, so acute and thrilling was the pleasure of it.
It was after midnight when they separated at last; and the long talk had brought them very close together indeed. To one of them it was the beginning of a new era. For Karl had given his word to the fraternity, and it had been accepted with a handclasp that made him feel the new relation was already begun.
Grif never made any very detailed report of his mission to the chapter; the truth was, he couldn't recall just what
had been said, and he answered all inquiries for particulars in a more or less unsatisfactory manner. When Roy Carter pressed him for some of the points of his talk with Karl, Grif only smiled, and said, in a most grandfatherly and soothing voice, "There, now! Don't you sprain that agile intellect of yours trying to probe into the deeper mysteries."
The initiation came off the next Saturday night, and everybody said it was the best of the year. And before the "little spread" that followed had been disposed of, all doubt of the wisdom of their step had been banished from every mind.
Yet, not even the bright and joyous aspect of his initiation night, dear as it always remained to his memory, did so much to complete and ratify for Karl the work Grif's talk had begun as did a little incident that happened a week or two later. It was hardly an incident, either; at least, Karl never felt certain that any particular thing had
happened so much as that something had
become.
He had dropped in, one evening, after study hours, at Walter Bennett's room - for it surprised everyone, himself most of all, to see how quickly he had acquired and come to enjoy that same "dropping-in" habit - and found there two or three of the boys already engaged in conversation. His entrance was but a momentary interruption, and soon the talk went on in its own channels, with Karl, at first, a silent but deeply interested listener. It was such a talk as, perhaps, only college-men have. It moved from one topic to another, but slowly, gravely, and half in reverie. What struck Karl at once was that the speakers seemed almost to bare their very souls to each other; the odd fancies and vagaries, the half-formed thoughts and shadows of thoughts; the deep inward musings that all men, especially all young men, have, and yet that many a man supposes none but himself to know anything about - all these were spoken out quite freely and simply, as though it were a matter of course that they should be.
Did it mean this then - the fraternity bond he had entered into? Did it mean that men came to know each other, not merely in their ordinary traits of character, but in the very innermost recesses of their souls, where only their dreams abide? He had not supposed such things could be. It was as if a new world had suddenly been unveiled in void mid-air. Little by little he felt himself drawn into the current of the talk, timidly at first, as a voyager on an unknown stream, but with more and more of freedom and earnestness as the new, strange force took possession of him. And when he went to his room at last he knew right well that his real entrance into fraternity life had been made. Men who have had one such talk together will never be strange to each other again in all the world.
Grif Ormsby and Roy Carter had been working until late one night in the chapter-hall, decorating it for the annual reception, to be given the next day. This work had made them hungry, and they got a can of oysters and had a private stew all to themselves in the "chapter kitchen." As they ate their soup, Roy suddenly said, in his impulsive way: "Grif, do you know you deserve a monument for that Welling business - a monument higher than the chapel spire?"
"Thanks for the hint," said Grif, tranquilly, "But I don't seem to feel that I've got around to monuments yet. If you will just pass the pickles instead, we'll save the monuments for the next course."
The End
* * *
Some notes
Beth-peor: The fictitious school where the chapter is located. The name is from
Deuteronomy 3:29, the place where Moses told the Israelites: "See, as the Lord my God has commanded me, I teach you the laws and customs that you are to observe... Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding." (4:5-6) It was "opposite Beth-peor" that God buried Moses. (34:6)
Plautus: Roman dramatist of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.
One final note about the setting: in 1884 very few chapters lived in their own "chapter houses" - Beta was still very much a "hall" fraternity.
Linear Mode
