Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/56

 with them, in order that both the fraternity and the freshman may decide intelligently whether or not either wishes to continue the friendship and cement it into brotherhood. To those engaged actively in this process of eating and drinking, of talking and drawing people into talk, of picture shows and joy rides, of vaudeville and house dances, it is really a serious business, verging often upon tragedy; to an unimpassioned and disinterested spectator the results are often serious, but the methods not infrequently suggest farce comedy.

Until within a few days before term time the college town is dead. One walks down silent deserted streets. Sleepy merchants in the University district sit in front of their places of business, yawning and without a customer. The middle of September arrives, and then everything changes. Fraternity officers come to town, fraternity help arrives, yards are cleaned up, houses are set in order, the student district in general takes on a look of life and activity, and some evening after the freshmen have begun to come in, if I chance to walk down fraternity row, or if I am invited out to a fraternity house dinner, I find that the whole community looks and sounds like a carnival in full sway. The air is full of college songs and vaudeville melodies; pianos are pounding out rag time, ukuleles are strumming, and victrolas are giving