Harvard Yard (45 page)

He called Detective Scavullo to tell him about the evening, though he decided to keep the business about the locket to himself.

“So,” said Scavullo, “they spoil your good name, then they try to kill you. Maybe I’ll have a couple of state police come by and take a report from you.”

“Not yet,” said Peter.

“Not yet? Attempted murder, and you say ‘not yet’?”

“It could have been an accident,” said Peter. “Maybe we should let it play out. Harvard might get more back if we do it this way.”

“And what if the next attempt succeeds?”

“We won’t know who it is until they try, will we?”

After a long pause, Scavullo said, “We should stay in touch.”

Then Peter called Evangeline and told her what had happened.

“Like I said this morning, Peter. It can be fun. But it’s dangerous.”

“Maybe you’d best stay in New York, if people are trying to kill me.”

“No. I have work in Boston. I’m coming back to Boston. Nobody is going to keep me from it.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Now . . . you’ve been reading about Dorothy Wedge Warren. Do you know anything about a locket she might have given to her husband?”

“Amos? Her husband’s name was Amos Warren. A strong abolitionist. He was killed running guns to free-state settlers in Kansas in 1856. It was like a little prologue to the Civil War. Her son Douglass served in the war, in the Twentieth Massachusetts . . .”

After Peter hung up, he went out to the case where he kept his Civil War editions, including signed firsts of books as disparate in time as
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and
The Killer Angels.
He also had several regimental histories, including that of the Twentieth, which came to be known as the Harvard Regiment.

Chapter Nineteen

1860-1864

“A
MOTHER
does not show her face in Harvard Yard on the first Monday of the fall term,” said Theodore. “Don’t you know what the students call this day?”

“Bloody Monday?” Dorothy Wedge Warren sat in a chair opposite her brother’s desk, her bonnet on her head, her hands folded on her lap.

“Bloody Monday . . . bloody foolishness. And if you’re a freshman, the only thing worse than being hazed is to have your mother—”

“Douglass knows how to defend himself,” said Dorothy. “His late father taught him well . . . perhaps—” She was interrupted by the sound of a drum.

Theodore went to his window. Outside, a gang of sophomores were marching behind the drum, and behind them was a cart on which a tub of water sloshed and splashed, ammunition for the water syringes they carried. And another gang, similarly armed, was appearing from somewhere on the far side of Appleton Chapel.

Theodore turned to his sister. “The annual football match between sophomores and freshmen was banned because it always ended in a fight. So now, the sophomores dare to haze the freshmen in broad daylight on the first Monday of fall.”

“Boys will be boys,” said Dorothy.

“Hazing should be prohibited. The oldest and richest college in America . . . the second-largest library, public or private . . . heritage that reaches to the beginnings . . .”

“You sound like our brother.” Dorothy put on a deep voice, to impersonate George Jr. “‘If America must have an aristocracy, let it be borne in the bower of our own of good breeding, good learning, good faith, and hardheaded business sense.’”

“You didn’t come here to berate George,” said Theodore. “And you say you didn’t come to protect Douglass from the sophomores. So why
are
you here?”

“Mr. Garrison asked me to sound out the sentiments of Harvard College on the candidacy of Mr. Lincoln. We may, at last, elect a president who agrees with us.”

“It just so happens that”—Theodore went to his desk, piled high with books for cataloging and newspaper clippings for the Triennial Report of Graduates—“a straw vote was taken and”—he shuffled papers—“fifty percent support Lincoln.”

“Certain sons of the Broadcloth Mob seem to have developed consciences, then.”

“Some have, but thirty percent of our students are sons of the South, and they have their influence, even over our nephew, Heywood, who is usually seen in company with a well-dressed bully from Virginia named Hannibal Wall.”

Just then, a roar came echoing off the old brick buildings, reverberated off the new-set granite blocks of Boylston Hall and the sandstone of Appleton Chapel, and rattled the windows of the library. It had begun.

“You and you,” shouted the big one with the trimmed beard and stovepipe hat.

Douglass Wedge Warren pointed to himself. “Me?”

“Yes. You. Who do you think I’m pointing to?” His name was Hannibal Wall, and even when he wasn’t wearing the stovepipe, they called him Tall Wall. He pointed again at Douglass, then at a skinny minister’s son named Smithson. “You, too.”

“What do you want us to do?” asked Douglass, who was near the height of Tall Wall, but skinnier, clean-shaved, with an adolescent face, all nose and jawbone.

“We want you to box!” Someone shoved Douglass into the middle of a circle that was forming, sophomores all, bent on punishing freshmen as they had been punished a year before.

“Box?” Douglass turned to the one who’d pushed him. “Why?”

“Because we say so,” shouted a familiar voice, and Douglass saw his cousin, Heywood Wedge, shoving little Smithson into the middle of the circle.

All around the Yard, similar circles were forming, gangs of sophomores clustering around smaller gangs of freshmen, giving out beatings and soakings, knocking off hats, and cutting out those who looked compliant, because they would make the best fags.

Douglass had already resolved that he would be no one’s fag, no one’s errand boy, not even his cousin’s.

“Come on, Douglass,” shouted Heywood, “take it like a man. All in good fun.”

“Yes, Dougl
ass,
” said Hannibal Wall. “All in good fun!” And Wall squirted him square in the face with a water syringe while all the sophomores roared and skinny little Smithson broke and ran.

Douglass remembered what his father had always told him: “In a fight, go for the biggest bully.” So he smacked the water syringe aside and knocked Hannibal Wall’s hat off his head, right into the bucket of water.

“Why, you little turd!” cried Wall, and he flew at Douglass, who sidestepped him and tripped him, delivering a sharp punch to the kidneys as he went by.

The gasp of the sophomores sounded like a dozen boys gagging on their own vomit. Wall rolled over, looked at his muddy sleeves and trousers, saw his hat floating in the tub of water, and climbed to his feet, but he must have thought better of fighting, because Douglass Wedge Warren stood with fists as ready as if he were posing for the cover of
Marquess of Queensberry Rules.

Wall looked at his mates. “Time to show these freshmen the river!”

There was another roar, and students began shouting, “To the river! The river!”

Before he knew what was happening, Douglass was lassoed from behind so that his arms were pinned, then he was blindfolded, and Hannibal Wall grabbed the rope. “Come on, fag!” And he pulled Douglass after him.

“I’m nobody’s fag!” Douglass began to kick and curse.

Then he heard an angry voice hiss in his ear, his cousin Heywood’s: “Good fun, Douglass. Take it as good fun, or you’ll never be well thought of.”

Theodore Wedge was peering out the library window. “Oh, good Lord.”

Dorothy was still sitting by Theodore’s desk, her hands in her lap, her bonnet on her head. Without turning around, she said, “What?”

“They’re heading for the river.”

“Isn’t that where they always head?”

“Yes, but they’re dragging your son at the front of the mob.”

Dorothy jumped up so quickly that the hoop on her skirt knocked the chair onto the floor with a resounding crack.

The sophomores, maybe a hundred, had managed to corral about half the freshmen, many of them blindfolded, most of them intimidated into accepting a rite of passage that they would not forget when it came time for them to torment the next class.

But Douglass Wedge Warren always tried to live a rule his late father had left him: “Brook no insult, follow no crowd, and never allow yourself to be laid hands on.” So, when Douglass could smell the river, could see through the blindfold the little chips of sunlight on the brown water, could feel the boat dock beneath his feet, and hear the splashing and shouting as other gangs of sophomores flung freshmen into the water, he resolved to resist.

But there were four who grabbed him, hands and feet, and they swung him over the water—
one
—then back, then out—
two
—and back—

Then, “Do we let this one go?”

“Some we scare. Him we punish.”

Douglass kicked angrily, but on
three
he went flying through the air like a penny whirligig. He heard screaming, laughter, then a splash—himself hitting the water.

In an instant, he was struggling to his feet, the blindfold half off but the rope still tight around his arms. And as soon as he stood, Hannibal Wall placed a boot in his chest and sent him splashing backward.

“Dunk my hat, will you, Dougl
ass?
”

Douglass came up, coughing and sputtering, and Wall’s foot struck him in the chest again.

“That’ll teach you to strike a sophomore, Dougl
ass!
”

And all the sophomores were roaring now, and shouting, “Doug-l
ass!
Dougl
ass!
Ass! Ass! Ass!”

“Stop this!” Onto the dock strode a tall man with muttonchop whiskers and a birthmark on the right side of his face: Assistant Professor Charles William Eliot, ’53. “Stop this at once.”

“All in good fun, sir. All in good fun,” said Heywood Wedge.

Eliot looked at the student in the water. “Who bound him?”

“Sir,” said Heywood, “it’s all part of—”

Douglass was coughing and sputtering his way out of the water again.

Eliot ignored Heywood and glared at Hanniball Wall. “Since you’re so willing to wet others, you won’t mind getting wet yourself.”

“But, sir . . . it’s all in—”

“Yes,” said Eliot, his voice dripping in sarcasm. “All in good fun. Boys will be boys. But boys will not bind other boys, hand and foot, and throw them into my river.”

“Sir?” said Wall.

“Will they?” Eliot leaned toward Wall, and as far as he leaned forward was as far as Hannibal Wall leaned back. Wall’s eyes shifted to Heywood, as if to ask another Yankee for help with this stern Yankee professor whose port-wine birthmark was turning an angry shade of red. Heywood shrugged, as if he had no help to offer.

And then Wall’s gaze went past Heywood, past the knots of sophomores hazing freshmen along the riverbank, to a man and woman watching from the Great Bridge. And Wall’s eyes narrowed, as if something had come clear to him.

Heywood glanced over his shoulder, toward the object of Hannibal’s gaze, and there were Uncle Theodore and Aunt Dorothy. In an instant, Heywood was jumping into the water, to save Hannibal Wall from the ignominy of helping a freshman.

“I don’t mind getting myself wet, sir,” he was saying, “since it’s all in good fun.”

Eliot folded his arms and watched impassively as Heywood fumbled with the ropes binding Douglass.

Meanwhile, Hannibal Wall was putting on his soaking hat, bowing to Eliot, and striding away, with most of his sophomore mates around him.

“Now you’ve done it,” Heywood growled at his cousin.

Just then, there was another splash and another roar from another group. Eliot turned to the noise. “That boy’s bound hand and foot. No one is to go into the water like that, Bloody Monday or not.” He stalked away, shouting, “Stop! Stop this at once.”

Heywood pulled the rope off Douglass. He was not as tall, but his shoulders were wider, his mustache and chin patch made him look older, and he was, if anything, angrier. “You couldn’t just take it like a man, could you?”

“I
took
it like a man,” answered Douglass. “I fought back.”

“I had it all settled,” said Heywood. “A little scuffle with a minister’s son . . . that’s all the lads wanted. Then everyone would have said you were a stout fellow, ready to visit the best eating clubs and have yourself a rum go all round.”

Douglass wasn’t listening. He was watching Tall Wall leave. “Look at him, bowing to those people on the bridge.” And Douglass recognized them. “Good God.”

“Good God, indeed,” said Heywood. “Your mother and Uncle Theodore, come to protect their freshman. Now, the lads’ll make your life miserable. Your new name will be Mama’s Boy. They may even brand you a poof.”

“Poof?” said Douglass.

“It’s what they call Uncle Theodore. ‘The old poof in the library.’ I don’t want that name rubbing off on anyone else in the family.”

“But . . . a poof is—”

“Yes. One of those.” Heywood climbed onto the dock, took off his coat, and threw it down with a loud, wet slap. “
Pickle sniffing
’s the plain term for it.”

Douglass remained in the water, waist-deep, unmindful of how miserable he should have felt.

Then Eliot appeared over him again. “You like that water so well, you should join the college eight. We have a strong first boat. We’re looking to fill another, Mr.—”

“Warren, sir.”

“He’s my cousin, sir. And he’s skinny as a rail,” said Heywood, flexing his shoulders as if to show his more substantial bulk.

Eliot said, “Gangling lads are what we need. Long arms for long oars.”

Douglass climbed up onto the dock. “I saw you the summer before last, sir, when you beat those musclebound Irish down on the basin.”

Eliot smiled for the first time. “A splendid victory, well remembered. But if you come out, know that it’s fun, health, and recreation we’re after.” Eliot turned to Heywood. “You may come out also. Perhaps you’ll both don the crimson neckerchief.”

“Yes, sir,” said Heywood. “Thank you, sir.”

“Sir,” said Douglass. “Did my mother ask you to help me? Or my uncle?”

“Your mother?” said Eliot. “I’ve never met the woman. And your uncle is never seen near the boathouses.”