I did not know what being initiated meant, so he explained that while there was no such thing as hazing at Brook Farm, it was sometimes a little hard for new pupils to take their right places until the older ones found out what they were like.
Hazing had to be explained, too, so he told me that when he first went to boarding school, the elder boys teased and tormented him, “putting him through a course of sprouts,” as they termed it. They made him spend what money he had in buying goodies which he was not permitted to taste. They threw him into the canal, to see if he could swim, and then dragged him around in the sand to dry his clothes. These and similar delicate attentions they bestowed upon him to try his metal.
I ventured to hope that he being, of course, furiously angry, had vented his rage upon them afterwards, as chance offered, but he said, no, that would not do at all. The ordeal was to test a boy’s temper and to find whether he could stand fire without getting mad or at least without showing it. “You have passed your examination,” he added, “and have been given your place among your companions, and I’m very glad of it.”
Mr. Hosmer had general oversight of the boys as Mrs. Ripley had of the girls. He informed me that I was to be quartered in Pilgrim Hall under the guardianship of Miss Marian Ripley, and my mate was to be Bonico, otherwise Isaac Colburne. Why Bonico? Well, just because he was Bonico. A good friend he was, too, and Miss Ripley was a kind, judicious and conscientious guardian; though we called her the grenadier, because she was tall, very straight and rather stern looking.
On the way down from the Eyrie with the Page girls and John Cheever, Annie informed me that my sister was to be called Dheelish. Mr. Cheever was from Ireland, she said, and he had told the girl that Dheelish was the Irish word for dear, and they had adopted it in place of Althea, which, though a very nice name, very nice indeed, was, as they thought, too old and too formal; and besides, added my companion, she is a dear, you know.
I did know, and knew, too, there was another girl, not far away who was also a dear. Sentimental? Well, yes. All boys are more or less sentimental, only they are, mostly, too shy to admit it or even perhaps to be aware of it.