Election Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
It a stranger had approached the school on election night, he would have come upon a strange scene. His first thought would have been that the long buried New Jersey Indians had risen from their graves and were commemorating the burning of an enemy. In the glare of a huge bonfire, merrily blazing in the crisp November night, danced sixty-five boys arrayed in sweaters, jerseys and all manner of old clothes. Some sang, some yelled, some talked, but all managed to show by some form of vocal expression that there were sixty-five of them, and that they were working off two months of pent-up energy. When the first wild rush around the fire is over, wrestling matches are organized, a ring formed, and the air resounds with cries of “Get him, Fat!” “We’re for you, Red!” “Gosh, but he’s ferocious!” and the two contestants, plainly seen in the glare of the fire, edge around, feeling each other cautiously, and finally rolling over and over in a mass of arms and legs. The precious minutes speed on. Too soon a whistle is heard, and there is a rush for the houses, for it is half-past nine and the election-night revel is over.
Published in Newman News magazine (1912).
Not illustrated.