The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-11-18
BY EDWIN OvIATT.

glow of the sunset on the 1inky little
hotel lake in a boat that had to have
the cleats shortened so that Billy Par
ker could brace against them; and tell
her about Yale and what fine place
it was, and what bully fellows went
there, and how he could look down
from his window seat in Lawrance and
see the fellows playing niger baby on
the campus below; and especially what
a great football team Yale had, and
how Yale was going to leave the Har-
ward eleven that year in a small. round
pool of perspiration on Yale field that
November. and how he was going to
help do it.
Which, for thirty-one long August
days, was bliss for Billy Parker. He
had never met a girl like that before.
When something happened.
This was on a Saturday afternoon
and Immediately after Miss Baxter had
looked up very much surprised and
panied across the cleats in the row.
boat, and had heard some hurried
things said by Billy Parker in a very
hurried way. An hour later Billy Par
ker stood disconsolately on one leg on
the hotel piazza. She had been very
nice about it, and had said she was
sorry, and that he could call on her
I
and have tea, with lemon in il. That
would have been all right, and there
would have been some hope in it, If
something else had not happened, too.
But the afternoon train from Boston
| had set young man, in a straw hat
with red band on it, down on the sta
ton platform in the middle of a ring of
dress-suit cases, and tennis rackets, and
golf sticks, and crimson sweaters, and
wiggly Boston terrier and admiring
natives, whose name was Winthrop r.
Dickinson of the Harvard football
team. Billy Parker saw him coming
the same time that Miss Baxter did
Ten minutes later he had telegraphed
to Tommy Nolan to cut out the tutor
ing he was making up and join him in
any perilOuS climb he knew of up any
scraggly mouRtian where a young man
might meet a grisly death that could
get into the Boston newspapers. and
where there weren't any girls. Which
Billy Parker did because. Because
the moment Miss Baxter saw Dickin-
son she siad, OH in a very odd sort
of a way, and went upstairs in the
hotel and put on a new dress, made
of white with pink spots in it, for din
ner.
Billy Parker told himself that he hal
hadn't been able to draw anything bet
ter than a bob-tailed flush in the game
of life, and that it was all over: and
also. If she wasn't happy, that the next
time he ever had man named Dick
son in the middle of a football scrim-
mage where the referee couldn't see
him, he would make a new start in life
with one less to buck against in the
census. You see he thought a good
deal more about Miss Baxter than he
thought he did, which wasn't at all
conducive to Topping ambitious scrub
halls on their backs under their OWL
goal posts, or to blocking off visitins
up-country college tackles from getting
around his end with the ball. or q
keeping other men, like Smith, whl
had been freshman end and captain
and who hadn't any such reason for a
slump. from getting his position.
Which had a good deal to do with the
reasons Tommy Nolan didn't eel called
upon to give when he asked the dear
for days vacation Nor did he tel
the dean where he was going. which
has a good deal to do with this story
as will presently be seen.
From your seat in the grand stand al
a Yale Harvard football game you car
look down on a sight that you can sc,
but once a year. And that is grea1
oblong of chalk-marked grass with g
white goal post at either end. far dowr
in the middle of a high amphitheatrt
of towering tiers of seats, packed tlgh'
with cheering. excited people-srad
yates and undergraduates, with REQ
bands on their hats or blue flowers in
their buttonholes, girls with crimson
flags and girls with blue flags. and
whole sections of excited people il
winter furs and blankets. Massed sec
tons of Yale or Harvard undergrad
yates are shouting. and drowning ou
their bands, and listening cheerfully u
| Woodworking young men i'm their shir
sleeves who jump up on the low feHc'
above the substitutes benches in fror
of the grand stands and wave theil
arms and sing out:
''Now-are you ready? Lorg chez
everybody in it,"
An hour later. If you are a Harvard
man, you are yelling and waving you
hat and wondering If those ellis ar
ever going TO stop pounding that Har
ward line long enough to let Harvard
make a touchdown. If you are YALE
man you re jumping to your feet ana
getting into that JOYOUS song:
More work for the undertaken"
or that rafting. long Yale cheer viii
! the nine long "Yaies." on the end of II
/ and calling out to your tattered lin
down there on the middle of the fielc
| TO Hold 'em, Valet Hold emf
That is. you do all that il you know
what big thing it is to win Yale
| Harvard football game. and Billy Par
ker did. All that first half while tn
two teams had been fighting in deaf
ening din of cheers and songs, but will
no score. Billy Parker had squirme;
under his gray blanket on the side lines
and called himself names and stared
out at his eleven on the field, each maj
so familiar to him. the giant line bend
ing to their knuckles till the big cen.