The San Francisco call., 1909-11-14


Of the day and lunch was served with
utter hospitality.
But ali the time there was thrlh
of things to be, a gradual tuning OF the
strings that reach the human heart,
gathering tension for the afternoon,
when Stanford should line up with
California and as the crowds had
filtered in upon the campus and swept
around in widely whirling human mael-
strom, so they swept away again ana
drifted to the place that was the stage.
Below the westward sweeping sun
the turf was emerald green. white
lined. Around raised up the seats, tier
after tier. until they made an amphl-
theater Gargantuan. and over them
swarmed human ants by twos and
threes and tens and hundreds, until
the place was filed. The gathered
colors of all the glorious sunsets of all
the world were piled into mass,
kaleidoscoped into a shimmery, wavy,
bright co1ored sea, where human faces
noated as if the cherubim and seraphim
were all adrift. And over all there
rose a hum and thrum of chatter and
in every place there stirred a weave of
red and white and blue and gold.
Piled up and banked toward the sky,
and face to face, the rooters' sections
tugged at the bonds that bound them
TO their yell leaders, straining like
hounds ia leash at sight of prey.
Toward the east were red and white,
and opposite were blue and gold, and
on both sides We're youth and longing
for the fray to be
Upon the field there was a hurrying
to and fro of human units, and all
the time the hum and roar was gather
ing force and strength upon the seats
that walled the place. Flowers from
all the fields of California made a sea
of color, a sea that seemed seintillant
and quiyering with life. The spirit of
the day, the spirit of both California.
and Stanford, had touched and tuned
each human heart. had painted flowers
on the faces of the women, had thrilled
the hearts of gray haired men until
they drifted back to youths elysian
field and cast off care and toll and
strife and once more grasped the price
less gift of boyhood's heart. There
was no age, no memory of piling years
in all the place. The thrill that reached
from blue and gold across the field to
white and red had reached out widely
with It's fllaments and bound the gath
cred mass into one solitary human
unity and poured the glad red blood of
youth into it's veins.
So the seats filled and thrilled, and
then all of a sudden, like the breaking
of some far flung wave. a roar arose.
hurled across the field from the Cali
fornia to the Stanford section, where
it broke and cannonaded back in thun-
ders and roared and ricocheted and
broke again. Poised perilously, the
yell leaders reached forth their arms
with an abandonment that verged on
ecstasy and touched the chords that
tune the human throat. Yell piled on
yell. rose up and roared and piled like
Pelion on Oossa until there came a
chorus swelling that lifted up above
the mass of sound, grew concrete. un-
derstandable, a yell for Billy. Billy
Billy Fitzhughr' So California cried
out for her mascot and the yell was
gathered up by Stanford and hurled
back. hurled back in waves that pushed
and beat in tumuit. "Sky-rocket.
Szzzzzz. Boom. Ah-h, Stanford
And then a transformation scene
came on: the red massed background
OF the Stanford rooters wrfthed and
coiied into a great white S.
So rose and surged the battle of the
voices above the field and so the ten-
sion tautened until a pack of red and
white clad warriors burst forth upon
the field and loped along toward the
SOUTH while sound waves piled and
gathered into thunderings that lifted
to the sky. And then a storm of red
confetti hid the Stanford rooters for
Just a moment veiled them from the
cold Of sun and blue of Sky hut e:lss it