hrilly.
"Play!" called Miss Andrews, and tossed the ball out over the heads of
the waiting centres. A tall sophomore reached up confidently to grab it,
but she found her hands empty. T. Reed had jumped at it and batted it
off sidewise. Then she had slipped under Cornelia Thompson's famous
"perpetual motion" elbow, and was on hand to capture the ball again when
it bounced out from under a confused mass of homes and centres who were
struggling over it on the freshman line. The freshmen clapped riotously.
The sophomores looked at each other. Freshman teams were always rattled,
and "muffed" their plays just at first. What did this mean? Oh, well,
the homes would miss it. They did, and the sophomores breathed again,
but only for a moment. Then T. Reed jumped and the ball went pounding
back toward the freshman basket. This time a home got it, passed it
successfully to Rachel, and Rachel poised it for an instant and sent it
cleanly into the basket.
The freshmen were shouting and thumping as if they had never heard that
it was unlady-like (and incidentally too great a strain on the crowded
gallery) to do so. Miss Andrews blew her whistle. "Either the game will
stop or you must be less noisy," she commanded, and amid the ominous
silence that followed she threw the ball.
This time T. Reed missed her jump, and the tall sophomore got the ball
and tossed it unerringly at Captain Marion Lawrence, who was playing
home on her team. She bounded it off in an unexpected direction and then
passed it to a home nearer the basket, who on the second trial put it
in. The sophomores clapped, but the freshmen smiled serenely. Their home
had done better, and they had T. Reed!
The next ball went off to one side. In the scramble after it two
opposing centres grabbed it at once, and each claimed precedence. The
game stopped while Miss Andrews and the line-men came up to hear the
evidence. There was a breathless moment of indecision. Then Miss Andrews
took the ball and tossed up between the two contestants. But neither of
them got it. Instead, T. Reed, slipping in between them, jumped for it
again, and quick as a flash sent it flying toward the freshman goal.
There was another breathless moment. Could Rachel Morrison put it in
from that distance? No, it had fallen just short and the sophomore
guards were playing it along to the opposite end of the home space,
possibly intending to---- Ah! a stalwart sophomore guard, bracing
herself for the effor
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