it.

"You're a pretty fresh young kid at present, but you'll get some of it
taken out of you before you're here long," said the school leader
turning away. "And I'd advise you to take off that red rag; it's too
much like the Hammond color to be popular here."

"Fresh, am I?" mused Roy, watching the other join the group below and
cross the lawn toward the field. "I wonder what he thinks he is? If he
ever asks me I'll mighty soon tell him! Red rag! I'll make him take
that back some day, see if I don't."

Roy's angry musings were interrupted by the sudden outward swing of the
big oak door behind him. A dozen or so of Ferry Hill boys in football
attire trooped out in company with Mr. Cobb, an instructor who had
charge of the football and baseball coaching. Roy fell in behind the
group, crossed the lawn, passed through the gate in the well-trimmed
hedge and found himself on the edge of the cinder track. The gridiron
had just been freshly marked out for this first practice of the year and
the white lines gleamed brightly in the afternoon sunlight. Half a dozen
footballs were produced from a canvas bag and were speedily bobbing
crazily across the turf or arching up against the blue sky. Roy,
however, remained on the side-line and looked about him.

Beyond the field was a border of trees and an occasional telegraph pole
marking the road over which he had journeyed the evening before from the
Silver Cove station, where he had left the train from New York--and
home. That word home sounded unusually pleasant to-day. Not that he was
exactly homesick, in spite of the fact that this was his first
experience of boarding school life; he would have been rather indignant,
I fancy, at the suggestion; but he had made the mistake of reaching
Ferry Hill School a day too early, had spent the night in a deserted
dormitory and had killed time since then in arranging his possessions in
the scanty cupboard assigned to him and in watching the arrival of his
future companions. It had been a dull time and he may, I think, be
pardoned if his thoughts turned for an instant a bit wistfully toward
home. Brother Laurence had given him a good deal of advice--probably
very excellent advice--before taking himself away to Cambridge, fall
practice and glory, and part of it was this:

"Keep a stiff upper lip, Roy, mind your own affairs and when you're down
on your luck or up against a bigger man grin just as hard as you can
grin."

That was the Harvard