get up
a hockey team. I don't know much about hockey myself and so I'll let
Porter do the talking. He started the thing, anyhow, and he ought to
have the fun of speechifying to you. But I'd like to say that, as you
all know, Hammond has been playing hockey for five or six years and has
challenged us almost every year to play her. If Hammond has a team we
ought to have one too. And if we have one maybe we can lick her at
hockey just as we have at football." (Deafening applause.) "There's no
reason why we shouldn't. Here, Roy, you tell them the rest."

Roy got up rather embarrassedly and faced the meeting.

"Well, all I've got to say is that hockey is a dandy game and we ought
to have a team--if only to lick Hammond. (Renewed applause.) It isn't a
difficult game to learn if a fellow can skate half decently and it
doesn't require much of an outlay. We've talked to Mr. Cobb and he has
secured permission for the formation of a team. And he knows something
about the game himself and will help us all he can. Our idea was to
build a rink along the river about where the old ferry landing is.
Doctor Emery says we can use what lumber there is in the landing and
shed to build the rink with. And I think there'll be more than we need.
Then we'd get a pump and pump water in from the river."

"Why not play on the river?" asked a boy.

"Well, that was the idea in the first place," answered Roy, "but Mr.
Cobb thought we'd better have a regular rink. It's hard to play without
boundaries because your puck gets away from you and you have to chase it
all around the shop. Then, too, Mr. Cobb says that half the time the ice
would be too rough or too much broken up to allow of playing on it.
We've figured it up and think the outside cost of the whole thing, rink,
pump, goals and sticks won't be much over eighty dollars."

"How you going to raise it?" asked one of the audience.

"That's what we've got to decide on," said Roy. "I suppose we couldn't
get nearly that much by subscription?"

Several shook their heads, and,

"I don't believe we could," said Chub. "But we might get half of it. If
every fellow gave a dollar--"

"Seems to me," said the boy who had raised the question, "that the
fellows who make the team ought to do the subscribing."

"I don't think so," said Jack. "If we made the football and baseball
teams pay all their expenses I guess we wouldn't have them very long. It
ought to be worth a dollar to every fellow here to ha