This attempt is presently made. A player lies on the ground and
holds the ball between his hands for another to kick. Presto! the
ball sails through the air; for an instant there is agonized suspense,
and then a shout from Yale. It has failed to go between the
goal-posts, and consequently has missed.

"Four to nothing, anyway," says Sam. "That was a magnificent run.
Rah! rah! rah! Harvard."

Josephine is wiping her eyes and everybody in our neighborhood is
nudging each other in consequence of the news that we are blood
relations of the hero of the hour. Mrs. Sloane nods her
congratulations, and Mrs. Walton signals with a crimson flag from the
adjoining section, and our beloved pastor smiles at Josephine in his
delightful way.

And what follows? What follows is fierce and harrowing. What follows
continues to hold that great audience spellbound to the close. The
score is four to nothing in favor of Harvard; but the Yale team,
smarting from defeat, throw themselves into the ever-recurring
scrimmages with set faces. It is not my purpose to follow the contest
in detail. I am writing as a father and philosopher, and not as a
chronicler of athletic struggles. Suffice it to state that the
scrimmages grow still more savage and earnest, and that a player from
each side is obliged by the referee to retire from the field, because
he has slugged an opponent. Suffice it to state that presently a
rusher is obliged to retire from the field by reason of a sprained
ankle. It is not little Fred, but might it not have been? Suffice it
to state that by the end of the first three-quarters of an hour--let
the uninitiated here learn that a match is divided into two bouts of
that length each, with an interim of fifteen minutes--the Yale team, by
the most magnificent work (according to Sam Bangs), has forced the ball
steadily and surely toward the Harvard line, and won a touch-down and
kicked a goal, leaving the score for the first half six to four in
favor of the blue. Just after the ball has flown between the
goal-posts, amid thunders of triumph from our enemies, the umpire calls
time.

Suffice it to state that the second three-quarters of an hour is
largely a repetition of the first--short, furious rushes, everlasting
scrimmages, and here and there a punt. The ruffians look still more
ruffianly from frequent contact with mother-earth and the clutches of
one another. Ominous gloom and depressing silence take possession