The curving path took him past the fronts of Whitson and Oxford and Merle. Below him The Prospect fell away to the green meadows and a half a mile away was the little railroad station of Wissining where he had left the train two days before. Beyond the station lay, a blue ribbon in the afternoon sunlight, the Wissining River, with the town of Greenburg beginning at its further bank. Behind him, over the tops of the trees, lay Long Island Sound, blue and hazy, and dotted with sails and streaked with smoke from distant steamers. Past the Kingdon Gymnasium he went, and then the path descended toward the river, between the tennis courts, and he paused for a minute behind one of the back-stops to watch a game in progress between two white-flanneled youths whose dexterity with racquet and ball made him wonder. At his right, a quarter of a mile away, figures moved over the rolling hillside, now stopping for some mysterious reason and then marching determinedly away again. Kendall had never seen golf played and the movements of the fellows in the distance seemed exceedingly strange. But, for that matter, there was a good deal that was strange to him here at Yardley. And perhaps the strangest thing of all was being here! It still seemed more like a dream than a reality, and he was constantly in fear that he would wake up. The field was almost empty when he reached it, for it still wanted more than a quarter of an hour to four o’clock, and many of the upper class fellows had three o’clock recitations. But a few boys were scattered around, some on the stands and some, in football regalia, waiting for work. The gridiron had been freshly marked out and the lime lines were dazzlingly white against the grass. Kendall wished there was somebody he might talk to, but so far he had formed no acquaintances beyond those we know of, and to address any of the careless, laughing fellows about him without overtures from them was quite beyond him. So he seated himself in the sun on one of the steps leading into the grand stand and waited. Behind him and about him there were many amused glances and whispered remarks, but Kendall never noticed. On the river a canoe with two boys at the paddles was working slowly against the current toward Flat Island. Beyond the stream a wide expanse of marshland was showing the first signs of autumn, stretches of yellow mingling with the green of rushes and grass. Singly and in groups of two and three the boys, players and onlookers alike, began to appear around the corner of the stand. Then came Dan Vinton in earnest converse with John Payson, the coach. They passed him only a few yards distant and he wondered whether the captain would recognize him. But he didn’t, although his eyes rested idly for a moment on his face as he passed on. Then a little red-haired Irishman appeared with a push-cart which he wheeled to the front of the grand stand amidst facetious greetings from the audience: “Hello, Andy! how’s the boy?”