Harvard University -- Fiction; Love stories; Plantations -- Virginia -- Fiction; Youth -- Fiction
The sky was colourless, the earth dun. Nature was in a mood of
somberness and showed no favouritism; neither crimson nor blue was
included in her colour scheme. But within the crowded inclosure the
scene was brightly tinted. The upward sloping backgrounds were dull and
sad enough, to be sure――gray and brown, and black; but against them
everywhere, from corner to corner, from top to bottom, trembled specks
of crimson and blue like roses and gentians fluttering in the wind.
Nearer at hand the blossoms resolved themselves into flags, ribbons
and bouquets. Even the score-cards added their touches of colour,
while thousands of bright red megaphones and hundreds of toy crimson
balloons bobbed and swayed. The north stand was darkly cerulean from
end to end; the south stand warmly, deeply red; while the end tiers
owned allegiance to Harvard save where, here and there, a Yale banner
flaunted defiantly like a sapphire set amidst rubies.
There was sound as well as colour. Thirty-four thousand voices arose
in talk and laughter, song and cheer. Near the centre of the south
side was a table. On the table stood the junior with the crimson
megaphone. In front of him was the band, increased in numbers since its
last appearance, and beyond the band, stretching upward and away to
the sky line, was the cheering section. When the megaphone waved the
band played and a thousand voices sang. After the songs came cheers,
stately, thunderous, roared out from thousands of lusty throats.
Across the field, on the north side, every vocal challenge was
accepted. Yale sang and shouted her slogans incessantly. Her numbers
were fewer, but there were strong lungs behind the deep blue banners,
and when a handful of blue-stockinged warriors ran into sight it was
as though New Haven and not Cambridge was the scene of battle. The
throngs at the entrances had thinned out now, and numbed fingers were
drawing watches from pockets hidden under many thicknesses of coats and
mufflers. And then onto the rectangle of faded turf trotted a little
squad of men in nice new black sweaters adorned with crimson H’s, and
pandemonium broke loose. And when, after many minutes, comparative
quiet settled over the scene, a whistle blew shrilly, and Harvard and
Yale were again at battle.
It is safe to say that of that host of onlookers there was only one who
did not see the Yale leftguard send the ball corkscrewing to Harvard’s
fifteen-yard line and into the arms of the Harvard captain. John North,
watching from the side line, saw it; David Meadowcamp, sitting beside
his father and for once wide awake, saw it; Chester and Guy, enthroned
half-way up the cheering section, saw it; Everett Kingsford saw it;
Miss Mildred Wayland, who sat beside him; and the obliging Muir; and
Kingsford’s mother; and his sister Betty. The one who did not see it
was Phillip.
He was looking at Betty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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