Page 30 - The Adventures of a Freshman

"Maybe we won't be beaten," said Barrows.

"I sincerely hope you won't," said the Junior, benignantly.

The series of inter-class baseball games lasting a week had begun as usual on the Monday previous. They are
played so early in the term because football soon absorbs all athletic interest of the fall.

The Freshman class, which was large and had had many aspirants to athletic honors, had barely had time to
pick out its nine, who were, so said the Junior class baseball captain who was coaching the players, unusually
good material, but quite lacking in team play. This was only natural, as only three of them had ever seen each
other a week before.

However, they made a very good showing against the Juniors on Tuesday, and by Thursday they had
improved so much that they beat the lazy Seniors. To tell the truth the latter had not put a very ambitious team
in the field, and played horse throughout the game. But this encouraged the Freshmen wonderfully, and
confidence was just what they needed. After the practice on Friday afternoon the Junior coach said, "I think
you fellows will win to-morrow--;/ you don't get rattled," he added, shaking his head and thinking of his own
Freshman year.

The Sophomore-Freshman game is the concluding match of the week, and is always the special event of the
series, owing to the intense rivalry between the two lower classes. It is advertised in the bill-posters in letters
twice as large as the other games, and many alumni gather from New York and Philadelphia to witness it,
which makes the two lower classes feel quite important.

Great was the excitement in the Freshman class, and great was the hope of victory. The Sophomores, though
they did not show it, were also excited, but they were blatantly confident of winning. It would be a terrible
disgrace if they lost to the Freshmen.

Soon after the mid-day meal on Saturday the Freshman class marched down to University Field in a body, and
sat there cheering for itself and its team all the afternoon.

Just before the game began the Sophomores, in a solid mass of orange and black, making a deafening lot of
noise with college songs on kazoos, led by a big brass band, entered the field with banners waving, took
possession of a solid section of the bleachers, derided the Freshmen, drowned out their cheers, guyed their
batters, rattled their pitcher, and won the game by a score of 18 to 7. That night the country for miles round
was scoured by faithful Freshmen. Not a proclamation was found.

The next night still a larger number of Freshmen lost half of their eight hours' sleep in the cause, and in vain.

The next afternoon Lucky Lee whispered to Young, coming out of mathematics: "The Sophomores get out
their procs to-night, sure; they are being printed in Trenton-- I have a detective down there who found out all
about it. I want you to come up to my room in University Hall this evening after you have finished your
'poling'--I mean studying. Wear your old clothes. You'll come, won't you?"

Young had not been engaged in the previous nightly searches, and he had not intended to join in this one. But
it was Lee. "I'll come," said Young--"soon's I get through 'poling,'" he added, for he wanted young Lee to
know that he too understood college slang, even though he was a quiet Freshman. There was something
fascinating to Young about that bright-faced little fellow. Everybody liked him.

The territory to be covered and the men to cover it had been divided up beforehand among a number of
leaders, and when Lee had said, in talking it over in Powelton's room, "I'm going to get that man Young, he's a
big, strong fellow," Powelton had said, "What, that big, awkward poler from the backwoods?--the man