he was blindfolded, and when three strikes had been called he tore the bandage from his eyes and upon his hands and knees was compelled to crawl toward first base.  The baseman stood with his back to the field and naturally found it difficult to secure the ball which had been thrown by the left hand of the catcher.  Shrieks of laughter arose from the spectators, shouts and class cries were heard on every side, tin horns mingled their noise with the blasts of the band, and altogether Will Phelps thought that the scene was unique in the experiences of his young life.

CHAPTER IX

THE WALK WITH MOTT

In the days that immediately followed the freshman parade and the burlesque game of baseball with the rival class, the work before Will Phelps and his room-mate settled more deeply into its regular grooves.  The novelty of the new life was now gone and to Will it almost seemed that ages had passed since he had been a member of the household in Sterling.  His vision of the hilltops from his bedroom window became longer and he could see in his mind far behind the towering barriers of the hills into the familiar street and well-remembered rooms of his father’s house.  The foliage on the hillsides now had assumed its gorgeous autumn dress and wherever he looked the forests seemed to be clad as if they were all on dress parade.  The sight was beautiful and one which in after years was ever present with him; but in those early days of his freshman year in Winthrop, it seemed somehow to impress him as a great barrier between his home and the place where he then was.

However, he never referred to his feeling to any one, not even to Foster, and strove manfully to bear it all.  He was working well, but in his Greek he was finding increasing difficulty.  This he acknowledged in part was due to his own neglect in the earlier years of his preparatory course, but boy-like he attributed most of his lack of success in that department to “Splinter,” for whom he came to cherish a steadily increasing dislike.  The man’s personality was exceedingly irritating to the young freshman and his dislike for the professor was becoming intense—­a marked contrast to his feeling for his teacher in mathematics for whom he entertained a regard that was but little short of adoration.  His knowledge evidently was so great, and his inspiring personality in the classroom was so enjoyable that Will soon found himself working in that department as he never before had worked in his brief life.  Already, the boys were referring to him as a “shark,” and the praise of his classmates was sweet.  But in Greek—­that was an altogether different affair, he declared.  Splinter was so cold-blooded, so unsympathetic, and sarcastic, he appeared to be so fond of “letting a fellow make a fool of himself in recitation,” as Will expressed it, that he found but little pleasure in his work.  And Will had already suffered from the keen shafts