“I never thought of it in that way before.”

“Then on the other hand this very kind of work you’re doing now is the sort that stirs your blood.  I expect that those fellows who live down in the tropics and about all the work they have to do to feed themselves is to pick a banana off a tree and go through the exertion of peeling it, don’t really get half the fun out of life that some of us boys had up on the hillside farms in Vermont.  Why, when we’d have to get up winter mornings, with the weather so cold that we’d have to be all the while on the lookout that we didn’t freeze our ears or noses, and when we’d have to shovel out the paths through three feet of snow and cut the wood and carry water to the stock, it did seem at times to be a trifle strenuous; but really I think the boys in Vermont get more fun out of life than the poor chaps in the tropics do who plow their fields by just jabbing a hole in the ground with their heel, and when they plant, all they have to do is to just stick a slip in the ground.  It’s the same way here, Phelps.  This sort of thing you’re doing is hard, no doubt about that; but it’s the sort of thing that really stirs up a live man, after all.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be all stirred up if we don’t get at this work pretty soon,” laughed Will, who was nevertheless deeply impressed by the words he had heard from the prospective valedictorian of the senior class.  “Why can’t we do it all up this morning?” he inquired eagerly.

“All?”

“Oh, I mean all we were planning to do to-day.  I’d like to go down to the gym this afternoon and watch the bulletins of the game.  I decided not to go, but if I can get my work off that’ll be the next best thing; and besides it’ll help to pass the time.  It’s going to be a long day for me.”

“All right, I’m agreeable,” replied the senior cordially.

Until the hour of noon was rung out by the clock in the tower, Will labored hard.  The words of his tutor had been inspiring, but he could not disguise from himself the fact, however, that he had little love for the task.  It was simply a determination not to be “downed,” as Will expressed it, that led him on and he was holding on doggedly, resolutely, almost blindly, but still he was holding on.  About three o’clock in the afternoon the few students who were in town assembled at the telegraph office where messages were to be received from the team at intervals of ten minutes describing the progress of the game.  One of the seniors had been selected to read the dispatches and only a few minutes had elapsed after the assembly had gathered before the senior appeared, coming out of the telegraph office and waving aloft the yellow slip.  A cheer greeted his appearance but this was followed by a tense silence as he read aloud: 

“They’re off.  Great crowd.  Winthrop line outweighed ten pounds to a man.  Holding like a stone wall.”

“That’s the way to talk it!” shouted the reader as he handed the dispatch to the operator, and then began to sing one of the college songs, in which he was speedily joined by the noisy group.