“I know, dear,” her mother said, “but I’m not like you, dear.  I’m afraid I’m a very poor, weak, human sort!”

“Rotten day for the game!” grumbled Susan.

“Oh, it makes me so darn mad!” Georgie added, “here I’ve been working that precious idiot for a month up to the point where he would take his old horse out, and now look at it!”

Everyone was used to Georgie’s half-serious rages, and Mrs. Lancaster only smiled at her absently.

“But you won’t attempt to go to the game on a day like this!” she said to Susan.

“Not if it pours,” Susan agreed disconsolately.

“You haven’t wasted your good money on a ticket yet, I hope, dear?”

“No-o,” Susan said, wishing that she had her two and a half dollars back.  “That’s just the way of it!” she said bitterly to Billy, a little later.  “Other girls can get up parties for the game, and give dinners after it, and do everything decently!  I can’t even arrange to go with Thorny, but what it has to rain!”

“Oh, cheer up,” the boy said, squinting down the barrel of the rifle he was lovingly cleaning.  “It’s going to be a perfect day!  I’m going to the game myself.  If it rains, you and I’ll go to the Orpheum mat., what do you say?”

“Well—­” said Susan, departing comforted.  And true to his prediction the sky really did clear at eleven o’clock, and at one o’clock, Susan, the happiest girl in the world, walked out into the sunny street, in her best hat and her best gown, her prettiest embroidered linen collar, her heavy gold chain, and immaculate new gloves.

How could she possibly have hesitated about it, she wondered, when she came near the ball-grounds, and saw the gathering crowds; tall young men, with a red carnation or a shaggy great yellow chrysanthemum in their buttonholes; girls in furs; dancingly impatient small boys, and agitated and breathless chaperones.  And here was Thorny, very pretty in her best gown, with a little unusual and unnatural color on her cheeks, and Billy Oliver, who would watch the game from the “dollar section,” providentially on hand to help them through the crowd, and buy Susan a chrysanthemum as a foil to Thorny’s red ribbons.  The damp cool air was sweet with violets; a delightful stir and excitement thrilled the moving crowd.  Here was the gate.  Tickets?  And what a satisfaction to produce them, and enter unchallenged into the rising roadway, leaving behind a line of jealously watching and waiting people.  With Billy’s help the seats were easily found, “the best seats on the field,” said Susan, in immense satisfaction, as she settled into hers.  She and Thorny were free to watch the little tragedies going on all about them, people in the wrong seats, and people with one ticket too few.

Girls and young men—­girls and young men—­girls and young men—­ streamed in the big gateways, and filed about the field.  Susan envied no one to-day, her heart was dancing.  There was a racy autumnal tang in the air, laughter and shouting.  The “rooters” were already in place, their leader occasionally leaped into the air like a maniac, and conducted a “yell” with a vigor that needed every muscle of his body.