Part 5 (1/2)

After breakfast they gather up all the soiled wash, make out a duplicate list, and have them ready when the man calls at each tent for them.

Quite a clever system that works out all right.

Sunday afternoon is spent on the water or some game is started up. The usual swimming is indulged in, and by supper time everybody is ready to peck a bit of food, even if they have dined later and had a most bountiful repast.

In the evening the fun begins. Generally on Sunday the Literary Society has an open meeting. Everything goes, from a banjo solo to an imitation fight between two noted prize-fighters.

The little boys recite, the big ones give monologues, our celebrated orchestra renders stirring selections, and the entire Camp joins in the chorus.

The instructors cheerfully help out. It matters not what you ask them to do! Sing a solo? Why, yes; he will be delighted. Sing a duet? Pleased to oblige such an appreciative audience. Join in a quartette? Why, nothing would give him greater happiness.

It makes no difference how silly they have to act. They just go ahead.

Anything to please the boys and keep them in good spirits.

Were Hammerstein ever to come out to Camp on a Sunday evening he would find more real talent on our little stage than he has at his own vaudeville house.

The evening ends very happily, all voting it a bully good show. They give three cheers for the performers, and with a final cheer for good measure, ”Quarters” are sounded.

It is a happy crowd that slowly wends its way to the tents, and many a laugh is heard as they go over the evening's performance.

The faculty clear the place, leaving everything in apple-pie order for the morrow. ”Taps” are sounded by the bugler and another happy day is done.

As we grow older it may take more to please us, but I feel confident that some of these days will be remembered long after we have grown up.

Life would, indeed, be for many of us a very sad thing if we had not childhood's happy days to look back on.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X.

Football.

Why there should be such excitement about a game of football I have never been able to find out. When all is said and done you can hardly see the players. They are bunched together most of the time. They stand bent over, looking for all the world as though they were about to play leapfrog.

Then some under-sized little shrimp of a fellow begins to yell 4-11-44, 7-28-7-11, and all manner of numbers; he grows fearfully excited over the stupidity of his team; they evidently don't understand the signals.

In a perfect frenzy of pa.s.sion and despair he raises his voice and almost weeps. Sometimes he says things that are not in the polite letter writer; not the things that a gentle youth would send in a letter to his best girl, but the rest of the team don't seem to mind it at all.

The other side is doing the same. They have also a man whose special mission in life seems to be howling with all his might while madly springing up and down.

Again they form and await the whistle of the umpire. Every man acts as though the eyes of the entire sporting world were upon him.

Gee! If they can only get the start; what they won't do to the other side! The whistle blows, one yard gained after a terrific struggle; form again, more numbers yelled in a voice hoa.r.s.e from much shouting, then they are off again! A splendid kick causing the ball to form a perfect curve as it sails through the air, one great big chap fairly springs up several feet to catch it as it comes down; he runs, and his side, when the whistle blows, have gained five yards. I stand idly watching them, wis.h.i.+ng that the game was more familiar to me. It must be a good game, after all is said and done, or people would not go wild about it.

The first half is over. Now the umpire is quite a busy man. Let us trust he has taken out a traveling life insurance policy, for he certainly needs it as he wanders up and down. Each side is filing its protests. If he is to believe them they have each been guilty of everything but piracy on the high seas.

Several boys have been knocked out for a minute. They are being attended to by the surgeon and staff--a liberal sprinkling of water besides ma.s.sage sets them up again quite eager to join the fray.