“I don’t want to hear! What do I care? I shall never play any of those games.”
“You may some time.”
“Never! I have made up my mind. They are silly, and I will not play them.”
“When you get older you will learn that it is bad policy to form a conclusion or a resolve in regard to anything you know nothing about.”
“I know enough about those games. Only white boys play them.”
“You are mistaken. At Carlisle there is a school of Indian boys, and those young Indians learn to play baseball and football. Every year the Carlisle baseball and football-teams grow stronger and more difficult to defeat. They play with all the great college teams, and they enter into the games with a certain wild joy and fierceness that make the contests seem at times like life-and-death struggles. You should see the Carlisle football-team come onto the field. Eleven big, bronzed fellows come trotting out in a bunch upon the gridiron, the chalk-marks of which look like a skeleton bleaching in the sun.
“They have long, coal-black hair and flashing eyes. They have been trained till they are fit to do their level best. All around that chalk-marked field rise great wooden stands, containing tier after tier of human beings, packed in as thick as they can be, gathered there from hundreds upon hundreds of miles to witness the game. As the Indians come trotting out they are given a great cheer from their admirers, both red and white.
“A football, like a huge yellow egg, is tossed out on the ground and the Indians begin to chase it about and fall on it to warm up. While they are at this there comes another cry, and onto the field comes the team of the white players. Then in front of those great tiers of seats men rise and give signals with waving arms. At those signals the great multitude breaks into a mighty cheer for the white contestants. Soon the game is ready to begin. The men line out on the field, scattering and spreading to their positions.
“The whites have their first kick at the ball, which has been placed on a certain spot, and the best kicker on the team stands off and gets ready. A great hush falls on the people, who lean forward, lips parted, eyes staring, waiting for the moment. Slowly and with steady steps the kicker advances on the ball, while the players, to the last man, crouch, ready to leap forward. The leg of the kicker swings back, then forward, and—plunk!—his toe strikes the ball, which leaps up from the ground and sails away, away, away, over the heads of the Indians.
“At the same instant the white players dash down the field after the ball. Two of them run faster than all others, darting past the first Indians who get in their path, and reach the spot where the ball is coming down. But they cannot touch it again till it has been touched by an Indian. One of the red men’s swiftest runners is under it, ready to catch it. It falls into his hands and he holds it, instantly springing forward to carry it toward the white players’ territory. One of the whites leaps at him to clasp him and bring him down, but, without using his hands, another Indian player gets in front of the white and blocks him off. The crowd roars. The runner with the ball dashes forward. Another white is after him. Both run like antelopes. The white cannot gain. But past the Indians who try to stop him comes another white, who hurls himself headlong like an arrow through the air, clasping the Indian about the legs, and down they come to the ground in a flash. On top of them leap five or six players, like famished wolves, pinning them there.