CHAPTER XVII.
PURE GRIT.
All other college sports seem to grow dim in comparison with the great spring race. It is the crowning athletic event of the season. The vast gathering of people at New London occurs but once a year, and the only event to be compared with it is the annual football game in New York.
New London for a week before the race is filled with "old grads," fathers of Yale men who are interested in boating, college lads, mothers of students, sisters and sweethearts.
At Eastern Point the Fort Griswold House is thronged with persons of this sort. The Pequod is overflowing. On the broad piazzas old classmates meet and talk over former victories and defeats. There they watch the thronging craft upon the river.
Every one talks boating, whether he knows anything about it or not. "Willie off the yacht" is there, togged in flannels and making a desperate struggle to roll in
his gait. For a week, at least, he is a waterman, with the salt flavor in everything he says or does.
And the girls—the girls! They, too, dress in flannels and yachting caps, and they try to talk knowingly about "strokes," "oars" and "the crew." But they are charming—every one of them!
Yale and Harvard's quarters are on the left bank near Gale's Ferry. Many of the "old oars" are permitted to visit the crew. The great coachers are there. They are regarded with awe and respect, for surely they know everything there is to know about racing!