What of the team that Jefferson grew?
Licked by Lowell of Emerald hue,
Another game and its mission is through.
They 1, We 2,
Wait for the next tale of woe.
As Ty sang the other boys gathered round him and as most of them knew the tune they were presently crowding close, looking over his shoulder at the words and joining in. Then they made copies of it and sent them by the porter into the other cars of the train. Pretty soon everybody on the train either had a copy or had learned the thing by heart and whenever they stopped at a station they would all get out on the platforms or lean out of the windows and introduce the new song to the crowds at the stations, always leaving a few copies behind. By the time they reached Lowell, early in the evening, Robb’s doggerel song had been sung from Cleveland to Lowell and found its way the next day into most every big paper in the country, so that almost every Lowell man in the land knew it within twenty-four hours after it was composed.
Presently the train pulled into the station at Lowell. The boys looked out at the mob that was there to welcome them. Hal and Hans thought of the former return to Lowell when Hans had brought him back. This was a different kind of home coming. There was no walking or riding in carriages that night. It was shoulders for the team, surely, and they prepared for it.
The crowd at the station was singing the Lowell songs and yelling and cheering, but presently as the team and the others on the train appeared, the latter began singing Robb’s “Peach Song” again, and the crowd stopped to listen. They heard it, they seemed to drink it in, they learned it all at once, it seemed, for presently they were all singing this rather dirge-like chant of a Lowell victory.
Hughie tried his best to get the team away from the crowd, for they had a hard game ahead of them next day, but he gave it up finally, saying only, “All right boys, do as you please with us but don’t hurt us; we’ve got to lick them again to-morrow.”
Then [they grabbed Hughie, lifted him upon strong shoulders], corralled the rest of the boys in a similar way and through the streets of the old college town they took them, a happy, joyous procession, the band in front playing, and the horns blowing. Finally they were let go to their homes where they could get another refreshing sleep in preparation for the second and perhaps final struggle which would take place on the morrow.
[“They grabbed Hughie and lifted him upon strong shoulders.”]
The crowd that welcomed Jefferson, which arrived an hour later, was not so large but it gave them a rousing welcome just the same. They knew that Jefferson had fought hard and bravely, and it had been no easy task to beat them; but Lowell had won, and they could afford to give the losers a generous welcome. They let the Jefferson team ride in carriages, however, contenting themselves with singing a few of the Jefferson songs, mingled with their own loved ones. They didn’t sing Ty’s “Peach Song” but Jefferson had heard it all along the route and they were determined to make Lowell sing an entirely different one before another twenty-four hours had passed.