Those Times and These

by Irvin S. Cobb

He certainly saw a sight. In that town we always measured multitudes by our Derby Day figures; yet even Derby Days did not often turn out a bigger crowd than the crowd that swarmed to the Downs that bright gusty December afternoon. The governor came down from the capital and most of the statehouse force came with him. There were excursions by rail in from out in the state, all of them mighty well patronised.

As for the local attendance—well, so far as compiling a directory of the able-bodied adult white population and a fair sprinkling of the black was concerned, the enumerators could have simplified and expedited their task considerably by going up and down the aisles and jotting down the names as they went. They could have made a fairly complete census of our prominent families without straying beyond the confines of the reserved-seat section at the front, or fashionable, side of the grand stand. And if a single society girl in town was absent it was because her parents or her guardian kept her at home under lock and key.

Before two o'clock, the slanting floor beneath the high-peaked red roof of the structure made you think of a big hanging garden, what with the faces and the figures of all those thousands packed in together, row after row of them, with the finery of the women standing out from the massed background in brighter patches of colour, and the little red pennons that the venders had peddled in the audience all dancing and swaying, like the petals of wind-blown flowers. That spectacle alone, viewed from our vantage place over across the race course, was worth the price of admission to anybody.

Carrying the simile a bit farther, you might have likened two sections of space in the stand to hothouses where noise was being brought into bloom, by both artificial and natural means. One of these forcing beds of sound was where Midsylvania grouped herself—faculty and students and old graduates. The other, a smaller area, held the visitors from Sangamon, two hundred strong and more, who had come down three hundred miles by special train, to root for the challengers, bringing with them a brass band and their own glee club—or a good part of it, anyhow—and their own cheer leader.

This cheer leader, being the first of a now common species ever seen in our parts, succeeded in holding the public eye mighty closely, as he stood, bareheaded and long-haired, down below on the track, with his gaudy blue-and-gold sweater on, and his big megaphone in his hand, jerking his arms and his body back and forth as he directed his chorus above in its organised cheering and its well-drilled singing of college songs.

Compared with this output, Midsylvania's cheering arose in larger volume, which was to be expected, seeing that Midsylvania so greatly excelled in numbers present, and had behind its delegations the favour of the onlookers almost to a unit'; but, even so, it seemed to lack the force and fervour of those vocal volleys arising from the ranks of the enemy. Each time Sangamon let off a yell it was platoon firing, steady and rapid and brisk; and literally it crackled on the air. When this had died away, and Midsylvania had answered back, the result somehow put you in mind of a boy whistling to keep up his courage while passing a cemetery after dark.

It is hard to express the difference in words, but, had you been there that day, you would have caught it in a jiffy. One group was certain of victory impending and expressed its certainty; the other was doubtful and betrayed it. In the intervals between the whooping and the singing Sangamon's imported band would play snatches of some rousing air, or else Midsyl-vania's band would play; between the two of them pumping up the pulsebeats of all and sundry.

I was struck by one thing—the Major maintained calm and dignity through all the preliminary excitement. In the moment of the first really big outburst, which was when the Varsity's students and former students marched in behind their band, out of the tail of my eye I caught the Major with a pencil, checking off the names of the home squad on his copy of the official programme. Knowing the old fellow as I did, I guessed he was figuring up to see how many of the players were members of Old Families. Nearly all of them were, for that matter. He even held himself in when, at two-fifteen or thereabouts, first one of the teams and then the other trotted out from under opposite ends of the grand stand and crossed the track to the field to warm up.

He asked me to point out young Morehead to him; and when I did he nodded as if in affirmation of a previous decision of his own. On my own initiative I pointed out some of the other stars to him too.

In advance we knew Sangamon was going to have the advantage of beef on her side; but I do not think anybody realised just how great the advantage was until we saw the two teams on the same ground and had opportunity to compare and appraise them, man for man. Then we saw, with an added sinking of the spirit—at least I knew my spirit sank at the inequality of the comparison—that her front line outweighed ours by pounds upon pounds of brawn.