The final batsman was an old man with weak eyes, who, after missing three balls, caught the fourth on the edge of his bat and shot it high up into the top of a towering coconut palm. Like a swarm of wolves the Pago Pago fielders, with outstretched hands, crowded beneath the preciously-freighted fronds, and like the shuttles of a madly-driven loom the runners of Fauga-sa darted back and forth. Once, twice, thrice, four times—and finally—five times they go, and then one of the umpires waves his umbrella and announces that Fauga-sa has won the game.
"Whirling and yelling like dervishes they made a
circuit of the ground"
"A sinewy brown figure starts clambering up the tree"
But stay! A sinewy brown figure starts clambering up the tree. Now he has reached the top, now grasped the ball with eager hand, and now he is back among his team-mates on the ground. And listen! What was that? The second umpire is speaking—he announces that Pago Pago wins the game.
And which team really won the contest is a moot question to this day; but if ever you chance to go to the island of Tutuila and desire to start a Samoan "Donnybrook," just mention, on an occasion when one or more stalwarts from both of these villages are within hearing of your voice, the last championship game that was ever played between the Pago Pago and Fauga-sa teams.