Already requests to “Move on, please!” were being made, and the man, still searching the crowd as he went, proceeded in the direction indicated. But finding anyone in that throng was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and he began to realize the futility of his task. Half-way along he stopped very suddenly and clutched at his very respectable derby hat. Someone had almost knocked it from his head with a waving flag, while a most barbaric and disconcerting shouting caused him to gaze about, startled. He could, however, see nothing to account for such an outburst, and, prompted by cries of “Down front!” and “Keep moving, please!” he went on and was finally taken pity on by a third ribbon-adorned usher and conducted up a number of steps and placed precariously on the last eight inches of a narrow seat.
He looked about him carefully. There seemed to be hundreds of persons there, old, middle-aged and young, and many were waving flags of vivid scarlet bearing white G’s, and all, or so it seemed to him, were shouting. Beside him was a boy of possibly sixteen years, a rather nice-appearing youth, but one who continually jumped half out of his seat or prodded the man’s ribs with a sharp elbow. The newcomer made a careful and systematic survey of as much of the audience as was within his range of vision, but without finding Mr. Ordway, after which he philosophically settled down, if such a thing is possible when your neighbors’ knees and elbows are continually being poked into you, and did his best to understand what was going on.
Before him, on a white-barred field, two groups of young gentlemen were facing each other. Those of one group were bright red as to arms and legs and those of the other dark green. Besides the number engaged in the contest—the man placed that number as between twenty and thirty; possibly because several of them kept moving about all the time—there were two older persons on hand, one of whom was an extremely active gentleman, judging from the manner in which he ran back and forth. While he looked someone blew a whistle and the two groups of players suddenly became inextricably confused. Some ran one way and some another and each seemed mainly bent on getting into the next fellow’s way! And then, quite from nowhere, a green-stockinged youth shot into prominence and ran very fast across the field in the observer’s direction. He had a football in one arm and held the other stiffly before him. The reason for this was presently made plain when a scarlet-legged youth tried to interfere with him. That extended hand came into contact with the scarlet-legged youth’s face and the latter swerved quickly aside. But the lad with the green stockings didn’t get much farther, for two other scarlet-legged players literally hurled themselves on him and he was sent headlong across the white line and into a windrow of hay. The man, rather startled by such violence, understood at once that the hay had been placed there for humanitarian purposes.
Everyone shouted things then, while, to the surprise of the man, the assaulted youth arose nonchalantly, shook himself, and trotted further into the field, where, presently, the whole performance was gone through with again. The man was perplexed. Football he had heard of but never witnessed, and it was very difficult to understand. On a board at one end of the inclosure was the legend:
GRAFTON
VISITORS
That, of course, meant that neither side had as yet succeeded in making a tally. The man wondered what they did to make a tally, and while he was still wondering a gentleman wearing a white sweater ran frantically onto the field and tooted an automobile horn. Whereupon, with one accord, the players of both sides drew apart and then trotted diagonally down the field and disappeared from sight.
The man started to get up, saw that only a very few were following his example, hesitated, and resumed his seat.