110
Kansas University Weekly.
Faith.
Be not an anchor, O my faith, to lie,
On ocean's barren floor, dim fathoms deep,
Where dead, forgotten things together sleep,
And tumult of the waves comes never nigh,
And e'en beyond the glimpse of day's great eye;
To lie and clutch the ooze and cling, to keep
My boat at rest, in front the self-same sweep
Of well-known coast, o'erhead the self-same sky.
Nay, rather, when the mighty winds are free,
Be thou the needle, loyal to thy North.
To bid my bark the utmost isles explore.
Better go down amid the tempest's roar
Than rot in land-locked bays and put not forth
At hearing of the loud entreating sea.
ARTHUR GRAVES CANFIELD.
and Magazine, Anril. 1890.
New England Magazine, April. 1890.
Uncle Jerry at a Foot-Ball Game.
Near my home lives an old farmer familiarly known as "Uncle Jerry Botkin." While he has never had a higher education he is a very well read man and has a good fund of general knowledge. He has one son named John, who is attending a University. Recently the old man paid him a visit. When he returned I heard that he had been to see a foot-ball game between two rival colleges, and I went to hear his account of it.
"Yes, I saw a football game," he said in answer to my inquiry,—"and a wonderful thing it was. We used to play football when I was a boy, but it wasn't anything like that. When John and I got to the field it was already crowded and the people were yelling something that sounded like: 'Osh Kosh,—Ray Bawk—Ya Hoo!' John said that was the college yell. The field was all marked up with white parallel stripes, and at each end of the field was a frame work of two upright posts and a cross-piece, that looked like a gallows.
"Pretty soon the players came on the field,
all dressed in armor of padded clothes, and wearing great long hair like that man Flaskowwhiski who played the fiddle in town last winter. One side got on the west end of the grounds and the other on the east end, and then they put the ball on the ground and kicked it down the field. This was about the only time that ball got kicked during the whole game. A tall fellow on the other side stopped the ball and, instead of kicking it back as we used to do, picked it up and started to run with it. I jumped up and yelled, 'That ain't fair!' but John pulled me down and said it was all right. But the tall fellow was grabbed pretty quick and thrown down, and then all the other players ran up and jumped on top of him so as to hold there. When they let him up the two sides stood up in a line opposite each other on each side of the ball; they stood in a stooping position as though they were going to butt each other. All at once a little short man who stood somewhat behind said something and I lost sight of the ball, and could see only a confused mass of arms, legs, and tangled hair tumbling about in violent commotion; it looked like they were trying to cripple each other. Then from the midst of the confusion one man came running with the ball, and got quite a long ways before he was thrown down.
"They kept that thing up quite a good while, alternatly standing up by the ball and then falling down in a heap, but each time making some progress. Finally the heap fell down under the gallows at the east end of the field and everybody yelled and acted as if they were crazy. John said that meant a 'touch-down,' which was four points for them. Then a man got out a little ways and kicked the ball right over the cross piece of the gallows. After that they all went back to the center and began over again. And that was all there was to the game, just throwing each other down and running away with the ball. I told John I was quite disgusted because they didn't do any good, honest kicking; but he only laughed and said that the game was now being played on more scientific principles."
RICHARD R. PRICE.
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