what you giving me?" said the boy, jumping up in indignation.
"Football is no worse than the old-fashioned pullaway you used to play.
I am going to see this game through a knothole in the fence I rented
from a boy who has the knothole concession at the baseball park."

"No, you don't," said Uncle Ike, "you will go in the gate like a
gentleman. No nephew of mine is going to grow up and be a knothole
audience. You get two or three of your chums and come around here
about 2 o'clock, and I will go with you, and stand between you and the
sluggers, and see this game out. I don't want to go, and detest the
game, but I will go to please you," and the old man looked wise and
fatherly.

"Oh, you don't want to go, like the way the woman kept tavern in
Michigan," said the boy, as he edged toward the door.

"How was it that the woman kept the hotel in Michigan?" he asked,
looking mad.

"Like hades," said the boy, "only the man who told me about it said she
kept tavern like h----l, but I wouldn't say that in the presence of my
dear old uncle,", and the boy slipped out ahead of a slipper that was
kicked at him by the laughing old man.

So in the afternoon Uncle Ike, the red-headed boy and two chums appeared
at the gate, the old man plunked down two dollars with a chuckle, asked
if he could smoke his pipe in there, and was told that he could smoke a
factory chimney if he wanted to, and they went in and got seats on the
bleachers, and as they sat down the old man said it was almost exactly
like the bull ring in Mexico. The boys explained to him that the red
ribbons were university colors and the yellow belonged to Beloit, and he
must choose which side he would root for. As the red matched his flannel
underwear and his flushed face, he said he was for the university,
and then the boys explained the game, about carrying the ball, getting
touchdowns, kicking goal, and half-back and quarter-back, and when the
teams came in and the crowd yelled, Uncle Ike felt hurt, because it
made so much noise, and people acted crazy. Uncle Ike looked the players
over, and he said that big fellow from Beloit was John L. Sullivan in
disguise, and wanted him ruled off. The play began, the ball shot out
behind the crowd, a man grabbed it and started to run, when someone
grabbed him by the legs and he went down, with the whole crowd on top of
him. Uncle Ike raised up on his feet and waved his pipe, and when one
of the men did not get up and they brought