races.

On the track things were in poor shape. Hammond would not compete with
Ferry Hill in track and field games and so there was but little
incentive for the latter school. Still, a handful of boys went in for
running, hurdling, pole-vaulting, jumping and shot-putting in
preparation for the preparatory school meet.

Those boys who neither rowed, played baseball nor performed on the
track--and there weren't many such--essayed golf or went fishing on the
river or along one or the other of the two nearby streams. The streams
were the more popular, though, for they afforded excellent sport with
rod and fly, Wissick Creek especially yielding fine trout, principally
for the reason that it ran for several miles through private estates and
had been carefully preserved for many years. The best pools were posted
and once in a great while a case of poaching came up before the
Principal, but as poaching was held to be a dire offence, punishable
with expulsion, the fellows as a general thing contented themselves with
such portions of the stream as were open to the public. Of course,
fishing on Sunday was strictly prohibited, but sometimes a boy would
wander away from school for a Sunday afternoon walk with a fly-book in
his pocket and an unjointed rod reposing under his clothes and making
him quite stiff-kneed in one leg. Such things will happen in the best
regulated schools just as long as trout will rise to a fly and boys'
nature remains unchanged.

Roy and Chub and Bacon and the others making up the first nine had no
time, however, in those days, for fishing, either legal or illegal. They
were busy, very busy. And the nearer the second Hammond game
approached, the busier they were. Mr. Cobb worked them right up to the
eve of that important contest. If they lost it would not be for lack of
hard practice.

All Ferry Hill crossed the river in a blazing June sun, brown and white
banners flying, to watch and cheer. Even the crew men postponed rowing
until after the game. It was a hard-fought battle from first to last, in
which the honors went to the pitchers. Hammond started with her second
choice twirler, he giving place in the seventh inning to Jim Rollins.
Ferry Hill used Post all through and he didn't fail her. Neither side
scored until the fifth, and then Ferry Hill got a man to second on an
error, and scored him by making the first hit of the game, a two-bagger
that placed Chub on second, where he stayed, while Roy flied