On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics

Allan and Pete sat on the steps of McLean Hall. The yard was a fairyland of glowing lanterns and moving colors. Near at hand, in a bough-screened stand, the band was playing. Ab...

Mechanics’ Hall, Boston, was filled from floor to gallery, from doors to stage. The hum of voices, the fluttering of programs, the slow bellow of the announcer as, with megaphon...

Once more the crowds were moving out to Erskine Field. It was after one o’clock, and experienced persons knew that there were no reserved seats and that “first come first served...

Allan and Pete didn’t forget that day for a long time. In retrospect, it was the brightest one between the beginning of the college year and the Christmas recess. For long after...

This message Allan found awaiting him when he hurried home from dinner that evening. So far so good, he reflected. But Monday was three days gone, and if his aunt had changed he...

It seemed to Allan during the next few days that the bulky form of Peter Burley was bent upon haunting him. On Tuesday morning, in English, he was aware of Burley’s presence a f...

Thus warbled Tommy as, having kicked the door shut, he subsided into one of Allan’s chairs by sliding over the back. Allan pushed his book away, yawned dismally, and looked over...

On the Monday night succeeding the Robinson game the quartet was assembled in Pete’s study. Allan had the easy chair, Hal and Tommy shared the big table, and Pete sat on the tru...

Hal Smiths dropped in after dinner that evening and Allan brought the conversation around to the subject of Burley, whose performance during practise had been the chief topic at...

Myer, clerk of the course, stuck his head inside the dressing-tent and bawled the command in a voice already made hoarse by his afternoon’s duties. In response a dozen or so fel...

On the following Monday, Allan set out after his three-o’clock recitation for Erskine Field. He stopped at his room long enough to leave his books and get his mail--the Sunday l...

Allan was almost the last of Pete’s friends to give up hope; but when, by the next morning, Pete had neither returned nor had news of him been received, even Allan accepted the...

When Allan Ware recovered enough to take an interest in things he found himself lying in the dressing-tent with some one--it afterward proved to be Harris--striving to draw a co...

While the snow kept piling itself up and the Midyears were still racking fellows’ brains, the call came for candidates for the relay team to run against Robinson at the Boston i...

For a few days following the mysterious serenade on the fire-bell there was an epidemic of mild colds throughout the college; and as each fellow who had a cold was able and eage...

Eleven men had entered for the two-mile run, six from Robinson and five from Erskine. Of these, we know Ware, Conroy, and Hooker, wearers of the purple ribbon, and have just hea...

Thanksgiving Day dawned cloudy and still, with a hint of snow in the air. Allan slept late, in enjoyment of holiday privileges, and Pete was banging at his front window before h...

During the short walk across the yard little was said. Stearns now and then shot puzzled and anxious glances at Allan’s face, but the latter looked straight ahead of him, and St...

March winds are freakish, prankish things, and the wind in the face of which Allan crossed the yard one morning a fortnight or so after the indoor meeting was no exception. He w...

The regret, politely expressed though it was, had the effect of a thunderbolt on both Allan and Pete, neither of whom had heard or seen anything to suggest the presence of a thi...

The new term was three days old and Allan and Pete were sitting in front of the stove in Pete’s study. The stove was a recent addition to the furnishings, and installed more in...

I have never found any one with sufficient courage to defend the winters at Centerport. At the best they are bearable, at the worst they are beyond description. Nothing any one...

It is human nature to dwell at length upon our successes and dismiss our failures with a word. The writer has given a chapter to the freshman game, but he is going to tell the s...

November started in with an Indian summer, but by the middle of the month the spell had broken, and a week of hard, driving rain succeeded the bright weather. Until then Allan h...

Allan, Tommy, and Hal stood at the side of the rink, up to their ankles in snow, and watched Pete play hockey. The rink was built at the far end of Erskine Field, and looked, fr...

The class games were notable that spring merely because they brought into sudden prominence a new and promising candidate in the shot-putting event, one Peter Burley, ’07, of Bl...