Violets and Other Tales

								

aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole
azure expanse of sky fell upon them. It was a mob with set muscles,
straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads
inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a
battle. The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but
the mob was not; it howled, but howled without any cachinnation; it
struggled for mastery. Some fell and were trampled over, some weaker
ones were even tossed in the air, but the mob never deigned to trouble
itself about such trivialities. It was an interesting, nervous whole,
with divers parts of separate vitality.
In alarm I looked about for the principal. He was standing at a safe
distance with his hands in his pockets watching the seething mass with a
broad smile. At sight of my perplexed expression some one was about to
venture an explanation, when there was a wild yell, a sudden vehement
disintegration of the mass, a mighty rush and clutch at a dark object
bobbing in the air--and the mist cleared from my intellect--as I
realized it all--football.
Did you ever stop to see the analogy between a game of football and the
interesting little game called life which we play every day? There is
one, far-fetched as it may seem, though, for that matter, life's game,
being one of desperate chances and strategic moves, is analogous to
anything.
But, if we could get out of ourselves and soar above the world, far
enough to view the mass beneath in its daily struggles, and near enough
the hearts of the people to feel the throbs beneath their boldly
carried exteriors, the whole would seem naught but such a maddening rush
and senseless-looking crushing. "We are but children of a larger growth"
after all, and our ceaseless pursuing after the baubles of this earth
are but the struggles for precedence in the business play-ground.
The football is money. See how the mass rushes after it! Everyone so
intent upon his pursuit until all else dwindles into a ridiculous
nonentity. The weaker ones go down in the mad pursuit, and are
unmercifully trampled upon, but no matter, what is the difference if the
foremost win the coveted prize and carry it off. See the big boy in
front, he with iron grip, and determined, compressed lips? That boy is a
type of the big, merciless man, the Gradgrind of the latter century. His
face is set towards the ball, and even though he may crush a dozen small
boys, he'll make his way through the mob and come out triumphant. And
he'll be the victor longer than anyone else, in spite of the envy and
fighting and pushing about him.
To an observer, alike unintelligent about the rules of a football game,
and the conditions which govern the barter and exchange and fluctuations
of the world's money market, there is as much difference between the
sight of a mass of boys on a play-ground losing their equilibrium over a
spheroid of rubber and a mass of men losing their coolness and temper