championship games take place,—realizing, as they do, that everything may depend upon their individual efforts, and that their every movement is watched by the crowded wearers of the purple in the grand stand! Then, too, no luxury is spared in providing for their comfort when they visit other colleges for the return games, and at the opening of the season they are taken on an extended and expensive trip, in the course of which they play the prominent professional clubs of the country. Truly the base-ball man has many rewards for his patient labor.
Foot-ball, the great sport of the autumn, is played clear up to December, so that many of the later games take place upon frozen ground, and some when it is covered with snow. Here, great strength is a requisite, though useless without the added elements of skill and pluck, thus bringing in a class of men differing widely, as a rule, from the base-ball players. Nevertheless, nearly all that has been said of the advantages and drawbacks of base-ball is true of foot-ball, though in a less degree. Still, these sports, being confined to the representative nine or eleven men, are enjoyed by the great body of students only in the capacity of spectators. But if you seek the one almost universal source of recreation and exercise, you will find it to be tennis. The West College campus is completely covered with tennis-courts, set close together, and from morning till night the balls are kept flying back and forth across the nets. As soon as one party retires, the court is occupied by another, and so, in the course of the day, a large number can be accommodated. Men who take no other exercise whatever are kept in good physical condition by their daily hour or two at tennis.
Still, there are some few who do not even indulge in tennis, but have various other ways of obtaining pleasure and exercise. Of these, the most usual is the custom of tramping and mountain-climbing. This form of exercise is practised constantly by a few, but on Mountain Day, which is a holiday coming twice a year, every one takes to the fields and woods. Of course the first objective point for all newcomers is Greylock, the highest peak that Massachusetts can boast. It is about nine miles from the college to the summit, and, if you join one of the parties made up for the ascent, you will probably leave early in the evening, camp on a plateau half-way up, and, completing the journey before dawn, wait cold and shivering for the sunrise,—only to discover that at that hour the clouds will completely conceal the landscape. If, however, you are not anxious to do your mountain-climbing in the dark, an early start from the college will bring you to the summit in the forenoon, when the clouds are gone, and the whole country from Monadnock to the Hudson lies revealed, bright and beautiful in the sunlight. The return may be made by the same route, or varied by coming down over Mount Williams to North Adams and taking the train back to Williamstown. By this means a fine view of the far-famed Hoosac Valley is obtained from a stand-point new to the student.
On subsequent Mountain Days you will probably take some of the other favorite trips; as, to the Revolutionary battle-field of Bennington, up Petersburgh or Berlin (neighboring heights of the Berkshire Hills),
