scious all at once that his collar was wilted and hopelessly out of shape.
It had been agreed that Mr. Banning should call the meeting to order. At a quarter past eight o'clock he stepped out from the wings. A cheer came from the students packed like canned fish behind the last row of seats. He raised his hand for silence.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "you have come here to-night at the invitation of the eight hundred students of Northfield to hear Northfield plead her case. My duty will be to introduce the speakers. The students will tell their own story. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Perry King, a member of the Northfield Congress and chairman of the Safety Committee."
Hammond said later that, from his part of the auditorium floor, Perry looked like a pinched and hungry undertaker who had come out to hang crepe. But there was nothing melancholy about Perry's address. He had decided to approach the subject from the angle of civic pride. He had a list of all the high schools of the state that possessed athletic fields, and before long he began to read them. Now and then he would pause to say, quietly: "That town is smaller than Northfield."
