The Sunday Eight O'Clock/Looking Through the Fence
IT was an interesting crowd at the game; but those inside who filled the bleachers to the topmost row and followed the cheer leader in wild shouts were not more interesting than were those outside the field trying to see the game without paying the customary tribute to the gate keeper.
There were delivery boys perched on top of their wagons, middle-aged men on step ladders, out-of-town sight-seers standing on their Fords, and scores of the local riffraff swarming in the trees or looking through the fence in an endeavor to see the game without paying for it. Occasionally, more's the pity, one could detect a stray student, impecunious, or frugal, or improvident, whose face lighted up as Jack caught a difficult foul, and once I caught sight of a highbrowed instructor, stoop-shouldered from the heavy books he was carrying, crane his neck as he paused to satisfy his curiosity as to why Phil Armour was jumping into the air and waving his arms so frantically.
It is a popular sport, this trying to get something for nothing, but it has its dangers. A young chap who was balancing himself on the top of a motorcycle, unable to restrain his enthusiasm when the ump pronounced "Slip" safe on second, lost his equilibrium and in falling pulled the step ladder from under one of the middle-aged gentlemen, and they both fell in the dirt.
It has its dangers, I say, and it does not always win one's respect, whether it be the man looking through the fence at a ball game or the student getting a passing grade by copying from the neighbor's paper.
There are various ways of ldoking through the fence. The man who is always broke when it is his turn to pay, the fellow who borrows and forgets to return the amount, the student who accepts an office or an honor without assuming the accompanying responsibilities, the employee who loafs on his job are all watching the game through the fence.
"It is easy for the man to talk," you say, "who has the money to get into the game; but how about the fellow who is broke?" An old neighbor of mine never saw a baseball game nor held office,, yet he lived an honorable happy life and died respected. One can walk to Savoy or stay at home and read O. Henry or work in the garden. It is more honorable not to see any of these games of life at all than to see them through the fence.
May