Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/29

Rh petition to the Board of Education. In Mr. Grayson as good as said that now that the school had been generously presented with an athletic field it was up to the school to look after it. Raising money amongst the students he had no objection to, but the amount obtainable in that manner was too small to make it worth while. The plan of raising the price of admission to baseball and football from twenty-five cents to fifty was favored by some, while others feared that it would keep so many away from the contests that there would be no profit in it. In short, the Committee was facing a difficult problem and with no solution in sight. And the field, from its patched, rickety, high board fence to grandstands and dressing-rooms, loudly demanded succor. Fudge voiced the general complaint when, having without difficulty mounted the fence and dropped to the soggy turf inside, followed more lithely by Perry Hull, he viewed the cinder track with disfavor. The recent rain had flooded it from side to side, and, since it was lower than the ground about it and had been put down with little or no provision for drainage, inch-deep puddles still lingered in the numerous depressions.

"We can't practice here," said Perry.

"Wouldn't that agonize you?" demanded Fudge. "Gee, what's the good of having an athletic field