heroes of us all.

Now "Pug" Coulan, who was red-haired, and had shoulders like
an ox, and arms that hung down to his knees, like those of an
orang-outang, slaughtered beeves at the Chicago stockyards in
winter. In the summer he slaughtered hearts. He wore mustard
colored shirts that matched his hair, and his baseball stockings
generally had a rip in them somewhere, but when he was on the
diamond we were almost ashamed to look at Undine, so wholly did her
heart shine in her eyes.

Now, we'll have just another dash or two of local color. In
a small town the chances for hero worship are few. If it weren't
for the traveling men our girls wouldn't know whether stripes or
checks were the thing in gents' suitings. When the baseball season
opened the girls swarmed on it. Those that didn't understand
baseball pretended they did. When the team was out of town our
form of greeting was changed from, "Good-morning!" or "Howdy-do!"
to "What's the score?" Every night the results of the games
throughout the league were posted up on the blackboard in front of
Schlager's hardware store, and to see the way in which the crowd
stood around it, and streamed across the street toward it, you'd
have thought they were giving away gas stoves and hammock couches.

Going home in the street car after the game the girls used to
gaze adoringly at the dirty faces of their sweat-begrimed heroes,
and then they'd rush home, have supper, change their dresses, do
their hair, and rush downtown past the Parker Hotel to mail their
letters. The baseball boys boarded over at the Griggs House, which
is third-class, but they used their tooth-picks, and held the