Team Topics
The Fourth Team
W.. were débutantes at hockey, and like all buds we wanted to make a hit;
our only goal was a social one, we knew it and everybody else knew it and
thought that we would be successes in the athletic whirl.
Bright sunny afternoons saw us chattering and gossiping on the hockey field
where we came regularly to see one another. A great many people always wanted
to come, but they finally narrowed it down to about eleven because some had bad
hearts and we had to have that few on account of the other side. Our motto was,
‘“A miss is as good as a mile,” and we kept reminding ourselves of this whenever we
got discouraged.
At the end of the season a dinner was given in our honor. It was all very
elaborate; there were three menials, a first team butler, a second team maid, and
a third team butler. The menu was carefully prepared beforehand and consisted
of jelly-omelet, peas, and George Washington coffee; everyone was handsomely
gowned and in toto it was a brilliant affair. There were some very inspiring speeches
that evening about our past and about the splendid record we had maintained;
that year we had managed to get through without winning a single game and the
only unfortunate thing that had happened—we hardly spoke of it above a whisper
—was that we had once disgraced ourselves by a tie because we'd got stuck with
the ball.
Little did we think that such an evéning was to close a chapter in our lives.
The next year we all found ourselves on the third team whose original members
had left to be married; 7pso facto, presto, the fourth team moved up to third.
We felt “‘on the shelf”? and hoped marriage would come to us, but we seemed to have
become wall flowers and we found no opening. Time has softened our bitterness,
but we are still sensitive about our failure and the other day we were cut to the quick
when we heard someone speak of our second year as “The Old Maids’ Tragedy.”
SERENA Hanp.
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