MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS . 163 
liis studies may be dull-eyed and dingy; but the 
half-back on the university eleven cannot fail to 
have in him some of the qualities of the hero. 
On the football field of a Saturday afternoon 
I am less likely to let my thoughts wander away 
to Chocorua than when at my desk. Something 
akin to the wild north wind seems surging down 
old Jarvis when the crimson rush-line guards 
its bunch of ball-carriers as they fly round the 
left end, blocking, interfering, sweeping down 
opposing arms, hurling themselves against 
crouching tacklers, and finally falling across 
the line for the triumphant touchdown. That 
Chocorua north wind is as irresistible in its 
way, when in October it hurls itself from the 
mountains and lashes the lake till foam flies in 
white masses over the crests of the breaking 
waves. Such winds often arise suddenly, and 
in a moment change the placid water, full of 
its reflections of gay forest and lofty peak, into 
a turbulent mass of waves. I well remember a 
soft, hazy morning when we rowed a heavy flat- 
bottomed boat to the northern end of the lake, 
returning about noon. When in the middle of 
the pond, the wind caught us, and, turning the 
boat sideways, drove it towards a shallow cove 
lined with boulders. Every wave dashed spray 
and water over the gunwales, and the most vig¬ 
orous rowing availed nothing against the furi- 
