“Well, he had lots of fun, and so did everyone else. ‘Turkey Creek’ spread through college until you heard it everywhere. The principal drug store got up a ‘Turkey Creek College Ice,’ and a quick-lunch place advertised a ‘Turkey Creek Egg Sandwich.’ Mort got the name of ‘Turkey’ for a while, but it didn’t stick, probably because ‘Mort’ was shorter. He kept up the Turkey Creek game all the rest of the year. Every now and then there’d be a notice in the _Crimson_; and everyone used to watch for them. Finally, though, it dawned on the _Crimson_ that it was being used to perpetrate a joke, and it turned Mort down; the _Crimson_, you know, is the most serious paper in the world outside of the _Congressional Record_! After that he used to post his notices up on the notice board in the union and the gym. One day there was a notice saying that at half-past twelve the Turkey Creek Club would have its photograph taken on the steps of Matthews Hall. Of course everyone who could get there was on hand, and sure enough there was the photographer waiting. And pretty soon Mort steps up, dressed in his best clothes and wearing his green and yellow and purple hatband and his club pin, and stands on the top step and folds his arms. You can imagine the howl that went up as Mort faced the camera as serious as a judge!”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a funny story!” gurgled one of the audience when the laughter had died down.
“That’s so, but that wasn’t the story I started out to tell,” answered Mr. Ames. “I was going to tell about Mort’s baseball experience, but I guess I’ve wasted too much time and we’ll have to let that go until another day.”
“Oh, go ahead, sir! It isn’t late!” The instructor looked at his watch.
“Well, maybe there’s time if I hurry up with it. When Mort came to Harvard he’d never seen a game of baseball played, and he fell in love with it right away and went out to try for his freshman team. He didn’t make it, but he wasn’t discouraged, and the next year he made the sophomore team; they let him play at right field, I think. The next year he went out for the varsity nine. He slipped up on that, but he made the second. And somehow he began to get a reputation as a heavy hitter, and, as the varsity was weak at batting, they nabbed Mort and took him to the varsity training table. But he spent most of that spring on the bench, for while at times he’d just about knock the cover off the ball, he wasn’t a bit certain, and there was no telling whether he’d make a home run or strike out; and usually it was a case of strike out with Mort. And in the field--they tried him at left and then at right, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to Mort--he was a good deal of a failure. If he ever got his mitten on the ball he clung to it, but he didn’t seem to be able to judge the direction of flies, and like as not would be four or five yards out of the way when the ball came down. But he tried terribly hard, and everyone liked him, and so he stayed with the team, even though he didn’t get into any of the big games.