In 1902 the Battler engaged in eleven fights, and received $873.50 in purses. I got an early start of it in 1902, beginning early in January and continuing uninterruptedly up to almost the close of the year. I faced the referee just eleven times. I fought 78 rounds all told. I managed to win eight of my eleven starts. I knocked out four of my opponents, and won the decision over four others. When I had finished my fight with Charley Berry, in December, 1901, it was getting close on to Christmas, and it was up to me to hike back to Hegewisch. I am wful strong for Christmas at home and that hanging up the stocking thing still has a hold on me. Every Christmas as regular as a clock I hang up my sock, and my good old mother never fails to see that Santa Claus puts something in it.

With $50 in my pocket I reached Hegewisch two days before Christmas Eve, and I had to get very busy, as all the kids were writing letters to Santa Claus and giving them to me to "mail." The little rascals were wise about Santa Claus, but they tried to make me believe that they were not, and, of course, I "fell." I couldn't buy everything they wanted, because one of hem wanted a big balloon with a parachute so that they could go up and make parachute leaps! Can you beat that?

On Christmas Day my father called me into the little parlor and said he wanted to have a talk. "Now, Bat," he began, and then he told me that he wanted me to stop the fighting business. "Before you leave home," he said, "you must promise."

WOULD NOT PROMISE TO QUIT THE RING.

I wouldn't exactly promise, but told him I would think it over. So we all went downtown. The crowd in Hegewisch usually hangs out at Dad Knight's bar. Just as we went in the door two fellows were having an argument.One of them was from Pullman, where they make the sleeping cars. In Hegewisch we have the largest car works in the world, but we only make working cars, such as flat cars, freight cars, etc.

The Pullman fellows think they have something on us because they make fancy cars, and there is always an argument about which is the better town. "Maybe you do make the best cars/' said the fellow from Hegewisch, "but you can't fight over there." "Can't fight?" snapped the other fellow. "What's tearing at you? Why we've got the greatest fighter in he world at Pullman, and he can lick anything that ever growed in Hegewisch. I'd like to see you show some guy who could face Frankie Colifer. Why, he's a whirlwind."

"Get out!" cried the Hegewisch man. "Hegewisch can beat anybody in Pullman at anything, and I'll bet you on it." Just then he spied me and the old man as we came in the door. Say, kid," he said, "can't you lick any body your weight in Pullman?" I said "I was willing to try, and would take a chance at it anyway."

"You tink dey got boy over dere vot can beat my boy vot?" my father flared up in his funny Danish dialect. "Veil, ve'd lack to see him. My boy bane a vender;" and the old man was getting all worked up. He had forgotten all about my promising not to fight any more.

HIS DANISH FATHER GETS ANGRY.

"I bet I bet I bet you von tousand dollars," the old man said excitedly, as he kept getting redder in the face. "Leek my boy vot?" "Bat," he said turning to me, "you go an' leek dis Pullman boy, and eef you dake a leekin veil, I leek some myself, huh? vot ?"

There was nothing to it now. I had to fight for the honor of Hegewisch, and the fellow who was boosting me patted me on the shoulder and said : "Now bring on your fancy Pullman fighter !"

For the next few days the town was wild with the talk of the coming fight and they were betting their shoes. The same thing was going on in Pullman, which was just six miles away. We boys had two weeks in which to get ready, and on Jan. 13, 1902, everybody in Hegewisch went over to West Pullman to see the go. The town was closed up. It was a general holiday. We fought in an empty barn adjoining Pete Kelley's saloon, and the bout was to have gone six rounds.

This fellow Colifer was a pretty good fighter at that, but I remembered that I was battling for the honor of my home town, and I tore at him like a demon. The building was packed so that it bulged out at the sides. On one side the Pullman employees were pulling for their man, and on the other it seemed to me like all the Danes and Swedes in the world were pulling for me. You know I had made peace with the Swedes by this time, and they were working in perfect harmony with us Danes. This time we were all together. Everybody in the town had made a little bet.

HAMMERED AT THE RIBS.

The first few rounds went along pretty even, but I was hammering away at Colifer's wind, and it was beginning to tell. In the fifth round while the Danes and Swedes were talking all sorts of languages and yelling for me to go on I cracked Colifer in the stomach. He doubled over and as his head came down I hung a beaut squarely on his chin and he flopped over on the mat. By this time the Hegewisch crowd was crazy with joy. Colifer was very limp and took the full count of nine, and then to everybody's surprise, he got up. He was certainly game to the core. As he got to his feet I set myself and got a clean right-handed swing on his jaw. This put him out for good, and we had a hard time bringing him back to consciousness.
The last word I heard as I started to jump out of the ring was, "An' dey dink dey can leek my boy, vot !" followed by a familiar chuckle. The old man was still on the job.

I was handed fifty one dollar bills' for my victory, and  I won that much more in bets that I had made with the Pullman employees. My success in saving the fighting honor of Hegewisch appeared to take all of the talk out of the old man about making me quit the game. From this time on he was a dyed-in-the-wool fight fan. To this day he thinks there is nobody in the world who "can leek his boy, vot!" and, between you and me, his son Battling has got somewhat of the same notion.

HIS TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE IN RING.

Anyway the change in my dear old father was enough to warrant me in starting out again. Having had good luck in Wisconsin I journeyed that way again, and it was at Fond du Lac, two weeks later, that I met Charley Berry for the third and last time.

I had lost, as stated, a close decision to Berry the December previous, and he challenged me again. This time we had eight rounds, though I held out for twelve or fifteen rounds. Like our previous battle the affair went the full eight rounds. He fought a pretty stiff sort of a battle throughout, but although at no time did he have the best of the fighting, Referee Tom Ryan of Oshkosh awarded the plum to him. In the final rounds I forced Berry through the ropes in my anxiety to put him out. Fearing he would be killed, as the drop to the floor was about eight feet, I tried to catch him as, he was falling. I did this because I figured I had gained a big lead and thought that I had the battle wrapped up. Therefore I grabbed him to check the fall, in order to give his fat manager Paddy Dorrell a chance to protect his man. Paddy during the excitement made a misstep in his corner and fell, and Berry tumbled over him, thus saving himself from a hard fall. I was in the wreck and tumbled headlong over a chair, my head striking a post, almost knocking- me out as well.

The gong sounded and Referee Ryan held up Berry's hand as the winner. I received $75 for my end, though I lost out.

FINALLY BEAT JOE PERCENTE.

Joe Percente and I met for the fourth and last time at Oshkosh, Wis., on March 13, 1902. I had caught a bad cold after the Berry affair, and when I weighed in, clothes and all mind you, the beam scarcely tipped 130 pounds. I was game, however, and went in to hand Sir Joseph a good beating. I carried the fight to him and won the bout in handy fashion.

RETURNS TO WINDY CITY AND KNOCKS OUT KID RYAN.

I RETURNED TO CHICAGO after the win over Percente, and was matched with Kid Ryan in the feature bout, on a lovely St. Patrick's Day evening, March 17, of course. Strange to relate, I had previously fought on each Irish day of celebration, and had managed to win each time with a knockout. Ryan, will be remembered by the fight fans of Chicago and vicinity as a slashing sort of a boxer. He tried his rushing tactics on me early in the fight, but after I had met his fierce rushes with a series of telling uppercuts and left hooks, he backed up a bit and allowed me to do the leading. The bout, according to the announcer, was to go six rounds. It didn't, however, as in the fifth round I sailed in and hooked Ryan "crooly" on the jaw
several times, also using my left half-scissors hook on the liver, and down he went for the fatal ten seconds. I was handed $75 for the job. Besides I won a nice little side bet.

WINS DECISION OVER CYCLONE JOHNNY THOMPSON.

THE WEEK FOLLOWING the knocking out of Ryan found me matched with the then coming Cyclone Johnny Thompson. We tied up on the night of March 21, and there was surely a cyclone all right that struck the place but it was not of the Thompson variety. No, it was another of those Nelsonian whirlwinds which even at that date was scouting about knocking aspiring young pugilists into oblivion and other places. The Cyclone was prettily dusted out of wind in the early rounds of the battle, and his famous "funnel" shaped cloudy rushes wouldn't work at all. I beat him into submission in the final rounds of the fight, though did not knock him completely out. I won the decision easily ; also the snug sum of $100 purse money. Going up a bit in the financial world ?