Lester Chadwick

“ I want a decent room.”
“Oh, you can have one wall space to decorate in any style you like,” said Tom.
“Yes; he’ll probably adopt the early English or the late French style,” declared Phil, “and have nothing but a calendar on it. Well, every one to his notion. Hello, the alarm clock has stopped,” and he began to shake it vigorously.
“Easy with it!” cried Tom. “Do you want to jar the insides loose?”
“You can’t hurt this clock,” declared Phil, and, as if to prove his words, the fussy little timepiece began ticking away again, as loudly and insistingly as ever. ”

“ Phil one afternoon, as he came in from the gymnasium and found Tom and Sid studying.
“That’s good!” cried Tom. “Are you going to try, Sid?”
“Not this year. I’ve got to buckle down to studies, I guess. Baseball is about all I can stand.”
“I hear Langridge is out of it, too,” said Phil. “His uncle has put a ban on it. He’s got to make good in lessons this term.”
“Well, I think the team will be better off without him,” commented Sid. “Not that he’s a poor player, but he won’t train properly, and that has a bad effect on the other fellows. It’s not fair to them, either. ”

“ But just as the three chums were about to release their hold on the sofa, Mr. Snell, one of the under-janitors of the college, and a sort of scout or spy of the proctor’s, ran into the room.
“There’s no fire! There’s no danger!” he called. “Don’t throw anything out.”
“No fire?” questioned Tom.
“No. Some of the students burned red fire in the halls, that’s all,” went on Mr. Snell. “There’s no danger. The proctor sent me around to explain. It’s only some illuminating red fire.”
Tom, Sid and Phil looked at each other, as they stood at the window, holding their precious sofa. ”

“ So does Phil, I’ll wager.”
“Well, from what I hear there will be a good crowd of Fairview girls to see the game,” said Phil. “Fairview is sore at being walloped twice by Boxer Hall, and the co-eds want to see us put it all over that crowd. So they’ll be on hand to cheer us.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tom.
“Sure—Ruth told me,” went on Phil. “Oh, it will be a glorious occasion! Don’t you wish you were playing, Sid?”
“Not for a minute! Baseball for mine! When I want to wallow in the mud and get my mouth and ears full of it, I know an easier way than playing football.” ”

“ A moment later he slipped from a grass hummock and went into the muddy bog, up to his waist.
“Wow! Whoop! Help! Here, fellows! Come here and help me! Bring a fence rail!” he called, for he felt himself sinking down deeper and deeper.
Tom and Phil heard his cries, but thought he was only calling to them to come and see some natural curiosity or view the fox, so they did not respond. Sid called again and again, but got no answer. Then he tried to scramble from the bog, and found it hard work, for he had to hold his camera high up that it might not get wet. ”

“ Phil did not say anything, but he looked relieved.
“Too bad you’re not going to play, Sid, old chap,” remarked Tom in the room that night, when the three chums were together. “You don’t know what you miss.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” was the answer, and Sid looked up from the depths of the chair, closing his Greek book. “The day has gone by when I want to have twenty-one husky lads trying to shove my backbone through my stomach. I don’t mind baseball, but I draw the line at posing as a candidate for a broken neck or a dislocated shoulder. ”

“ I like to see the students indulge in sports, but when it comes to such rough play that the life of one of my teachers is endangered, it is time to call a halt.”
“His life wasn’t in any danger,” murmured Tom.
“Hush!” whispered the coach. “Leave it to me, and it will come out all right.”
“But if they abolish football!” exclaimed Phil. “That will be too much! We’ll revolt!”
“They’ll not abolish it. I’ll make some explanation.”
Dr. Churchill, Professor Tines, and the proctor moved away, leaving a very disconsolate group of football candidates on the gridiron. ”

“ There were smothered [153] exclamations, the sound of blows good-naturedly taken and given. There were cries, shouts, commands, entreaties. There was a swaying of the mass, this way and that. A knot of lads would go down, with a struggling pile on top of them, and the conglomeration would writhe about until it disentangled.
Tom, Phil and Sid (whose hand was now almost entirely better) tore their way toward the center. Time and again they were hurled back, only to renew the rush.
“Clean ’em off!” was the rallying cry of the sophomores.
“Fight ’em back!” was the retort of the freshmen. ”

“ I’m only one of eleven players, and my place could be filled. Still, I do flatter myself that I’ve got the team into some kind of machine-like precision, which is very needful in a game. I don’t mean that I’ve done it all alone, for I haven’t. Every man has done more than his share, and with a coach like Mr. Lighton, and a captain like Holly Cross, a fellow can do a lot. ”

“ From various sophomores who came into their room to exchange notes, Tom, Phil and Sid learned that the freshmen had executed a well-organized fire scare by the simple process of burning in each corridor some of the powder extensively used on Fourth of July, or in political parades.
“Well, there’s no use talking about what they did to us,” said Ed Kerr. “The question is, what can we do to them? They certainly put it all over us.”
“Dutch, you ought to be able to suggest something,” said Tom. “You’re always up to some trick. Give us one to play on the freshies.” ”

“ CHAPTER XVII THE SOPHOMORES LOSE
There are several occasions when a young man can find no words in which to express himself. One is when he meets a pretty girl for the first time, and another is when his best chum has a great sorrow. There are other occasions, but these are the chief ones. Thus it was with Tom and Sid. For a few seconds after Phil’s announcement they sat staring at the floor. ”

“ There did come a brace on the part of Randall toward the close of the game, and when the whistle blew they had the ball on the ten-yard line of their opponents. They had put up a plucky fight against big odds, and the Wescott players realized it, for they cheered lustily for their enemies. There was lack of heartiness, not alone from the sense of defeat, in the cheer and college yell with which Randall responded. Then they filed sorrowfully off the field, while Tom, Holly Cross and the coach, as soon as possible, went to the hotel where Phil had been taken in an automobile. ”

“ Then he shook his head. “This girl business!” he spluttered. Then, as his eyes gazed about the room, he caught sight of the little flag of Fairview colors which Ruth Clinton had given Tom. The latter had placed it partly behind a picture of a football game. “Where did that come from?” demanded Sid, getting up from the couch with an effort and striding over to the offending emblem.
“It’s mine!” declared Tom. “Ruth—I mean Phil’s sister—gave it to me.” ”

“ The appearance of the three boys, carrying a dilapidated sofa, as tenderly as though it were some rare and fragile object, attracted the attention of a crowd of students. The lads swarmed over to surround the movers.
“Well, would you look at that!” exclaimed Holman, otherwise known as “Holly,” Cross. “Have you had a fire, Tom?”
“No; they’ve been to an auction sale of antiques, and this is the bed on which Louis XIV slept the night before he ate the Welsh rarebit,” declared Ed Kerr, the champion catcher on the ’varsity nine. “Why don’t you label it, Phil, so a fellow would know what it is?” ”

“ Since the episode of the freshman dance the first-year students had “sung small” whenever the sophomores were about. It was the most humiliating trick that had been “pulled off in so many years that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” as Holly Cross put it in one of his favorite quotations. Gerhart was much downcast at first, for, as he was in charge of the affair, it was considered a sort of reflection on his ability. And he laid it all to Tom, Sid, Phil and Dutch Housenlager. ”

“ He remembered what his crony had said regarding Phil’s prowess.
“Certainly,” put in Tom with gentle voice. “We’ll make a quartet of it, if you like.”
“What are you interfering with my affairs for?” went on Langridge, taking no notice of Tom.
“Because it’s the affair of any decent college man to interfere when he catches a dirty coward beating a fellow smaller than he is!” and Phil fairly bit off the words.
“Take care!” cried Langridge. “You’re going too far. I’ll make a class matter of it if you call me a coward again!” ”

“ Sid Henderson was of a very hopeful disposition, otherwise he never would have undertaken to get a picture of that fox after it had once been alarmed. But he fancied he could trail it to its burrow, and he wanted very much to get a photograph of the animal in its home surroundings.
So, unmindful of the desertion of his chums, he plunged on into the swamp. The footing became more and more treacherous as he advanced, and he had to go slowly, looking here and there for grass hummocks to support him. His camera, too, was a handicap. ”

“ Coach Lighton wisely advised against trick plays so early in the season, as there were a number of comparatively new men on the eleven. So Phil, when his side had the ball again, called for more line-smashing, and his men responded nobly.
They advanced the ball to the twenty-five yard line, and, though tempted to give the signal for a goal from the field, Phil refrained, as there was a quartering wind blowing. He did signal for a fake kick play, however, feeling that he was justified in it, and to his horror there was a fumble. Fairview broke through and captured the ball. ”

“ Then Boxer Hall began to rush it back, and by a trick play got it so far down the gridiron that another field goal was kicked. It began to look dubious for Randall, but there was no give-up in her playing. Securing the ball, Phil kept his players on the rush. Down the field they went, a forward pass netting a good gain and wonderfully saving the wind of the now almost exhausted team. An on-side kick was also used, and then, seeing a weak place in the adversary’s line, Phil in turn sent Kindlings, Jerry Jackson and Holly Cross at it. ”

“ Only that Stoddard was such a white-livered chump I’d have pulled off the signal trick.”
“As it was, you lost.”
“Yes; but the game isn’t over yet. There’s still the Boxer Hall contest.”
“You don’t mean to say you’re going to try and give away the signals in that game, do you?” cried Langridge.
[261]
“No; but I’m going to keep Clinton out of the game. If I can do that I’ll feel that I’m even with him—the beast!”
“But can you do it? If you do it, it may make our team lose, for Clinton is one of the best players, and it’s hard to substitute a quarter-back.” ”

“ Boxer Hall sometimes plays a dirty game, and we’ll have to be on the watch. I wish you’d warn the umpire to look out for holding in the line and slugging. They may do it. They’d go to almost any length to win this game. They don’t want to lose the championship.”
“Well, they’re going to!” exclaimed the coach. “But about Clinton; you don’t think he’s any more likely to be hurt than any other player—nor as much, do you? He’s well protected.”
“Yes, I know; but Phil hasn’t been himself for the last two days. ”

“ Boxer Hall had made the first touch-down, and the crowd of supporters went wild, while there was corresponding gloom on the grandstands where Randallites were gathered. The goal was missed, and a scrimmage had hardly begun after the next kick-off before the whistle blew. The half was up.
What a buzz of excitement there was in the grandstands! Every one seemed talking at once.
“That was hard lines,” remarked Ford Fenton to Sid, next to whom he was sitting. “If our fellows had only been a little quicker then, this would never have happened. ”

“ Sid extended the bottle to Tom. Phil, who was holding the cork, endeavored to insert it during the transfer. The result was a fumble, the phial slipped from Sid’s grasp, Tom made a grab for it, but missed, and Phil, with only one good hand, could do nothing. The bottle crashed to the floor and broke, the liniment running about in little rivulets from a sort of central lake.
“Now you have done it!” exclaimed Tom.
“Who?” demanded Sid.
“You and Phil. Why didn’t you let me do the doctoring? You two dopes aren’t able to look after yourselves! Look at the rug now!” ”

“ Store in a cool, dry place, and water frequently,” quoted Billy Housenlager, who rejoiced in the title of Dutch. “Here, let me see if I can jump over it while it is in motion,” he added, for he was full of “horseplay,” and always anxious to try something new. He took a running start, and was about to leap full upon the sofa, when, at a signal from Phil, the three chums set the spliced piece of furniture on the grass.
“What’s the matter?” asked Dutch indignantly. “Can’t you give a fellow a chance to practice jumping? ”

“ In grief there is nothing so diverting as action, and now that he had sent his telegram, and hoped to be able to see his mother shortly, it made the bad news a little easier to bear.
“Yes,” spoke Tom; “it’s Sid. He raises a dust every time he gets into or out of that chair. I really think we ought to send it to the upholsterer’s and have it renovated.”
“There’d be nothing left of it,” declared Phil. “Better let well enough alone. It’ll last for some years yet—as long as we are in Randall.”
“Did you send the message?” blurted out Tom. ”

“ But Tom, Sid, Phil, Dutch Housenlager, Ed Kerr and others of the second-year class were strong in the belief of their power to oust their rivals from the hilltop. They had a moral force back of them—the conscious superiority of being “veterans,” which counted for much.
“We’re going to have our work cut out for us,” [152] commented Tom, as, with his chums advancing slowly to the fray, he surveyed the throng of freshmen. “My, but there’s a bunch of ’em! And we’ve got to clean every mother’s son of them off the hill.” ”