Ralph Henry Barbour

“ Cal’s short taste of battle had left him with a wild, impatient desire to return to the ranks and match his strength and skill with the enemy once more. He pestered Ned for days asking whether the latter thought he would get a chance in the last game.
“I wish Brooks would put me in,” he said wistfully. “I guess, though, he won’t while Dutch or Griffin hold out. Gee, I’d like to get in and do something fine, Ned; make a run such as you made or kick a goal like M’Crae did!” ”

“ Only Spud ventured a reason.
“Oh, I’m feeling pretty well, thanks,” he said. “I didn’t sleep extra good, though. Fruit doesn’t agree with me.” And he winked wickedly at Dutch and received a scowl in response.
It was a surprise to them all to find that things looked much the same as usual at School House. Mr. Fordyce, known as Fussy, passed them on the steps, smiled amiably and went on quite as though the world wasn’t filled with tragedy this morning. They went through their recitations in a mazed sort of way, momentarily expecting the sword of Damocles to fall. ”

“ But Cal knew what was beyond, for from the bay window of the Den he could look over the hedge and through the trees at the old-fashioned white farm-house with its green shutters and its columned porch.
“Who lives over there?” he asked.
“The Old Maids,” replied Spud. “There are two of them. Their name is Curtis. They’re Tartars, too. They’ve got a dandy apple orchard back of the house and they’re very, very stingy with the fruit thereof.”
“It doesn’t do them much good, though,” said Ned, returning with the two rackets. “We usually get all we want.” ”

“ If he had found an apple to his liking, at least he was not eating it. Ned lifted himself on one elbow.
“Couldn’t you find a good one?” he asked with a chuckle.
There was no response.
“Oh, I saw you, Cal,” he said. “You’ll have tummy-ache if you eat apples at this time of night.”
Cal stepped silently into bed and pulled the clothes up. It was then that Ned realized that his roommate had been walking in his sleep! How he knew it he couldn’t have told, for he had never seen a performance of the kind before. Perhaps it was the deliberation of Cal’s movements about the room that gave him the hint. ”

“ I wonder if we could get Marm to let us have a few more hunks of the heavy sweet, Spud?”
[110]
“We could try,” beamed Spud. “Come on.”
For once, though, the matron resisted their blandishments and Ned and Spud sought the porch dejectedly.
“How did you get on today, Cal?” asked Ned.
“All right, I cal’late. It don’t look like it would be very hard,” he added cautiously.
“It’s awful,” sighed Spud. “You simply have to wear your young life out in study. If it wasn’t that I want to go to college mighty bad I’d throw up the grind and be a pirate. Did you ever see a pirate, Cal?” ”

“ Clara returned with the racket and she and Sandy proceeded to the tennis court, the others politely electing to watch from a distance so as not to embarrass the novice.
“She’s a funny one,” observed The Fungus with a grin. “‘If we are going to be friends,’ said she. She knows mighty well we don’t dare be anything else!”
“She’s a good sort,” said Spud. “And I guess we might as well make up our minds to enjoying what they call female society after this. Did you see Sandy fall for her on the spot?”
“Conceited idiot!” growled Hoop. ”

“ Cal viewed as much of his suit as was in sight to him and shook his head ruefully.
“I cal’late I’ve got to,” he said. “Seems like I get into a lot of trouble with my clothes. This was a perfectly good suit when I came here.” Molly laughed.
“Well, it’s perfectly good for nothing now. [292] Get a dark suit, Cal, won’t you? You’d look so much nicer in dark clothes.”
“That’s what Ned said. Dark clothes show dirt, though, don’t they?”
“They couldn’t show much more dirt than those do,” replied Molly scornfully. “Just look at them! You ought to be ashamed to be seen in them.” ”

“ Cal replied. “And she says she wants to see a football game.”
“Wants to come over here and play tennis?” gasped Hoop. “She certainly has nerve! Who’s going to teach her, Cal, you?”
“No, I told her I didn’t play. I guess it’s up to you, Hoop.”
The others laughed, but Hoop waxed wroth. “I guess I see myself teaching a girl to play tennis!” he said. “If she comes over here once she’ll be always tagging around. Girls are beastly bothers.”
“But you’re just as much in it as we are,” [221] said Spud gravely. “And if she wants you to teach her I guess you’d better, Hoop.” ”

“ Eleven red-shirted youths leaped about like maniacs. Spud did a series of hand-springs and Boyle, only one generation from the Ould Sod, jumped into the air and cracked his heels together gayly. On the House side of the field Molly stood on a settee and shrieked shrilly, small juniors shouted and capered, substitutes waved blankets and sweaters and members of [332] the faculty smiled and clapped their hands approvingly. Across the gridiron the Hall supporters cheered earnestly in the face of defeat. ”

“ Linn arrived on the scene, flushed and out of breath, just as Frank Brooks and Pete Grow were tossing for choice of goal. Mrs. Butterfield, matron at East House, made room for her beside her and a discussion of the art [323] of preserving began at once and lasted practically all through the game. Marm declared afterwards, however, that it was the most interesting football game she had ever seen. Grow won the toss and took the west goal, thus getting the wind in Hall’s favor, and the teams arranged themselves while House and Hall cheered their warriors. ”

“ Monday night they went to work systematically and ransacked the Den from end to end. But they found nothing; or, at least, nothing they were searching for. They did discover what Ned called “a disgraceful state of affairs.” In his lower bureau drawer, under a top covering of underwear, lay about a half-bushel of apples of which many were in the last stages of decay.
“Gee,” said Ned, “I’d forgotten all about them. Don’t they smell awful? I’ve thought for a week or so that this place smelled a good deal like a cider mill. Roll the waste basket over here, Cal, and I’ll throw out the rotten ones.” ”

“ Now I dare say that if you knew little or nothing about sailing and you were put in a sloop at, say, Boston Light and had to make your way to West Bayport you might be able to do it, but it would be difficult work, wouldn’t it?”
“I cal’late it would, sir.”
“You calculate it would,” said the Doctor with a twinkle behind his glasses. “Yes. Well, on the other hand, if you knew how to sail that boat you’d get home safely, easily and quickly. That’s what education does, my boy. ”

“ She admires your manly beauty, Hoop. I move that Hoop be appointed to teach her tennis. All in favor will so signify.”
“Aye!” The vote was unanimous.
“Oh, cut it out!” growled Hoop. “I don’t play well enough, anyway. Sandy or Ned ought to teach her if anybody’s got to.”
“We’ll put on the finishing touches, after you’ve taught her the rudiments,” said Ned kindly. “As to football, why, I guess that’s where Clara comes in. As he doesn’t play he will make a nice guide for the girl. All in favor—”
“Aye!”
Clara looked worried but said nothing.
“She’s as pretty as a picture, Clara,” said Spud. ”

“ Linn entered or left the room and so he got up rather awkwardly from the window-seat and stood while she bustled out. It was funny, he reflected, how that gingerbread had altered the outlook. Oak Park didn’t seem nearly so bad now and he thought that perhaps, after all, he might be able to stick it out. He mustn’t expect to make friends the first day. And ten minutes later there was a sound of noisy footsteps on the porch, and a wild rush up the stairs and Ned and Spud burst into the room.
“Where did you get to?” demanded Ned, throwing his cap at Cal and subsiding on his bed. ”

“ We had a fine team last winter. I don’t play myself; can’t skate worth a hang; never seemed to be able to learn how. Do you?”
“Yes, I learned when I was about eight, I guess. I’ve never played hockey, though. Is it hard?”
“Yes, it is. We play basket-ball, too. That’s good fun. West House won the School Championship last year; beat East House and First and Second Hall. I played.”
“No wonder you won, then,” laughed Cal. Hoop grinned.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “Sandy’s the bang-up basket-ball player. He’s [249] a dandy center. And Ned’s a cracker-jack, too. ”

“ The mystery remained unexplained, but the generally accepted theory, introduced by Ned himself, was that the money had been mislaid and would sooner or later be discovered. Cal appreciated his room-mate’s generosity in seeking by every means to keep suspicion from him, but he hadn’t forgiven Ned for himself suspecting. The breach widened rather than lessened as the days went by, and Cal wasn’t very happy. Rooming with a chap to whom you have nothing to say and who has nothing to say to you is an uncomfortable business. ”

“ Hoop assured her. “We never make more than one raid a year.”
“You will please,” Spud admonished Cal, “not throw your cores on the club house floor. Toss them out on the gravel. They look much better there.”
“Oh, let’s call this a club!” cried Molly eagerly.
“Right,” Ned agreed. “The Woodshed Club.”
“The Apple Club would be better,” suggested Clara.
“No; let me see.” Sandy frowned thoughtfully. “What kind of apples are these we’ve been eating, Molly?”
“Newtown Pippins,” answered Molly. ”

“ If the engine runs smoothly it will develop its twenty, but if the parts aren’t assembled just right, if each one isn’t timed exactly with the others, there’s a loss of power and the twenty is perhaps no better than a fifteen. So it was with the House Team. Brooks, who had, as Spud said, a lot of common-sense—and a good deal of football sense added to it—realized that his team represented the best of the material at hand and that if it was to develop the power of which it was capable it must be perfectly adjusted. ”

“ Cal faltered.
“Matter!” cried Ned. “What isn’t the matter? They look—they look like a couple of gunny-sacks! They don’t fit anywhere! The trousers are the same size all the way down and are three inches too long for you. The vest wrinkles across the top and the coat—” Words failed him for a moment. “The coat is the worst I ever saw! It doesn’t touch you anywhere except on the shoulders, and one sleeve’s an inch longer than the other! ”

“ I didn’t seem to have much luck today.”
“Oh, you did well enough for a beginner,” answered Ned. “Most fellows have a pretty hard time at first. You never played before, did you?”
“No, and I guess I’ve had enough already. I cal—guess I’ll let the rest of you have the fun.”
“Oh, you can’t back out,” exclaimed Ned.
“Why not?” Cal asked in surprise.
“Because we need you; we need every fellow we’ve got, and more too. Why, if Clara Parker wasn’t a Second Junior we’d have him at work!”
“But there isn’t any use in my trying for the team,” said Cal. “I’d never make it.” ”

“ Are you—diplomating, Ned?”
“Sure thing. Diplomacy is brain-work. I’m thinking.”
“Don’t see why we gave the job to you, then,” muttered Hoop. “What we ought to do is to find where she keeps that pillow-case and go over and nab it.”
“Huh,” Dutch grunted, “I’d like to see anyone go prowling around where Miss Matilda would catch him.”
“Pshaw, what’s the good of bothering about that old pillow-case?” asked Spud impatiently. “She isn’t going to be mean. She’s just having a little fun with us. Look at Sandy, fellows; isn’t he having one grand good time?” ”

“ HOMESICKNESS AND GINGERBREAD That afternoon Cal experienced his first and last touch of homesickness. School began at half-past one and lasted until three-thirty. For Cal the last half-hour was spent in the gymnasium, where he was introduced to dumb-bells and chest-weights and taught to lie on his back on a mattress and perform a number of interesting and picturesque—and, at first, extremely difficult—exercises. Each class had three sessions a week in the gymnasium. Cal followed the others into the dressing-room after the class was dismissed and made the acquaintance of a shower-bath. ”

“ We haven’t got a show this year, fellows.” Sandy as usual was sadly pessimistic.
“Oh, get out!” said The Fungus. “We’ll wipe the gridiron up with the Hall. You wait and see!”
“Oh, I’ll wait all right, and I’ll see,” answered Sandy gloomily. “I’ve seen before. The trouble with the House Team is that it never has any team-play.”
“You’re a croaker,” said Spud disgustedly. “Come on over, fellows, and let’s get busy. Gee, I’d work Saturdays and every other old day if it meant a win over Hall this year!”
They trooped off through the park together half an hour later. ”

“ By this time Cal had cultivated quite a keen interest in football and no one worked harder or took his knocks more cheerfully.
“You’re likely to get in before I do,” said Hoop. “Brooks is bound to play every game through, while as for Sandy, although Truesdale will play all around him, he’s no quitter. But Griffin at right guard gets hurt easily. When you do get in it will be to replace him, Cal. Dutch doesn’t know how to get hurt, so you needn’t look for his place.” ”