Kitabı oku: «Quarter-Back Bates», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XV
CAPTAIN PETERS ENTERTAINS
Dick received his meed of praise for his part in securing Parkinson’s victory over Phillipsburg, but naturally the greater credit went to Findley, as it should have. Dick found, however, on the following Monday that he had become of a little more importance on the gridiron. Billy Goode was most solicitous as to his condition and Coach Driscoll was a little bit “fussy” over him. He saw plenty of hard work, however, for Gus Stone and Cardin, together with several others, were excused from practice that afternoon. Dick and Pryne were kept busy and when the Second Team came over for a scrimmage it was Dick to whom fell the honour of generaling the First. The team made hard sledding that day, and the Second put over a touchdown and a safety in the first half and made her opponent hustle in the second half to win. The substitutes acted stale and were slower than cold molasses, to use Gaines’ metaphor, and even Dick, who had certainly not been overworked on Saturday, found it hard to put snap into his play. Perhaps the weather had something to do with it, for the day was mild and misty and even the ball felt heavy.
After practice Dick went back to the gymnasium with lagging feet, paying little heed to the talk of the fellows about him. Somehow, nothing was vastly interesting today, and the thought of supper held no attraction. A cold shower braced him somewhat, however, and as it was still short of five o’clock – for practice had been slightly shorter than usual – he turned his steps back to the field where the Track Team candidates were still at work. The high hurdles were being set and Stanley and five other boys were waiting at the head of the straight-way. Dick spoke to several of the group and seated himself on a stone roller beside the cinders. Billy Goode was in charge and Billy called to Dick remonstratingly.
“Bates, you oughtn’t to be sitting around here like that,” he said. “Put a sweater over your shoulders. Take one of those on the bench there.”
“I’m as warm as toast, Billy,” answered Dick.
“You do as I tell you,” said Billy in a very ferocious voice. And so Dick got up and crossed the track and picked up a sweater from among the half-dozen tossed on the bench. Stanley, overhearing the colloquy, left his place near the starting line and joined Dick on the roller. “Hello, what are you doing here, Dick?” he asked.
“Just came over to see you fellows at your play.”
“Play, eh? Son, this isn’t play, this is har-r-rd work. I’ve done four sprints and I’ve got a kink in my calf – ” he rubbed his left leg ruefully – “and now Billy says we’ve got to do time-trials. How did football go?”
“Rotten, I guess. The Second scored nine on us.”
“What? For the love of Pete! What did you do?”
“Oh, we got eleven, finally. But everyone was dopey today and Driscoll was peevish and nobody loved us. Who’s the elongated chap with the pipe-stem legs, Stan?”
“Arends. He’s a corking hurdler, though the low’s his best game. The little chap, Mason, is good, too. Doesn’t look like a hurdler, does he? Well, here’s where I suffer. Wait around and I’ll go back with you.”
“Maybe,” answered Dick, doubtfully.
“Maybe! How do you get that way? You talk like an expiring clam! I’ll be back here in a minute, you chump.”
“All right. Go to it, Stan. Beat ’em, son!”
“Beat ’em nothing! I tell you I’ve got a kink in my left leg that’s no joke. But I’ll do my bestest for you, Dickie.”
Stanley pranced back to the start and Dick watched while the first three, Stanley, Arends and another, got on the mark and awaited the pistol. There was one false start and then they were off, three lithe, white-clad bodies, speeding down the straight-way over the cinders. Arends reached his first barrier a half stride ahead of his team-mates, skimmed above it with never an inch to spare, and took his stride again. Then the other two flashed up and down in unison, and after that from Dick’s post of observation it was anyone’s race. Arends upset his fourth hurdle, and the third boy, whose name Dick didn’t know, had trouble with them all without knocking any down, and ultimately finished a good five yards behind the winners, for Stanley and Arends ran a dead-heat. While the other three hurdlers were preparing for their turn and Dick awaited Stanley, Sandy Halden arrived at the bench across the track and fumbled at the sweaters there. Dick noted the fact without interest. After a moment Sandy moved across to where Dick sat, and:
“That your sweater you’ve got?” he asked.
“What did you say?” asked Dick.
“I said, is that your sweater you’re wearing?”
“My sweater? Oh, this! No, I found it over there on the bench. Is it yours?” He untied the sleeves from around his neck and held it out.
“It certainly is,” answered Sandy indignantly as he snatched it away. “And I’ll thank you to leave my things alone, Bates!”
Now Dick happened to be in a poor sort of mood just then, and Sandy’s unreasonable displeasure accorded illy with it.
“If I’d known it was yours I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole,” he replied angrily, “much less worn it!”
“Well, you did touch it, and you’d no business to. Wear your own things after this and let mine alone.”
“Oh, for-get it!” cried Dick, jumping up impatiently.
Perhaps Sandy misunderstood that move, for, dropping the sweater to the sod, he stepped forward and sent a blow straight at Dick’s face. The latter, seeing it coming, ducked at the last instant and then, as Sandy followed the delivery, brought him up short with a blow on the chin. After that there was a merry scrap while it lasted, which wasn’t long, for Billy Goode, who had an instant before sent the hurdlers away, and several of the fellows about the starting line, dashed in between.
“Here! Here!” cried the trainer. “What do you boys think you’re doing? Behave now, the both of you! Suppose someone had seen you! Right here on the field! Are you crazy?”
“He started it,” panted Sandy.
“Never mind who started it,” replied Billy severely. “I’m stopping it. You beat it in, Halden. You’ve no business loafing around here anyway. Didn’t Jimmy tell you to go to the showers? You’d be better off somewhere else, too, Bates, and not coming around here starting ructions!”
“I didn’t start any,” growled Dick. “He tried to slam me one and I gave it back to him.” Then, wiping his knuckles on his trousers, to the detriment of that garment, he managed a grin. “I’m sorry, Billy,” he said. “Maybe it was my fault, although I didn’t hit first.”
“Well,” grumbled the trainer, mollified a trifle, “don’t take chances like that again. It’s my duty to report the both of you, but maybe I’ll forget it if I don’t see you around.”
Sandy Halden had already gone off and now Stanley arrived, his eyes round with curiosity, and hauled Dick away in his wake. “What the dickens was the matter?” he demanded. “First thing I saw was you and Stanley dancing around like a couple of trained bears. I thought it was fun until I saw you land one. What did he do?”
Dick thought a moment. “Nothing, I guess. Nothing much, anyway. He found me wearing his sweater over my shoulders and told me to leave his things alone, and I lost my temper and got up to go away, and I guess he thought I was going at him and tried to land on my nose.”
“Hm, looks as if he’d landed on your cheek,” said Stanley. “Hope you didn’t let him get away with that.”
“I don’t think so, not from the way my hand aches,” responded Dick grimly. “I suppose if Billy told faculty I’d get the dickens, eh?”
“You would, my misguided friend. You’d get about a month’s probation. But Billy won’t tell. He’s never told anything yet, and he’s had lots of chances. If you have to scrap here, Dick, go over to the brickyard. That’s where all the best things are pulled off. It’s funny about that, too,” continued Stanley musingly. “Faculty usually knows what’s going on, but in my time there have been at least two dozen fights in the brickyard and nothing’s ever been said or done about them. Looks as if Jud sort of winked at it, doesn’t it? Maybe he has a hunch that a square fight is the best medicine sometimes.”
“Well, if Sandy wants to go on with it I’ll meet him there.”
“Sandy? Oh, he won’t, I guess. He likes to scrap sometimes, but he’s most all bluster. Guess he’s the sort that has to get good and mad before he can get his courage up. I’ll doctor that face of yours before we go to supper so Cooper or Wolan won’t ask embarrassing questions. Cooper’s a hound for scenting scraps. Not that he’d do anything, though, except look wise and say, ‘Hm, you don’t tell me, Bates? Most int’sting!’”
Dick laughed at Stanley’s mimicry of the instructor’s pronunciation. “I like Cooper, though,” he said. “And I don’t like Wolan.”
“Nobody does – except Wolan! By the way, I told Bob Peters I’d come around tonight and bring you along. He’s giving a soiree.”
“A – a what?” asked Dick as they entered the dormitory.
“A soiree,” laughed Stanley. “That means eats, son. Bob’s soirees are famous. He’s got an uncle or something in the hotel business in Springfield – or maybe it’s Hartford: somewhere, anyhow – who sends him a box of chow about every two or three months. Then Bob invites a crowd in and there’s a feast.”
“Sure he asked me along?”
“Absotively! He was quite particular about you. ‘Be sure and fetch Bates,’ he said. So, if you know your business, you’ll go light on supper.”
“I shall anyway,” replied Dick. “I’m not hungry – much. Say, if you show any chance of making the team in earnest, Stan, they take you on one of the training tables, don’t they?”
“Yes, of course, but that needn’t worry you. Some fellows don’t get on until the season’s half over.”
“It’s half over now,” said Dick thoughtfully. “There are only four more games.”
“Is that right? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost your charming society very soon, Dick. Now let’s have a look at the – er – abrasions. Say, he certainly handed you something, didn’t he? Good it didn’t land a couple of inches further to the left. If it had it would have closed one of your cute little peepers. Wait till I get some water and stuff. Did you see a bottle of witch-hazel – I’ve got it! I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Dick critically observed his countenance during Stanley’s trip to the lavatory. There was a fine big lump over the right cheek-bone that made him look curiously lop-sided. He heartily wished he had kept his temper. The swelling would be there until morning at least and it wouldn’t require a giant intellect to guess the reason for it. Of course, he could say he had done it in football, only if he had got the contusion in that way Billy Goode or one of the assistants would have had it dressed with arnica long ago. Stanley came back with a mug of water and administered quite professionally, and a few minutes later Dick went across to supper redolent of witch hazel and very puffy as to his right cheek. Facetious remarks were many and Dick’s unsmiling explanation that he had “got it on the field” didn’t appear to deceive any of his table companions. The subsequent sight of Sandy Halden with a roseate blush around his right eye somewhat consoled Dick. By morning the rosy tinge would have changed to green and yellow, shading to purple.
There were eight fellows in Bob Peters’ room in Leonard Hall when Dick and Stanley arrived, and the eight didn’t include the host himself, for, as Sid Crocker explained, Bob had gone to the village to get some lemons. Dick met three or four fellows not previously known to him, one of them the spindle-shanked Arends he had noticed on the track earlier. At intervals other fellows arrived and, before Bob Peters returned, the two rooms, for Bob shared a study and bedroom with “Babe” Upton, were filled almost to capacity. Leonard was the newest of the Parkinson dormitories and, in comparison with such as Williams and Goss, was most luxurious. There was a real, “sure-enough” fireplace in the big study and in it this evening a cannel-coal fire was burning in spite of the fact that the windows were open. A folding card-table was set against the wall and a blue-and-white checked cloth hid enticing mysteries. Jerry Wendell aroused laughter by edging up to the table and with elaborate carelessness lifting a corner of the cloth. What he saw, however, he refused to divulge. Presently, into a babel of talk and laughter, hurried Bob with a bag of lemons.
“Hello, everybody!” he shouted. “Glad to see you. Babe, stick these on the bed in there. I bought a knife, too. Catch! How many lemons does one need for a dozen cans of sardines, Sid? I got two dozen. That ought to do, what?”
“I’d say so,” laughed Sid. “What’s your idea? Serve a sardine on every lemon? A half-dozen would have been enough, you chump.”
“Would? Well, I asked the Greek at the fruit store and he said two dozen. I thought maybe he was deceiving me. Hello, Fat!”
Arends smiled genially at the ironic appellation and hunched his elongated person into a smaller compass on the window-seat to make room for new arrivals. Most of the fellows there were football players, and all, it seemed, were connected with some sport. Sid, beside whom Dick found a seat on a leather couch, pointed out several celebrities: Colgan, the hockey star; Cheever, Parkinson’s crack two-miler, who also did satisfactory stunts with the hammer; Lewis, the tall and keen-eyed first baseman, and one or two more. Everyone’s mood appeared to be peculiarly happy, even flippant, and if football or baseball or any other form of “shop” was mentioned someone immediately howled the speaker down. Two or three of the guests had brought musical instruments and soon there came the sound of tuning and then someone began to hum under the babel of talk and someone else joined, and presently conversation had ceased and everyone was singing. Between songs the talk went on. Bob demanded “How We Love Our Faculty” and the elongated Arends obediently stood up and was joined by a short, plump and red-cheeked youth with a guitar. Arends was preternaturally solemn and the plump chap who pressed against him and looked up into his face as he strummed the strings had the expression of a melancholy owl. Everyone ceased talking and waited, smiling broadly. The plump youth struck a chord and Arends began in a whining voice:
“There’s old Jud Lane, our Principal,
You know him? We know him!
He is a dear old, grand old pal.
You know him? We know him!
I hope no harm will e’er befall
This dear old, grand old Principal,
And if into the drink he’d fall
We’d pull him out, one and all.
Now would we? Well, would we?”
The responses were made in chorus by the rest of the crowd, and the final “Well, would we?” had a peculiar suggestion of sarcasm! Then came the refrain, measured and sonorous:
“Oh, how we love our Faculty, our Faculty, our Faculty!
Oh, how we love our Faculty!”
(Ensued a silence in which Dick saw every mouth forming words that were not uttered, and then a final outburst, long-drawn-out, like a solemn benediction:)
“Our Fac-ul-ty!”
More verses followed in which various lesser lights were celebrated, and through it all Arends preserved his solemn countenance and the accompanist gazed soulfully up into it. Everyone seemed to enjoy the song immensely. Dick, by watching Sid’s lips, discovered that the unuttered sentiment was “We hope the blame things choke!”
Then “Babe” Upton twanged a banjo and improvised the verses of a song whose refrain ran:
“Up and down and all around, that’s the way we find ’em!
Two for five and three for ten, and here’s a string to bind ’em!”
Dick thought Babe’s faculty for making rhymes quite marvelous until he noticed that he used only three or four in the course of a dozen verses. Before he had finished, half of those present had been sung about. The verses weren’t remarkable for sense of rhythm, but they always won laughter and applause. Cheever came in for the following:
“Here’s big Jim Cheever, looking fine.
He always does when he’s out to dine.
You couldn’t keep Jim away to-night,
For he’s right there with his appetite!”
And even Dick didn’t escape, for Babe turned his grinning face toward the couch and twanged the strings and sang:
“A fellow named Bates is here to-night
And his face it is an awful sight!
Maybe he fell against the wall,
But I’ll bet he didn’t get it a-playing football!”
“Up and down and all around, that’s the way we find ’em!
Two for five and three for ten, and here’s a string to bind ’em!”
Jerry Wendell gave imitations, one of Mr. Addicks, the Greek and Latin instructor, being especially clever. Wendell leaned over the back of a chair and drew his face into long lines. “Young gentlemen,” he began in a slow, precise and kindly voice, “the trees are budding this beautiful morning and the little birds are chirping to one another and there’s a feeling of spring in the air. You may have noticed it, young gentlemen? As Juvenal so poetically phrases it, ‘Sic transit gloria mundi, Veluti in speculum Sunday.’ Are there any amongst you this bright morning who know who Juvenal was? Is there one? No, I feared as much. Warden, would it inconvenience you to open your eyes and give me your attention? Ah, I thank you. Yes, young gentlemen, spring is upon us. Especially is it upon you. I have but to gaze on your rapt, intelligent countenances, your bright and eager faces, to realize how thoroughly you are imbued with the Spirit of the Spring. If Townsend will drag his legs out of the aisle – I thank you. Spring is a wonderful season, young gentlemen, a beautiful season, the vernal equinox, as a poet has so well phrased it. The Greeks, as you doubtless recall, celebrated the coming of spring with appropriate observances. And yet it may be that the fact has escaped many of you. A pity, a great pity! Suppose, therefore, that you refresh your memories on the subject and be prepared tomorrow to tell me in what way the Greeks welcomed the advent of spring. And we will have tomorrow what the spring has prevented us from having today, and also the next two pages. Young gentlemen, the class is dismissed. Will some one of you kindly awaken Peters as you pass out?”
Then the host flicked away the cloth from the table and there was an outburst of applause for what lay revealed. Sandwiches of many sorts, potted delectations, cakes and pastries, biscuits and cheese and much ginger ale. After that came a half-hour of earnest endeavour on the part of each and every one to ruin digestion, with Bob maintaining a sharp and yet lenient watch on the football fellows, to whom pastry was taboo. Bob’s “soiree” ended in a final burst of song that brought an apologetic warning from a proctor. Afterwards Dick and Stanley walked across to Sohmer humming the tune of Babe’s absurd jingle, Stanley breaking into words as they climbed the dormitory stairs:
“I’ve got a lot of math to do,
But I don’t think I will; would you?
I’m so full of cake and pie
I’d rather just lie down and die!”
CHAPTER XVI
MR. BATES PROTESTS
That party in Captain Peters’ room has no bearing on the story save that it seemed to Dick to mark the beginning of a closer intimacy with the football crowd. He heard himself alluded to as Dick Bates, instead of Bates, and from that to Dick was a matter of only a few days. And there were other signs, too; as when, during practice on Wednesday, Kirkendall, relieved by Trask in the scrimmage, sank into the bench at Dick’s side, gave his knee a mighty and somewhat painful thump, grinned and relapsed into silence. Had “K” spoken Dick wouldn’t have thought so much of it. The fact that the big full-back considered words unnecessary meant so much more.
There were some mighty sessions of work that week, for Coach Driscoll was smoothing out the First Team attack, adding a new play now and then, shifting his players experimentally and drilling, drilling, drilling until Dick sometimes awoke at night with the cry of “Signals!” in his ears. He had his full share of quarter-back work with B Squad and worked as hard and intelligently as he knew how. Such work was different at Parkinson than at Leonardville High. At the latter place playing quarter meant developing individual ability first and letting team-work look after itself in a measure. Here at Parkinson one was ground and filed and fitted into the eleven much as a machine part is fitted into the assembled whole, and one was a unit of the team first and an individual last. At first Dick had been disappointed over a reality so different from his secret expectations. Although he had openly professed humility and had told the fellows at Leonardville that he might not count for much in a football way at a school as large as Parkinson, yet he had never greatly doubted that his advent would be a matter of importance to the school, nor that he would find the path to glory broad and easy. He had outlived the surprise and disappointment, however, and was ready to defend the Parkinson system with his last breath, a system that played no favourites and judged only by results.
Parkinson played the local high school the following Saturday. Warne was a hard-fighting but light team and the game was one-sided from the start. Dick, rather to his surprise, was trotted on in the middle of the second quarter, when Stone was slightly hurt in a flying tackle, and stayed in until the last period began. He ran the team well and handled several difficult punts in a clever manner, but he had no opportunity to distinguish himself, nor did he seek one. Overanxiety on one occasion led him into a wretched fumble under Warne’s goal and once he got his signals so badly jumbled that Bob Peters had to come to his rescue. But the fumble led to no disaster and the mixed signals signified little.
Parkinson rolled up a total of thirty-three points in forty-eight minutes of playing time and managed to keep High School at bay until, in the final few moments, with a substitute line in, High School, having worked down to Parkinson’s thirty-four on a forward-pass, dropped a really remarkable goal from about the forty yards. To be sure, there was a strong wind blowing almost straight with the ball, but even so the kick was as neat a one as had been seen on Parkinson Field that season and none begrudged the frantic delight that the visitors obtained from those three points. In fact, Parkinson applauded quite as heartily as did the High School rooters.
On Monday occurred a momentous event in Dick’s estimation. He was taken to the training table.
Being taken to the training table perhaps did not signify so much in itself, for the table was in reality two tables, each holding from twelve to fourteen, and one might spend a football season at one of them without winning his letter in either of the two games that counted, Chancellor and Kenwood. But when one was snatched, so to say, from obscurity to the training table in the middle of the season one had a right to be a little elated and to cherish expectations. So, at least, Dick thought, and so Stanley declared.
“You’re certain of playing part of the time in the Kenwood game, Dick,” said Stanley. “Stone is the only fellow you’ve got to be scared of, and he isn’t going to last the game through. Cardin is no better than you are now and I miss my guess if you don’t come faster the rest of the season than he does. And Pryne’s only so-so. As I figure it out, you and Cardin are just about tied for second choice quarter, and all you’ve got to do is work like the dickens to beat him.”
“Sounds easy the way you tell it,” laughed Dick. “For that matter, all I’ve got to do is to work like the dickens to cop a scholarship!”
“Not at all. ‘Copping’ a scholarship, as you so vulgarly phrase it, requires a certain amount of grey matter in the garret. Winning a position on a football team is merely a matter of physical effort. No brains are necessary, my son. Therefore, I back you against the field to get the quarter-back job!”
“Thank you for nothing! At least, it requires more brains to play football well then it does to jump over a lot of silly hurdles!”
“There speaks ignorance,” retorted Stanley in a superior and pitying tone. “There are just three fairly decent hurdlers in this school, Dickie, and there are at least half a hundred fairly decent football players. Q.E.D.”
“Q.E. rot!” said Dick. “Anyone with skinny legs and a pair of spiked shoes can jump fences, you old swell-head! Besides, you don’t jump ’em half the time: you just knock ’em over and get tangled up in ’em. You track boys are a lot of nuts, anyway.”
“Before you say something that I’ll have to resent, Dick, I will change the subject for your sake.”
“Ha!” grunted Dick derisively. “That’s what everyone does when the argument goes against them. Say, what’s Sandy Halden doing with you fellows, Stan?”
“He was trying to be a half-miler last I knew, but I saw him over with the jumpers Friday. You and he made up yet?”
“I haven’t even seen him, except to pass him in Parkinson. I guess, by the way, Billy didn’t report that little mix-up last week.”
“I knew he wouldn’t. Billy’s all right: even if he did tell me this afternoon that I took-off like a steam-roller!”
“He’s very discerning,” murmured Dick.
Stanley shied a whisk-broom at him, and in the subsequent fracas conversation languished.
Dick started at training table that evening and found himself assigned to a seat at the substitute’s board between Pryne and Bartlett, a second-string guard. At the other table Coach Driscoll presided, with Captain Bob facing him at the farther end. At Dick’s table Stearns Whipple, the manager, occupied the head. No one paid any special attention to the newcomer as he took his seat, although several smiled in a friendly way and Pryne seemed glad to see him. Fellows had a way of appearing suddenly at that table and disappearing suddenly as well, and so a new face occasioned little interest. Stanley had cheerfully, almost gleefully, predicted that Dick would starve to death at training table, and consequently Dick was somewhat relieved to find the danger apparently very remote. There was less to choose from, and certain things that Dick was fond of, such as pie and frosted cake, were noticeably absent, but there was plenty of food nevertheless. To make up for the pastry, there was ice-cream three times a week instead of once, with a single rather dry lady-finger tucked under the saucer. Steak and chops and underdone beef and lamb formed the basis of the meals, and with those viands went a rather limited variety of vegetables. Eggs were served at breakfast in lightly cooked condition and milk was the regular three-times-a-day beverage to the exclusion of coffee and tea.
It was on Thursday that Dick returned from a hard practice to find a letter from his father awaiting him. Mr. Bates wrote regularly each week, usually on Sunday, so that his letter arrived at school Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. The present epistle was an extra one and Dick opened it with some curiosity. When he had read it through he was alternately smiling and frowning. It wasn’t long, but it was emphatic.
“Dear Dick:
“Every time I take up the Sentinel these days I find a piece about you in it. How you did something or other in a football game and how proud the town is of you. What I want to know is, do you do anything at that school but play football. I’m getting right-down tired of reading about you. I sent you there to study and learn things and get a good education and not to play football and get your name in the papers all the time like a prize-fighter. You buckle down and attend to your work for a spell, that’s my advice to you. If I keep on seeing where you’ve made a home run or whatever it is I’m going to yank you out of there plaguey quick. Folks keep asking me have I seen where you did so and so and ain’t I proud of you, and I tell them No, I ain’t a blame bit proud, because I didn’t send you to school to play games, but to make a man of yourself. I hope you are well, as I am at the present writing.
“Your aff. father,“Henry L. Bates.”
Dick read that letter to Stanley and Stanley chuckled a good deal over it. “Of course he is proud of you, just the same, Dick,” he said. “But I dare say there’s something to be said for his point of view. You’ll have to convince him that you’re doing a bit of studying now and then on the side, eh?”
“I suppose so. But he ought to know that if I wasn’t keeping my end up in class I’d be hiking home mighty quick! Maybe I ought to work harder, Stan, and let football alone, but, gee, a fellow’s got to do something besides study!”
“Can’t you persuade the editor of that home paper of yours to let up on you for awhile? How do you do it, anyway? Nobody in my home ever sees my doings in print. Got a drag with the editor, or what?”
“It’s the High School Argus,” responded Dick a trifle sheepishly. “The fellows that run it got The Leader here to exchange with them and they print everything about me they see in The Leader. Of course that isn’t much: just the accounts of the games: but the Argus fellows work it up and then the Sentinel copies it. I – I wish they wouldn’t.”
“Do you?” Stanley grinned wickedly. “Yes, you do! You’re tickled to death! So would I be, Dickie. Tell you what: you sit down and write a nice letter to your dad and tell him the facts and make him understand that playing football doesn’t incapacitate you for occasional attention to studies. Or you might write a little piece about how you stood highest in your class last month, and how teacher gave you a big red apple for it, and send it to the town paper. That would please your dad, wouldn’t it? And how about mentioning that you’ve made the Banjo and Mandolin Club? Think that would help any?”
“You go to the dickens,” grumbled Dick. “The trouble is, dad’s easy-going as you like until he gets his back up. Then you can’t argue with him at all. He will do just as he says he will unless I make him understand that I’m working as well as playing. If,” he added ruefully, “he learned about the Banjo and Mandolin Club he’d probably send me a ticket home!”
