Barry Locke, half-back
“I was sorry you didn’t get in, Clyde. I thought of course you would.”
Perhaps the remark wasn’t very tactful, as he realized after he had
made it, but Clyde apparently took no exception to it; rather he seemed
to welcome it.
“I didn’t expect to,” he said. “I haven’t been having much luck
lately.” Then, after a moment’s silence, he continued, “I guess you
know why, Barry.”
Barry shook his head doubtfully.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yes you do! Loring’s playing you up for all you’re worth. He’ll
dump me to the third to-morrow.”
“I don’t believe so,” said the other, uncomfortably. “I guess he wants
me just because I punt a little. I’m not much good at anything else,
Clyde. You know mighty well I wouldn’t want to――to hurt your chances!”
“Yes, I know that,” replied Clyde, gratefully. “That’s why I’m going
to――well, tell you just how things stand with me. I dare say you
thought it was sort of funny when I tried to discourage you about
football, but the truth is, Barry, I knew pretty well that you’d make
good if Loring took you in hand.”
“You didn’t say that!” Barry looked puzzled.
“No, because I didn’t want you to play. I know how it sounds; sort
of low-down, Barry; but, you see, it means a whole lot to me to make
the first this fall; lots more than it does to you. I’ve only got one
more year here and then I’ll be going to college. You and I are just
small-town folks. Of course Dad has some money, but he’s downright poor
compared with some fellows’ fathers, and no one has ever heard of him
fifty miles from Hazen. I mean I didn’t have much to start on when I
got here, Barry. I haven’t done so badly, considering; I’ve got in with
the right sort, I mean. But――well, it hasn’t been easy, it isn’t easy
to keep where I am.
“When I go up to college,” he went on, “a lot of fellows here now will
be big noises in the freshman class, and I’ve got to stick with them,
Barry. Well, about all I’ve got to bank on is my football. I haven’t
social position like some of them: we aren’t wealthy. Why, Jake
Greenwalk’s father could buy my dad out with a week’s income! So――well,
you see what I mean, don’t you, Barry?”
“I suppose so,” the younger boy answered slowly. “You want to trail
along with these fellows after you get to college and you think that if
you don’t make good in football they’ll drop you. Isn’t that it?”
“Yes,” said Clyde, eagerly. “A fellow has got to know the right sort
when he enters college, because if he doesn’t he won’t get anywhere at
all. Besides, it isn’t only college, Barry; it’s afterward, you know.
A fellow has to think of what’s going to happen after he’s out, and
the right sort of friends help a whole lot. This fall I thought I was
pretty sure of making the team. I thought I had a cinch. Then Loring
took a fancy to Demille and I saw about the best I could get was a
first substitute’s job, but I knew Demille wouldn’t be here next year
and I wasn’t worried so much. But now you’ve butted in.
“Oh, I know you didn’t want to,” he hastened to add, “but that doesn’t
help much. You can punt and I can’t,――not any better than a lot of
other chaps,――and Loring means to push you hard and use you in the big
games. That’s plain. It’s fine for you, but it dishes me for fair.
I’ll not get any sort of a show from now on. If I get into the Hoskins
game it’ll be for about a minute at the end of it. So you see, Barry, I
thought I’d tell you just how things stand and――and see what could be
done.”
“Sure,” said the other, vaguely. “What――well, have you thought of
anything?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it. Of course, in a way I
have a right to ask you, but――I’d rather you did it as a favor. We’re
pretty old friends, you know. I believe if you told the Major you’d
just made up your mind you weren’t going to play any longer he’d let
you off, Barry.”
CHAPTER XIII
BETTY CONFIDES
Twenty minutes later Barry left Dawson Hall and made his way
thoughtfully toward the gate. The quiet usually following a midday
Sunday dinner lay heavily over the campus. In the two dormitories
many windows were open wide to the sun-warmed breeze, and in most of
them youths lolled indolently. A voice now and then and the subdued
_tumpity-tump_ of a banjo alone broke the stillness, until, having
almost reached the gate, Barry heard tones of shrill protest, a laugh,
and the sound of scuffling in the fallen leaves. A few steps farther
along the curving drive he came within view of three boys. Two he
recognized; the third was a stranger. Rusty Waterman, Zo Fessenden’s
violin in one hand, was trying to possess himself of the bow. Zo, the
case hanging open from one hand and the bow in the other, was tugging
back from Rusty’s grip. The third boy stood by, laughing.
“No, please, Waterman!” Zo was pleading. “I don’t like to have folks
use it! You might break it!”
“Come on, come on!” said Rusty, impatiently. “Here, hold the fiddle,
Jack, till I get the rest of it. He thinks I can’t play!” Rusty held
out the violin. His back to Barry, he had not noticed the latter’s
approach. Barry stepped in front of “Jack” and took the violin.
“I’ll look after this,” he said. Rusty wheeled, dropping his grasp of
Zo’s arm.
“Oh!” he said, rather blankly. Then: “It’s Mister Buttinski again, eh?”
he added truculently. “What do _you_ want?”
“Not a thing,” answered Barry. He stepped around Rusty and gave the
violin to Zo. “Better put it away,” he advised. The youth called Jack
had edged aside and with an absolutely neutral expression was watching
developments. Zo smiled gratefully and returned bow and instrument to
their places, snapping the case shut while Rusty still stared peevishly.
“Let’s go,” said Barry.
Rusty found his voice again.
“Say, you think you can get away with anything, Locke, don’t you?” he
sneered. “Let me tell you something. If it wasn’t Sunday I’d teach you
good manners, you fresh dumb-bell!”
“Too bad it’s Sunday, then,” replied Barry, politely. “It ought to be
interesting to see you trying to teach manners, Waterman. To any one,”
he added.
“Is that so? All right, Locke, you’ll be first.” Rusty laughed hoarsely
at what he evidently considered a clever ripost and by a glance invited
his companion to share his amusement. Jack, however, ventured no more
than the faintest of smiles. Rusty’s own grin vanished and a very ugly
scowl took its place.
“I’ll settle with you yet, Locke,” he growled. “I haven’t forgotten,
and I’m not going to. You’ll get yours, I promise you!”
Barry made no reply and he and Zo went through the gate and turned
toward home.
“How did he get your violin?” asked Barry.
“He asked me to let him see it, and when I opened the case he took it
out. I asked him not to. Then he wanted the bow. He said he wanted to
play a jig. I was afraid he might break it, and wouldn’t give it to
him.”
“Does he bother you often, Zo?”
“No-o, not very. Two or three times he has stopped me and――and sort of
teased me.”
“How does he tease you?”
“Oh, makes fun of me and makes me shake hands with him and hurts me a
little. He presses his thumb in here.” Zo indicated the space between
thumb and first finger. “I don’t mind much. Once, just after they
caught me that time,――Pup Night, you remember,――he said he and some
of the others were going to lay for me some night and give me that
ducking. I was sort of scared for a while and used to wait for Mill
or some one to go home with me, but I guess he was only talking. He
doesn’t bother me much.”
“He’s a silly ass,” said Barry, impatiently. “Some one ought to teach
_him_ manners. I don’t suppose I could, but I’d be willing to try. You
ought to have told Peaches or me about him before, Zo.”
“I didn’t want to make――I didn’t want to have you think me such a baby.
I guess I am a baby, though. I don’t know much about fighting, Barry.”
“Well, you ought to know how to protect yourself, Zo, and when I can
find the time――after football’s over――I’ll show you a little about
boxing, if you like.”
“Thanks,” murmured the other, in no very enthusiastic tones. “I don’t
think I could ever be much of a fighter, though.”
Barry laughed.
“I don’t believe you could! But you’ll find that if you know how to use
your fists you’ll not have to use them. Not very often, anyway. Fellows
like Rusty don’t get funny with fellows who look as if they knew a
thing or two. What were you doing with your violin to-day, Zo?”
“I was playing for Mr. Sartier before dinner. He wants to start an
orchestra here. He’s an awfully good pianist, Barry. We tried three or
four things together and got along pretty well, I think.”
“A school orchestra, eh? Sounds like a good scheme, Zo. I hope Frenchy
makes it go. I’d a heap rather hear him play the piano than preside in
French class. By the way, if it does come off I hope you’ll speak a
good word for me, Zo. I’d like to join it.”
Zo smiled doubtfully.
“You don’t play any instrument, do you?” he asked.
“Don’t I! You ought to hear me play the baton!”
Barry’s amusement over his own joke didn’t survive the journey from the
front gate to the house, however, and Betty, in sole occupancy of the
sunlit porch, remarked:
“You must have said something awfully funny to make Zo Fessenden laugh
like that, but you don’t look now as if you’d ever joked in your life!”
Barry sat down on the edge of the porch and smiled weakly.
“I’m always saddest when I smile, Betty,” he answered. “Where’s every
one?”
Betty waved a slim hand vaguely.
“Gone,” she said. “Let’s see. Father’s taking his walk, Mother’s gone
to see Mrs. Travers, Peaches hasn’t shown up since dinner, and I’m
here. Oh, yes――and Toby’s upstairs where he always is.”
“Pinning inoffensive beetles to cigar-boxes, I suppose. He’s been
having a rough time at school lately. Some one let out about the care
and feeding of frogs and Toby’s getting frightfully ragged. Toby says
Mill did it, but Mill declares he didn’t.”
“Of course you don’t know who it was,” observed Betty, demurely.
“Well, if you think it was me, you’re wrong,” said Barry, grinning.
“When I tried to tell a fellow he said he’d already heard it!”
Betty laughed and Barry’s grin turned to a frown.
“I wish Peaches would come,” he said plaintively. “I want to talk to
him about something.”
“You and he are pretty good friends, aren’t you?” said Betty. “I’m
awfully glad. It’s funny, too, for he’s been here with us two years and
he was never chummy with any of the boys before.”
“He says I amuse him.” Barry turned from watching the road in the
direction of school and asked: “Why is it Peaches doesn’t have more
friends, Betty? I mean fellows he goes about with. He knows every one,
it seems, but he doesn’t seem to want to have much to do with any one.”
“I don’t really know, Barry. The first year he was here he started to
go around with two or three fellows in his class. You know them, I
guess: Ellingham and Prentiss.”
“I know Ellingham,” said Barry. “They call him ‘Goof.’ That the one?”
“Yes. And Prentiss is a tall boy with a lot of color in his cheeks, who
dresses a lot. Then there was another――he wasn’t in Peaches’ class,
when I think of it――named Shafter. They all belonged to the rich crowd
in school, you know. Well, Peaches went with them for maybe a month or
two and then all of a sudden he stopped. I never knew what happened,
only Davy said something to Peaches about it one day and Peaches
said, ‘Oh, they got my goat!’ Since then he’s sort of kept to himself,
although all the boys seem to like him a lot, and he always gets more
applause when he goes to bat in the ball games than any one else on the
team!”
“Funny for him to get in with the wealthy crowd,” mused Barry. “Maybe