Barry Locke, half-back
believe Hal Stearns did, so――”
“Wait a bit! When was that thing written?”
“Mr. Prince received it Tuesday morning. There wasn’t any date on it.”
“Tuesday morning? Then it must have been written on Monday at the
latest, eh? Well,” and Clyde’s voice arose triumphantly, “I didn’t get
that machine until Tuesday noon! You can ask Whitwell!”
“Well,” said Barry, after a moment’s consideration of the announcement,
“that certainly lets Hal out, doesn’t it? But――shucks! I don’t care now
who did it! Just as long as you didn’t, what’s it matter?”
“It matters a lot,” grumbled Clyde. “What sort of bozos do you suppose
Mr. Prince thinks we are, over here? I hope the Major finds out who did
that, and gives him thunder! I’d like to take a wallop at him myself.”
Presently, having pursued this thought sufficiently, he went on:
“Say, Barry, I’ve got to apologize for acting like a nut lately. I’m
sorry, and that’s no apple-sauce. I――I’ve been sort of off my trolley,
I guess. You see, I’d set my heart on making the team this year, like
I told you before. And when you fell for Major Loring’s bid I knew I
was dished. I’ve always known that you’d make a cracker-jack player if
you once got started. You’ve got something I haven’t got: a sort of――of
_spirit_, I guess. I don’t know just what it is, but you’ve got it.
And I haven’t――never’ll have it, probably. Get you started and you’ll
go through fire. Best I’ll do is wait around for the engines to come!
Well, I know now that I’ll never make a reputation playing football;
and now that I do know it I don’t care a whole lot.
“After all,” he went on, “I’ve just about decided that some of the
crowd I’ve been trailing aren’t much good. I got started sort of wrong
last year. Thought I had to train with the silk-stocking bunch, when I
wasn’t really in their class. Some of them are all right,――a few,――but
I guess most of them have been laughing at me behind my back, right
along. It isn’t only a question of money; Dad’s got enough of that;
you’ve got to know how to spend it in all sorts of crazy ways, and
act like it wasn’t anything at all and make believe you’ve always had
plenty and it’s a frightful bore. And you’ve got to wear your clothes a
certain way――and the right kind of clothes, too――and talk about folks
who get their names in the papers on Sunday, and know all about queer
things like opera and polo and――and a lot of other bunk. And play a
good hand at bridge. I can’t; I hate the fool game. And I’m tired of
trying to keep up with the gang. If they want to chuck me they may. I
hope they do! Hang it, I’m just as good as they are, even if my folks
don’t go to Miami every winter!”
Clyde ended rather breathlessly.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” responded Barry, warmly. “Of course I
know that some of the fellows you mean are mighty nice, but a lot of
them don’t really amount to much, as far as I can see. They don’t study
if they can help it; they don’t play anything, usually; they pretend
that the school isn’t good enough for them and that they’re doing it a
favor by coming to it. They――they make me sort of ill!”
“Me, too,” growled Clyde. “And I’m off ’em. They won’t know me when I
go up to college, but I can live through it, I guess.”
“Some of them,” said Barry, shrewdly, “aren’t likely to get there――or
stay there if they do!”
“Hal’s as bad as any, too,” Clyde went on glumly. “He’s got the social
bug. Talks about folks I’ve never heard of, and reads the society bunk
in the papers every Sunday until I want to bean him.” He was silent
a moment and then added almost shyly: “Say, I don’t believe he will
stick with me after the holidays, Barry; not if I give up the gang,
anyway; and I was wondering whether you’d care to come over. It’s a
pretty good diggings, and it’s a lot more fun being on the campus, you
know. What do you say?”
“Why, thanks, Clyde, but I don’t believe I’d want to change. Not this
year, anyhow. Perhaps in the fall, if you don’t find some one else.”
“Well, you better think it over,” Clyde added, a trifle gruffly. “No
hurry about deciding.”
“I’ve already decided. For one thing, I’d hate to leave the Lyles with
an empty room on their hands, Clyde. They need the money, and if I got
out I don’t believe they’d be able to let again.”
“Yes,” said the other, dryly, “and for another thing there’s Crawford
Jones.”
“Yes,” assented Barry, evenly, “there’s Jones, too. He’s a fine chap,
Clyde. I wish you and he would quit being so down on each other.”
“Oh, I’ve got nothing against him――especial,” said Clyde, with
something of an effort. “I just don’t―― He’s so plaguey fond of
himself, hang him! Thinks he’s too good for any one――except you.
Besides, he hates me like poison.”
“Oh, no, he doesn’t!” laughed Barry. “You just think he does. I’ll bet
that if you and Peaches――”
There was a call from the cabin door, and the two arose and went back
toward the lights. Half-way across the grass Clyde said:
“Well, things are sort of cleared up between you and me, Barry, aren’t
they? I wish we could manage to get together a bit oftener. Of course,
I know you don’t like Hal much, but he’s out a good deal.”
“I’ll be glad to drop around oftener, Clyde, but you’ll have to do the
same. Lyles’ isn’t quite out of the world, you know!”
“No, of course not,” muttered the other. “Sure, I’ll come and see you.”
There was an hour before the big fireplace, the fellows seated on the
benches or on the floor in front of them. No one spoke of the morrow,
nor was football an approved subject of discourse. After a while
Sinclair and Pete Zosker produced banjos and singing began. To-night
the fellows’ taste ran to the old, well-known songs and they sang a
number of them before the Major suggested, glancing at his watch:
“Let’s have ‘Sunny Fields,’ fellows, and hit the hay.”
So they got to their feet, many sleepily, and the school song was sung
through, very feelingly; and Barry, for one, felt just a little weepy
and rather noble!
Breaking up, the throng strove to get back to its former mood of noisy
jollity, but it wasn’t wholly successful and many of the fellows sought
their bunks in silence. Skirting an overturned bench, Barry passed
close to where the Major and Mr. Graham were smoking ruminatively in
the firelight, and the former, glancing up, spoke.
“Oh, Locke, just a mo!” he said. “That letter business is cleared up.
Thought you’d like to know. Meant to tell you before, but forgot it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Barry, questioningly.
“No need of mentioning names, I guess. I――er――I’ve attended to the
chap. I gather, though, from what Jones says, that your suspect wasn’t
concerned.”
“Jones? You mean――Peaches, sir?”
“Yes. He took the matter up. Very glad to have him. Well, good night.”
CHAPTER XXIV
“LOCKE BACK!”
“Hoskins’s ball!” The referee, having waded knee-deep in the pile-up
of writhing players, placed the pigskin on the visitors’ twenty-seven
yards and skipped aside. “Third down! About six to go!”
Barry watched from the bench, a gray blanket draped about him. He
had been watching for upward of twenty-five anxious minutes during
which the ancient rivals had charged up and down the field with
scant advantage to either one. Near by sat Hall, substitute tackle,
chewing his knuckles and muttering to himself. On the other side, knee
touching Barry’s, sat Clyde. Beyond the latter, at the far end of
the bench, Major Loring and the two assistant coaches looked on with
expressionless faces and conversed in low tones at intervals.
Behind Barry the stand was close, and he could almost feel the cheers
beating against him. Before the start he had searched the rows and
found the Lyles half-way up the farther section, Mr. Benjy enormously
swaddled against the chill air, Mrs. Lyle looking quite young and
pretty, Betty with her eyes sparkling, roses in her cheeks, and a
valiant streamer of purple and gray ribbons pinned to her coat. He had
exchanged greetings, too, with Peaches and Mill. He hadn’t seen Peaches
to speak to since the day before, for, returning to school at a little
before twelve, they had been taken straight to the dining-hall for an
early luncheon and from there to the gymnasium, the Major guarding as
carefully against “foreign entanglements” as a New England statesman!
Barry had slept remarkably the night before. Only once had he awakened,
and then had stayed awake only long enough to stare sleepily back at
a twinkling star shining down at him through the open casement and to
pull the covers up over his head. In the morning the big, roaring fire
had been grateful indeed, and so, too, had Joey’s hot breakfast. At
nine o’clock they had assembled outside on the limited level of sparse
turf and gone through formations for an hour. If the previous evening
had tabooed football, this bright, frosty morning had tabooed all else.
When the work was over the Major had tossed a battered old ball to
Barry with:
“Let’s see how far you can kick it, Locke.”
“But we’ll lose it, sir!” The Major had shrugged.
“See that bunch of dark-red leaves down there? The trail’s just to the
right of it. See how close you can come to it.”
So Barry had stepped forward, nearly to the edge of the plateau, and
punted, and the old ball had shot away, first up across the tops of
the nearer trees and then down and down, to crash at last through
the branches far below. Barry had never expected to see that ball
again, but when, shortly after ten, they were going “down off,” as the
mountain folks said, the Major ranged aside from the trail for a few
moments and came back with the veteran pigskin under his arm!
Time had sped fast from the moment the train rattled into the Wessex
station. Excitement and confusion had reigned. Speeding through the
village, they had raised an approving shout wherever a patriotic――and
canny――tradesman had hung the purple-and-gray. Already alien hues were
to be seen, too, for forerunners of the invading army from Fairmount
were straggling about the streets, displaying dark-blue arm-bands
adorned with a golden H. Barry had not cared much for luncheon. He told
himself that was because he had eaten so heartily barely more than
four hours before. Perhaps it was. Perhaps, too, the fact that he was
just a mite frightened and more than a mite nervous had something to do
with it.
In the gymnasium they had dressed in a leisurely manner, they and the
players who had not made the trip to the cabin, and then had gathered
in a corner of the locker-room and listened to Mr. Graham and Mr.
Mears and Captain Buckley, and, last of all, and more intently, to the
Major. The Major hadn’t said much; his remarks had occupied less than
five minutes, perhaps; but what he had said was still fresh in Barry’s
memory.
They were not to reflect on what Hoskins had done that fall, said the
Major. They were not to compare records, nor heed the “bunk” the papers
printed. What had happened was past. What concerned them was only what
was going to happen.
“You’ve got to play hard, you’ve got to _fight_!” the coach concluded.
“If you do what I know you can do, you’ll win. You’re playing on your
own field; you’ve got the whole school right behind you; you’ve got the
plays you need. And――by glory!――I think you’ve got the spirit! _Have
you?_”
Barry could still hear the sudden, high-pitched shout that had
followed, could still feel the thrill of the moment. They had trotted
out a minute later, exalted, eager for the test. And now they were
meeting it. It was hard to believe that the big moment of the season
was here, that within the next hour and a half the decision would be
reached; the decision that would say whether all the hard work and hard