Barry Locke, half-back
“What is it?” asked Barry, from the foot of the stairway.
“I don’t know,” said Peaches, mournfully, “but I fear the worst. Toby!
Oh, Toby!” A door opened above and Toby answered the hail. “Come down
and take it away,” called Peaches.
“Take what away where?” asked Toby.
“Take this away anywhere! It’s a package for you, dear one, and it
smells to heaven!”
“Mail?” inquired Toby, eagerly. He came hurrying down. “Let’s have it,
Peaches.”
“I’ll not touch it again. Come and get it.” Toby finished the descent
indignantly and clutched his prize.
“It’s the snails!” he chortled gleefully.
“Snails!” exclaimed Barry and Peaches in chorus.
Toby nodded, studying with a positively thrilled look the inscription
on the wrapper. “A fellow I correspond with in South Carolina sent
them. They’re salt-water snails.” He turned toward the stairs again,
beaming through his spectacles, but Peaches laid a detaining hand on
his shoulder.
“Toby,” he said gravely, “I’ve bad news for you.”
“Huh?” said Toby.
“Try to take it like a man, Toby. Bear up, you know, and all that.”
“What’s eating you?” demanded Toby, very inelegantly.
“Prepare yourself, my friend.” Peaches’ voice trembled. “This will
be a great shock to you. They――” he pointed tragically to the
package――“they’re dead, Toby, quite dead!”
Toby stared blankly an instant. Then his gaze went to the package.
“Who’s dead?” he asked. “The snails, you mean? Of course they’re dead,
you chump! They can’t live out of water, can they? Huh!”
Toby gave the other a scathing glance and mounted the stairs. Peaches
fell in behind and Barry followed in turn, and as the two tramped
solemnly upward they chanted a dirge for the dead snails.
It was the middle of October now, but Indian summer dwelt in the
Connecticut hills. The days were warm and languorous, sweet-scented
with drying grasses and late blossoms; and while coolness came with
twilight, the evenings were frequently so mild that the Lyles’ porch,
which caught the last rays of the sun, was comfortable until, perhaps
about nine o’clock, a little chill breeze wandered across the clover
meadows. Then Mrs. Lyle would say:
“Betty, don’t you think it’s getting―― Father, I think perhaps we’d
better go in now.” And then, raising her voice a trifle: “Father! It’s
time to go in. It’s getting quite――” Whereupon Mr. Lyle, sound asleep
in the hammock in the darkest corner, would respond brightly with:
“Eh? Yes, yes, Mother! I was――er――just about to suggest it.”
Now that Barry had virtually ceased his evening visits to Clyde, he
was at liberty to join the gathering after supper. Always there were
Mr. and Mrs. Lyle, Betty, and Peaches; frequently Toby as well. Mr.
Benjy, having finished reading the afternoon paper, acquainted them
with the happenings in the outside world, adding personal comments.
Mrs. Lyle supplied the simple gossip of the neighborhood and narrated
the domestic episodes of the day. Something thrilling was always
occurring to Mrs. Lyle; such as the overturning of a quart of milk by
Miss Muffet, the white cat, or the failure of a batch of jelly to jell.
Betty brought the news of the high school, and the boys drew on their
day’s experiences for items of interest. Mr. Benjy, having unburdened
himself of information and opinions, stretched out in the hammock and
quietly fell asleep. Barry enjoyed those evenings at home.
The Saturday night of the Wessex game was especially warm, and Barry
and Peaches went to the village and returned with ice-cream. Mrs. Lyle
supplied cake, and Peaches summoned Mill and Zo to the feast. Toby tore
himself from his defunct snails at the first hail of “Toby! Oh, Toby!
Ice-cream!” Zo had brought his violin along and later he played for
them. And when, after several classic selections, he rendered “Sunny
Days,” Toby joined the others in singing the words of the school song.
Toby sang very earnestly, with a voice like that of one of his pet
frogs!
When the violin was laid back in its case, conversation took the place
of music. Peaches inquired about the snails, and Betty, not having
heard the sad tidings, asked if Toby was going to train them. Peaches
replied reprovingly:
“Only ignorance can excuse such a――a callous question, Betty. The
snails are――the snails―― You tell her, Barry. I haven’t the heart to,
myself.”
“Dead,” said Barry, solemnly.
“Dead!” echoed Betty. “You mean they were dead when―― Why, then, that
was what――” Betty sought for a delicate phrase.
“It was,” affirmed Peaches. “Barry and I noticed it, too――shortly after
leaving the campus.”
“Aw, get out!” Toby protested. “Why, they don’t hardly smell at all.
Gee, there’s only eight of ’em, Mrs. Lyle!”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know――” began Mrs. Lyle, doubtfully.
“I suspect you will know,” murmured Peaches, pessimistically. “Sooner
or later.”
There were footsteps on the farther sidewalk and a figure passed, a
dark form in the uncertain radiance of the nearest light. Barry saw
Mrs. Lyle lean suddenly forward and stare intently through the gloom,
saw Betty’s hand go out and rest on her mother’s, saw Mrs. Lyle settle
back in her chair. The sound of a faint sigh came to him in a pause of
the talk. It was a small enough incident, yet it left Barry vaguely
disturbed and curious. A moment later Mrs. Lyle said:
“Betty, don’t you think it’s getting just a little――”
Then Mr. Benjy was awakened and the party was over.
At the gate Walter Millington turned to call back:
“I’ll have my radio set up by Monday, Betty. I want you to come over
and hear it. And Mrs. Lyle, too, and Mr. Benjy, if they care about it.”
Betty consented eagerly, but what her mother said was drowned by Mr.
Benjy’s voice.
“Wonderful invention,” he was declaring as he got out of the hammock.
“Makes one wonder what――er――what next, eh? I was reading the other
day――”
But Mill and Zo didn’t wait to hear what he had read, and in the
withdrawal of the rest, which was accompanied by the scraping of
chairs, the balance of his remark was a total loss. But Mr. Benjy
didn’t mind. It happened so often.
Baseball practice was over for the fall and on Monday Peaches proposed
tennis in the afternoon. But they found all the courts in use, and so,
leaving their rackets behind, they sauntered over to the running-track
and watched the football squads performing on the gridiron beyond.
Peaches was rather bearish regarding Broadmoor’s chance of a victory
the coming Saturday, when she was to play Peebles School at Clear Lake.
“We haven’t got the material we had last year,” he said, sitting on
the turf and chewing a grass. “Lost a lot of good fellows in June.
Almost the whole back field and half the line. I don’t say the Major
won’t have a team by the time we face Hoskins, but he hasn’t got it
yet, nor the sign of it.”
Just then a stray football came bobbing across the running-track and
settled a few yards behind them, and Barry got up and went after it.
Some forty yards away down the field a player raised a hand in signal.
“Let’s see you kick it, Barry,” called Peaches. Barry smiled dubiously
but accepted the challenge. He poised the scuffed ball, stepped
forward, swung his right leg, and dropped the pigskin. Fortune stood
by him, for instep and leather met fairly and the ball arched away,
across the bluish ribbon of track, safely past the end of the goal, and
straight to the waiting player. Barry stared in mingled surprise and
pleasure and Peaches clapped his hands.
“If that wasn’t an accident,” he laughed as Barry returned to his seat
on the grass, “they ought to have you on the team. That was a mighty
pretty punt, son, and all of forty yards.”
“Well, but it _was_ an accident!” said Barry. “I haven’t touched a
football since last fall.”
Peaches shook his head.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid you’re trying to put something over on us,
Barry, my lad. I’m beginning to suspect――” He stopped suddenly and then
added in lower tones: “Here comes the Major! Say, I’ll bet you he saw
that and――”
The coach waited for a white-clad runner to pass and then crossed the
path.
“Hello, Jones,” he called. “I’ve hardly seen you this fall. How are
you?” The two boys arose and Peaches shook hands.
“First rate, Major, thank you. And you, sir? Have a nice summer?”
“So-so. Spent August in training-camp; that was fun. Got rid of five or
six pounds up there.” His cool gray eyes turned speculatively to Barry,
and Peaches announced:
“This is Barry Locke, Major. Major Loring, Barry.”
Barry shook hands, conscious of something questioning both in the firm
clasp of the coach’s hard, brown hand and in the level gaze. Major
Loring had a lean, deeply tanned face that was distinctly good-looking,
but Barry had the sudden conviction that if the firm mouth and the
steady gray eyes ceased to smile the Major wouldn’t look nearly so
pleasant! And Barry was also as suddenly convinced that should the
Major say, “Locke, stand on your head!” he would immediately and
unquestioningly stand on his head!
What the Major did say, however, was little like that.
“You’ve played football, I take it, Locke,” he remarked.
“Very little, sir,” answered Barry.
“What do you call very little?”
“Two years, sir, at high school. But I never made anything.”
“How old are you? Sixteen?”
“Not quite. I’ll be sixteen in December.”
“I see. You seem to be able to kick a ball.”
“That was――mostly accident, Major.”
“Possibly. Why haven’t you reported for football, Locke? Anything wrong
with you?”
“No, sir, only I――I just didn’t think I cared to try for it. I play
baseball.”
“I see.” Major Loring looked inquiringly at Peaches. “How has practice
been going?” he asked. “You’re through, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir; finished Saturday. I guess we got on pretty well. We’re weak
in some places, but we’ll probably find some new material in March.”
“We’ll hope so. I tried to get over and have a look at you, but this
business here kept me busy.” He turned again to Barry and said
crisply: “Well, Locke, now that baseball’s over you can give us a
chance at you, I guess. I’d like to see you at work with the back-field
fellows. Start to-morrow, eh?”
Barry looked to Peaches for aid, but Peaches was grinning heartlessly.
Barry gulped and nodded.
“If you think――” he began.
“Good!” said the Major. “Report to the manager at three-thirty. I can’t
promise you anything but hard work this fall, Locke, but in this game
we have to keep next year always in mind.” He nodded to Barry and to
Peaches. “Come to see me, Jones,” he called over his shoulder as he
strode away.
Barry turned a perplexed and unhappy countenance to his companion.
“But――but I don’t want to play football!” he protested.
Peaches chuckled.
“Go and tell the Major, Barry,” he advised.
Barry stared at the coach’s retreating form and shook his head
despondently.
“You know blamed well I wouldn’t dare to,” he sighed. “He――he’d
probably order me shot at sunrise!”
CHAPTER VIII
WITH THE SQUAD
There was one person even more surprised at the addition of Barry to
the football squad than Barry himself. That person was Clyde Allen.
Barry felt that Clyde wasn’t going to be pleased. He couldn’t think of
any satisfactory reason for displeasure on his friend’s part, and yet
the conviction haunted him from the moment he was drafted by the Major
to the moment he found Clyde in Number 42 the next morning and broke
the news. At first Clyde laughed, for of course Barry was only joking.
But the laugh was short-lived. It ended abruptly in a frown.
“Do you mean it?” demanded Clyde, incredulously. Barry replied that he
did. “Well, but――but, for the love of Lucius, what’s the idea?” Clyde