HAL HAS AN IDEA
It seemed to Allan during the next few days that the bulky form of
Peter Burley was bent upon haunting him. On Tuesday morning, in
English, he was aware of Burley’s presence a few rows behind him;
when he looked around, it was to encounter the big fellow’s smiling
regard. There was really nothing offensive in that smile; it was merely
one of intense friendliness, quite unconventional in its intensity,
but it irritated Allan greatly. Why couldn’t Burley let him alone?
Just because he had kept him from falling and lugged him to the
dressing-tent, he seemed to have an idea that Allan was his especial
property. And then the cheek of scrawling his silly name on a fellow’s
door! And yelling like a three-ply idiot at the track!
Perhaps the fact that Burley, whoever and whatever he was, was markedly
popular rather increased Allan’s prejudice. Wherever Burley sat in
class there was invariably a good deal of subdued noise and laughter,
and when he left the hall it was always as the center of a small
circle of fellows, above which Burley towered head and shoulders.
Secretly, Allan envied Burley’s success with his fellows, but in
conversation with Smiths he dubbed Burley a mountebank. Hal was visibly
impressed with the word and used it unflaggingly the rest of the year.
Wednesday, Burley was again on the field, but this time he made no
remarks as Allan passed him on the track; merely smiled and nodded with
his offensive familiarity and then turned his attention to the football
practise. As usual, he was the center of a group, and after Allan had
passed the turn he heard their laughter and wondered if Burley had
selected him as a butt for his silly jokes. After that Allan saw him
at least once a day until on the following Wednesday night, when the
freshman election took place in Grace Hall, and Burley leaped into even
greater, and to Allan more offensive, prominence.
There were two leading candidates for the presidency, and, contrary
to the usual custom, the opposing forces had failed to arrange a
compromise and a distribution of offices. The contest was prolonged
and exciting. On the ninth ballot, Mordaunt, a St. Mathias fellow, won
amidst the howls of the opposition. The rival candidate was elected
secretary, but promptly and somewhat heatedly declined. New nominations
were called for, and Burley was proposed simultaneously from two
sides of the room. His name met with loud applause. Burley, sitting
unconcernedly near the door, grinned his appreciation of the joke. Two
other names were offered, and then the balloting began. On the first
ballot, Peter Burley, of Blackwater, Col., was elected.
Burley tried to get on to his feet to refuse the honor, but owing to
the fact that three companions held him down while the chairman rapped
wildly for order, he failed to gain recognition. The next moment the
election was made unanimous. Allan grunted his disapproval. Hal said it
didn’t much matter who was secretary; anybody could be that.
Hal accompanied Allan back to the latter’s room and stayed until late,
talking most of the time about his chances of making the varsity squad,
what he was going to do if he didn’t, and how he didn’t give a rap
anyway.
“Of course, I can make the freshman team all right, but what’s that?
They have only four outside games scheduled, and two of those don’t
amount to anything; just high schools. The only game they go away for
is the one with Dexter. And this thing of working hard for a month to
play the Robinson freshmen isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Who will win?” asked Allan, suppressing a yawn.
“That’s the trouble. It’s more’n likely that Robinson will. We’ve got
a lot of good men--fast backs and a mighty brainy little quarter--but
we haven’t got any support for our center. Cheesman’s a wonder, but he
can’t do much with guards like Murray and Kirk beside him. Why, Kirk
doesn’t weigh a hundred and seventy, and Murray’s only a hundred and
eighty-something. Poor is going to issue another call for candidates;
he’s going to ask every man of a hundred and seventy-five or over to
come out. Say!”
Hal sat up suddenly in the Morris chair and looked like a Great
Discoverer.
“Say what?” murmured Allan, drowsily.
“What’s the matter with that man Burley?”
“A good deal, I should say, if you ask me,” answered Allan.
“I mean for a guard,” said Smiths, impatiently.
“He probably never saw a football,” objected Allan. “They don’t play it
out West, do they?”
“Don’t they, though! Look at Michigan and Wisconsin and--and the rest
of them!”
“I refuse.”
“Why, Burley’s just the man! He must weigh two hundred if he weighs a
pound!”
“Looks as though he might weigh a ton. But if he doesn’t know the
game----”
“How do you know he doesn’t?”
“I don’t. But if he did know it, wouldn’t he have been out before this?”
Smiths was silenced for a moment.
“Well, even if he doesn’t know it, he can be taught, I guess. And we’ve
got a whole lot of science now; what we need is beef.”
“Burley looks more like an ass than a cow,” said Allan, disagreeably.
Smiths stared.
“Say, what’s he done to you, anyway? You seem to be beastly sore on
him.”
“I’ve told you what he’s done.”
“Oh, that! Besides, he lugged you off the track; that’s nothing to get
mad about, is it?”
“I suppose not; I’m not mad about that--or anything else. He just--just
makes me tired.”
“Well, I’ll bet he’s our man.” Smiths jumped up and seized his cap.
“I’ll run over and tell Poor.”
“What, at this time of night?”
“Pshaw! it’s only eleven-thirty. He’ll be glad to know about it.”
“He’ll probably pitch you down-stairs, and serve you right.”
“Not much he won’t. Good night.”
“Good night,” answered Allan. “I’ve got some surgeon’s plaster, if you
need it.”
Hal Smiths slammed the door and took the front porch in one leap. Then
the gate crashed. Allan listened intently.
“That’s funny!” he muttered. “He must have missed the lamp-post!”
He took up a book, found a pencil, and opened the table-drawer in
search of a pad. As he did so, his eyes fell on a folded sheet of lined
paper. He read the penciled words on it--“Peter Burley”--and, refolding
it after a moment of indecision, tucked it back in a corner of the
drawer, frowning deeply the while.
Allan didn’t see Hal the next day; neither was the objectionable Burley
visible on the field in the afternoon when Allan ran his first practise
over the mile. Kernahan didn’t hold the watch on him, the distance was
unfamiliar to him, and he lost all idea of his time after the fourth
lap, and ended pretty well tuckered out.
“All right,” said the trainer, when it was over. “You ran it a bit too
fast at the start. But you’ll get onto it after a while.”
On Friday Allan saw Hal only for an instant and had no chance to
question him as to the result of his midnight visit to the freshman
football captain. Consequently, it was not until Saturday that
he learned of Burley’s appearance on the field as a candidate for
admission into the freshman team. There was no track work that
afternoon, since the Erskine varsity played State University. Allan
went out to the field alone and watched the game from the season-ticket
holders’ stand, and cheered quite madly when the Erskine quarter-back,
availing himself for the first time of the new rules, seemed to pass
the ball to a trio of plunging backs, and after an instant of delay set
off almost alone around State’s left end with the pigskin cuddled in
his arm, and flew down the field for over seventy yards to a touch-down.
That settled the score for the first half, and the teams trotted off
with honors even. There was a good deal of dissatisfaction expressed in
Allan’s neighborhood over the playing of the home team, and much gloomy
prophecy was indulged in in regard to the outcome of the final and
most important game of the season--that with Erskine’s old-time rival,
Robinson University.
About the middle of the intermission, Allan heard his name called, and
looked down to see a small, sandy-haired fellow waving a note-book
at him. Allan waved back, and the owner of the note-book--the latter
his never-absent badge of office--climbed up the seats and was duly
pummeled and laid hold of on his way. Tommy Sweet was a Hillton
fellow, and considering that he had been a class ahead of Allan at
that school, the two had been quite friendly there until Sweet had
gone up to Erskine. So far Allan had not seen much of him, for Tommy
was “on the Purple,” as he liked to put it, and was an extremely busy
youth. Tommy’s friends declared he would find something to do if he was
strapped in bed.
The key-note of Tommy was eagerness. His wide-open blue eyes were
always staring about the world in search for something to engage his
attention, and his ridiculously small mouth was forever pursed into
something between a grin and an exclamation-point. His hair was just
the color of tow, and the freckles which covered every available
portion of his face were several shades darker, but harmonized
perfectly. He was tireless in the search for news for the Purple, and
when it came to activity would have made the proverbial ant or beaver
look like a sluggard. Tommy thought sleep a criminal waste of time, and
even begrudged the moments spent in eating.
Tommy was only perfectly happy when doing four things at once; less
than four left him dull and dissatisfied. Clarke Mason once said:
“I’ll bet some day Tommy will commit second-degree murder so they’ll
give him hard labor for life.” For the rest he was a cheerful, likable
fellow, aggressively honest and painfully conscientious.
“What did you think of that run of Cutler’s?” he asked, breathlessly,
as he sank onto the seat at Allan’s side. “Peach, wasn’t it? It’ll
show up great in the diagram I’m making; see!” He opened his note-book
and exhibited a puzzling maze of lines and dots, figures and letters.
“That’s the first half. Everything’s there--runs, kicks, plunges,
penalties, the whole show.”
“What’s it for?” asked Allan. “Anything to do with geometry?”
“Why, no; it’s-- Oh, quit your kidding! It’s to go with my report of
the game. It shows how the gains were made and who made ’em. And I’ve
introduced something new in diagrams, too. See these figures along the
edge here--4:17, 4:22, and so on?”
“Well, I see something there, I think,” answered Allan, cautiously.
“Those signify the time each play was made,” said Tommy, triumphantly.
“That’s never been done before, you know.”
“I see. But it must keep you pretty busy. Do you have to write the game
up, too?”
“Oh, yes.” Tommy showed three or four pages of awful-looking scrawls
from a fountain-pen. “That’s done in a sort of shorthand, and I write
it out full length at the office. Say, where did you tell me your
room was? I meant to put it down, but forgot it. Purdy’s? Oh, yes; I
know where that is. I want to come around some evening, if I can ever
find the time. How are you getting on? Anything I can do for you? Any
fellows you’d like to meet? No? Well, let me know if I can do anything
for you. Very glad to, you know. That was quite a race you made the
other day. Billy seems to have taken a fancy to you, doesn’t he? He’s
all right, Allan; you shine up to him and-- Hello! there’s a fellow I
want to see. Come and see me, will you? Twenty-two Sesson, you know. So
long, old chap!”
Tommy hurried pell-mell down the stand, shaking off detaining hands,
and disappeared into the throng. Allan took a long breath; he felt as
though a small hurricane had been playing with him. The teams came onto
the field again and the second half began. It proved uninteresting,
and only the superior weight of the Erskine eleven won them the game
finally by the close margin of a safety. Allan followed the throng out
of the enclosure and across toward the locker house and the gate. But
half-way there the crowd divided, and Allan presently found himself
looking on at the practise of the freshman teams. The first team had
the ball on the second’s five-yard line and was trying very hard
to put it over to an accompaniment of command and entreaty from the
coaches.
“Third down and two to go!” some one shouted. A shrill voice called a
jumble of figures and a tandem slid forward at a tangent, and for an
instant confusion reigned. Then suddenly a roar of laughter went up,
the line of watchers broke forward, and Allan found himself directly
in the path of what at first glance looked like an avalanche of canvas
and leather. Springing back, he escaped being borne along by the
group of struggling players, in the center of which, rising like a
city sky-scraper out of a huddle of shanties, stood forth, calm and
determined, the countenance of Peter Burley.
In his arms, struggling but helpless, was the first eleven’s left
half-back, and to his back and legs and, in short, to every portion
of his anatomy, hung the enemy, for all the world like bees on a nest
in swarming time. Behind them the second eleven pushed and shoved,
and relentlessly the whole mass moved down the field. And somewhere,
drowned by the laughter of the spectators and the despairing shrieks of
“Down! Down!” from the abducted half-back, sounded feebly the referee’s
whistle.
One by one the impeditive players dropped away, and Burley’s
triumphant advance toward the enemy’s goal was stopped by the referee
and two coaches. Burley set down the half-back, in whose arms the
pigskin was still clutched, but did not release his grasp until his
obligations were hurriedly but clearly explained to him. Then he patted
the half-back on the shoulder in a paternal manner and retraced his
steps to the enthusiastic applause of the convulsed throng. The second
team hugged as much of him as they could encompass and he smiled
cheerfully, but was evidently still somewhat perplexed. The ball went
to the second on her eight yards and the game continued, Burley, at
right guard, looming head and shoulders above his companions.
Allan watched the game for a few moments longer, and then continued his
journey. Somehow the calm, inscrutable manner in which the big freshman
had strode down the field in unquestioning obedience to what he had
supposed to be his duty appealed to Allan. It had been awfully funny,
and Allan smiled as he recalled it. But the incident had held for him
something more than humor, just what he hardly knew; but whatever it
was, and even though he would have found it difficult to give a name to
it, it completely changed his feeling toward Burley. By the time he had
reached Mrs. Purdy’s front gate, he was wondering whether Burley still
desired his acquaintance.