JACK READY.
Bruised and battered, yet triumphant and rejoicing, the Yale players
were returning to New Haven by rail. The train was packed by the
students who had accompanied them. They were being praised and
congratulated by every one. Bart Hodge, with his head bound up, sat
quietly listening, a look of satisfaction on his face. Badger was
near, talking to some friends. He winced and showed pain when somebody
accidentally hit his right shoulder. Other men had been badly injured,
and, but for their laughter, they were a rather sorry-looking lot. But
Rattleton declared that, as long as they had won, they’d laugh if
every man of them had been killed.
The students were singing and shaking hands with each other.
“Poor old Harvard!” cried Parker, standing on a seat. “How bad she’ll
feel! She only made twelve points against Brown!”
“We’ll use her just as bad when we get against her,” declared Rick
Powell.
“If we’re not all in hospital when that time comes,” groaned an
injured player. “Those Providence fellows are devils!”
“They seemed determined to kill somebody before the game was over,”
said Pooler. “I thought they’d do it, too.”
“I believe you are the only man, Merriwell, who escaped without being
hurt,” said Fred Birch, with somethink like envy.
“Think so?” smiled Frank.
“Yes. I’ve got a wrenched knee.”
“And I have a knocked-out shoulder,” said Badger.
“And I a sprained ankle,” said another.
“And I a wrenched back,” from another.
“And Hodge has a broken head,” declared somebody, speaking for Bart.
“And every other man but Merriwell is a cripple,” asserted Walt
Forrest. “Merriwell is the luckiest dog alive. Why, he couldn’t get
hurt! Did you ever get hurt, Merriwell?”
For a reply, Frank held up a hand which he had been keeping out of
sight, pulling a handkerchief bandage off his wrist, which was seen
terribly swollen. There were exclamations of astonishment on all
sides.
“Why, you didn’t say a word about it?” cried Birch.
Frank laughed.
“What was the good of saying anything?” he asked. “The others were
saying enough. I didn’t need to add my plaint to theirs.”
“But you should have had that attended to, old man.”
“I did,” said Frank. “If you other fellows hadn’t been so plastered
with linement, you’d smelled the stuff I have on this handkerchief.
The doctor told me to keep my wrist wet with it.”
Merry took a bottle out of his pocket and poured some of its contents
on the handkerchief. Then, having restored the bottle to his pocket,
he bound the handkerchief about his wrist with remarkable ease and
skill, and without assistance.
“Well, we are in a bad way!” cried Birch. “Is there a man who did
anything worth doing on the team to-day who was not hurt?”
Up rose a round-faced, red-cheeked fellow. He saluted with a flourish.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “behold me! I am the man. I’ll permit you to
touch the hem of my garment――if your hands are clean.”
There was a shout. Men crowded forward. The one who had risen and
proclaimed himself the only uninjured player folded his arms and
struck an attitude, with his hat on the side of his head.
“Napoleon crossing the Delaware,” he cried. “No, I mean Washington
crossing the Alps. Am I not real interesting to behold? Look at me
carefully.”
“Well, they should put that in a cage!” exclaimed Harry Rattleton.
“Sir, how dare you!” squawked the student. “Are you aware whom you are
undressing?”
“Who is he?” asked several, who could not obtain a good view.
“It’s Ready――Jack Ready, the freshman who kept Brown from scoring.”
“He’s all right!”
“He did a good trick!”
“He should be tried again!”
“He will be!”
“Bet your life on that!”
Still with partly folded arms, Ready made a queer little flourishing
gesture with one hand.
“Listen,” he said; “hear the multitude murmur its admiration.
This――this is fame!”
“Well, what do you think of that?” muttered Jack Diamond, in Frank
Merriwell’s ear.
Frank was smiling.
“He’s interesting,” Merry declared.
“Interesting!” retorted Jack. “Why, he acts like a fool!”
“Thanks,” said Ready, who seemed to have wonderfully sharp ears. “It’s
my natural way, but if you have it copyrighted for your own use, sir,
I’ll try to act differently.”
The face of the Virginian flushed.
“I did not speak to you, sir!” he flashed.
“No; but you spoke of me, and I happened to hear what you said. I
don’t mind, as you’re not worth minding.”
“You’re too fresh!” said Diamond.
“You’re not the man to put salt on my tail,” was the instant retort.
“What did you ever do? You never made a touch-down in your life. You
can’t play football. I don’t believe you can play marbles. You should
be silent in the presence of your superiors.”
That was too much for Jack Diamond.
“Of all the swelled heads I ever saw, you are the biggest!” he
exclaimed. “Just because you happened to get a chance to play a few
minutes to-day, you have an idea that you are something remarkable.”
“I divided the honors with Frank Merriwell,” said Ready. “Any fellow
with a sense of fairness will acknowledge that.”
“Oh, go fall on yourself!” retorted Diamond.
“I’m no contortionist, nor yet a magician,” said Ready quickly. “I
can’t fall on myself, but I may fall on you some day.”
“Any time you like you may try it!” flared Jack, rising to his feet,
his face pale and his eyes glittering. “I’ll give you a reason now.”
But Frank Merriwell got hold of the hot-blooded Virginian and pulled
him down.
“Let up on this!” commanded Frank. “It’s a fine time to be picking up
trouble! We have won a great victory, and we should rejoice. Don’t
both of you be fools!”
“All right,” said Ready; “I’ll leave that privilege to your friend,
Mr. Merriwell. I believe he has a reputation as a fire-eater. I shall
expect a challenge from him. We will meet on the field of honor――not!”
Diamond felt like attacking Ready then and there, but Frank would not
have it.
“He’s an insolent prig!” panted the Southerner. “He has insulted you,
Merriwell, by claiming to have divided honors with you on the field
to-day.”
“I think I can stand it,” laughed Frank.
Of course the victors were given a reception at the campus. There were
no bonfires, but there was plenty of shouting, singing, and
speech-making. Merriwell made a speech that aroused great enthusiasm.
He compared Yale’s record against Brown with that of Harvard. The
score seemed to indicate that the blue was far stronger than the
crimson. The time was close at hand when that point would be settled
on the gridiron, and Merry promised that Old Eli would put up a fight
that would make every Yale man thrill with joy and pride. When this
speech was over, a great crowd gathered about Frank near the fence, to
congratulate him and shake his hand. He was forced to give them his
left hand, on account of the injury to his right wrist.
“We’re going to do just what I said, fellows,” he declared. “Harvard
is overconfident. She thinks she is absolutely sure to win, and that’s
where she’ll slip a cog this year. All we need is the right amount of
confidence and determination, and we’ll give her a splendid
trouncing.”
“Hurrah!” cried a voice. “With you on the eleven, we’ll do the trick,
Merriwell!”
“Three cheers for Merriwell!”
The cheers were given.
“Now, don’t get the idea that any one man is going to do it all,”
laughed Frank. “It will take an altogether fight, and it must be made
by every good man we can find.”
“Ready! Ready!” cried a voice from the background. “What’s the matter
with Jack Ready?”
“He’s all right!” shouted a score of freshmen.
“Who are those chumps?” growled Browning.
“A lot of freshmen,” said Halliday. “Ready is the only freshman who
has done anything worth mentioning this year, and they are making the
most of it.”
Frank Merriwell was ready enough to acknowledge ability in another
person.
“Ready seems to be all right,” he said immediately. “I don’t know much
about him; but I do know he kept Brown from scoring to-day, and――――”
“I don’t know about that!” piped Danny Griswold. “I had a fine chance
to see everything. I was on Dismal Jones’ shoulders. I think Brown
would have scored for all of Jack’s work if you had not secured the
ball on a fumble, Merriwell, and broke out of that bunch like a wild
steer on the rampage. I believe you are the one who kept Brown from
scoring.”
“Shame! shame!” cried a number of voices. “It’s an attempt to rob
Ready of the credit that is due him!”
Then there was an uproar, but Frank quieted it.
“No one wishes to rob Ready of the least credit,” he said. “It was
plain enough that Thurlow would have made a touch-down if Ready had
not overtaken him, tackled beautifully, and brought him to earth. Jack
Ready must have the credit of stopping that touch-down.”
Then the freshmen whooped like Indians.
“But hold on!” rang out the voice of Diamond. “That’s not the whole of
it. For all that Ready did, Brown would have scored had you not
secured the ball as you did. You are the one, Merriwell, who deserves
the real credit, just as Griswold says.”
Then there came mutterings low and angry from the freshmen, swelling
louder and louder.
“It’s a mean trick!”
“Diamond tried to quarrel with him.”
“Merriwell’s friends are greedy.”
“They want him to have all the glory.”
“He can’t rob Ready!”
“These freshies make me sick!” said Ned Moon. “If one of them happens
to do a little something, they raise a great howl over it.”
Other sophomores expressed themselves in a similar manner, and, before
long, there was considerable excitement. The sophs gathered swiftly,
and the freshmen saw what was coming, so they did not wait, but took
the offensive. Locking arms about each other, they made a rush to
break up the meeting, and they swept the sophomores down, after a
stout resistance. Then the freshmen, in a great body, marched about
singing and shouting. Jack Ready was found, and he was placed at their
head. Some of them caught him up and carried him around the campus. A
poetical freshman composed some doggerel, and soon it seemed that the
entire body was chanting:
“Ready, Ready, he is heady,
He’s a peach!
He’s a hummer, he’s a comer,
As a runner, he’s a stunner――
He’s a peach!
“Ready, Ready, sure and steady,
He’s a bird!
He’s a rusher, he’s a crusher,
He’s a wonder――yes, by thunder,
He’s a bird!”
Of course, the sophomores were exasperated beyond measure. For some
time the freshmen had been growing bolder and bolder, despite several
lessons administered to them by the sophomores, and they seemed to
take this occasion to show their lack of fear and their feeling of
perfect independence. Ready sat complaisantly on the shoulders of his
classmates, waving his hat on the end of a cane. It was certain that
he enjoyed his notoriety, yet he seemed to regard the whole thing from
a humorous point of view.
“Behold great Cæsar!” he cried. “I will now give you a faithful and
lifelike representation of his entry into Rome, New York. Keep your
admiring eyes glued upon me. For this purpose I would recommend
LeFarges’ liquid glue, sold everywhere at retail for ten cents a
bottle.”
Frank Merriwell and a group of his particular friends saw all this.
“Isn’t it enough to make any one tired!” exclaimed Diamond.
“I don’t know,” laughed Frank. “I believe we used to act like that
when we were freshmen.”
“I never did!” declared the Virginian.
“Then you missed a lot of fun,” asserted Merry.
The sophomores had gathered in a body on the walk, blocking the
advance of the freshmen. The two classes came together with a fearful
crush. The men clung to each other, and the crowding was something
awful. Men who were in the middle were unable to breathe, and their
eyes bulged from their heads. The upper classmen looked on in placid
contemplation of the scene. They had witnessed such things before, and
had taken part in similar rushes.
But it was the unexpected that happened. The sophomores, smarting over
their treatment of a short time before, had gathered in a body to turn
the tables on the freshmen. But the freshmen held the sidewalk,
although a few men were picked off on the outside, and the sophomores
were fairly crowded out and swept away. It was a fair-and-square
victory for the freshmen. Again and again the sophomores returned to
the attack, but they were unable to resist the freshmen that night.
“Well, that’s like old times!” chuckled Frank. “It makes me feel just
like taking a hand, and the sophs seem to need assistance.”
“They do,” grunted Browning. “They need it bad. The freshmen will own
the campus after this. That fellow Ready will be cock of the walk.”
It was some time later, while Frank and his friends still lingered,
discussing the rush, that Jack Ready and some chums came up. They were
in time to hear Rattleton tell about the matter in which the sophs had
walked all over the freshmen the second year of Merriwell’s college
life.
Ready laughed.
“It would be a good thing for the sophomores if they had somebody like
Merriwell to help ’em out now,” he observed.
“Well, it would be a bad thing for the freshmen if they had,” flung
back Rattleton.
“Oh, I don’t know!” grinned Jack. “I’d enjoy it, I assure you.
Merriwell was lucky in his soph year. There is a different freshman
class now.”
“Such conceit makes me sick!” muttered Diamond. “What he needs is to
have some of it taken out of him. You’d be just the fellow to do the
job, Frank.”
“And I’m beginning to think I’d rather like to try it,” nodded Merry.
“Then you’re just the man we’re looking for,” said Phil Porter. “We
have decided to give Ready a little hazing Monday night. Are you in?”
“Sure thing,” smiled Frank. “I think I’ll enjoy it.”