TOBY EMPTIES HIS LOCKER
“The cheek of him!” exclaimed Sid, seating himself. “What do you think
he asked me to do?”
“Go away?” hazarded Toby.
“Asked me to lend him another half! Said he’d pay it all back next
Wednesday, when he gets his allowance. What do you know about that?
That fellow’s got the makings of a financier!”
“Or a grafter,” laughed Toby. Sid shook his head.
“No, his method is too high-class. He will be a J. Pierpont Rockefeller
at thirty. Well, anyway, I told him what I thought of him.”
“Then you didn’t get your dollar, eh? Look here, if you’re hard-up,
Sid, I can lend you――――”
“No, thanks. I’m all right. I don’t need that dollar just now, but
he’s been owing it since three days before the end of last term, and
I thought it was time he paid it. That was all. Maybe he will on
Wednesday. If he doesn’t I’ll land on his neck! Not that I care so much
about the dollar and a half, but it’s the principle of the――――”
“Dollar, you mean, don’t you?”
“Dollar? Dollar and a half. He owed me a dollar before.”
“Do you mean that you lent him the half?” exclaimed Toby incredulously.
Sid looked surprised.
“I told you, didn’t I? That’s what I was kicking about.”
“But――but you didn’t have to lend him any more, did you?”
“Have to? N-no, I didn’t _have_ to, but what are you going to do when
a fellow comes at you like that? Oh, he will come across some day. I’m
not worrying.”
Toby laughed. “You’re easy, Sid,” he said. “I suppose next Wednesday he
will borrow another fifty cents from you! If fellows were all like you
I could be a Rockefeller myself! Here they come!”
Yardley managed to chalk up twelve more points in the last two periods
and to keep Greenburg High from scoring. Greenburg weakened badly
toward the last, although, like her opponent, she made constant
changes in her line-up. During the final period there were moments
when the stream of incoming substitutes from the Yardley bench was
almost unbroken. Mr. Lyle used three full elevens that afternoon, and
then threw in a couple more players just for good measure. There were
occasional flashes of brilliancy on the part of the Blue, but for
the most part the contest was uninteresting and the playing ragged.
Greenburg certainly deserved to lose, but it is doubtful if Yardley
deserved to win. However, no one expected much from the team in that
game, and no one was very critical.
That evening, alone for awhile in Number 12, Arnold had gone to a
lecture in Assembly Hall,――Toby forced himself to face a decision
regarding football. Earlier in the week he had promised himself to
quit to-day, but now he discovered that he didn’t want to quit. This
quarter-back business was mighty interesting, he acknowledged. Not that
he supposed for a minute that he would make good on the job: he would
never get so that he could rival Frick; never, perhaps, equal Rawson;
but a fellow needed some sort of exercise and football provided it. It
was really his duty to keep himself in training for hockey.
On the other hand, Latin was proving quite as difficult as he had
predicted, and one or two other courses promised to claim lots of his
time. If he really meant to win a scholarship next term he couldn’t
afford too many distractions. It was easy enough to say that football
work need not interfere with studies, but football work had a way of
doing that very thing. It wasn’t so much the time spent in actual
practice or play that counted as it was the time a fellow gave to
thinking about football. The sport had a way of seizing a fellow’s
interest to the exclusion of all else. And toward the end of the
season, as the Big Game loomed near, it was just about as easy for a
football player to give serious attention to his studies as it was for
a boy with a new red sled to display enthusiasm for the woodpile! Toby
had learned this solely from observation, but he knew it was so.
Toby’s father was a boat-builder, and while the past season had seen
a remarkable revival of the business, yet there were four of them in
the family, and while business had increased so had living costs. It
behooved Toby to get through the year as economically as possible,
and a scholarship award of perhaps eighty dollars would make a big
difference. He must do his level best to secure that. That decided,
had he the right to give the necessary time to football? Especially
as, after the Christmas recess, hockey would claim him. If it came to
choosing between the two, he would choose hockey. Hockey was Toby’s
game. He had proved himself in that. In football he might never become
more than a second-rate player, or even a third. If he resolutely gave
up football this minute and worked hard at his studies until Christmas,
he wouldn’t have to worry about the time he gave to hockey. Hockey
didn’t make the demands that football did, anyway. Well, then――――
Toby frowned and thought, and made up his mind and unmade it several
times, during the succeeding hour. Then Arnold came bustling in and
what his final decision was Toby never knew. But when he awoke Sunday
morning he discovered that his mind had attended to the matter by
itself while he slept, and in the afternoon, returning from a walk with
Arnold and Frank along the river, he excused himself and ran into the
gymnasium and down to the locker-room. When he overtook his companions
he carried an armful of football togs.
“What――what――――” exclaimed Arnold.
“I’ve decided not to play football, after all,” explained Toby calmly,
“so I thought I might as well clear out my locker to-day. There aren’t
enough of them to go around, you know.”
“Oh, you make me tired!” wailed Arnold. “I thought that was all
settled.”
“It is, now,” responded Toby cheerfully.
“But why?” demanded Arnold impatiently.
Toby explained, but Arnold refused to be satisfied. Somewhat to Toby’s
relief, Frank interrupted soothingly. “Let him alone, Arn. I guess
he’s right about it. It isn’t as if――well, what I mean is, he’s not
absolutely necessary, you know. It isn’t as if he was on the First
Team. The Second’s got plenty of material, and Toby’s not fooling
himself into thinking he’s a wonderful player. They’ll worry along
without him. No use spoiling a good hockey man to make a――a――――”
“Punk football man,” supplied Toby pleasantly. “You aren’t flattering,
Frank, but I guess you’re right.”
“No, he isn’t, he’s dead wrong,” said Arnold vehemently. “You could be
a rattling good football player, Toby, a corking one! I know it! And
now you’re queering everything. You make me sick. If you don’t dump
those things back in that locker the first thing to-morrow morning
I’ll――I’ll never forgive you, Toby!”
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Toby. “You’re quite wrong about me as a
football player, Arn. I’m pretty sure of that. Anyway, as Frank says,
they don’t need me, and I do need that scholarship.”
“I hope you choke on it,” growled Arnold disgustedly, and relapsed into
aggrieved silence.
But in spite of the certainty that he had decided wisely and rightly,
Toby felt a trifle dissatisfied the next afternoon, and somewhat at
a loose end. He determined to devote the first hour and a half after
his final recitation to hard study, telling himself that he would
have the room to himself and that Whitson would be delightfully quiet
and conducive to work. Afterwards he would walk over and watch First
Team practice for awhile. But, although he found the quietude and
solitude he expected, it wasn’t so easy to put his mind on his books.
The sunlit world outside called loudly, he couldn’t get comfortable
in the chair and, in spite of good intentions, his mind insisted on
wandering toward the gridiron. But he stuck it out to the prescribed
moment and then fairly ran downstairs and into the late afternoon
sunshine, uncomfortably conscious that he had spent an hour and a half
to no purpose. Still, to-morrow he would do better, he promised. By
the time he had seated himself in the grandstand, watching the First
Team in a spirited practice game, he had recovered his spirits. On
the further gridiron the Second was hard at it, but Toby decided to
stay away from that quarter to-day. Grover Beech might say unpleasant
things about “quitters,” and while Toby’s conscience was quite clear,
he realized that the Second Team captain would have his own point of
view. But although he managed to evade Beech for the time, a meeting
was inevitable, and it occurred after supper that evening. They both
left their tables at the same moment and came together at the door.
Beech looked a trifle huffy.
“What’s the stupendous idea, Tucker?” he demanded. “You know we
practice on Mondays just like any other day.”
“Why, I――Didn’t Gyp tell you?”
“Gyp? Yes, he said something about your not reporting to-day, but that
didn’t mean anything to me. What’s the scheme, old man?”
Toby explained, not very eloquently because Beech’s expression became
momentarily more and more disapproving. Once or twice the captain
uttered a dry “Huh!” or gestured impatience, but he heard Toby through.
Then, however, he broke out with force and emphasis. Toby, backed up
against the long hatrack, was aware of the curious looks bent on him by
those who passed, and even read sympathy in some glances. Doubtless
Beech’s attitude looked rather threatening!
“You poor fish!” said the captain pityingly. “Hasn’t any one ever
told you about duty? What do you think you are, anyway? A――a real,
sure-enough Person? You’re not, Tucker my lad, you’re just a simple
little cog in the Wheel of Progress. You’re not at all important as an
individual. You’re merely an entity. Now――――”
“Hold on! I’m not sure I ought to let you call me that!”
“Shut up! I’ll call you worse in a minute, maybe a microbe or a
protoplasm. Look here, Tucker, joking aside, you can’t do this, you
know. Every fellow has a duty to the School――――”
“I know, and every fellow has a duty to himself, Beech. I need that
scholarship――――”
“Get it! I’m not objecting, my son! But don’t throw the team down to
do it. Shucks, you can play football for a month or six weeks longer
without losing the scholarship! Come on, Tucker, don’t be a worm!”
“But――but what difference does it make?” pleaded Toby. “I’m no football
wonder. You’ve got half a dozen fellows to fill in for me. It isn’t
like I was any account, Beech!”
“What are you doing? Fishing for compliments? Come on and quit your
kidding! Do you suppose Burtis would have put you with the quarters if
he hadn’t seen that you had the stuff in you?”
“But I haven’t! I can’t play quarter-back for a cent, Beech, honest!
Besides, there’s Frick and Rawson and Stair――――”
“Listen, Tucker, I know who we’ve got just as well as you do. Those
fellows are all right, but not one of them has any better chance of
copping the job than you have. And we want the best fellow to get it.
So you come on back to-morrow, Tucker my lad, and be properly ashamed
of yourself. And don’t let’s have any more talk about scholarships and
things. If you can’t play a little football and keep your end up in
classes you’re less of a man than I thought you were. And that’s that!”
“Well, I’ll see,” answered Toby dubiously. “It’s all well enough――――”
“You’ll see nothing,” said Beech sternly. “You’ll be on the field
to-morrow at three-fifteen dressed to play. By the way, where’d you get
hold of that chap Tubbs?”
“Why, I just happened to run across him. He was having sort of a poor
time of it and I thought if I could get him interested in something he
might pull himself together.” Toby was rather apologetic. “He didn’t
want to do it and I was afraid he wouldn’t stick it long.”
“How do you mean, wouldn’t stick it?”
“Why, he’s quit, hasn’t he? He told me Saturday he was going to.”
“He was out to-day all right. Shucks, he isn’t going to quit. He’s
stringing you. He’s liking it well enough now, and unless I miss my
guess he’s going to make a few of our bunch sit up and take notice. The
boy’s a natural-born end! Well, see you to-morrow, old man. So long!”
George Tubb a “natural-born end”! Toby forgot for the moment the
complication just introduced into his own affairs in surprise over
Beech’s appraisal of Tubb. That the latter would make good on the
gridiron Toby had never for an instant believed. He had only hoped that
the dissatisfied youth would find in football a new and sufficient
interest to reconcile him to the school and, perhaps, a means of making
friends. Well, he was certainly quite as pleased as he was surprised!
In view of what Beech had just told him, however, he wondered why
Tubb had threatened only two days ago to quit; and, still wondering,
he kept on to the third floor instead of stopping at the second and
knocked at the door of Number 31.