chum’s collar stud is all right, but when you run across something
you’re not supposed to know about you keep your mouth shut. If I told
him I was helping myself to a stud and happened to see that gold
football, what would he think? He’d think I’d been snooping, of course.
But I don’t need to ask him. It’s as plain as a pike-staff. That
football is one of those given to the members of last year’s victorious
Elm Park team. I looked up the record. They played eleven games and
won all but two. And Harold was quarterback and was a regular James
H. Dandy. And now you know why I’m a trifle peeved, Joe. Wouldn’t it
set you back some to find that you’d been teaching the fine points of
football to last season’s All-Scholastic quarterback?”
I said it would. Then I asked Jim what he was going to do about it and
he said glumly:
“I’m going to keep my mouth shut, and so are you. What he wants is
for us to find out we’ve been fooled, so he can have the laugh on us.
Nothing doing! If he wants to come out as the Great Peck he can do his
own announcing. Then I’ll tell him I knew it all along, and the laugh
will be on him, hang him!”
We chinned some more and then I left him. In a way, thought I, it was
sort of mean of Peck to put it over on Jim like that, but at the same
time it was funny, and I had to chuckle a bit now and then for the rest
of the evening. It was a shame not to tell the other fellows, too, but
Jim had made me promise to keep quiet and so I couldn’t. But I got some
fun out of it, for the next afternoon I overhauled Harold going over to
the field and I said to him:
“It’s funny, but you remind me an awful lot of that chap who played
quarter for Elm Park last year. You look a lot like him around the
eyes. And the lower part of his face, too. His name was the same as
yours, you know.”
“Really?” he asked, most polite. “Elm Park is out near Chicago, isn’t
it?”
“Yes, but the team came East last Fall for a post-season game. You
said you weren’t related to him, didn’t you?”
“I don’t think I said just that,” replied the fox. “I’d hardly dare to.
As a matter of fact, our family has relations in the West, although
I’ve never heard that any of them lived in Chicago.”
I didn’t want to give the snap away, so I shut up then, but I couldn’t
help admiring the way he carried it off. Never batted an eyelash! Some
boy, Harold!
* * * * *
They made him first choice quarter then and he was never headed all the
rest of the season, although Kingsley and Ramsey tried their hardest
to overhaul him, and he kept getting better and better right up to
the Robinson game, running the team for all that was in it and never
letting a game go by without pulling off a few fancy stunts on his own.
I could see that there was a coolness between him and Jim Phelan, but
it seemed to me that Peck was still unsuspecting that his secret was
discovered. So I guess he often wondered why Jim had stopped giving him
pointers and being chummy. Of course they were still friendly and all
that, but Jim couldn’t forget that Harold had put one over on him. And
so things stood when we faced the Robinson freshmen in the final game.
As the fellow said about the war, we had a good day for it: cold and
snappy, with almost no wind. Robinson brought over a big bunch of
rooters and a good many of our own old boys came up for the game. And
there was a sprinkling of khaki, too, for some of the grads were in
service; and even the Navy was represented by a Reserve lieutenant. He
was a corking looking chap, and when I ran across him just after lunch
he reminded me so much of Harold Peck that for a minute I thought it
was Harold got up that way for a joke. But he was bigger than Harold,
and a couple of years older, I guess, and when I’d had a second look at
him the resemblance wasn’t so strong. Still, it was there, and when he
stopped and asked me which was McLean Hall his voice sort of sounded
like Harold’s. Anyway, he was a corking, clever-looking lad, and I got
to wondering how one of those blue uniforms would look on yours truly.
I’m not going to bore you with the game in detail. It was some game,
but you’ve watched many better ones. Robinson got the jump on us at
the start and scored a goal from our twenty-eight yards. I guess we
had stage fright or something, for we sure played like a lot of kids
in that first period. Even Pete Rankin got temperamental and fell over
his own feet time and again, and young Peck tried hard to show how not
to play quarterback. But Robinson’s score was just what we needed, for
in the second period we pulled ourselves together and inched along for
the goal line and finally pushed Curtis over for a touchdown. We were
pretty well started on the way to a second when time was called for
the half. As Toots Hanscom had missed goal, the score was 6–3 when we
crawled back to the gym. We thought we’d done pretty well until Old
Rudy started at us. Then we realized that we weren’t much better than
a gang of Huns. He certainly did take the skin off! According to him
Robinson should never have scored and we should have had twenty-one
points tucked away. At that, he wasn’t so far wrong, for we had surely
pulled a lot of dub plays in that first fifteen minutes. Anyhow, when
he’d got through with us we were ready to go back and bite holes in the
Robbies!
* * * * *
The third quarter gave us another touchdown, and this time Toots booted
it over. But Robinson wasn’t dead yet, and she put a scare into us
when she sprang a new formation and began to circle our ends for six
and eight yards at a try. Pete was put out of it and Gannet, who took
his place, was pretty punk. We lost two or three other first-string
men in that third period, and so when Robinson worked down to our
fifteen-yard line we couldn’t stop her. We did smear her line attacks,
but she heaved a forward and got away with it, and kicked the goal
a minute later. That made the score 11 to 10, and the world didn’t
look so bright for us. And then, when the last quarter was about five
minutes old, Saunders, who was playing back with Peck, let a punt
go over his head and they had us with our heels to the wall. Curtis
punted on second down and the ball went crazy and slanted out at our
forty-yard line. Robinson tried her kicks again and came back slowly.
Pete Rankin put himself back in the game and that helped some. About
that time when the enemy was near our twenty-five, Peck got a kick on
the head and had to have time out. Old Rudy started Kingsley to warming
up on the side line, but Peck, although sort of groggy, insisted on
staying in, and Pete let him.
They edged along to our twenty and then struck a snag and that’s when
I stopped taking much interest in events, for I was the snag. When I
came around I was lying on a nice bank of hay, with every bone in my
head aching, and Prentiss was playing my position. So what happened
subsequently was seen by little Joe from afar. Robinson put another
field goal over and added three points to her score and we saw the game
going glimmering. There was still five minutes left, however, and an
optimist next to me on the hay pile said we could do it yet. I didn’t
think we could, but I liked to hear him rave.
The five minutes dwindled to four and then to three. We had the ball
in the middle of the field and were trying every play in our bag of
tricks. But our end runs didn’t get off, our forward passes were
spoiled and we were plainly up against it. Young Peck’s voice got
shriller and shriller and Pete’s hoarser and hoarser, and the rooters
were making noises like a lot of frogs. And then the timekeeper said
one minute and it looked as though there was nothing left but the
shouting.
We still had the pigskin and had crossed the center line two plays
back, and Pete and Peck were rubbing heads while the Robbies jeered.
Then something broke loose, and after I’d got a good look at it I saw
that it was Peck.
I don’t know how he got away, for it looked as if he had sort of pulled
a miracle, but there he was, dodging and streaking with the mob at
his heels and a quarter and a half laying for him up the field. The
optimist guy almost broke his hand off pounding my sore shoulder and
I let him pound, for the pain helped me yell. Pete and Trask trailed
along behind Peck and it was Pete who dished the waiting halfback.
After that Peck had a free field and it was only a question of his
staying on his feet, for you could see that the kid was all in. He
got to wobbling badly at about the fifteen yards and I thought sure
a Robinson chap had him, but the Robbie wasn’t much better off and
they finally went across, staggering, with Peck just out of reach, and
toppled over the line together. Then bedlam broke loose.
I must have forgotten my bum ankle, for the next thing I knew I was
down at the goal line with half the college, and the Naval Reserve
lieutenant had Peck’s head on his knees and was telling Tracy, the
trainer, what to do for him. Tracy sputtered indignantly and swashed
his sponge and Toots missed another goal and the game was over. The
crowd got some of the team but I was near the gate and made my getaway.
And so did Peck, thanks to the lieutenant chap, and we were halfway to
the gym before the fellows missed him. We fought them off then right
up to the gym door and dodged inside, and Peck, who was all right now
except for being short of breath, said: “Thanks, West. I want you to
know my brother.”
“Your brother!” I gasped. The Navy chap laughed and shook hands.
“And proud of it,” he said. “The kid played good ball for a fellow who
couldn’t make the team last year, didn’t he?”
“Couldn’t make――Say, what’s the idea?” I gibbered. “Didn’t he play
quarter for Elm Park?”
“Why, no,” said the Navy guy, “that was me! Harold never played any to
speak of until this fall. He tells me that a roommate of his taught him
about all he knows. I want to meet that fellow!”
“Oh!” said I, still sort of dazed. “Well, I guess he will be mighty
glad to meet you, too. You see, he got it into his head that your
brother was the great Peck, and――――”
“But I never told him anything like that!” exclaimed Harold. “Why,
I even pretended I’d never heard of you, Herb, for fear they might
think I was――well, trading on your reputation, don’t you see! I don’t
understand how Jim could have got that idea!”
“Oh, he gets crazy notions sometimes,” said I. “At that, though, he
wasn’t so far off, because if you’re not a Great Peck you’re a mighty
good eight quarts!”
Which wasn’t so poor for a fellow with half his teeth loose! Now was
it?
TERRY COMES THROUGH
“You’re up next, Slim,” said Captain Fosdick, leaning forward to speak
to Maple Park’s third baseman. “Get out there and let ’em think you’re
alive.” Whittier hoisted himself from the bench and leisurely viewed
the row of bats. Selecting two, he ambled out toward the plate. Guy
Fosdick, or “Fos” as he was generally called, turned again to Joe
Tait, frowning. Joe, a heavily-built, broad-shouldered boy of sixteen,
chuckled.
“It’s no use, Fos,” he said. “You can’t put pep into Slim.”
Fos’s frown melted into a smile. He was a good-looking chap at all
times, but when he smiled he “had it all over Apollo and Adonis and all
the rest of those Greek guys.” I am quoting Joe. Doubtless Fos’s smile
had a good deal to do with his immense popularity at Maple Park School,
a popularity that had aided him to various honors during his four years
there.
“Sometimes I think he does it to rile me,” said Fos. “The day they
had the explosion in the chemical laboratory Slim was out in front of
Main Hall, and still going, before any of the rest of us were through
the door! _Good boy, Archie!_” Browne had slammed a grounder between
Linton’s shortstop and second baseman and filled the bags. “Two gone,”
he said regretfully. “If Slim doesn’t do more than he’s been doing――――”
His voice trailed off into silence as he gave his attention to the
Linton High School pitcher.
“Did you see Wendell get down to third?” asked Joe admiringly. “That
kid can certainly run!”
“Terry Wendell? Yes, he can,” agreed the captain thoughtfully. “Put
Terry on base and he will get to third every time. He’s a fast one, all
right. But you’ve got to stop right there, Joe.”
“How do you mean, stop?”
“Terry never comes through. He gets just so far and stops. I don’t know
why. He got to first on an error, stole second nicely, reached third on
Archie’s hit and I’ll bet you a red apple he will die there.”
“Oh, come, Fos, you’re too hard on the kid. He’s a pretty fair fielder
and his hitting isn’t so rotten, and you say yourself that he’s fast on
the bases.”
“Until he gets to third,” responded Fos. “Maybe next year Terry will
make good, Joe, but he doesn’t deliver the goods yet. I’m sorry,
because he’s a friend of yours――――”
“We room together.”
“But I’ve got to let him go. He’s had a fair trial all Spring, Joe, and
the coach would have dropped him two weeks ago if I hadn’t put in my
oar. He’s a nice kid, and he’s promising; but promises won’t win from
Lacon two weeks from Saturday. If―――― What did I tell you?”
There was a chorus of triumph from the knot of Linton adherents behind
third as their right fielder pulled down Slim Whittier’s long fly, and
Captain Fosdick jumped up.
“But that wasn’t Terry’s fault,” protested Joe. “A fellow can’t score
on a third out!”
“I didn’t say it was ever his fault,” replied Fos, pulling on his
glove. “But it’s what always happens, Joe. He doesn’t come through.
Call it hard luck if you like, but that’s the way it is. All out on the
run, fellows!”
When the Linton center fielder had swung thrice at Morton’s delivery
without connecting Joe arose from the substitute’s bench and strode
off toward the track. He had no doubts as to the outcome of the game,
for with but three innings to play it was unlikely that the visitors
would overtake the home team’s lead of six runs, and he was due for a
half-hour’s work with the shot. But he felt sorry about Terry. Terry
was a nice kid and he was fond of him, and ever since he had known him,
which meant since last September, Terry had tried and failed at half
a dozen things. Terry had just failed of making the second football
eleven, had almost but not quite finished fourth in the four-forty
yards in the Fall Handicap Meet, had been beaten out by Walt Gordon
for cover-point position on the second hockey team, had been passed
over in the Debating Society election and now, just when, as Joe very
well knew, Terry was beginning to congratulate himself on having made
the school baseball team, Fate was about to deal him another blow. It
was really mighty tough luck, Joe growled to himself; and if Fos had
been anyone but Fos he would have suspected him of prejudice. But Terry
Wendell’s troubles were forgotten when Joe had thrown off his wrap
and had the twelve-pound shot cupped in his broad palm, and weren’t
remembered again until, just before six, he pushed open the door of 12
Munsing.
Terry was pretending to study, but Joe knew very well from the
discouraged look on his face that Fos had spoken and that Terry’s
thoughts were far from the book before him. He looked up at Joe’s
entry, murmured “Hello!” in a rather forlorn voice that tried hard to
be cheerful and bent his head again.
“How’d the game come out?” asked Joe, banging the door with unnecessary
violence.
“We won; twelve to eight.”
“Linton must have got a couple more runs over after I left,” said Joe.
“How did you get along?”
“Oh, pretty punk, thanks. I got one hit, rather a scratch, and was
forced out at third. I got as far as third again and Whittier flied to
the Linton right fielder and left me there.”
“Hard luck! How about your fielding?”
“Three chances and got them.” There was silence for a moment. Joe
nursed a foot on the window-seat and waited. At last: “I’m out of it,
Joe,” said Terry with a fine affectation of indifference. “Fosdick
told me after the game that they’d decided to get along without my
valuable services.”
Joe pretended surprise. Terry cut short his expressions of sympathy,
however. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I mean I ought to have known
how it would be. I didn’t, though. I thought I’d really made good at
something finally. I wrote home only last Sunday that I’d got on the
nine. Well, I can sit back now, can’t I? There isn’t anything left to
try for!”
“Pshaw, that’s no way to talk, Terry. There’s your track work,
remember. You’re pretty sure to get your chance with the
quarter-milers.”
“I’m going to quit that. I know what’ll happen. Either they’ll drop me
the day before the Dual Meet or I’ll trail in in fifth place.”
“Quit nothing!” said Joe disgustedly. “You’re going to stick, kid, if I
have to lug you out by the feet and larrup you around the track!” Terry
smiled faintly at the idea.
“You won’t have to, Joe. I was only talking. I’ll keep on with the
Track Team as long as they’ll have me. Maybe――――” He hesitated a moment
and then went on doubtfully. “Maybe I can get Cramer to try me in
the half, Joe. I have an idea I could run the half better than the
four-forty. Anyway, I’ll stick. And I’ll try my hardest. There――there
must be _something_ I can do!”
Terry Wendell was fifteen, a nice-looking, well-built boy, rather
slender but by no means frail, with frank brown eyes, somewhat unruly
hair of the same color and a healthy complexion. He had entered Maple
Park School the preceding Fall, making the upper middle class. He was
good at studies and was seldom in difficulties with the instructors in
spite of the time he consumed in the pursuit of athletic honors. Of
course entering the third year class had handicapped him somewhat and
his circle of friends and acquaintances was far smaller than if he had
joined the school as a junior, but he hadn’t done so badly, after all,
for Joe Tait had kindly taken him in hand and become a sort of social
sponsor for him. What friends Terry had were firm ones and, had he but
known it, liked him none the less for the plucky way in which, having
been turned down in one sport, he bobbed up undismayed for another. But
Terry, not knowing that, suspected the fellows of secretly smiling at
his failures, and had become a little sensitive, a trifle inclined to
detect ridicule where none was meant. Which fact probably accounts for
the falling-out with Walt Gordon the next day.
It was Sunday, and as perfect a day as the Spring had given. May was
nearly over, the trees in the campus and on the long slope of Maple
Hill were fully clothed in fresh green and the bluest of blue skies
stretched overhead. Maple Hill, which rises back of the school, is
crowned by a great granite ledge, from which one commands a view of
many miles of smiling countryside. The Ledge is a favorite spot with
the students and its seamed and crumbling surface is marked in many
places with evidences of fires and, I regret to say, too often littered
with such unlovely objects as empty pickle bottles, cracker boxes and
the like. On this Sunday afternoon “Tolly” hailed the bottles with
joy and, having collected five of them, advanced to the farther edge
of the rock and hurled them gleefully far down into the tops of the
trees. Tolly’s real name was Warren Tolliver, and he was only fourteen,
and for the latter reason his performance with the pickle bottles was
viewed leniently by the other four boys. Tolly’s youthfulness gave him
privileges.
Ordinarily the party would have been a quartette; Joe, Terry, Hal
Merrill and Tolly; but to-day they had happened on Walt Gordon and
Walt had joined them. He was a heavily-built chap in appearance, but
when he was in track togs you saw that the heaviness was mostly solid
muscle and sinew. He was Maple Park’s crack miler and, beside, played
a rather decent game at center field on the nine. He was respected for
his athletic prowess, but beyond that was not very popular, for he
thought a bit too highly of Walt Gordon and too little of anyone else.
But none of his four companions really disliked him or had resented his
attaching himself to their party. When he cared to, Walt could be very
good company.
Stretched on the southern slope of the ledge, where sun and wind each
had its way with them, the five boys found little to say at first.
The climb had left them warm and a trifle out of breath. It was the
irrepressible Tolly who started the conversational ball rolling. “Know
something, fellows?” he demanded. Joe lazily denied any knowledge on
any subject and begged enlightenment. “Well,” continued Tolly, “when I
get through college――――”
“Ha!” grunted Hal. Tolly tossed a pebble at him and went on.
“When I get through college I’m coming back here and I’m going to build
one of those aerial railways from the roof of Main Hall to this place.
It’ll cost you fellows twenty-five cents apiece to get up here. No,
maybe I’ll make it twenty-five for the round-trip.”
“I’ll walk before I pay a quarter,” said Walt.
“You won’t be allowed to, because I’ll buy up the hill and put a barbed
wire fence around it. You’ll have to ride.”
“How are you going to run the thing, Tolly?” asked Joe. “Pull it up
yourself?”
“Electricity. There’ll be two cars. Wouldn’t it be fine?”
“You’ll let your friends ride free, won’t you?” Terry inquired.
“Yes, but I shan’t have any then. It’ll cost too much.”
“All that doesn’t cause me a flutter,” said Hal. “By the time Tolly’s
out of college I’ll be dead.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Joe chuckled. “It won’t take him two weeks to
get through college――if he once gets in. It’ll be a case of ‘Howdy do,
Mr. Tolliver. Goodby, Mr. Tolliver!’”
“Huh!” grunted Tolly. “That’s all you know about it, Joey. I can get in
any college I like, and――――”
“Yes, but suppose they found you?” said Hal.
“I’m getting letters every day from all the big ones: Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Cornell――――”
“Vassar,” suggested Joe helpfully.
“That’s what comes of being a real ball-player,” concluded Tolly.
“Everyone wants you.”
A groan of derision arose. “A real ball-player!” said Hal. “You poor
fish, you never caught a ball but once in your life, and then you
couldn’t get out of its way!” Hal rolled over a little so that he could
see Terry. “You never heard about that, did you, Terry?” he asked.
“It was last Spring. Tolly was trying for the nine and the coach sort
of let him hang around and look after the bats and keep the water
bucket filled, you know. The only trouble was that he was so small
that fellows were always falling over him, and finally Murdock, who
was captain then, decided to get rid of him. But Tolly hid behind the
bucket and Murdock couldn’t find him, and one day we played Spencer
Hall and a fellow named Williams, the regular left fielder, was
sick, and another fellow got spiked or something and there was only
Tolly left. So Murdock called him and Tolly crawled out from under a
glove――――”
“Aw, dry up,” grumbled Tolly.
“And they put him out in center, just to fill up, you know. Of course
Murdock told him that if a fly came toward him to run like the dickens
and not try to worry it. And sure enough one of the Spencer Hall
fellows lit on a good one and sent it into left. Tolly was dreaming
away out there, or picking daisies or something: I forget: and all of a
sudden he heard a yell and here was that awful ball sailing right down
at him! It was a horrible moment in Tolly’s young life. He tried hard
to run away, but the pesky ball just followed him. If he ran back the
ball went after him. If he ran to the right the ball went that way too.
It was awful! Poor old Tolly nearly fainted. Center fielder was coming
hard for it, but it was a long hit――――”
“The longest ever made on the field!” interpolated Tolly proudly.
“And he couldn’t reach it. Tolly saw that there was no use trying to
escape, so finally he stood still, resolved to sell his life dearly,
and put up his hands to ward off the ball. Well, sir, Terry, that ball
went right against Tolly’s hands and Tolly gave a cry of fear and fell
down unconscious!”
“Is that so?” demanded Tolly indignantly. “Well, the ball stuck, didn’t
it? And I wasn’t so unconscious that I couldn’t jump up and peg to
shortstop, was I? _Huh!_”
“So after that,” concluded Hal, “as a sort of reward for accidentally
saving the game, they let him sit on the bench and called him a
substitute fielder.”
Terry joined in the laughter, and then, catching Tolly’s eyes on him,
stopped suddenly. There was something of apology in Tolly’s look and
Terry understood. It was Tolly who had profited by his failure. Tolly
would play right field after this. He was made certain of it the next
moment, for Walt Gordon remarked:
“Well, you’re all right now, Tolly. They can’t keep a good man down,
eh?”
“How’s that?” asked Hal, who was not a ball player, but performed on
the track, being one of the school’s best sprinters and no mean hand at
the hurdles.
Walt shot a questioning glance at Terry. “Don’t you know, Hal? Why,
Terry has decided to quit us,” answered Walt. “What’s next, Terry? The
Tennis Team?”
Terry flared instantly, quite as much to his own surprise as to theirs,
for he was not usually quick-tempered. “You mind your own business,
Walt,” he snapped. “I’ll attend to mine.”
Walt flushed. “Is that so?” he sneered. “Well, I’m just curious, that’s
all. There’s only the Tennis Club left, you know. Unless you go in for
chess.”
“Cut it out, Walt,” said Joe. “Let him alone.”