THE COMMITTEE DECIDES
PRESIDENT JOHN had his ballots ready. “I will distribute blank slips of
paper,” he said, “and Mr. Frost will kindly gather up the votes. Those
who think that the protest should be sustained will write ‘Yes’ upon
their ballots, the others will write ‘No.’”
He descended from his throne and paraded along the line, distributing
blank ballots with a great show of solemnity. Those which he put into
the hands of the Newbury delegates could hardly be called blank, as they
had the word “Yes” written clearly upon them. The great chief was
determined to reduce the chances of error to a minimum. Presently Frost
gathered up the momentous tickets and delivered them into the hands of
the chairman.
“Four to two against us!” whispered Talbot, as Mr. Smith began to
separate the ballots. A squeeze upon his knee was all the answer Sumner
vouchsafed. An instant after, they were both intently watching the
president, across whose face, bent eagerly over the desk, swept an
expression of astonishment and indignation.
“I think there has been a misunderstanding here,” he said slowly, as he
lifted his eyes to the occupants of the Newbury bench. Newbold returned
his look with a stare of fright and curiosity, but Thorne was gazing out
of the window. “On one ballot ‘Yes’ had been first written and
afterwards changed to ‘No.’ It is possible that I did not make myself
entirely clear. I think we had better take another vote.” And he
repeated once more the conditions of the balloting.
This time all the slips given out were blank. Thorne wrote his, holding
it in front of him in the palm of his hand. Newbold peeped over his
shoulder, uttered an exclamation and snatched at the ballot, but Thorne
repulsed him with a quick uplift of the elbow and dropped the vote in
the hat. The chairman sorted the ballots in feverish haste, his cheeks
dark with gathering wrath. Then, rising to his feet, he darted a furious
glance at Thorne, who met it bravely.
“The protest is not sustained,” he announced with an effort at calmness.
“What is the vote?” asked Frost.
The chairman made unwilling answer, “Five to one.”
Pete’s hand fell with a resounding slap on Sumner’s shoulder. “Five to
one!” he whispered, exultant; “Thorne voted with us! Isn’t he a corker
to do that?”
“Five to one,” repeated Mr. Snyder. “It is too bad it couldn’t have been
unanimous. I should like to say before we separate that this whole
affair seems to me in the highest degree ill-advised and unfortunate.
Unless we respect each other sufficiently to trust in each other’s
honesty and honor, we have no right to be leagued together. To encourage
accusations like these we have heard to-day without incontrovertible
proofs to support them is in itself an act of treachery to the League. I
hope we shall never be compelled to discuss such a question again.”
The meeting was over. President John was jerking on his coat and
savagely stamping his feet into his overshoes. Sumner and Talbot, having
exchanged congratulatory grips, were pouring out fervent expressions of
gratitude to their friends from Trowbridge, who had believed them honest
men, not liars and cheats. At the moment of adjournment Thorne had taken
his hat, and without a word to friend or foe, had slipped through the
door. Newbold, following closely after, overtook him in the hall.
“That’s right! Run away and hide yourself, you traitor!” shouted the
captain, his voice trembling with rage.
Thorne swung sharply round. “I’m not hiding from _you_, anyway,” he said
coolly. “What have you got to say about it?”
“I say you’re a disgrace to the school. First you threw us by letting on
that that tackle signal was a new one, and then you voted against us,
against your own school!”
“I told the truth, and I voted for what I thought was right!”
“What you thought was right!” sneered Newbold. “You voted that way just
to get in with those Westcott fellows, that’s what you did it for. But
you won’t succeed. No one respects a traitor, least of all those who use
him!”
This was a shot which wounded, not because it was true, but because it
suggested a despicable motive for an act prompted solely by scruples of
conscience. Thorne started as if pricked by a pin.
“That’s a lie, Tom Newbold, and you know it!” he flung back hotly,
advancing a step toward his assailant. “I’m not trying to get in with
any one, not even with you. I did it because I believe in getting games
by winning ’em, not by stealing ’em.”
The captain clenched his fists and glared. “You won’t get the chance to
win any more on _my_ team, I can tell you that. No team is big enough to
hold us two, after to-day’s work!”
“All right!” returned Thorne, who had recovered his self-control. “I’ll
consider myself fired.”
On escaping from the council chamber, Talbot spent half a dollar of
precious allowance money in telephoning to various people the happy
result of the meeting. Later, he went home and devoted the hour before
dinner to composing a letter to Thorne, which should express his
admiration of Thorne’s honesty and courage. It was a difficult letter to
write, because it was necessary to praise Thorne without condemning his
schoolmates, for Thorne was not one to listen with pleasure to abuse of
his associates by an outsider. As Thorne did not answer this letter,
Talbot concluded that he must have bungled it.
In fact, Talbot’s honest eulogy was one of the influences which enabled
Thorne to face the unpleasantness of the next two days at school with
head high and colors flying. He did not answer the letter because under
the circumstances he did not wish to have any correspondence with
Westcott’s. The Newbold party did their best to set the ban upon him in
school, to brand him as a traitor and expose him to public contempt. The
means employed to accomplish this purpose, the misrepresentation, the
distorted version of the proceedings at the meeting, spread broadcast,
the gathering of an anti-Thorne party by promises and threats, all might
interest us, if it belonged in the story. It is the result alone that
concerns this narrative. The movement was ill-timed. After two days of
practice with a substitute tackle in Thorne’s position, the practical
politicians forced the hands of the extremists. On the morning of the
Trowbridge-Newbury game, Newbold, driven to the hated course by the
overwhelming demand of the school, went morosely to Thorne’s house to
ask him to forgive and forget and take his old place in the game.
It was too late; Thorne had gone out of town with his father for the
day. So Newbury fared to Trowbridge, spiritless through dissensions, and
weakened by the absence of the best defensive player in school.
Trowbridge met them with a fresh, well-fused eleven, opposed harmony and
dash to disunion and blind resistance, got the jump on their adversaries
in the line three times out of four, made first downs through the weak
tackles almost at will,—and piled up three touch-downs while Newbury
was securing one lucky goal from the field.
Alderman Skillen left the field in the middle of the second half,
disgusted with football and those who had fanned his interest in it.
When the score reached seventeen, President John followed the alderman’s
example. Newbold, having suffered the humiliation of defeat on the
field, returned to school to face cold looks and hear contemptuous
comments, and to see Thorne treated as a victim of jealousy who might
have saved the day if he had only been allowed to play.
But the worst blow was dealt in the meeting for the election of next
year’s captain, when the team not only rejected Newbold’s
candidate—Newbold himself was a senior—but actually elected Thorne by
a seventy per cent vote. And the fickle school loudly acclaimed the
choice.
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