A NEW SCHOOL--CONCLUSION
The disquieting news was only too true, as the boys soon learned.
Little else was being talked of in the dormitories and classrooms when
the football squad entered. Professor Callum was seen going in and out
of the doctor's study, his crabbed and wrinkled face twisted into a
heavy scowl. Other instructors looked worried, for their salaries were
long overdue.
A long series of misfortunes to a man never very well qualified for
financial matters, with debts accumulating, few wealthy patrons, no
endowment worth mentioning, with the buildings in need of repair, and
with a new heating plant vitally needed, as winter was coming on, it is
no wonder that Dr. Doolittle had to close the school.
"He has thrown up the sponge and taken the count," said Duke Yardly,
who was addicted to sporting terms. "Poor old Doc! Well, I suppose this
knocks our football game in the head."
"Not at all!" exclaimed Frank quickly. "We'll play it. Riverview
doesn't close until to-morrow. To-morrow lasts until midnight The
game will be over by six, consequently we are a recognized school
until after the game, and when we beat Milton Academy, as we're going
to, we'll be the champions of the Interscholastic League--for about a
minute!" and he laughed mirthlessly.
"Sure we'll play!" declared Andy, and gradually the feeling of
despondency wore off in a measure, for the boys were all healthy lads
and sport appealed to them.
"But we won't give up until the last whistle!" said the elder Racer lad.
"No, indeed!" agreed his brother. "And, win or lose, we'll have some
fun to-morrow night. We'll play no end of jokes----"
"Say, you'd joke if Rome was burning, wouldn't you?" asked Frank.
"Don't know. Never had a chance to try," answered Andy, with a grin.
As it was Saturday there were no lectures, but the usual morning
devotional exercises were held in chapel. The doctor read a selection
from one of the grand old psalms, and if his voice faltered at times,
and if his eyes were dim, who shall say that in the crowd of boys who
listened to him, thoughtless as they might be at times, there were not
some who also felt a mist of tears obscure their vision.
"I presume you have all heard the news," said Dr. Doolittle, as the
final hymn was sung, "I have nothing to add to the notice I posted.
I bid you all good-by," and he turned aside, while Professor Hardin
placed his arm about the venerable figure and led the head of the
school from the platform.
There was, necessarily, a period of sadness when the boys filed out
of chapel, but it soon passed away. Their young minds were tuned to
pleasure, and as there was yet much to be done to get the gridiron and
stands in readiness for the day's game they busied themselves about it.
"The last day at old Riverview!" exclaimed Andy, looking about as he
and Frank stood on the field. "Well, we've had some good times here."
"We sure have," agreed his brother, "and we're going to have a
_hot_ one pretty soon. Those Milton fellows will be here in a
little while."
* * * * *
Some hours later there was a sound of cheering, a blowing of horns
and ringing of bells. Shouts, snatches of songs, school yells, and
mere whoops of joy. The Milton football team and their supporters were
arriving. Riverview greeted them no less enthusiastically. Out on the
gridiron swarmed the lads in their ungainly suits.
I am not going to try to describe that last game to you in detail.
Ask any old Riverview student, or, for that matter, any old Milton
graduate to tell you about it, and he can do it much better than can I.
Sufficient to say that it began with a rush and ended with a rush, and
there were rush plays every minute of it.
Never, so said old football men, had such a fierce contest been seen
except among college teams. It was as if Riverview was playing for life
and Milton for reputation.
"If we die, then we die fighting gloriously!" quoted Frank, at the
middle period when neither side had scored. "They are sure tough, but
we're tougher! We're going to win and lay it as a last tribute on old
Riverview's grave."
"Of course we'll win!" cried Andy.
Up to the ending of the third period the goal line of neither side had
been crossed, though the ball had been perilously close a number of
times. There were cheers, songs and wild yells from the grandstands,
which swayed dangerously under the stamping feet.
At last Riverview got the very chance she needed. Milton had the ball,
and her player was coming through center with it. But Frank made a
magnificent leap and broke through the interference. There was a
fierce tackle, a fumble and our hero had the pigskin. Then, like a
flash, he had tucked it under his arm and was off down the field.
"Wow! Wow! Good work. Pretty! Get a touchdown!" was yelled after him.
"And a touchdown it's going to be!" whispered Frank desperately to
himself.
How he did it he hardly knew himself, afterward. There was one man
between him and the goal, and when Frank broke away from a fierce
tackle that man lay prone upon the ground motionless. And Frank was
over the line, sitting on the ball, while the whistle blew, ending the
game. Riverview had won!
"Good! Good! That's the stuff! Well played! A plucky run! Riverview
forever! A new day for her! Wow! Who was that lad?"
So cried a well-dressed man who was leaping about in the grandstand
after Frank's sensational run. This man had been watching the game
with critical eyes. He had also been letting his gaze rove about the
grounds, and down toward the repaired boathouse that had been treated
to a coat of paint, for which our heroes paid.
"Who was he? Is he a regular student here?" demanded the man, ceasing
his frantic yelling for a moment and resting his cane, with which he
had been pounding holes in the floor of the rotten grandstand. "Who is
he?"
"Frank Racer," someone told him.
"Oh, one of the Racer boys. I've heard about them. I know their father.
But say, this was a peach of a game!--I--I--is Dr. Doolittle here?" and
the well-dressed stranger looked about. He seemed laboring under some
repressed excitement.
Someone told him of the impending closing of the school, and how Dr.
Doolittle was in retirement.
"This school going to close? I guess not!" cried the man. "Not if I
know it. Here, let me pass, please. I want to see Dr. Doolittle. Any
boys that can play football the way these lads have played to-day
aren't going to be turned out of a school. Why, I used to attend here,
years ago, but I never could play football like that. Wow! What a run!
What a run!"
The man was pushing his way through a wondering and enthusiastic crowd.
Out on the gridiron the Riverview team was capering about in delight.
They had cheered their gloomy rivals and been cheered in turn. The
field was being overflowed by a mass of people.
"You fellows are sure wonders!" cried the captain of the Miltons. "We
came for your scalps, but you got ours. How did you do it?"
"We just _had_ to," said Frank simply.
A messenger boy thrust his way through the crowd.
"Frank Racer!" he called.
"Here I am," answered our hero.
He tore open the envelope that was handed to him, and his face went red.
"Hang that Thorny!" he exclaimed. "I've got to go to see Gertrude and
her mother," he explained in a low voice to his brother. "Professor
Callum is putting on the screws again. He's got out another attachment.
I guess this business here, when he fears he'll lose his back salary,
made him do it. I'm going to see Mr. Bolton right away. You pack up the
things."
"What things?"
"Why, our clothes and stuff. We're going home. Riverview is up the
spout."
"That's so. My, isn't it tough! And just when we won the best game of
the season!" cried Andy.
But Frank did not hear him. He was hurrying over the field on his way
to the dressing-room, unheeding the calls of his comrades to stay and
join in a final celebration.
"This is the end," Frank was saying to Lawyer Bolton a little later. "I
want this business settled and Mr. Callum prevented from annoying Mrs.
Morton."
"And I was just going to send you word that it would be," said the
lawyer. "The bonds have just been sold at a handsome profit. The
court proceedings are over and the widow and her daughter are in good
circumstances. Professor Callum's money is ready for him, and the
attachment will be vacated at once. Here is the court order. I've been
attending to the case all day."
"And we've been playing football--we won," explained Frank briefly.
"Then maybe you'd like to take these papers to Mrs. Morton," suggested
the lawyer. "I will send her a check next week."
Frank lost no time in going to the house of the widow. At first she
could not believe the good news, but when he showed her the court order
vacating the attachment she wept. This time no one had been put in
possession, so it was not necessary to get rid of an unwelcome visitor.
"And so you won the game," Gertrude said to Frank a little later. "I
wanted to come, but--well, I couldn't leave mother."
"I understand," he said, as he shook hands at parting. "Now I've got to
go back to school and help Andy pack up."
"You--you aren't going?" she faltered.
"Got to. School's broken up," he said. "But I'm going to
Waterside--Andy and I--if we can persuade dad to send us. So I--I'll
see you again."
"Oh," said she, and she smiled, and seemed pleased.
When Frank got back to school he found a crowd of joyous and yelling
students out on the campus. A big fire had been built, and the crowd
was marching about it singing.
"Humph! They don't seem to be taking it very seriously," he mused. "I
thought they'd feel rather broken up about the old school closing."
There was a mist of tears in his own eyes, for, though he had not been
there long, he had formed a liking for the place, and for Dr. Doolittle.
"Hey, what's up, Andy?" he called a moment later to his brother. "Are
they celebrating the football victory? Have you got our traps packed
up?"
"No, to both questions!" fairly roared Andy. "We're not celebrating
the football victory, because we're celebrating something else, and I
haven't got our things packed up because we're not going home."
"Why not--isn't Riverview Hall closed?"
"Not much. Say, it's great news. Mr. Lairman, that millionaire who
once refused to invest in Riverview, changed his mind after he saw how
we could play football to-day. He was in the grandstand. That was he
yelling so after you made that dandy run. He saw we had a good team, he
saw how we'd fixed up the gridiron and the boathouse, and he's going to
make a new school of this. He's bought a half interest and he's paid
Dr. Doolittle about a million in cash, I guess. Wow! But it's great
news! There's going to be practically a new school at Riverview--a gym,
a football field that's going to beat the old one all to pieces, a new
diamond, lots of shells, a new boathouse, new buildings--say--pinch me
so I'll know I'm not asleep."
"Is this true?" asked Frank of several of his chums.
"Sure thing!" Jack assured him. "That millionaire was an old graduate
and he's made good. Now he's going to make a new school of this. He
just told us in a little speech. He's all right. Dr. Doolittle's
troubles are over and I guess he's glad of it. Now he can translate
Chinese, Assyrian and Chocktaw until the cows come home, and he won't
have to worry."
"Come on! Join the festive throng!" cried Andy, seizing his brother by
the hand. "This is the day we celebrate! How did you make out with Old
Thorny?"
"Oh, he's down and out. Mrs. Morton has her money and everything is
lovely."
"Good," broke in Andy, "and there's more news. Thorny is going to
leave. He and Dr. Doolittle and the millionaire had a row and Old
Thorny quit. Wow! but I'm glad. We're going to stay here now and be the
champion baseball players next spring. Come on. Let joy be unconfined.
Mrs. Stone had a bang-up supper ready for us. Wow!"
And a little later formal announcement was made of the rejuvenation of
Riverview Hall at an impromptu supper which the matron prepared for the
lads. And such a supper as it was! They talk about it yet in the new
school.
"Well, now we can settle down to study after we've made ourselves
champions," said Frank, as he got up from the table.
"Yes, I wonder what will happen next?" asked Andy.
What did, and how the Racer boys conducted themselves in another
succession of surprising happenings will be told in the next volume of
this series, to be called "Frank and Andy in a Winter Camp; or, The
Young Hunters' Strange Discovery."
And so, as the lads are making merry over the supper, and rejoicing in
the great victory, and in the prospects of a new school to take the
place of the old one--in which work none had such a prominent part as
the Racer boys--we will take leave of them and their chums.
THE END