BACK TO THE FOLD
Bert was as surprised as he was delighted when Hugh informed him after
practice that Mr. Crowley had virtually promised him a place with the
second team. At first Bert insisted that his chum had misunderstood,
but, on having the conversation repeated, acknowledged that Hugh had
good grounds for encouragement. “I never heard of its being done
before, Hugh,” he said. “Tom Hanrihan must have a drag with Dinny, and
no mistake. You’ll have to work like the dickens to stay on. Think you
can do it?”
“I fancy I can do as well as some of those chaps there now,” answered
Hugh placidly.
“Bellows isn’t bad at end, I guess,” mused Bert, “but Forbes oughtn’t
to be hard to beat. You’re trying for end, aren’t you?”
“I wanted to play end, but I wasn’t there long enough to get placed
more than once or twice. End’s about all I can play, I fancy. I’m not
heavy enough for tackle or guard or back.”
“You’d make a good quarter if you had more experience,” said Bert
thoughtfully. “And they might use you for a running back. You’re quick,
I guess.”
“I’d be laid flat if I ran into Ted Trafford or Pop, though,” laughed
Hugh. “Pop could take me up and throw me clear over the goal. I fancy
end is my place, if I can get it.”
Nick was equally pleased and, like Bert, seemed to think that fortune
had been unusually kind to Hugh. “But you’re a lucky guy, anyway, Duke.
Some fellows are born to good fortune, I guess, and you’re one of them.
That was nice of Smiles, though, wasn’t it? Don’t you like him, Hugh?”
“Very much. We had a topping time. And, I say, you chaps, he knows an
awful lot of football!”
Bert and Nick laughed. “Why shouldn’t he?” asked Bert. “He played it
for three or four years and came near making the all-America team,
didn’t he, Nick?”
“So they say. Anyway, I’ll bet he was a dandy guard. When he first came
here he used to help with the coaching. That was before Dinny came.”
“And after. Dinny didn’t coach the elevens until the first fall we were
here.”
“I didn’t know that. I thought Dinny was always a football coach.”
“No, they got him because Pete had too much to do. Dinny was supposed
to give all his time to the track team and nine. Then they got Davy to
look after the track fellows and so Dinny took hold of the second team.”
“I should think that Mr. Smiley would be a ripping football coach,”
said Hugh.
“Yes,” agreed Nick. “He took hold of the upper middlers two years ago
and they ran away with everything and even held the first team to no
score once. Remember, Bert?”
“That was three years ago, though, because I was a junior then. That
was some team, Nick, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Remember how it beat Grammar School thirty-four to nothing, or
something like that? And Grammar School made a big howl about it and
wrote to the paper that we’d played a lot of first team fellows against
them.”
“Has Mr. Smiley anything to do with athletics here?” asked Hugh. “He
said something that――――”
“Chairman of the Faculty Athletic Committee,” replied Nick. “He and
Gring and Pete Sargent are the committee. You must have made a hit with
him or he wouldn’t have gone to Dinny with you. I like Smiles. Wish I
was still taking Latin.”
“I dare say it wouldn’t do you any harm,” said Bert unkindly.
“Nor much good. All a fellow needs is enough to pass his college exams.
After that he forgets it as fast as he knows how. Well, meanwhile
there’s a bunch of German waiting for me downstairs. You’re a lucky dog
not to have the stuff, Bert.”
“I get it next year. What are you reading?”
“‘Das Edel Blüt.’ It’s tough, if you ask me. When there was a perfectly
good, gentlemanly language like Latin, why did someone have to go and
invent German? Well, I’m off.”
Hugh was summoned to the office Thursday and listened to a brief homily
by Mr. Rumford. When he emerged he was once more in good standing.
Since, however, it was by that time almost five o’clock, it was
too late to report to Mr. Crowley that day, and Hugh dropped in on
Wallace Cathcart and spent the rest of the time until supper arguing
whether a college education was essential to success in life. While
Hugh could beat his host at tennis, and had done it twice since their
first meeting, he was no match for him in the present controversy,
and Cathcart won the debate easily, proving conclusively that a high
school education was all that was required by the average person. And
this in the face of the fact that Cathcart had his plans all laid for a
full college course and two years of graduate study!
Hugh reported to Mr. Crowley the next afternoon dressed for play. The
second team coach viewed him with an unflattering lack of enthusiasm.
“Are you square with the office?” he asked. Hugh assured him that he
was. Mr. Crowley glanced doubtfully about the field and then grunted.
“All right. Get in there and catch some of those punts.” That was all.
Evidently, Hugh reflected, his advent was not a matter of as much
importance to Mr. Crowley as it was to him.
His appearance with the squad aroused not a little surprise among his
team-mates. In one or two cases, he thought, it aroused resentment
as well. He knew few of the fellows save by sight. Neil Ayer, the
first-choice quarter-back, was a speaking acquaintance, and so, to a
lesser extent, was Hauser, who played left half. But the rest were
practically strangers to him. He was relieved to find that his enforced
idleness had not cost him what skill he had acquired, and he couldn’t
see but that he caught, threw and handled the pigskin generally as
well as half the fellows in the squad. Mr. Crowley made him known to
Captain Myatt later, and Myatt, who was a big, likable chap, won Hugh’s
instant affection by being very nice to him. One would have thought
from Myatt’s words that Hugh was doing him the biggest sort of a favor
by joining the squad. Hugh didn’t get into signal work, for he didn’t
know the code, but he trudged along behind and listened and watched
and picked up a good deal of useful knowledge that afternoon. Later,
when the second took the field to play two ten-minute periods with
the first, Hugh and three others were sent off out of the way with a
football and put in the time punting and catching. At supper time,
armed with his napkin-ring and a bottle of marmalade, his private
property, he joined the training table in Manning.
There were just twenty youths at the long table which was set up in
a corner of the big dining hall in the junior dormitory, and Mr.
Crowley presided at the head. Hugh felt a bit strange at supper that
first evening and was conscious of the puzzled regard of some of his
companions. Doubtless they wondered at his sudden advent with the team.
There was no ill-feeling in evidence, however, and Hugh got through the
meal without much conversation and felt somewhat relieved when chairs
were pushed back. At training table, in order that no one should hurry
through his meal at the risk of indigestion, it was a rule that all
must remain until the coach gave the word. Consequently, if one did
bolt his food it profited him nothing since he was obliged to sit there
and watch his neighbors finish, and fellows who had the “quick lunch”
habit soon got over it. Mr. Crowley made occasional exceptions to the
rule, but one had to put forward a pretty convincing plea.
Tonight the team left the table together and Hugh passed down the
corridor in the rear of the group. When he reached the entrance several
of the second team members had paused just outside the doorway and
Hugh’s passage was blocked. After pausing an instant for the others to
go on down the steps or move aside, he said: “I beg your pardon,” and
edged through. A short, broad-bodied youth glanced around and instantly
pulled a companion out of the way.
“Gangway, Charley!” he exclaimed. “Let the British Aristocracy pass. My
word, we fawncy ourself a bit, eh, what?”
Hugh recognized the speaker as Brewster Longley, the team’s center. He
was broad of shoulder and hip, short-necked and short-limbed, with a
round face surmounted by very black hair which, close-cropped, looked
like the bristles of a blacking brush. He was called “Brew” Longley and
was a very clever center. Hugh’s brief glance expressed surprise as he
passed down the steps. He had never spoken to Longley and the latter’s
unexpected “ragging” disconcerted him. As he went off along the path
he heard an amused laugh from the occupants of the steps and resented
it. He had half a mind to turn back. But the next instant his flash of
anger left him and he mentally shrugged his shoulders and dismissed the
incident.
Bert was not at home when Hugh reached the study, but he came in soon
after looking cross and worried. Hugh’s efforts at conversation were
not successful, for Bert answered in monosyllables and showed an
evident disinclination to talk. Animated by good resolutions regarding
study, for he meant to keep his present class standing if it was
possible and so follow the earnest advice of Mr. Rumford, Hugh got his
books together and seated himself at his table. But it was hard to get
his mind on lessons when Bert was wandering aimlessly from bedroom
to study and from study back to bedroom. Finally Hugh ventured a
good-natured protest and to his bewilderment Bert turned on him angrily.
“Oh, dry up!” he snarled. “If you don’t like my moving around you take
your books in your room. I’ve got as much right here as you have.”
“I didn’t say you hadn’t,” replied Hugh, after the first moment of
astonishment. “What are you so waxy about? I only asked you not to――――”
“Well, I’ll walk around here just as much as I please,” growled the
other. “You make me weary, anyhow, you and your airs! I didn’t ask to
have a blooming Britisher wished on me, if you care to know it!”
“And I didn’t ask to be put in with a bear,” replied Hugh mildly.
“What’s wrong with you, anyhow, old chap? Anything I’ve done?”
“There isn’t anything wrong,” responded Bert crossly, “except that a
fellow likes a certain amount of freedom in his own rooms. You seem to
think you own this place!”
“Piffle! Go ahead and walk if it does you any good.” Hugh smiled as he
turned back to his book. Probably Bert was looking for grievances, for
that smile instead of bringing peace produced a fresh outburst.
“You bet I’ll walk! And let me tell you another thing, Ordway. I had
this room picked out long before you ever thought of coming here, and
if another chap hadn’t quit school you wouldn’t be here. Anyone would
think from the airs you put on that this dormitory was built especially
for you.”
“Then let me tell you something, Bert,” said Hugh, losing patience at
last. “My mother wanted me to take this room by myself and she engaged
it last spring. Later the secretary wrote that they had had another
application for it and would I mind sharing the suite. And I said I
wouldn’t, although the mater was dead against it. So if you think I’m
here through any kindness of yours you’re all wrong.”
Bert stared in surprise. “I don’t believe it,” he said at last. “They
wouldn’t rent this suite to one fellow. They never do.”
“They did, however. If you don’t believe me I can show you the paper.
It’s in my dispatch-box in there. Mind you, I’m not fussing about it,
but I’m hanged if you can tell me I got in here because you said so!”
“Oh, I suppose you’re such a swell they let down the rules for you,”
sneered Bert. “I dare say they thought you were the Prince of Wales,
with your silly valet and your coat-of-arms and all the rest of the
piffle! You make me mighty tired, if you want to know.”
“Sorry,” said Hugh shortly. “But I don’t see what’s going to be done
about it. I’m plaguey sure I’m not going to get out of here to oblige
you, old chap.”
“All right, but as long as you stay you can be mighty sure that I’m
going to do as I please here, you pig-headed Britisher!”
“Right-o! And now let’s stop chinning, if you don’t mind.”
Bert grumbled a bit and at last, with a good deal of noisy slamming of
books, settled down to study. They didn’t speak again that evening.
Later Bert took himself off to visit somewhere in the building and
Hugh went to bed with a book. He didn’t read a great deal, though,
for Bert’s remarks had stung. When you are making a hard try to be as
American and democratic as you possibly can, it is discouraging to be
accused of putting on side. In Hugh’s case it hurt. Looking back, he
could see now that he had made a bad beginning by appearing on the
scene with Bowles in attendance, but he had supposed that Bert and
the others had forgotten that incident. As for the coat-of-arms――what
Bert really meant was crest――that seemed a small matter. It was on his
brushes and silver toilet things, and he had some writing paper that
bore it. But he never used the paper and he certainly never paraded
the toilet articles. After a while he got out of bed, pulled his bag
from the closet and ruthlessly dumped brushes and comb and shoehorn
and buttonhook and three or four other articles into it and shoved the
bag back in the closet. The next morning he combed his hair with his
fingers, not very successfully, and after English he hurried off to the
village and outfitted anew at the drug store, becoming the owner of two
military brushes with imitation mahogany backs, a black rubber comb, a
five-cent buttonhook made of nickel, and a papier-mâché shoehorn. He
didn’t know what more he could do unless he gave up wearing his watch,
which had the crest above his monogram, or left off a small seal-ring
which offended in the same way.
Bert had apparently forgotten his ill-humor of the night before and was
the same as usual, except that he seemed rather quiet and depressed.
Hugh, however, found it hard to forget so readily, for he was fond of
his roommate and the latter’s remarks still rankled. But Hugh tried to
hide the fact and Bert never suspected it. That afternoon Hugh believed
that he had discovered the reason for his chum’s ill-humor, for Bert
didn’t get into the scrimmage with the second team until it was almost
over, Zanetti and Siedhof playing at left half by turns. Hugh was again
left out of the second team line-up, but he was able to follow the
scrimmaging fairly closely from where he and three other fellows were
punting and catching beyond the west goal.
Later he walked back with Pop, and Pop, after a silence that lasted
until they had crossed the green, asked: “What’s wrong with Bert, Duke?
He’s as grouchy as a bear and is playing like a silly idiot. Bonner
gave him an awful dressing-down after practice yesterday. And of course
he had to go and lose his temper and sass Bonner back and there was the
dickens to pay for a while. Bonner made him apologize. I was afraid at
first that Bert wouldn’t do it. Did he tell you about it?”
“Not a word. He was beastly ugly last evening, though. I didn’t know
what the dickens was up. We had a regular row.”
“He has a rotten temper. Gets over it quick, though. I thought at one
time Bonner was going to fire him from the squad. He will have to brace
up and get onto himself or he will find that Siedhof has his place.
Bonner isn’t the sort you can fool with much.”
“I wish he wouldn’t flare up the way he does,” said Hugh. “He says
perfectly rotten things when he’s waxy.”
Pop nodded. “He’s as mean as a little yellow pup when he gets started.
Come on over a while, Duke, and tell me how you’re getting on. What’s
Crowley going to do with you, by the way? The end positions are
settled, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but Bert thinks I might beat out that chap Forbes. I dare say
I’ll sit on the bench a good deal, though. What sort of a team has
Rotan College, Pop?”
“‘Rotten’ College? Oh, good enough to lay us out, I guess. They’ll win
about twelve to nothing. Still, it’ll be a good game. There’s a big
mucker named Lambert who plays left guard for them. Lambert and I had
quite a merry little party last year and I’m honest enough to own up
that he got the best of it. I’m looking forward with much pleasure to
meeting him again on Saturday.” Pop smiled grimly. “If he tries what he
tried last year he won’t play more than a couple of periods, I guess.”
“Pop, you must control that horrid temper of yours,” said Hugh gravely.
Pop grinned. “I will. I’m not going to start anything, Duke, but if
Lambert gets gay he will run against something hard this time. Last
year I stood a lot of jolts from him, and Bonner saw it, and after
the game――they beat us seven to three――he said, ‘If I had caught you
slugging back at that fellow I’d have pulled you out, Pop.’ ‘Sure, I
knew that,’ I told him. ‘That’s the only reason he got away with it.’
So the other day Bonner said, ‘You’ll play against Lambert again
next Saturday.’ And I said, yes, I was expecting to. And Bonner said,
looking away off into the distance, ‘He used you sort of roughly last
year, didn’t he?’ ‘He sure did,’ said I. ‘Well, we mustn’t have any
rough stuff, Pop, you know. If I catch you at it you’ll come out.’ ‘All
right,’ said I. ‘Are you likely to be looking?’ ‘Well, I’m not going to
keep my eyes on you all the time,’ he said, ‘and my sight isn’t what
it was when I was younger, but if the umpire should call my attention
to anything you’d have to come out, Pop. So if I were you I’d be a bit
careful!’ And I’m going to be.”
Hugh laughed as Pop pushed him through the doorway of Number 20. “I’m
not going to miss that game, whatever happens,” he declared. “And if
they send me out to carry you off, Pop, I’ll be very gentle with you.”
“Huh!” growled the other. “Carry _me_ off, eh? If Lambert doesn’t act
like a perfect gentleman he will be smiling in his sleep and listening
to the birdies singing about the middle of the second quarter!”