Part 8

Wigman had fulfilled his promise to call on Jonesie, but the latter had been out. And as Jonesie had never returned the visit the acquaintanceship had not flourished. Jonesie considered himself well out of his difficulty and was fearful that Wigman might again request him to use his influence with Captain Bingham. But, as it happened, the new quarterback needed no one’s assistance. He was making good on his own account, and by the time the Big Game was a fortnight away it had become a question whether Rice, the last year’s general, could retain his position. And that question was solved a week later. In the game with Lakeshore School Wigman started at quarter, and it was not until the game was safely “on ice” in the fourth period that the disgruntled Rice succeeded to the position. That, of course, was on the Saturday succeeding the final contest of the year, and the next afternoon, while Jonesie was chewing the end of his penholder and scowling at the Smith Special for inspiration in the composition of his weekly missive, there was an apologetic knock and in walked James Andrew Wigman.

Even Jonesie could not help but notice the change in the boy. He seemed to have grown taller and broader and a lot more certain of himself. Shaking hands, Jonesie was thankful that Sparrow was out of the way, for Wigman’s countenance proclaimed that he had come on weighty matters. “If,” said Jonesie to himself, “he wants me to ask any more favors of Bingham I’ll just have to refuse. This thing’s gone far enough!”

Wigman took a chair.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Jones,” he began soberly.

“Not at all,” murmured his host uneasily.

“I suppose you’ve heard that they’ve given me Rice’s place on the School Team?”

Jonesie nodded. “Glad to hear it,” he said.

“Well, of course it’s mighty hard on Rice. He’s an awfully fine fellow and he had the place cinched until I――I butted in.”

“Fortunes of war,” said Jonesie.

“Maybe, and I wouldn’t care if――if I wasn’t afraid that I――well, had sort of come by my good luck unfairly.”

“Eh?” ejaculated Jonesie.

“You know what I mean.”

“Can’t say I do, Wigman.”

“Well, you can’t deny, I suppose, that if it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have got the chance to show what I could do. Because it’s dollars to doughnuts, Jones, that Cutler meant to drop me the second week of practice. You remember?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” answered the other hurriedly. “Still――――”

“Well, that’s what’s bothering me. Sometimes I think I ought to drop out and give Rice a fair show. I don’t mean that I got my place by favoritism, exactly, but I guess there’s no use pretending that if it wasn’t for your interceding for me with Bingham, Rice would still be first-string quarter.”

“Hm,” said Jonesie judicially.

“And――and that brings me to another thing. Yesterday after the game I got to thinking about all this and I thought I’d go to Bingham and have a frank talk with him. So――――”

“Good Lord!” groaned Jonesie.

“Pardon? I thought you spoke. So I did. I told him that I was afraid it was scarcely fair to Rice and――and suggested that maybe I ought to――to sort of drop out for this season.”

“What――what did he say?” asked Jonesie faintly.

“Why, that’s the funny part of it. He said he didn’t know anything about it! At first he even pretended he didn’t know who you were!”

“Good Old Bing!” exclaimed Jonesie, slapping his leg and grinning. “If that isn’t just like the boy!”

Wigman looked puzzled. “But he said――――”

“Wait!” Jonesie held up a hand. “I’ll tell you just what he said, Wigman. First off he pretended he didn’t know what you were talking about. Didn’t he?” Wigman nodded. “Then he made believe he didn’t know who I was. When you explained he said, ‘Oh, Jonesie, you mean. Ha, ha!’ Just like that. Then he probably told you straight out that I’d had nothing to do with the thing, that I’d never mentioned your name to him and that, even if I had, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. Didn’t he? Isn’t that about what happened, Wigman?”

“Yes, pretty nearly exactly. And he said that the reason they’d put me in place of Rice was because I was playing a better all-around game and that nothing else had anything to do with it.”

“And there you are!” exclaimed Jonesie triumphantly.

“But――but why should he say he didn’t know you, Jones? He does, of course, and you have spoken to him for me, haven’t you?”

Jonesie smiled wisely. “He says not, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but――――”

“And he ought to know.” Jonesie winked meaningly. Vague comprehension illumined Wigman’s countenance.

“Oh!” he said doubtfully. “You mean he doesn’t want to acknowledge even to me――――”

“Wigman, there’s a whole lot more politics in a school like this than you dream of,” responded Jonesie gravely. “Bing has his reason. Let it go at that. Don’t inquire too――er――closely.”

“Oh! Then you think――――”

“Sure!”

“What?”

“Why, that you ought to take what you’ve got and ask no questions,” said Jonesie promptly. “Get me?”

“But if they have――have been easier with me than with other fellows――――”

“It’s because you deserved it. Wigman, Cutler and Bing and I have――er――done what was wisest and best for you and the School. Remember, Wigman, there’s the School to think of, too. The greatest good to the greatest number, you know. Got to think of that, Wigman. It may seem a bit tough on Rice, but don’t let that worry you. Just tell yourself that we have our reasons, Wigman, reasons which neither Bing nor I are ashamed of. If it was necessary we’d tell ’em to the School right out. But it isn’t. You go ahead and keep your mouth shut, Wigman, that’s all you need do.”

“And――and,” asked Wigman, visibly impressed, “you don’t think I’m taking any unfair advantage of Rice?”

“Not a bit. Take my word for it. Besides, Bing told you the same thing, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“There you are then! Don’t you trouble. If there’s any worrying to be done”――Jonesie arose and patted Wigman reassuringly on the shoulder――“if there’s any of that to be done you just leave it to me and Bing!”

THE MAGIC FOOTBALL

A FAIRY TALE OF TO-DAY

I

“I wish,” murmured Tommy Piper, “they’d let _me_ play!”

It was a chill, cloudy November afternoon, and Tommy, sprawled in the big armchair in front of the library fire, was very unhappy. Things hadn’t gone well to-day at school, where the teachers had been horribly unjust to him, nor at home, where he had been scolded for arriving late for dinner; Billy Blue, his most particular chum, was confined to the house with double mumps, and, to add to the burden of his woes, or to remind him of the principal one, half a dozen fellows, togged and sweatered, carrying a battle-scarred football and dangling their head guards, had just passed the window on their way to the field to practice for the final and all-important game of the year, that with Meadowville.

Usually Tommy went along, envious but interested, to watch the luckier boys at work, but to-day he was at outs with the world. What was most awfully wrong was that George Marquis, captain of the Hillside eleven, refused to perceive in Tommy the qualities desired in a member of that gallant band of gridiron warriors. George said that Tommy was much too light for either line or backfield, while grudgingly acknowledging that he _could_ kick and _was_ fast on his toes. Consequently, Tommy, who all summer long had looked forward almost breathlessly to securing a position at the end of the line or as a back, had been――and still was――horribly disappointed. Of course he realized that he was pretty light――he was only thirteen, you see, and by no means large for his age――but he was quite convinced that he was clever enough at punting and drop-kicking and carrying the ball to atone for his lack of weight. But Captain Marquis didn’t think so, and Tommy was out of it for another year at least.

He had been trying to read a story that was all about school life and football, but he didn’t want his fun at second-hand to-day. He wanted to make history himself! The book toppled unnoticed to the hearth rug and Tommy went off into a wonderful daydream, his round eyes fixed entrancedly on the glowing coals in the grate. He saw himself playing right halfback for Hillside in the Thanksgiving Day game with Meadowville, making sensational rushes, kicking marvelous goals from the field, cheered and applauded, a veritable football hero if ever there was one! When, after an hour of desperate battle, Hillside had conquered, and Tommy, on the shoulders of admiring comrades, was being carried from the field, he woke from his daydream with a sigh.

“I wish,” he said longingly, addressing no one in particular, since there was no one there, but gazing very intently at the gloomy corner of the room where lounge and bookcase met and formed a cavern of shadow, “I wish I could do all that! Gee, but I do wish I could!”

“Well,” said a small, gruff voice that made Tommy sit up suddenly very straight and surprised in his chair, “you were long enough about it!”

From the dark corner there emerged into the fire light the most astonishing person Tommy had ever seen or dreamed of. He was scarcely higher than the boy’s knee and he was lamentably thin; and his head was quite out of proportion to any other part of him. But the queerest thing of all was his face, which was just as round as――as, well, as a basket ball and very much the same color. From the middle of it protruded a long and very pointed nose. His eyes were small and sharp and bright and his mouth was thin and reached almost from one perfectly huge ear to the other. He was dressed in rusty black, with pointed shoes that were ridiculously like his nose, and a sugar-loaf cap, from which dangled dejectedly a long green feather. And under one pipestem of an arm, clutched with long brown fingers, was a football almost as large as he was!

Tommy stared and stared and thought he must be dreaming. But the strange visitor quickly put that notion out of his head.

“Well! Well!” he said crossly. “Can’t you speak?”

“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Tommy. “But――I――I don’t think I heard wh-what you said!”

“Yes, you did! You didn’t understand. Boys are all stupid. I said you were long enough about it.”

The visitor advanced to the hearth and took up his position on the rug, his back to the fire and his beady eyes blinking sharply at the boy.

“About――about what?” asked Tommy apologetically.

“About wishing, of course! Don’t you know fairies can’t grant a wish until it has been made three times? You wished once and then you kept me waiting. I don’t like to be kept waiting. I’m a very busy person. Nowadays, with everyone wishing for all sorts of silly things that they don’t need and oughtn’t to have, a fairy’s life isn’t worth living.”

“I’m very sorry,” murmured Tommy apologetically. “I――I didn’t know you were there.”

“‘Didn’t know! Didn’t know!’ That’s what every stupid person says. You should have known. If you didn’t expect me why did you wish three times?”

“Why, I――I don’t know,” said Tommy. “I was just――just wishing.”

“Oh, then maybe you don’t want your wish?” asked the other eagerly. “If that’s it, just say so. Don’t waste my time. I’ve an appointment in Meadowville in――in――――” He took off his funny sugar-loaf hat, rested the end of the feather on the bridge of his long nose and spun the cap around. “One――two――three――four――――” The cap stopped spinning and he replaced it on his head. “In four minutes,” he ended sternly.

“Th-that’s a funny way to tell time,” said Tommy.

“I never tell time,” replied the stranger shortly. “Time tells me. Now, then, what do you say?”

“Th-thank you,” said Tommy hurriedly, remembering his manners.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” exclaimed the other exasperatedly. “What about your wish? Do you or isn’t it?”

“Why――why, if it isn’t too much trouble,” stammered Tommy, “I’d like to have it very, very much.”

“Of course it’s trouble,” said the fairy sharply. “Don’t be any stupider than you have to be. But everything’s trouble; my life is full of trouble; that’s what comes of being a D. A.”

“If you please,” asked Tommy politely, “what does D. A. mean?”

“Director of Athletics, of course. It couldn’t mean anything else, could it? Really, you do ask more silly questions! Now then, now then, look alive!”

“Yes, sir, but――but how?” asked Tommy anxiously.

“Repeat the incan., of course.”

“The――the incan――――?”

“Tation! Don’t tell me you don’t know it!” The fairy was almost tearful and Tommy naturally felt awfully ashamed of his ignorance. But he had to acknowledge that he didn’t, and, casting his eyes toward the ceiling in protest, the fairy rattled off the following so rapidly that it was all Tommy could do to follow him:

“I wish this once, I wish this twice! Grant me the wish That I wish thrice!”

“Repeat, if you please!” said the fairy. Tommy did so, stumblingly.

The fairy grunted. “Stupid!” he muttered. “Didn’t know the incan. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? In the old days boys didn’t have to be told such things. Modern education――puh!” And the fairy fairly glared at Tommy.

“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Fairy,” he said.

“Hm, at least you have manners,” said the fairy, his ill temper vanishing. “Well, here it is.” He tapped the football he held with the claw-like fingers of his other hand.

“But――but I didn’t wish for a football,” faltered Tommy disappointedly.

“Of course you didn’t! Who said you did? You wished you might play in Thursday’s football game and be a hero and win the game for your team, didn’t you? Or, if you didn’t, how much? Or, other things being as stated, when?”

“Yes, sir, I did! And could I――could you really give me my wish?”

“Drat the boy! What am I here for? Wasting my time! Wasting my time! Fiddledunk!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said fiddledunk. I always say fiddledunk when angry. What do you say?”

“I say――I say――――” Tommy had the grace to blush.

“I know!” exclaimed the fairy triumphantly. “You say jerriwhizzum! You shouldn’t! It’s almost swearing! You’re a very bad boy, and I don’t know that you ought to have your wish!”

“But I don’t!” gasped Tommy. “I never said jerriwhizzum in my life.”

“You just said it! Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! Guilty or not guilty? Guilty! Remove the prisoner!” And the fairy grinned gleefully and maliciously at Tommy.

“But――but I meant I never said it before, sir!”

“Why don’t you say what you mean?” demanded the other evidently disappointed. “Are you or for what purpose did you not? Answer yes or no immediately. No answer. Discharged! Now then, what do you say?”

“Thank you very much,” said Tommy promptly. The fairy smiled.

“Not at all! Not at all! Glad to be of service. You have excellent manners――for a boy. Perhaps in time you’ll get over being so stupid. I did. I used to be awfully stupid. You wouldn’t believe it now, would you?”

“Oh, no, indeed,” cried Tommy. The fairy actually beamed.

“I took a correspondence course, you see.”

“A correspondence course?” murmured Tommy questioningly.

“In Non-Stupidity. Try it.”

“Thank you, I――I might some time.”

“Time!” exclaimed the fairy, twirling his hat again on the tip of the feather and counting the spins; “dear me! Dear me! I’m――seven――eight――nine――nine minutes late! Did you ever? I really must go, I really must. Here is the Magic Football――――”

“Oh, is it a magic football?” exclaimed Tommy in surprise.

“Of course it is! There you go again with your silly questions! Taking up my time! Didn’t I just tell you that I was―――― How many minutes late did I say?”

“Nine, I think.”

“‘You think’! You ought to know. Now I’ll have to do it again.” He spun the hat and it stopped at six. “I thought you were wrong,” he said in triumph. “You said it was nine! Stupid!”

Tommy thought it best not to argue with him. “What――what do I do with the football?” he asked.

“Play with it, of course. Didn’t think it was to eat, did you?”

“N-no, but――――”

“This football will do everything you want it to. If you want it to come to you, you say, ‘Come’; if you want it to go, you say――――”

“Go!” murmured Tommy.

“Not at all!” exclaimed the fairy testily. “I wish you wouldn’t jump to conclusions. If you want it to go you say ‘Og!’”

“Og?” faltered Tommy.

“Of course. When the ball comes to you it comes forward. When it goes away from you it must go backward. And ‘go,’ backward, is ‘og.’ I never saw anyone so stupid!”

“Oh,” murmured the boy. “But suppose I kick the ball?”

“Say ‘Og.’ But you’d better not kick it very hard, because if you do it might not like it. Magic footballs have very tender feelings.”

“But suppose I wanted to kick it a long, long distance?”

“Then say ‘Og’ several times. You’ll have to try it for yourself and learn the ography of it. Now call it.”

“Come,” said Tommy doubtfully.

The next instant the football was rolling into the fireplace, having jumped from the fairy’s arms, collided violently with Tommy’s nose and bounced to the floor again.

“Save it!” shrieked the fairy, jumping excitedly about on the rug.

But Tommy’s eyes were full of tears, produced by the blow on his nose, and by the time he had leaped to the rescue the ball was lodged between grate and chimney and the fairy, still jumping and shrieking, was quite beside himself with alarm. Tommy pulled the football out before it had begun to scorch, however, and the fairy’s excitement subsided as suddenly as it had begun.

“Stupid!” he said severely. “You almost made me ill. The odor of burning leather always upsets me. It was most unfeeling of you.”

“But I didn’t know,” replied Tommy with spirit, rubbing his nose gingerly, “it was going to come so hard!”

“You should have known. Seems to me, for a boy who goes to school, you are very deficient in ography and comeology.”

“I never studied them. We don’t have them.”

The fairy sighed painfully. “What are we coming to? What are we coming to? Never studied ography or comeology or non-stupidity! Oh dear! Oh my!” His long, thin, pointed nose twitched up and down and sideways under the stress of his emotion. “Well, well, there isn’t time to give you a lesson now. You’ll have to do the best you can. I’m very late. By the way, when you’re through with the football just say ‘Og!’ seven times and it will come back to me. But be careful not to say it seven times if you don’t want to lose it. Thank you for a very pleasant evening.” The fairy made a ridiculous bow, hat in hand, and backed away toward the dark corner of the room. Tommy started to remind him that it wasn’t evening, but concluded that it would only offend him, and so he didn’t. Instead,

“Thank you very much for the football,” he said. “Would you mind telling me who it is you are going to call on in Meadowville?”

“The name is――the name is――――” The fairy lifted one foot and peered at the sole of a pointed shoe. “The name is Frank Lester. Do you know him?”

“N-no, but I know who he is,” answered Tommy anxiously. “He’s captain of the Meadowville Grammar School Football Team, and I’ll just bet he’s going to wish they’ll win the game!”

The fairy frowned with annoyance. “I can’t have that,” he said, shaking his head rapidly. “Besides, all the magic footballs are out. He will have to wish for something else.”

“But――but suppose he doesn’t?”

“‘Suppose!’ ‘Suppose!’ I’d just like to know,” exclaimed the fairy, “how many supposes you’ve supposed! You’re the most suppositionary boy I ever did see!”

“But if he _did_ wish that,” pursued Tommy, “you’d have to give him his wish, wouldn’t you?”

The fairy grinned slyly and put a long finger beside his nose. “If wishes were fishes,” he said, “beggars would ride.”

“I――I don’t think that’s just the way it goes,” said Tommy.

“Then don’t ask me,” replied the other indignantly. “Besides, you have kept me here until I am awfully late for my appointment. I must be――I must be――――”

The fairy caught off his hat and began twirling it about on the tip of the feather.

“One――two――three――――!” he began to count.

The hat twirled like a top and Tommy, watching it, felt his head swim and his eyes grow heavy.

“Twelve――thirteen――fourteen――twenty-eight――――” came the voice of the fairy as though from a long ways off. Tommy wanted to tell him that twenty-eight didn’t follow fourteen, but he was too sleepy to speak.

“Thirty-three――thirty-six――thirty-two――fifteen――――”

It was just a whisper now, away off in the hazy distance....

Tommy sat up suddenly and stared. The fairy was gone. He rubbed his eyes. After all, then, it was just a dream! But as he stirred something rolled from his lap to the floor and went bouncing away under the couch. It was the magic football.

II

All that happened on Saturday afternoon. Monday morning Tommy sought George Marquis at recess and asked him to let him play on the football team. “If you do,” he said earnestly, “I’ll win the game for you.”

George laughed amusedly. “How’ll you do it, kid?” he asked, with a wink at Harold Newman, the quarterback.

Tommy flushed. “I――I can’t tell you that,” he stammered. “It――it’s a secret. But I can do it, George; honest and truly, black and bluely! Just let me show you, won’t you?”

“Oh, shucks,” said the captain, “if you know how to win the game you can tell me about it, can’t you? Anyway, I guess we can win it without you and your secrets, Tommy.”

But Tommy looked so disappointed that George, who was kind-hearted after all, said soothingly: “I tell you what I will do, Tommy. If we’re ahead at the end of the third period, I’ll let you go in at half. How’s that?”

“You won’t be,” replied Tommy glumly. “If you really want to lick Meadowville, George, you’d better let me play. If you don’t you’ll be sorry for it. I can win that game for you, and I don’t believe anyone else can.”

George’s good nature took flight. “Oh, you run away, kid!” he said impatiently. “Anyone to hear you talk would think you were a regular wonder! You’re too fresh!”

“That’s all right,” said Tommy to himself as George went off scowling, “but you’ll have to let me play whether you want to or not! Unless,” he added doubtfully, “that fairy is just a――a fakir after all!”

But that didn’t seem probable, for there was the magic football, and the magic football did just as the fairy had said it would. That afternoon when he was let out of school half an hour late――Tommy’s head was so filled with football these days that there was almost no room in it for lessons and he was kept after school as a result――he hurried home, unlocked the closet door in his bedroom and took the magic football down from the shelf. It looked just like any other football. There was the name of a well-known maker stamped on the clean leather and no one would have ever suspected that there was anything unusual about it. But there certainly was, as Tommy proceeded to prove when, the ball under his arm, he reached the vacant lot behind the dye works in the next street. The dye works had no windows on the back, there was a tumble-down board fence around the other three sides of the lot and Tommy was safe from observation.

When he had crawled through a hole in the fence he placed the football on the ground, swung his leg gently and said, “Og!” softly as his foot struck the ball. He hardly more than touched it with the toe of his scuffed shoe, but the ball flew up and away as straight as an arrow and bounced away from the fence at the further end of the lot. Tommy looked carefully about him. No one was within sight, and so he said, “Come!” very softly, and the ball began rolling toward him along the ground. That was too slow, and so Tommy said, “Come!” once more and a little louder. Whereupon the ball left the ground and arched itself toward him. Tommy held out his hands, and the ball settled into them.