CHAPTER XII

IN THE GYMNASIUM

Professor Snodgrass was so entangled between two strands of the barbed wire that it took the united efforts of Ned, Bob and Jerry to extricate him. Even then they did not do it without tearing his clothes.

“How did it happen, Professor?” asked Jerry. “Did a bull chase you?”

“No,” was the answer. “I was after a particularly choice specimen of the _Vanessa milberti_, a butterfly the larva of which feeds upon the nettle plant. I wished to make some experiments, and I needed this butterfly. I have never seen it in this vicinity so late in the season.”

“Did you get it?” asked Bob.

“I am sorry to say I did not.”

“What happened?” Ned interrogated.

“The fence,” replied the professor rather grimly. “The butterfly, and a beauty it was, was just beyond the fence. There was no time to climb it, had I considered myself able to do so. I reached my arm, with the net, through between two wires, and, just as I was going to make the capture, my foot slipped and I came down on the barbs. Then, when I tried to get up, those above me caught in my coat and I was held there. The butterfly got away, and I was obliged to call for help. It is fortunate you happened along, for few students come to these woods, though there are several interesting plants and trees growing here, that well repay study.”

“We only happened here by chance,” remarked Ned.

“Well, I am very glad you did,” replied the professor. “I am very sorry to have lost that butterfly,” and he looked around in vain for the beautiful creature, which is sometimes called Milbert’s tortoise shell.

“You ought to be sorry you tore your clothes,” observed Ned.

“Why, so I have!” the professor exclaimed, as though that had just occurred to him. “Mrs. Gilcuddy will be sure to say something to me about it too,” he added. “Well, it can’t be helped,” and he shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

For a little while the professor roamed about in the little clearing, looking in vain for more specimens of butterflies. He found none, but he captured some bugs which he seemed to prize highly, though the boys were not much interested.

“You’d better come back in our boat, Professor,” was Ned’s invitation. “It’s a long walk back to the college around the shore.”

“Thank you, I shall be glad of the water trip. I can then pin up some of these tears, perhaps, so Mrs. Gilcuddy will not notice them.”

And that is what Professor Snodgrass tried to do on the way back in the boat. Using some of the pins which he carried with him to impale his butterfly specimens on the stretching boards, as he sometimes did when afield without waiting to get back to his laboratory, he endeavored to so conceal the rents in his garments that the sharp-eyed, but lovable, housekeeper would not notice them.

Ned, Bob and Jerry helped by turns, though it cannot be said that the combined result was very satisfactory from a sartorial standpoint.

“You can’t notice them very much now; can you?” asked the professor, turning slowly about on the dock so the boys could observe him.

“Well, a few show,” said Ned, truthfully enough.

“I--I think I’ll stay out until it gets dark,” said the little scientist, who seemed to stand in some awe of his housekeeper. “Then she won’t see them, and I can send the suit to the tailor in the morning.”

“That might be a good idea,” agreed Jerry, trying not to laugh.

What the outcome of the professor’s accident was the boys did not learn, as they plunged into a series of busy times that afternoon and did not see the little scientist for several days except at the lectures they had with him in one period.

“Let’s go and watch the football practice,” suggested Jerry after they had left Mr. Snodgrass at the dock, repeating his determination to stay out until darkness had fallen so he might escape the eyes of his housekeeper.

“That’s a go,” agreed Bob. Ned nodded assent.

The varsity and the scrubs were hard at work on the gridiron when the three chums reached the grounds. Ted Newton was working his men strenuously, while the coaches were first begging the scrubs to hold the varsity in order to develop a good offense, and alternating that with fierce demands for the varsity to rip up the unfortunate substitutes.

“I sort of wish I was in there,” remarked Jerry, as he saw the snappy playing. “It’s great.”

“We can go in for it next year,” suggested Bob. “It’s better to start on baseball in the spring and get worked up to football.”

“Look at that fellow go!” cried Ned, as one of the scrubs intercepted a forward pass, and dashed down the line fifty yards for a touchdown against the varsity.

“He is a good one,” commented Jerry. “Wonder what his name is.”

“That’s Chet Randell,” volunteered a lad standing near our three friends. “He’ll make the varsity if he does that trick many times.”

“He deserves to,” said Ned.

“Randell,” murmured Bob. “Say, that’s the fellow who has the room next to mine. I saw his name on the door.”

“Oh, are you fellows from Borton?” asked their informant, naming the dormitory in which Ned, Bob and Jerry roomed.

“That’s us,” said Bob.

“Randell’s a beaut drop kicker,” went on the other, who said his name was Tom Bacon. “Trouble is though, we’ve got too many kickers on the varsity. We want more men who can hit the line, and Chet is a little too light for that. But if he can smear up many of the varsity’s forward passes that way he may make the team. Kenwell Military has the forward pass down fine.”

“Do we play them?” asked Jerry.

“Yes, baseball and football,” answered Tom. “You’re the new fellows--the motor boys--aren’t you?”

“Yes, but we don’t use that name much any more,” returned Bob.

“We’ve heard about you,” went on Tom, but he smiled and did not seem to hold what Jerry and his chums had done against them, as Frank Watson did.

When the practice ended and the team and scrubs came off the field Bob found himself near the lad who had made the touchdown with the intercepted forward pass.

“Excuse me,” began the stout lad, “but that was a beaut play of yours.”

“Glad you liked it,” was the cordial retort. “Oh, say, I guess I’ve seen you before!” went on Chet. “You room next to me?” he questioned.

“Yes, and these are my friends. We only got here last night.”

“Glad to meet you,” said the player genially. “We’ve got a good crowd in Borton, and we’ll have some swell times when we get going. A good crowd, yes!”

“All but that Frank Watson and his bunch,” thought Bob.

They had a glimpse of Frank and his chums on the football field, but were not near them.

“Can’t you drop in and see us this evening?” was Jerry’s invitation. “I suppose we can do here what’s done at other colleges--sneak in a little feed now and then?”

“Oh, yes, it can be did!” laughed Chet. “But Proc Thornton sure is strict, and he turns up when least expected. But I’ll have to decline. I’m on training table you know.”

“That’s so,” admitted Jerry. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“Come around to the gym to-night,” suggested the football player. “We’re going to have a little practice at the dummy. You fellows look as though you liked athletics.”

“We do,” admitted Bob. “We’ll be there.”

They had brought their gymnasium suits with them, as a certain amount of physical culture was obligatory at Boxwood Hall; and that evening, when they went to the gymnasium, Bob, Ned and Jerry were assigned to a certain division, and after watching the football squad at work, they went in for their turns.

The strenuous adventures our heroes had gone through with in the past had given them good muscles and bodies particularly well adapted for athletic work. They were not finished performers in gymnasium work, though, as they very soon discovered, though they did not lack the nerve, which is needed in many of the exhibitions on the parallel bars, the rings, the rope, or the trapeze.

The instructor was showing the boys how to slide down a rope head first without the use of the hands, by passing the cable between the thighs and over the shoulder, under the chin.

“Now you try it,” said the instructor to Frank Watson, who was in the class with our friends.

“I’d rather not,” said the headstrong youth. “I strained my leg a little in the pole vault yesterday, and I don’t want to lame myself.”

“I’ll do it!” eagerly exclaimed Jerry, who was next to Frank in line, though the latter had not even taken the trouble to bow, much less to speak.

“Very well, Hopkins. Try what you can do.”

Jerry seemed to have caught the knack of it at once. He came down the rope in fine style, and was complimented by the director.

“That’s what I like to see!” the coach exclaimed. “See if any of you can equal that,” and he glanced in the direction of Frank.

“Trying to show off; aren’t you?” sneered Frank, as Jerry took his place in line again. “I thought you fellows would be up to something like that when I heard about you. We haven’t much use for such as you motor boys at Boxwood Hall,” and his voice trailed off into a sneer.