The Fighting Scrub

“Well, son, I guess I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Bingham. He glanced frowningly at his watch and then across the driveway at the dusty car awaiting him. He carefully a...

A boy of seventeen followed the suit case, and the first occupant of Number 17 sighed with relief. Walter Harrison Treat looked more than possible as a roommate. He was fairly t...

The dining hall occupied the ground floor of the rear section of West Hall, a spacious room of oak beams and rough gray plaster, of paneled walls and many high windows. On eithe...

To reach the assembly hall, which occupied the entire first floor rear section of East Hall, just as the dining hall occupied the same location on the other side, Clif had to go...

Despite Tom’s forebodings the interview with Mr. Frost went off quite pleasantly the next morning. The Principal’s assistant was rather bald and wore thick-lensed spectacles, bu...

He could lie abed a half-hour later, which was something to rejoice over, and, save for church at eleven o’clock, no duties claimed him until study hour at eight. He awoke befor...

Saturday noon Clif stood on the steps of West Hall and filled his lungs with air. Room G, in Middle, had been more than usually stuffy, and a stiff session with “The Turk” had l...

That first feeling of exaltation didn’t last long, but it had served its purpose. The Wyndham Scrub members had shared it together and, since the experience of a common emotion...

Jeff had just twenty-eight yards to go for a touchdown, and he covered twenty-two of them before he was threatened. Then Drayton, right end, overhauled him. But after the tackle...

The First Team played its game away from home on Saturday, meeting Minster High School at Minster, and so, at three o’clock, the Scrub lined up against Freeburg High School on t...

Clif didn’t include his part in the action when telling Tom of the automobile accident. He had merely encountered Loring Deane in the village and returned to the school with him...

Monday was an easy day for both First Team and Scrub, but on Tuesday the hard grind began again. “Cocky” never let a session go by without trotting his squad over to the tacklin...

Clif’s father was to have visited him Sunday, but the morning brought a telegram stating that a sudden journey to Boston necessitated a postponement of the Freeburg trip to the...

Tuesday found the Fighting Scrub putting up a better defense, even though McMurtry, in Ames’s place, proved a weak point in the line. Later Joe Craigie, a substitute guard, oust...

The discouraging thing about beating the First was that the First wouldn’t stay beaten. If you scored on it one day it came back the following day and tried to see just how over...

The chess game was never finished. Ten o’clock arrived with nothing much left to be said, and with scant lessening of the general gloom. Loring insisted that by trying hard Tom...

“It would be much better if he asked me, or one of the other faculty members,” responded “Lovey” gravely. “His own permission, supposing he obtained it, would hardly be sufficie...

Clif didn’t take Walter Treat into his confidence that night. Not that he didn’t thoroughly trust Walt’s discretion, but there was no sense in taking chances. He wanted to stay...

In Loring’s room that Sunday morning the steam radiator was hissing softly, perhaps at the chill, damp current of air blowing in on it from the partly opened window, the floor w...

During the rest of that evening, and most of the following day a new rumor was to be met at every corner. Excitement was followed by consternation as the school came to a fuller...

“I suppose you couldn’t. I forgot for the moment that you can’t get about as easily as the rest of us. It only occurred to me that, knowing what you do already, Deane, you’d be...

Neither Clif nor Tom had more than a glimpse of Loring until late Sunday afternoon. Then Wattles found them both in Tom’s room and announced that Loring would like to see them i...

Friday was an unreal sort of a day to Clif. He made a miserable fizzle of three recitations and conducted himself generally as though he was sleep-walking. It was only at three-...

The teams trailed off and the rival cheering sections became concertedly vocal once more. One had to either cheer or sing if only to keep warm! The Wolcott songsters followed th...