Part 2

In Ted’s words, it went where it would do the most good. It fell to earth twenty feet short of the gymnasium steps and ten feet beyond the center fielder’s eager hands. Billy didn’t make the circuit because George Tempest himself, coaching behind third, blocked his path to the plate. There was a howl at that, for it did seem that Billy might have made it. But playing it safe won out for once, for Loring was a bit shaken by that blow at his record and Warwick’s next batter hit safely between second and shortstop and Billy romped home. That ended the scoring in that inning, but the Brown was again in the lead and Warwick shouted and chanted.

Ted, realizing the effort Temple would make to even things up in the twelfth, and knowing that the head of her batting list was up, was on tenter-hooks. Warwick had the victory in her grasp if she could only hold it. But Hal had been showing signs of fatigue the last two innings and there had been a perceptible let-down. Ted anxiously took counsel with himself. Then he jumped to his feet and ran around to the home bench. Hal, his face rather drawn and plastered with dust in the wrinkles, was pulling on his glove when Ted reached him.

“Saunders,” said Ted breathlessly, “if you can hold ’em we’ve got the game!”

Hal viewed him with disgust and weariness. “You surprise me,” he replied, with a weak attempt at sarcasm.

Ted laid a hand on the other’s arm and took a firm grip there. “Cut out the mirth,” he said. “You go in and pitch ball, Saunders. Get me? Don’t you dare let up for a second. If we――――”

Hal shook him off. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “Sun-stroke? You’re a fine one to make cracks like that! Beat it, kid!”

“Listen to me,” said Ted earnestly, dropping his voice. “If Temple wins this game I’ll go to ‘Jerry’ and tell him what I know. I mean it, Saunders!”

“Why, you little rotter!” gasped the pitcher.

“That’s all right. You heard me. You pitch ball, Saunders!”

“I’m going to,” sputtered the other, “and when I get through I’m going to knock your silly block off. Now get out of my way!”

Ted went back to his place well satisfied. Saunders was mad clean through and Saunders would pitch real ball! And Saunders did. Not since the game had started had he worked more carefully, more craftily, and although he had three hard hitters to put aside he never faltered. Up came the Temple third baseman――and back again to the bench. The Blue’s captain followed him and, although he brought Ted’s heart into his mouth four times by knocking fouls, he, too, had to acknowledge defeat. Temple was frantic now as she saw defeat impending. For luck she sent a substitute player in for the third batsman and Hal promptly put his first two deliveries across for strikes while triumphant Warwick howled with delight. Then a ball, and another one, and――――

“_He’s_ OUT!” cried the umpire.

* * * * *

It was after eight. The riotous celebration had dwindled to mere sporadic outbursts of joy out on the campus. Ted was talking with George on the window-seat in their study. The victory had put the captain in high spirits and since dinner he had returned to the old footing with his room-mate. They had talked the game over from first play to last, and Ted, happy in the renewal of friendly relations, was seeking a fresh topic lest George should become bored with his society and go away when there was a knock at the door and Hal strode in. Recalling the threat he had made, Ted viewed his appearance with some apprehension, but Hal showed no intention of removing Ted’s “block” in the designated manner.

“I got something to show you fellows,” announced Hal, striding across to the window. “Look here. Read that. No, wait a minute till I tell you.” He drew back the sheet of paper he had thrust toward George. “I thought it would be only the decent thing if I thanked Plaister for cancelling that account, see? So yesterday I wrote a nice little note and mailed it to him. This is what I got in answer. Found it in my room after supper. Read it out loud, George.”

“‘Jabed Plaister, General Emporium, Dealer in――――’”

“Never mind that,” interrupted Hal impatiently. “Read the writing.”

“If I can,” agreed George. “Let’s see. ‘Dear Sir: Yours of like date to hand. I gave the other boy a receipted bill and I don’t know what you are talking about unless you are trying to get funny and I’ll tell you plain there’s a law for such as you. And if you hadn’t paid I would have seen your principle just like I said I was. Lucky for you you did. Respectfully, Jabed Plaister.’ Not so very respectful, either! Well, what about it, Hal?”

“Don’t you see? Someone paid that bill. I didn’t. Who did? That’s what I came here to find out.” He turned suddenly to Ted. “Did you?” he demanded.

Ted stared back blankly.

“Did you?” insisted Hal. “You _did_! What for? Why――――”

“He hasn’t said so,” interposed George.

“He doesn’t need to. He isn’t denying it, is he? Besides, he knew about it. Look here, Bowman, I’m much obliged, of course, and all that, but I don’t understand why――after you’d refused me that night――――”

“Well,” said Ted at last, slowly, seemingly seeking inspiration from his shoes, “I knew that if you got fired or put on probation and couldn’t pitch to-day we’d get licked. I――I ought to tell you frankly, I guess, that I didn’t do it on your account, Saunders. There was the School to consider, and――and George. I knew he’d be all broke up if we lost the game. I had the money put away for――for something, and so I decided that if Plaister was really going to make trouble I’d pay him. I met him on the road Monday morning right after breakfast. I tried to get him to take five dollars, but he wouldn’t, and so I paid it all and he gave me the receipted bill. I ought to have told you at once, but――well, I was sort of peeved at you and I didn’t. Finally, when it got to be supper time and I hadn’t told you, I was ashamed to, and so I stuck the bill in an envelope and put it in the mail. That’s all; except that someone――I guess it was ‘Granny’ Lockwood: he’s always mooning around the landscape――saw me give the money to Plaister and told ‘Jerry.’”

There was a moment’s silence. Then George said: “But you could have told ‘Jerry’ the truth, Ted.”

“What good would that have done? He’d have put Saunders on ‘pro,’ and that’s just what I was working against. Don’t you see?”

“Mighty white,” muttered Hal.

“I wish you had told me, Ted,” said George. “I talked a good deal of rough stuff. I’m sorry, kid.”

“That’s all right,” said Ted. “You didn’t know. You see, I’d promised Saunders not to talk about it.”

“Bowman, you’re a perfect brick,” exclaimed Hal. “I know you didn’t do it on my account, but you got me out of a beast of a hole, and――and I’m mighty grateful. And you’ll get that money back just as soon as I get home. I’ll tell dad the whole story and he’ll come across, never fear. Of course I’ll have to promise to keep inside my allowance after this, but I guess I’m about ready to, anyhow. Last Monday I’d have promised anything! And I’ll see ‘Jerry’ at once――――”

“There is no sense in doing that,” interrupted Ted. “There’s only four more days of school and I don’t mind.”

“But you’re in wrong with faculty――――”

“Not very. ‘Jerry’ was awfully decent. Said my record was so good he wouldn’t be hard on me. There’s no use in his owning up, is there, George?”

“No, I don’t think there is,” answered George after a moment’s consideration. “Ted’s taken your punishment and you’ve learned your lesson――I hope.”

“I have,” agreed Hal, emphatically. “But it doesn’t seem fair to――to Ted. He was done out of playing, and a lot of fellows think hardly of him――――”

“Shucks,” said Ted, “I don’t mind. You fellows know how it was, and the others will forget by next Fall. And we won. I’m satisfied.”

“We won,” said George, “because of what you did, Ted, and for no other reason. I don’t see any way to give you credit for it without getting Hal into trouble, but there’s one thing I can do, and I’m going to do it.”

“What?” asked Ted uneasily.

“See that you get your W.”

“Bully!” applauded Hal. “Only, do you think you really can? If Ted didn’t play――――”

“Who says he didn’t?” demanded George. “He must have. It was his play that won!”

THE GREAT PECK

Eight of us were in Pete Rankin’s room that night, all freshies and all candidates for the ’21 football team, unless you except this fellow Harold Peck that I’m telling you about. Jim Phelan had brought him along, because, he said, he looked lonesome. Jim had planned to room with a chap he had chummed with at Hollins, but he had failed in exams and faculty had stung him with Peck. That’s one drawback to rooming in the yard at Erskine: you can’t always choose your roommate. Peck was sort of finely cut, with small, well-made features, dark hair and eyes and a good deal of color in his face. And he was a swell little dresser. Rather an attractive kid, on the whole, and maybe a year younger than most of us there. He didn’t make much of a splash that night, though, for he just sat quiet on Pete’s trunk and looked interested and polite. Being polite was Peck’s specialty. I never knew a chap with more different ways of thanking you or begging your pardon.

We were mostly Hollins or Enwright fellows, and we were there to get the freshman football team started. Dave Walker, the Varsity captain, dropped in for a few minutes and helped us out; and after he had gone again we got to talking about our chances of turning out a good enough eleven to beat the Robinson freshies, and who would play where, and one thing and another, and presently Bob Saunders, who had played half for Enwright last year, asked: “What have we got for quarterback material, fellows?”

Trask, another Enwright chap, said: “Kingsley,” but no one enthused. Tom Kingsley had been a second choice quarter on Trask’s team and had been fairly punk, we Hollins crowd thought. Pete Rankin yawned and said he guessed we’d find a couple of decent quarters all right, and Jim Phelan said, sure, you can always catch a quarter when he was young and train him.

“I think I’d like to try that job,” I said. “I guess it’s easier than playing tackle. You don’t have to exert yourself. You just shove the ball to someone else. It’s a cinch!”

“You’d make a swell little quarterback,” laughed Pete. “You’re just built for it, Joe.”

“Well, I’m down to a hundred and eighty-one and a half――――”

“I don’t think I ever saw a crackerjack quarter,” Jim Phelan butted in, “who wasn’t sort of small. Did you, Pete? Remember Warner, of two years ago? He was my notion of a properly built lad for the quarter. Wasn’t he a wonder?” Pete said yes, and “Toots” Hanscom, who will take either end of any argument you can start, tried to prove Jim all wrong, and then everyone took a hand. But Jim is stubborn, and he hung out for the small kind. “Take a chap like――well, like Peck there. If he knows the game he will play all around your heavy man or your tall one.”

Everyone turned to size Peck up, and he looked embarrassed, and Toots sniffed and asked him his weight.

“About a hundred and forty-two, I think,” said Peck.

“Thought so. He’d have a swell chance, Jim, against those husky Robinson freshies!”

“Sure he would,” answered Jim, stoutly. “I don’t say he’d be a marvel at plugging the line, but I do say that if Peck was a football man a good coach could take hold of him and make a rattling good quarter of him. It isn’t beef that counts in a quarter, Toots. It’s brains and pep and knowledge of football.”

“Piffle! Peck wouldn’t last five minutes!”

“Better induce Mr. Peck to come out,” suggested Monty Fellows. “Then we can see who’s right.”

Jim started to hedge. “I didn’t say Peck was the man. I said a fellow of his size and build. Peck isn’t a football player, and so it wouldn’t prove anything if he tried it.”

“Haven’t you ever played at all, Mr. Peck?” asked Pete.

“Oh, yes, thanks,” replied Peck. “We had a rather good football team at my school and I――er――I tried for it year before last. But, of course, I was pretty light, you see――――”

“You could soon beef up, I’d say,” said Pete. “Maybe you’d have better luck this time. Had you thought of it?”

“Why――why, I did mention it to Phelan, but he thought I’d better wait until I was a bit heavier――――”

Everyone laughed at Jim then, and Jim tried to explain that he hadn’t thought of Peck as a quarter. “Just the same,” he said stoutly, “I wish he would come out and try for the position. I’ll risk it! I’ll bet he will make good! Come on, now, what price Peck?”

“Oh, really,” began Peck, “you mustn’t hope much of me, Phelan! You see――――”

“That’s all right! You agree to try for the quarterback position and do as you’re told and work hard and――――”

“And grow a few inches,” said Toots slyly.

“And I’ll guarantee that you’ll be third-string quarter or better by the end of the season! What do you say?”

“Why, it’s very flattering,” answered Peck, looking around and smiling deprecatingly. He had a nice smile, had Peck. “But I’d be awfully afraid of disappointing you.”

“I’ll risk that,” said Jim. “You show up to-morrow at three-thirty, then.”

Peck murmured something that sounded like consent and Jimmy Sortwell asked: “Where is your home, Mr. Peck?”

“Winstead, Maryland.”

“Oh,” said Jimmy. “I asked because I wondered if you were any relation to the Peck who played on the Elm Park High School team last year.”

“What is his first name, please?” asked Peck.

“I don’t know that I ever heard it. I never met him, but the team came on from Chicago last December and played a post season game with one of the Boston teams and licked the stuffing out of them. This fellow Peck was quarter, and he was a wonder. Don’t you fellows remember reading about him? Some of the papers in the East here made him All-Scholastic quarter, and that’s going some, for they hate to name anyone west of Albany!”

“Seems to me I remember something about a remarkable quarter on some Western team that played around here last year,” agreed Pete. “Don’t recall his name, though.”

“It was probably this fellow I’m telling of. He wasn’t much bigger than you, either, Peck, I’d say. Perhaps a little heavier, eight or ten pounds. He was a stunning player, though, a regular marvel. And that sort of helps out your contention, Jim.”

“I don’t believe I have any relatives in the West,” said Peck. “Of course, there might be some distant ones――――”

“Well, if you take after your namesake,” laughed Burton Alley, “we won’t kick a mite!”

“Thanks,” said Peck, “but, of course, you mustn’t expect much of me. There’s a great deal to learn about football.”

“Well, there’s more to it than croquet,” said Toots dryly, “but don’t let that scare you. With Jim looking after you you ought to get along fine!”

“Really, do you think so?” asked Peck, gratefully. “Thank you ever so much!”

* * * * *

We had a whooping big freshman class that year and didn’t expect much trouble in finding all the material we needed. But we had reckoned without the war. A lot of fellows were so full of it that they couldn’t see football. There was talk of introducing military training at Erskine, too, and although that didn’t come until later, there was a lot of excitement over it. Of course, we were all strong for the military stuff, but some of us couldn’t see the necessity for making the world safe for Democracy before we had knocked the tar out of the Robinson freshmen. It was more than a week after college had started when we finally got four full squads together. The Athletic Committee assigned us a Graduate School chap named Goss as coach. He had played tackle for Erskine three years before. We didn’t cheer for him much at first, but he turned out fine. He wasn’t much on the up-to-the-minute stuff, but he was a corking tactician and hard as nails when it came to discipline. And he was so set on teaching the rudiments before the frills that we were soon calling him “Old Rudy.”

Faculty held us down to a six-game schedule, which was a shame, for we could have licked any team of our weight in New England. Besides, the Varsity was all shot to pieces, because so many last year men had enlisted, and was a sort of a joke, and we always took the crowds away from her. We were really the big noise that Fall and should have been allowed a decent schedule. Of course, every good team has its troubles, and ours began after the Connellsville game. We beat her, all right, but she laid up two of our best linesmen and proved that neither Kingsley nor Walker was the right man for quarter. We had two other candidates for the position in Ramsey and Peck. There wasn’t much to choose between them, it looked; only Peck had a good press agent and Ramsey hadn’t. Jim Phelan was still backing his roommate strong. Toots Hanscom told us that Jim was coaching Peck for an hour every evening. Said he dropped into their room in McLean one night and found Jim holding the book on Harold and putting him through a regular exam! Anyhow, Peck was certainly coming all the time, and when we met the Taylor freshies the next Saturday he had his chance in the third period. He got mixed a couple of times, but I couldn’t see any signs of nervousness, and he surely made us hump ourselves. And he played his position mighty well besides. Jim certainly had no kick coming against his pupil, for Peck played good football that day, barring those two mistakes in signals, and ended up in the last three or four minutes with as pretty a forward pass to Trask as you’d want to see. Trask didn’t quite make the goal line, though, and so we accepted our first defeat, Taylor nosing out 12 to 11. But we’d played good ball, and we knew it, and the school knew it. And you can bet that Taylor knew it, too, for she was just about all in when the whistle sounded.

Peck got quite a lot of kind words that day, and Jim Phelan went around saying “What did I tell you?” and making himself generally obnoxious. But that didn’t win Peck the quarterback position, for Kingsley was still the better man, especially when he was going well, and young Peck went back to the second squad Monday, and Jim spoke darkly of “bonehead coaches.” More trouble developed that week: Wednesday, I think it was. Pete Rankin――I forgot to say that we’d elected him captain without much opposition from the Enwright crowd――hurt his knee in a scrimmage and had to lay off. And one or two other chaps went wunky and so Townsend Tech didn’t have much trouble with us, three days later. Kingsley started at quarter and Peck didn’t get a show until the last of the third period. Then he played the same nice game he’d played the week before and speeded us up so that we managed to score our second touchdown. And, considering that we had six second- or third-string fellows in the line-up by that time, that wasn’t so poor. And 11 to 20 didn’t sound as bad as 7 to 20, either. So Peck got the glad hand in the locker room afterwards and old Rudy stopped him on his way to the showers and spoke kind words.

* * * * *

By that time the college was beginning to sit up and take notice of Peck. Fellows asked where he’d played before, what school he’d come from and so on. No one seemed to know, and when you asked Peck himself he was sort of vague, and so blamed polite that you didn’t have the crust to keep on asking. But I made out that he’d skipped around between two or three schools down Maryland way, and I believed it until two things came off simultaneously. The first was Peck’s sudden “arrival” in football. It occurred the Thursday after the Townsend fracas. Kingsley was suffering from shell shock by reason of having been slammed around by big Sanford, the Townsend fullback, in the third quarter, and old Rudy started Peck when the scrimmage began. Well, I don’t know what had got into little Harold that day; or I didn’t know then. Afterward I thought I had an inkling. Anyway, he was a revelation. Pete Rankin said awedly that Peck was a composite reincarnation of Eckersall and Daly. So far as I know, those two old-timers are still alive and kicking, but you get Pete’s idea. He meant that Peck was a peach of a quarter that day; and that goes double with me. We went up against the Varsity scrubs, and they were a heavy, scrappy bunch, even if they didn’t have much team play. Peck seemed to sense just the sort of medicine that would do ’em the most good, and he proceeded to dose it out to them right from the kick-off. He used Saunders and Hanscom for play after play until we were down to the scrub’s twenty-yard line, bringing Hanscom around from right end and busting him through left tackle. He and Saunders were light and quick, and they got the distance in three plays regularly. Then, down on the twenty, he switched to his other backs, Fellows and Curtis, and piled ’em through to the two yards. The scrubs pulled themselves together then, and two tries failed and Peck gave the pass to Curtis for an overhead heave to Saunders. But Bob was spilled in his tracks and, with three to go and one down left, Peck faked a try at goal and kited around his left end with the pigskin cuddled under his elbow and slipped across the line near the corner very nicely.

Four minutes later we scored again. The scrub’s kick-off was short and I wrapped myself around it and busted along for nearly twenty yards and landed the ball on the forty. Then Saunders slipped up for the first time and Peck tried a forward to Hanscom that grounded. Curtis smashed through for four and then Peck took the law into his own hands again and, faking a pass to Saunders, hid the ball until the scrubs were coming through. Then he found his hole, slipped right through the middle of the line, ducked and squirmed past the secondary defense and raced off straight for the goal. And believe me, that kid could run! The scrub quarter was the only man with any license to stop him, and Peck fooled him near the thirty yards, and went right on and placed old Mister Pigskin squarely between the posts.

I’d got sort of roughly handled by the big mutts when they stopped me after I’d caught the kick-off and Old Rudy yanked me out, and so I didn’t see any more of the scrimmage. But they said that Peck kept it up right to the end, making another corking run from near the scrub’s forty to her five, and handling the team like a veteran. Monty Fellows, who could spill language that would gag you or me, said that Peck was inspired and that he had “indubitably vindicated Phelan’s contention.” I thought so, too, though not in just those words, and so when I ran across Jim on the way to College Hall after dinner that evening I started to hand him a few bouquets. But he only grunted and looked peeved, and I eased up and asked: “What’s jangling your heart strings, Jim? I should think you’d be pleased to see little Harold vindicating your――er――whatyoucallems.” He sometimes called him Harold to annoy Jim.

“You would, eh?” growled Jim.

“Sure I would! Haven’t you toiled with the kid all Fall and taught him all he knows and everything?”

“I thought so,” said Jim significantly.

“What do you mean, thought so? Who else is responsible? Of course, I’m not saying Peck wouldn’t have learned football after a fashion even if you hadn’t――――”

Jim laughed harshly, like a villain in a play. “Say, Joe, you do a lot of talking with your mouth sometimes, but maybe you can keep a secret. Can you?”

“Secrecy’s my middle name. Shoot!”

And after a minute Jim shot. “He fooled me, all right,” he began ruefully. “I thought he was as green as grass and even when he’d learn a thing too blamed quick to be natural I didn’t suspect. I said, ‘It’s just natural football instinct he’s got. You can’t explain it any other way.’ Wasn’t I the bonehead?”

“Sure! But what――――”