Part 3

“Listen. This morning I wanted a collar stud. Mine had rolled under the bed or somewhere and it was late. So I pulled open Harold’s top drawer. I knew he had a little fancy-colored box there where he kept studs and things and as he had gone to breakfast I thought I’d just help myself to one. What do you suppose was the first thing I saw when I lifted the lid?”

“Great big snake?”

“Cut the comedy! One of these little gold footballs you wear on your watch chain!”

“Well?” I asked, not catching the idea.

“There was engraving on it and I read what it said. ‘E. P. H. S., 1917,’ Joe! What do you know about that?”

“Still I don’t get you. What’s E. P. S. stand for?”

“E. P. H. S., you dummy! Elm Park High School! Don’t you remember Sortwell telling about a fellow named Peck who’d played with Elm Park and asking Harold if he was any relation?”

“Oh!” said I. “Now I savvy! But, look here, Jim, you don’t think Harold’s this Elm Park star! Why, didn’t he say――――”

“No, he didn’t,” answered Jim sourly. “He was mighty careful not to. He said maybe Peck was a distant relative or something. And he let me teach him how to play quarterback! Must have had lots of good laughs at me, eh? If I hadn’t been an utter idiot I’d have tumbled to the truth long ago. Why, no one could pick up the game the way he has! Look at the way he played to-day! He fooled the whole bunch of us, anyway. I wasn’t the only come-on. Only, why? What did he do it for?”

“Search me! But look here, what does he say? Has he fessed up?”

“He hasn’t said anything because I haven’t. How can I? Borrowing a chum’s collar stud is all right, but when you run across something you’re not supposed to know about you keep your mouth shut. If I told him I was helping myself to a stud and happened to see that gold football, what would he think? He’d think I’d been snooping, of course. But I don’t need to ask him. It’s as plain as a pike-staff. That football is one of those given to the members of last year’s victorious Elm Park team. I looked up the record. They played eleven games and won all but two. And Harold was quarterback and was a regular James H. Dandy. And now you know why I’m a trifle peeved, Joe. Wouldn’t it set you back some to find that you’d been teaching the fine points of football to last season’s All-Scholastic quarterback?”

I said it would. Then I asked Jim what he was going to do about it and he said glumly:

“I’m going to keep my mouth shut, and so are you. What he wants is for us to find out we’ve been fooled, so he can have the laugh on us. Nothing doing! If he wants to come out as the Great Peck he can do his own announcing. Then I’ll tell him I knew it all along, and the laugh will be on him, hang him!”

We chinned some more and then I left him. In a way, thought I, it was sort of mean of Peck to put it over on Jim like that, but at the same time it was funny, and I had to chuckle a bit now and then for the rest of the evening. It was a shame not to tell the other fellows, too, but Jim had made me promise to keep quiet and so I couldn’t. But I got some fun out of it, for the next afternoon I overhauled Harold going over to the field and I said to him:

“It’s funny, but you remind me an awful lot of that chap who played quarter for Elm Park last year. You look a lot like him around the eyes. And the lower part of his face, too. His name was the same as yours, you know.”

“Really?” he asked, most polite. “Elm Park is out near Chicago, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but the team came East last Fall for a post-season game. You said you weren’t related to him, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think I said just that,” replied the fox. “I’d hardly dare to. As a matter of fact, our family has relations in the West, although I’ve never heard that any of them lived in Chicago.”

I didn’t want to give the snap away, so I shut up then, but I couldn’t help admiring the way he carried it off. Never batted an eyelash! Some boy, Harold!

* * * * *

They made him first choice quarter then and he was never headed all the rest of the season, although Kingsley and Ramsey tried their hardest to overhaul him, and he kept getting better and better right up to the Robinson game, running the team for all that was in it and never letting a game go by without pulling off a few fancy stunts on his own. I could see that there was a coolness between him and Jim Phelan, but it seemed to me that Peck was still unsuspecting that his secret was discovered. So I guess he often wondered why Jim had stopped giving him pointers and being chummy. Of course they were still friendly and all that, but Jim couldn’t forget that Harold had put one over on him. And so things stood when we faced the Robinson freshmen in the final game.

As the fellow said about the war, we had a good day for it: cold and snappy, with almost no wind. Robinson brought over a big bunch of rooters and a good many of our own old boys came up for the game. And there was a sprinkling of khaki, too, for some of the grads were in service; and even the Navy was represented by a Reserve lieutenant. He was a corking looking chap, and when I ran across him just after lunch he reminded me so much of Harold Peck that for a minute I thought it was Harold got up that way for a joke. But he was bigger than Harold, and a couple of years older, I guess, and when I’d had a second look at him the resemblance wasn’t so strong. Still, it was there, and when he stopped and asked me which was McLean Hall his voice sort of sounded like Harold’s. Anyway, he was a corking, clever-looking lad, and I got to wondering how one of those blue uniforms would look on yours truly.

I’m not going to bore you with the game in detail. It was some game, but you’ve watched many better ones. Robinson got the jump on us at the start and scored a goal from our twenty-eight yards. I guess we had stage fright or something, for we sure played like a lot of kids in that first period. Even Pete Rankin got temperamental and fell over his own feet time and again, and young Peck tried hard to show how not to play quarterback. But Robinson’s score was just what we needed, for in the second period we pulled ourselves together and inched along for the goal line and finally pushed Curtis over for a touchdown. We were pretty well started on the way to a second when time was called for the half. As Toots Hanscom had missed goal, the score was 6–3 when we crawled back to the gym. We thought we’d done pretty well until Old Rudy started at us. Then we realized that we weren’t much better than a gang of Huns. He certainly did take the skin off! According to him Robinson should never have scored and we should have had twenty-one points tucked away. At that, he wasn’t so far wrong, for we had surely pulled a lot of dub plays in that first fifteen minutes. Anyhow, when he’d got through with us we were ready to go back and bite holes in the Robbies!

* * * * *

The third quarter gave us another touchdown, and this time Toots booted it over. But Robinson wasn’t dead yet, and she put a scare into us when she sprang a new formation and began to circle our ends for six and eight yards at a try. Pete was put out of it and Gannet, who took his place, was pretty punk. We lost two or three other first-string men in that third period, and so when Robinson worked down to our fifteen-yard line we couldn’t stop her. We did smear her line attacks, but she heaved a forward and got away with it, and kicked the goal a minute later. That made the score 11 to 10, and the world didn’t look so bright for us. And then, when the last quarter was about five minutes old, Saunders, who was playing back with Peck, let a punt go over his head and they had us with our heels to the wall. Curtis punted on second down and the ball went crazy and slanted out at our forty-yard line. Robinson tried her kicks again and came back slowly. Pete Rankin put himself back in the game and that helped some. About that time when the enemy was near our twenty-five, Peck got a kick on the head and had to have time out. Old Rudy started Kingsley to warming up on the side line, but Peck, although sort of groggy, insisted on staying in, and Pete let him.

They edged along to our twenty and then struck a snag and that’s when I stopped taking much interest in events, for I was the snag. When I came around I was lying on a nice bank of hay, with every bone in my head aching, and Prentiss was playing my position. So what happened subsequently was seen by little Joe from afar. Robinson put another field goal over and added three points to her score and we saw the game going glimmering. There was still five minutes left, however, and an optimist next to me on the hay pile said we could do it yet. I didn’t think we could, but I liked to hear him rave.

The five minutes dwindled to four and then to three. We had the ball in the middle of the field and were trying every play in our bag of tricks. But our end runs didn’t get off, our forward passes were spoiled and we were plainly up against it. Young Peck’s voice got shriller and shriller and Pete’s hoarser and hoarser, and the rooters were making noises like a lot of frogs. And then the timekeeper said one minute and it looked as though there was nothing left but the shouting.

We still had the pigskin and had crossed the center line two plays back, and Pete and Peck were rubbing heads while the Robbies jeered. Then something broke loose, and after I’d got a good look at it I saw that it was Peck.

I don’t know how he got away, for it looked as if he had sort of pulled a miracle, but there he was, dodging and streaking with the mob at his heels and a quarter and a half laying for him up the field. The optimist guy almost broke his hand off pounding my sore shoulder and I let him pound, for the pain helped me yell. Pete and Trask trailed along behind Peck and it was Pete who dished the waiting halfback. After that Peck had a free field and it was only a question of his staying on his feet, for you could see that the kid was all in. He got to wobbling badly at about the fifteen yards and I thought sure a Robinson chap had him, but the Robbie wasn’t much better off and they finally went across, staggering, with Peck just out of reach, and toppled over the line together. Then bedlam broke loose.

I must have forgotten my bum ankle, for the next thing I knew I was down at the goal line with half the college, and the Naval Reserve lieutenant had Peck’s head on his knees and was telling Tracy, the trainer, what to do for him. Tracy sputtered indignantly and swashed his sponge and Toots missed another goal and the game was over. The crowd got some of the team but I was near the gate and made my getaway. And so did Peck, thanks to the lieutenant chap, and we were halfway to the gym before the fellows missed him. We fought them off then right up to the gym door and dodged inside, and Peck, who was all right now except for being short of breath, said: “Thanks, West. I want you to know my brother.”

“Your brother!” I gasped. The Navy chap laughed and shook hands.

“And proud of it,” he said. “The kid played good ball for a fellow who couldn’t make the team last year, didn’t he?”

“Couldn’t make――Say, what’s the idea?” I gibbered. “Didn’t he play quarter for Elm Park?”

“Why, no,” said the Navy guy, “that was me! Harold never played any to speak of until this fall. He tells me that a roommate of his taught him about all he knows. I want to meet that fellow!”

“Oh!” said I, still sort of dazed. “Well, I guess he will be mighty glad to meet you, too. You see, he got it into his head that your brother was the great Peck, and――――”

“But I never told him anything like that!” exclaimed Harold. “Why, I even pretended I’d never heard of you, Herb, for fear they might think I was――well, trading on your reputation, don’t you see! I don’t understand how Jim could have got that idea!”

“Oh, he gets crazy notions sometimes,” said I. “At that, though, he wasn’t so far off, because if you’re not a Great Peck you’re a mighty good eight quarts!”

Which wasn’t so poor for a fellow with half his teeth loose! Now was it?

TERRY COMES THROUGH

“You’re up next, Slim,” said Captain Fosdick, leaning forward to speak to Maple Park’s third baseman. “Get out there and let ’em think you’re alive.” Whittier hoisted himself from the bench and leisurely viewed the row of bats. Selecting two, he ambled out toward the plate. Guy Fosdick, or “Fos” as he was generally called, turned again to Joe Tait, frowning. Joe, a heavily-built, broad-shouldered boy of sixteen, chuckled.

“It’s no use, Fos,” he said. “You can’t put pep into Slim.”

Fos’s frown melted into a smile. He was a good-looking chap at all times, but when he smiled he “had it all over Apollo and Adonis and all the rest of those Greek guys.” I am quoting Joe. Doubtless Fos’s smile had a good deal to do with his immense popularity at Maple Park School, a popularity that had aided him to various honors during his four years there.

“Sometimes I think he does it to rile me,” said Fos. “The day they had the explosion in the chemical laboratory Slim was out in front of Main Hall, and still going, before any of the rest of us were through the door! _Good boy, Archie!_” Browne had slammed a grounder between Linton’s shortstop and second baseman and filled the bags. “Two gone,” he said regretfully. “If Slim doesn’t do more than he’s been doing――――” His voice trailed off into silence as he gave his attention to the Linton High School pitcher.

“Did you see Wendell get down to third?” asked Joe admiringly. “That kid can certainly run!”

“Terry Wendell? Yes, he can,” agreed the captain thoughtfully. “Put Terry on base and he will get to third every time. He’s a fast one, all right. But you’ve got to stop right there, Joe.”

“How do you mean, stop?”

“Terry never comes through. He gets just so far and stops. I don’t know why. He got to first on an error, stole second nicely, reached third on Archie’s hit and I’ll bet you a red apple he will die there.”

“Oh, come, Fos, you’re too hard on the kid. He’s a pretty fair fielder and his hitting isn’t so rotten, and you say yourself that he’s fast on the bases.”

“Until he gets to third,” responded Fos. “Maybe next year Terry will make good, Joe, but he doesn’t deliver the goods yet. I’m sorry, because he’s a friend of yours――――”

“We room together.”

“But I’ve got to let him go. He’s had a fair trial all Spring, Joe, and the coach would have dropped him two weeks ago if I hadn’t put in my oar. He’s a nice kid, and he’s promising; but promises won’t win from Lacon two weeks from Saturday. If―――― What did I tell you?”

There was a chorus of triumph from the knot of Linton adherents behind third as their right fielder pulled down Slim Whittier’s long fly, and Captain Fosdick jumped up.

“But that wasn’t Terry’s fault,” protested Joe. “A fellow can’t score on a third out!”

“I didn’t say it was ever his fault,” replied Fos, pulling on his glove. “But it’s what always happens, Joe. He doesn’t come through. Call it hard luck if you like, but that’s the way it is. All out on the run, fellows!”

When the Linton center fielder had swung thrice at Morton’s delivery without connecting Joe arose from the substitute’s bench and strode off toward the track. He had no doubts as to the outcome of the game, for with but three innings to play it was unlikely that the visitors would overtake the home team’s lead of six runs, and he was due for a half-hour’s work with the shot. But he felt sorry about Terry. Terry was a nice kid and he was fond of him, and ever since he had known him, which meant since last September, Terry had tried and failed at half a dozen things. Terry had just failed of making the second football eleven, had almost but not quite finished fourth in the four-forty yards in the Fall Handicap Meet, had been beaten out by Walt Gordon for cover-point position on the second hockey team, had been passed over in the Debating Society election and now, just when, as Joe very well knew, Terry was beginning to congratulate himself on having made the school baseball team, Fate was about to deal him another blow. It was really mighty tough luck, Joe growled to himself; and if Fos had been anyone but Fos he would have suspected him of prejudice. But Terry Wendell’s troubles were forgotten when Joe had thrown off his wrap and had the twelve-pound shot cupped in his broad palm, and weren’t remembered again until, just before six, he pushed open the door of 12 Munsing.

Terry was pretending to study, but Joe knew very well from the discouraged look on his face that Fos had spoken and that Terry’s thoughts were far from the book before him. He looked up at Joe’s entry, murmured “Hello!” in a rather forlorn voice that tried hard to be cheerful and bent his head again.

“How’d the game come out?” asked Joe, banging the door with unnecessary violence.

“We won; twelve to eight.”

“Linton must have got a couple more runs over after I left,” said Joe. “How did you get along?”

“Oh, pretty punk, thanks. I got one hit, rather a scratch, and was forced out at third. I got as far as third again and Whittier flied to the Linton right fielder and left me there.”

“Hard luck! How about your fielding?”

“Three chances and got them.” There was silence for a moment. Joe nursed a foot on the window-seat and waited. At last: “I’m out of it, Joe,” said Terry with a fine affectation of indifference. “Fosdick told me after the game that they’d decided to get along without my valuable services.”

Joe pretended surprise. Terry cut short his expressions of sympathy, however. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I mean I ought to have known how it would be. I didn’t, though. I thought I’d really made good at something finally. I wrote home only last Sunday that I’d got on the nine. Well, I can sit back now, can’t I? There isn’t anything left to try for!”

“Pshaw, that’s no way to talk, Terry. There’s your track work, remember. You’re pretty sure to get your chance with the quarter-milers.”

“I’m going to quit that. I know what’ll happen. Either they’ll drop me the day before the Dual Meet or I’ll trail in in fifth place.”

“Quit nothing!” said Joe disgustedly. “You’re going to stick, kid, if I have to lug you out by the feet and larrup you around the track!” Terry smiled faintly at the idea.

“You won’t have to, Joe. I was only talking. I’ll keep on with the Track Team as long as they’ll have me. Maybe――――” He hesitated a moment and then went on doubtfully. “Maybe I can get Cramer to try me in the half, Joe. I have an idea I could run the half better than the four-forty. Anyway, I’ll stick. And I’ll try my hardest. There――there must be _something_ I can do!”

Terry Wendell was fifteen, a nice-looking, well-built boy, rather slender but by no means frail, with frank brown eyes, somewhat unruly hair of the same color and a healthy complexion. He had entered Maple Park School the preceding Fall, making the upper middle class. He was good at studies and was seldom in difficulties with the instructors in spite of the time he consumed in the pursuit of athletic honors. Of course entering the third year class had handicapped him somewhat and his circle of friends and acquaintances was far smaller than if he had joined the school as a junior, but he hadn’t done so badly, after all, for Joe Tait had kindly taken him in hand and become a sort of social sponsor for him. What friends Terry had were firm ones and, had he but known it, liked him none the less for the plucky way in which, having been turned down in one sport, he bobbed up undismayed for another. But Terry, not knowing that, suspected the fellows of secretly smiling at his failures, and had become a little sensitive, a trifle inclined to detect ridicule where none was meant. Which fact probably accounts for the falling-out with Walt Gordon the next day.

It was Sunday, and as perfect a day as the Spring had given. May was nearly over, the trees in the campus and on the long slope of Maple Hill were fully clothed in fresh green and the bluest of blue skies stretched overhead. Maple Hill, which rises back of the school, is crowned by a great granite ledge, from which one commands a view of many miles of smiling countryside. The Ledge is a favorite spot with the students and its seamed and crumbling surface is marked in many places with evidences of fires and, I regret to say, too often littered with such unlovely objects as empty pickle bottles, cracker boxes and the like. On this Sunday afternoon “Tolly” hailed the bottles with joy and, having collected five of them, advanced to the farther edge of the rock and hurled them gleefully far down into the tops of the trees. Tolly’s real name was Warren Tolliver, and he was only fourteen, and for the latter reason his performance with the pickle bottles was viewed leniently by the other four boys. Tolly’s youthfulness gave him privileges.

Ordinarily the party would have been a quartette; Joe, Terry, Hal Merrill and Tolly; but to-day they had happened on Walt Gordon and Walt had joined them. He was a heavily-built chap in appearance, but when he was in track togs you saw that the heaviness was mostly solid muscle and sinew. He was Maple Park’s crack miler and, beside, played a rather decent game at center field on the nine. He was respected for his athletic prowess, but beyond that was not very popular, for he thought a bit too highly of Walt Gordon and too little of anyone else. But none of his four companions really disliked him or had resented his attaching himself to their party. When he cared to, Walt could be very good company.

Stretched on the southern slope of the ledge, where sun and wind each had its way with them, the five boys found little to say at first. The climb had left them warm and a trifle out of breath. It was the irrepressible Tolly who started the conversational ball rolling. “Know something, fellows?” he demanded. Joe lazily denied any knowledge on any subject and begged enlightenment. “Well,” continued Tolly, “when I get through college――――”

“Ha!” grunted Hal. Tolly tossed a pebble at him and went on.

“When I get through college I’m coming back here and I’m going to build one of those aerial railways from the roof of Main Hall to this place. It’ll cost you fellows twenty-five cents apiece to get up here. No, maybe I’ll make it twenty-five for the round-trip.”

“I’ll walk before I pay a quarter,” said Walt.

“You won’t be allowed to, because I’ll buy up the hill and put a barbed wire fence around it. You’ll have to ride.”

“How are you going to run the thing, Tolly?” asked Joe. “Pull it up yourself?”

“Electricity. There’ll be two cars. Wouldn’t it be fine?”

“You’ll let your friends ride free, won’t you?” Terry inquired.

“Yes, but I shan’t have any then. It’ll cost too much.”

“All that doesn’t cause me a flutter,” said Hal. “By the time Tolly’s out of college I’ll be dead.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Joe chuckled. “It won’t take him two weeks to get through college――if he once gets in. It’ll be a case of ‘Howdy do, Mr. Tolliver. Goodby, Mr. Tolliver!’”

“Huh!” grunted Tolly. “That’s all you know about it, Joey. I can get in any college I like, and――――”

“Yes, but suppose they found you?” said Hal.

“I’m getting letters every day from all the big ones: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell――――”

“Vassar,” suggested Joe helpfully.

“That’s what comes of being a real ball-player,” concluded Tolly. “Everyone wants you.”