The Secret Play

A blue runabout chugged blithely along Troutman Street, in the town of Clearfield, one afternoon in mid-September, honking hoarse warnings at the intersections of other thorough...

Clearfield is a fairly typical New England mill town, lying some two miles in from the coast. Doubtless the early settlers had been attracted by the water power to be derived fr...

The Brents lived in a fine, large house two blocks beyond Gordon. Mr. John Brent was Clearfield’s richest and most influential citizen, and “Brentwood,” as his estate was called...

Clearfield played Highland Hall Military Academy four days later and it is safe to say that practically the entire juvenile population of the town turned out to see the first fo...

Something very much in the nature of an indignation meeting was held on the High School steps on Monday at recess. There were no prepared addresses, nor did parliamentary rules...

Dick Lovering’s selection to mold the destinies of the Clearfield High School Football Team did not meet with universal approbation. It would have been strange if it had. Dick,...

Locust Valley High School descended on Clearfield the following Saturday, as Chester Cottrell phrased it, “loaded for b’ar!” She came with some two dozen capable-looking red-sto...

“Of course,” agreed Morris hurriedly, darting an anxious glance at Dick, fearing he had said something to hurt him. “Maybe they think differently about it now. How would it do t...

Dick was a very busy person those days. He had not deceived himself into thinking that coaching the High School Football Team would entail but little time and effort. His mistak...

The next day Dick appointed three assistant coaches. Bert Cable was to coach the linemen, Lanny the backs and Morris the kickers. Dick took the ends under his immediate charge....

Springdale lies nestled amongst the hills six miles inland from Clearfield, and one may make the journey speedily enough by either steam railroad or trolley line. Lanny and Ches...

“Home again from a foreign shore,” murmured Lanny as they climbed down from the car in the Square. “I wonder how the game came out. Bet you we got licked, Chester.”

On Monday, Morris and his sister and May Burnham made the journey to New York. Mr. Brent had advanced to them the difference between what had been paid in by subscribers to the...

North Side used Wightson and Larue continuously, hurling them against the line from tackle to tackle and managing to work the ball from under the goal well into the middle of th...

While Fudge, completely exhausted, was being restored to usefulness, Captain Nostrand converted the six points to seven by an easy goal. And before Fudge, assisted by admiring t...

Practice was light that Monday afternoon, for many of the boys had suffered slight bruises or muscle-strains in the Corwin game and all were more or less languid as a result of...

For a minute no one accepted the invitation, and chuckles of amusement came from the rear of the hall where the younger fellows were foregathered. Finally, “Go to it, Carter!” c...

Dick’s retirement from the hall took on the nature of an ovation. Many of the fellows pushed their way across to shake hands with him, to tell him “It was hot stuff, Dick!” to f...

“You see,” said Fudge, taking another bite of his banana and talking from the side of his mouth, “this fellow, ‘Young Sleuth,’ finds that when, when the old chap――Middleton, I m...

Nearly the entire school accompanied the team to Lesterville. The distance was short and the journey could be made inexpensively on the trolley line. Besides, football enthusias...

The football council, or board of strategy, as George Cotner liked to call it, met at Dick’s house Sunday night. Gordon, who had dropped around to call, was included. Lanny, Che...

That Tuesday afternoon practice was the hardest of the season. For four twelve-minute periods, the Scrubs, driven to desperation by Dick’s reiterated assertion that this was the...

There was a final gathering of the council at Dick’s that evening, what time the School was conducting its last football mass-meeting in assembly hall. Lanny, Cottrell, Cotner a...

Merrick, l. e. Cummings, r. e. Partridge, l. t. Torrey, r. t. Cable, l. g. Furniss, r. g. Haley, c. Heath, c. A. Beaton, r. g. Connell, l. g. Wayland, r. t. Grey, l. t. Felker,...

Tupper caught near the side of the field and allowed himself to be forced over at the twenty-yard line. The ball was taken in and Chester Cottrell slapped his hands and barked o...