the building in hope of seeing some fellow who could be induced to come and talk with him. Don was doing laboratory work in physics and Dave and Paddy were undoubtedly on the campus. At a little distance a couple of boys whom Wayne did not know were passing a football back and forth as they loitered along the path. A boy whom he did know ran down the steps and shouted a salutation to him, but Wayne only waved his hand in reply. It was Ferguson, who talked of nothing but postage stamps, and Wayne had outgrown stamps and found no interest in discussing them. Ferguson went on around the corner of Academy Building toward the gymnasium, and with a start Wayne recollected that at that moment he should be making one of a squad of upper middle-class fellows and exercising with the chest weights. He looked doubtfully toward the point where Ferguson had disappeared. What right, he asked himself, had a preparatory school, where a fellow goes to learn Greek and Latin and mathematics, and such things, to insist that a fellow shall develop his muscles with chest weights and dumb-bells and single sticks? None at all; the whole thing was manifestly unjust. Schools were to make scholars and not athletes, said Wayne, and he, for one, stood ready to protest, to the principal himself if need be, against the mistaken system.
The moment for such protest must be drawing near, thought the boy, with something between a grin and a scowl, for he had already twice absented himself from gymnasium work, and only yesterday a polite but firm note from Professor Beck had reminded him of the fact. Well, he was in for it now, and he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. He gathered his books together and started along the river path toward the campus in search of Paddy or Dave. He wanted to tell some one about it.
Wayne had been at Hillton two months, and was apparently no nearer being reconciled to the discipline and spirit of the Academy than on the day he entered. He found the studies many and difficult and the rules onerous. Everything was so different from what he had been accustomed to. At home he had attended a small private school where laxity of discipline and indifference to study occasioned but scant comment. The dozen or so scholars studied practically what they pleased and when they pleased, which in many cases was very little. Wayne’s mother had died when he was five years of age; his father, who had labored conscientiously at the boy’s upbringing, had erred on the side of leniency. Wayne had been given most everything for which he had asked, including his own way on many occasions when a denial would have worked better results. A boy with less inherent manliness might have been spoiled beyond repair. Wayne was – well, perhaps half spoiled; at all events unfitted for his sudden transition to a school like Hillton, where every boy was thrown entirely on his own resources and was judged by his individual accomplishments.
Wayne envied Don and Paddy, and even Dave, their ability to conquer lessons with apparent ease. He was not lazy, but was lacking in a very valuable thing called application, which is sometimes better than brains. And where Don mastered a lesson in thirty minutes Wayne spent twice that time on a like task. It had required two months of the hardest coaching to fit Wayne for admission into the upper middle class at the Academy, and now he was making a sad muddle of his studies and was beginning to get discouraged. He wished his father hadn’t sent him to Hillton; or, rather, he would wish that were it not for Don – and Paddy – and Dave – and, yes, for lots of other things. Wayne sighed as he thought of what a jolly place the Academy would be if it wasn’t for lessons – and chest weights! And this brought him back to his grievance, and, having reached the campus, he looked about to find some one to whom he might confide his perplexities and resolves.
But both Paddy and Dave were too busy to heed any one else’s troubles. Paddy, in a disreputable suit of football togs, his face streaming with perspiration, was being pushed and shoved about the gridiron, the center of a writhing mass of players, while the coach’s whistle vainly proclaimed the ball not in play. Dave, his good-natured face red with exertion, was struggling with his beloved hammer amid a little circle of attentive and facetious spectators.
“Say, Dave, you ought to stop, really you had,” one of the onlookers was saying as Wayne joined the circle. “If you keep at it much longer you won’t be able to throw that thing out of the circle.”
“Three feet four inches short of the first mark,” said a youth with a tape as he rose from measuring the last flight of the weight. “Better rest a bit.”
“Why don’t you take the hammer off, Dave, and throw the handle?” asked a third boy.
“Well, I wish you’d step up here and have a try at it,” answered Dave good-naturedly.
“Oh, but I’m not a strong man like you. If I was half as big I’d throw the old thing twice as far as that.”
“Well, perhaps you’ll grow in time, Tommy. Hello, Wayne,” he continued, as he caught sight of that youth, “why don’t you say something funny? I don’t mind; go on.”
“Can’t think of anything right now,” answered Wayne. “The funniest thing I know of is tossing an iron ball around when it’s too warm to move. You look like a roast of beef, Dave.”
“Do I? Well, I’ve been roasted enough; I’m going to knock off. Besides, I’m in poor form to-day. Let’s go over and watch Paddy, poor dub. I guess he’s having a hard time of it, too.”
Dave picked up his sweater and hammer and the two strolled over to the side-line and sat down. The first and second elevens, the latter augmented by several extra players, were putting in a hard practice. Less than a fortnight remained ere the game of the season would be played with St. Eustace Academy, and hard work was the order of the day. The head coach, an old Hillton graduate named Gardiner, was far from satisfied with the team’s showing. As Paddy had pointed out, he and Greene were the only members of the first eleven who had the experience that participation in a big game brings. Greene was the captain and played right end, and to-day he was visibly worried and nervous, and was rapidly working his men into much the same state when Gardiner called time and allowed the almost breathless players to strew themselves over the field on their backs and pant away to their heart’s content. Paddy caught sight of the two boys on the side-line and crawled dejectedly over to them on all fours, his tongue hanging out, in ludicrous imitation of a dog.
“It’s awful, my brethren, simply awful. We are probably the worst lot of football players in the world. Greene will tell you so – and glad of the chance, bad luck to him! He’s got the ‘springums.’”
“What are those?” asked Wayne.
“Oh, those are nerves; when you can’t keep still, you know. That’s what’s the matter with Greene to-day. And I don’t much blame him; the weather’s unfit for practice, and every chap on the team feels like a sausage, and the St. Eustace game’s a week from Thursday. I heard March tell Gardiner – ”
“Is Joel March here?” asked Dave.
“Yes; see him over there talking to ‘Pigeon’ Wallace? He said to Gardiner a few minutes ago, ‘There’s one great trouble with that eleven, Mr. Gardiner, and that is that it’s not the kind that wins.’ He didn’t know I could hear. Of course I wouldn’t tell Greene for a house and farm. But March is right; I’ve felt that way all the fall. And if March says we can’t win, we’re not going to.” Paddy sighed dolefully.
“Tommyrot, Paddy!” answered Dave. “Joel March isn’t infallible, and the team may take a big brace before Thanksgiving.”
“Who’s Joel March, anyway?” asked Wayne.
“Joel March? Why, Joel March is – is – Say, haven’t you ever heard of March?” exclaimed Dave, in deep disgust. Wayne shook his head.
“I reckon not; if I have I’ve forgotten it. What did he do – run a mile in eighteen and three-fourth seconds or throw an iron ball over Academy Building?”
“Neither, my sarcastic and
