CHAPTER XXX
A NEW SCHOOL—CONCLUSION
The disquieting news was only too true, as the boys soon learned. Little else was being talked of in the dormitories and classrooms when the football squad entered. Professor Callum was seen going in and out of the doctor's study, his crabbed and wrinkled face twisted into a heavy scowl. Other instructors looked worried, for their salaries were long overdue.
A long series of misfortunes to a man never very well qualified for financial matters, with debts accumulating, few wealthy patrons, no endowment worth mentioning, with the buildings in need of repair, and with a new heating plant vitally needed, as winter was coming on, it is no wonder that Dr. Doolittle had to close the school.
"He has thrown up the sponge and taken the count," said Duke Yardly, who was addicted to sporting terms. "Poor old Doc! Well, I suppose this knocks our football game in the head."
"Not at all!" exclaimed Frank quickly. "We'll play it. Riverview doesn't close until to-morrow. To-morrow lasts until midnight The game will be over by six, consequently we are a recognized school until after the game, and when we beat Milton Academy, as we're going to, we'll be the champions of the Interscholastic League—for about a minute!" and he laughed mirthlessly.
"Sure we'll play!" declared Andy, and gradually the feeling of despondency wore off in a measure, for the boys were all healthy lads and sport appealed to them.
"But we won't give up until the last whistle!" said the elder Racer lad.
"No, indeed!" agreed his brother. "And, win or lose, we'll have some fun to-morrow night. We'll play no end of jokes——"
"Say, you'd joke if Rome was burning, wouldn't you?" asked Frank.
"Don't know. Never had a chance to try," answered Andy, with a grin.
As it was Saturday there were no lectures, but the usual morning devotional exercises were held in chapel. The doctor read a selection from one of the grand old psalms, and if his voice faltered at times, and if his eyes were dim, who shall say that in the crowd of boys who listened to him, thoughtless as they might be at times, there were not some who also felt a mist of tears obscure their vision.
"I presume you have all heard the news," said Dr. Doolittle, as the final hymn was sung, "I have nothing to add to the notice I posted. I bid you all good-by," and he turned aside, while Professor Hardin placed his arm about the venerable figure and led the head of the school from the platform.
There was, necessarily, a period of sadness when the boys filed out of chapel, but it soon passed away. Their young minds were tuned to pleasure, and as there was yet much to be done to get the gridiron and stands in readiness for the day's game they busied themselves about it.
"The last day at old Riverview!" exclaimed Andy, looking about as he and Frank stood on the field. "Well, we've had some good times here."
"We sure have," agreed his brother, "and we're going to have ahotone pretty soon. Those Milton fellows will be here in a little while."
Some hours later there was a sound of cheering, a blowing of horns and ringing of bells. Shouts, snatches of songs, school yells, and mere whoops of joy. The Milton football team and their supporters were arriving. Riverview greeted them no less enthusiastically. Out on the gridiron swarmed the lads in their ungainly suits.
I am not going to try to describe that last game to you in detail. Ask any old Riverview student, or, for that matter, any old Milton graduate to tell you about it, and he can do it much better than can I. Sufficient to say that it began with a rush and ended with a rush, and there were rush plays every minute of it.
Never, so said old football men, had such a fierce contest been seen except among college teams. It was as if Riverview was playing for life and Milton for reputation.
"If we die, then we die fighting gloriously!" quoted Frank, at the middle period when neither side had scored. "They are sure tough, but we're tougher! We're going to win and lay it as a last tribute on old Riverview's grave."
"Of course we'll win!" cried Andy.
Up to the ending of the third period the goal line of neither side had been crossed, though the ball had been perilously close a number of times. There were cheers, songs and wild yells from the grandstands, which swayed dangerously under the stamping feet.
At last Riverview got the very chance she needed. Milton had the ball, and her player was coming through center with it. But Frank made a magnificent leap and broke through the interference. There was a fierce tackle, a fumble and our hero had the pigskin. Then, like a flash, he had tucked it under his arm and was off down the field.
"Wow! Wow! Good work. Pretty! Get a touchdown!" was yelled after him.
"And a touchdown it's going to be!" whispered Frank desperately to himself.
How he did it he hardly knew himself, afterward. There was one man between him and the goal, and when Frank broke away from a fierce tackle that man lay prone upon the ground motionless. And Frank was over the line, sitting on the ball, while the whistle blew, ending the game. Riverview had won!
"Good! Good! That's the stuff! Well played! A plucky run! Riverview forever! A new day for her! Wow! Who was that lad?"
So cried a well-dressed man who was leaping about in the grandstand after Frank's sensational run. This man had been watching the game with critical eyes. He had also been letting his gaze rove about the grounds, and down toward the repaired boathouse that had been treated to a coat of paint, for which our heroes paid.
"Who was he? Is he a regular student here?" demanded the man, ceasing his frantic yelling for a moment and resting his cane, with which he had been pounding holes in the floor of the rotten grandstand. "Who is he?"
"Frank Racer," someone told him.
"Oh, one of the Racer boys. I've heard about them. I know their father. But say, this was a peach of a game!—I—I—is Dr. Doolittle here?" and the well-dressed stranger looked about. He seemed laboring under some repressed excitement.
Someone told him of the impending closing of the school, and how Dr. Doolittle was in retirement.
"This school going to close? I guess not!" cried the man. "Not if I know it. Here, let me pass, please. I want to see Dr. Doolittle. Any boys that can play football the way these lads have played to-day aren't going to be turned out of a school. Why, I used to attend here, years ago, but I never could play football like that. Wow! What a run! What a run!"
The man was pushing his way through a wondering and enthusiastic crowd. Out on the gridiron the Riverview team was capering about in delight. They had cheered their gloomy rivals and been cheered in turn. The field was being overflowed by a mass of people.
"You fellows are sure wonders!" cried the captain of the Miltons. "We came for your scalps, but you got ours. How did you do it?"
"We justhadto," said Frank simply.
A messenger boy thrust his way through the crowd.
"Frank Racer!" he called.
"Here I am," answered our hero.
He tore open the envelope that was handed to him, and his face went red.
"Hang that Thorny!" he exclaimed. "I've got to go to see Gertrude and her mother," he explained in a low voice to his brother. "Professor Callum is putting on the screws again. He's got out another attachment. I guess this business here, when he fears he'll lose his back salary, made him do it. I'm going to see Mr. Bolton right away. You pack up the things."
"What things?"
"Why, our clothes and stuff. We're going home. Riverview is up the spout."
"That's so. My, isn't it tough! And just when we won the best game of the season!" cried Andy.
But Frank did not hear him. He was hurrying over the field on his way to the dressing-room, unheeding the calls of his comrades to stay and join in a final celebration.
"This is the end," Frank was saying to Lawyer Bolton a little later. "I want this business settled and Mr. Callum prevented from annoying Mrs. Morton."
"And I was just going to send you word that it would be," said the lawyer. "The bonds have just been sold at a handsome profit. The court proceedings are over and the widow and her daughter are in good circumstances. Professor Callum's money is ready for him, and the attachment will be vacated at once. Here is the court order. I've been attending to the case all day."
"And we've been playing football—we won," explained Frank briefly.
"Then maybe you'd like to take these papers to Mrs. Morton," suggested the lawyer. "I will send her a check next week."
Frank lost no time in going to the house of the widow. At first she could not believe the good news, but when he showed her the court order vacating the attachment she wept. This time no one had been put in possession, so it was not necessary to get rid of an unwelcome visitor.
"And so you won the game," Gertrude said to Frank a little later. "I wanted to come, but—well, I couldn't leave mother."
"I understand," he said, as he shook hands at parting. "Now I've got to go back to school and help Andy pack up."
"You—you aren't going?" she faltered.
"Got to. School's broken up," he said. "But I'm going to Waterside—Andy and I—if we can persuade dad to send us. So I—I'll see you again."
"Oh," said she, and she smiled, and seemed pleased.
When Frank got back to school he found a crowd of joyous and yelling students out on the campus. A big fire had been built, and the crowd was marching about it singing.
"Humph! They don't seem to be taking it very seriously," he mused. "I thought they'd feel rather broken up about the old school closing." There was a mist of tears in his own eyes, for, though he had not been there long, he had formed a liking for the place, and for Dr. Doolittle.
"Hey, what's up, Andy?" he called a moment later to his brother. "Are they celebrating the football victory? Have you got our traps packed up?"
"No, to both questions!" fairly roared Andy. "We're not celebrating the football victory, because we're celebrating something else, and I haven't got our things packed up because we're not going home."
"Why not—isn't Riverview Hall closed?"
"Not much. Say, it's great news. Mr. Lairman, that millionaire who once refused to invest in Riverview, changed his mind after he saw how we could play football to-day. He was in the grandstand. That was he yelling so after you made that dandy run. He saw we had a good team, he saw how we'd fixed up the gridiron and the boathouse, and he's going to make a new school of this. He's bought a half interest and he's paid Dr. Doolittle about a million in cash, I guess. Wow! But it's great news! There's going to be practically a new school at Riverview—a gym, a football field that's going to beat the old one all to pieces, a new diamond, lots of shells, a new boathouse, new buildings—say—pinch me so I'll know I'm not asleep."
"Is this true?" asked Frank of several of his chums.
"Sure thing!" Jack assured him. "That millionaire was an old graduate and he's made good. Now he's going to make a new school of this. He just told us in a little speech. He's all right. Dr. Doolittle's troubles are over and I guess he's glad of it. Now he can translate Chinese, Assyrian and Chocktaw until the cows come home, and he won't have to worry."
"Come on! Join the festive throng!" cried Andy, seizing his brother by the hand. "This is the day we celebrate! How did you make out with Old Thorny?"
"Oh, he's down and out. Mrs. Morton has her money and everything is lovely."
"Good," broke in Andy, "and there's more news. Thorny is going to leave. He and Dr. Doolittle and the millionaire had a row and Old Thorny quit. Wow! but I'm glad. We're going to stay here now and be the champion baseball players next spring. Come on. Let joy be unconfined. Mrs. Stone had a bang-up supper ready for us. Wow!"
And a little later formal announcement was made of the rejuvenation of Riverview Hall at an impromptu supper which the matron prepared for the lads. And such a supper as it was! They talk about it yet in the new school.
"Well, now we can settle down to study after we've made ourselves champions," said Frank, as he got up from the table.
"Yes, I wonder what will happen next?" asked Andy.
What did, and how the Racer boys conducted themselves in another succession of surprising happenings will be told in the next volume of this series, to be called "Frank and Andy in a Winter Camp; or, The Young Hunters' Strange Discovery."
And so, as the lads are making merry over the supper, and rejoicing in the great victory, and in the prospects of a new school to take the place of the old one—in which work none had such a prominent part as the Racer boys—we will take leave of them and their chums.
THE END