L. S. DEANEBOOKS, TOYS, ANDCONFECTIONERYCIRCULATING LIBRARYLAUNDRY AGENCYTONICS
L. S. DEANE
BOOKS, TOYS, AND
CONFECTIONERY
CIRCULATING LIBRARY
LAUNDRY AGENCY
TONICS
That is what the sign said in red letters on a white background. The windows, many paned, allowed uncertain glimpses of various articles: tops of red and blue and green, boxes of pencils, pads of paper, jars of candy, many bottles of ink, a catcher’s glove, a dozen tennis-balls, some paper kites—
Laurie dragged Ned inside, through a screen door that, on opening, caused a bell to tinkle somewhere in the farther recesses of the little building. It was dark inside, after the glare of the street, and refreshingly cool. Laurie, leading the way, collided with a bench, caromed off the end of a counter, and became aware of a figure, dimly seen, beyond the width of a show-case.
“Have you anything cold to drink?” asked Ned, leaning across the show-case.
“Ginger-ale or tonic or something?” Laurie elaborated.
“Yes, indeed,” replied the apparition, in astrangely familiar voice. “If you will step over to the other side, please—”
Ned and Laurie leaned farther across the show-case.
It was the girl in the white middy dress.
“Hello!” exclaimed the twins, in one voice.
“Hello,” replied the girl, and they suspected that she was smiling, although their eyes were still too unused to the dimness of the little store for them to be certain. She was still only a vague figure in white, with a deeper blur where her face should have been. Treading on each other’s heels, Ned and Laurie followed her to the other side. The twilight brightened and objects became more distinct. They were in front of a sort of trough-like box in which, half afloat in a pool of ice-water, were bottles of tonic and soda and ginger-ale. Behind it was a counter on which reposed a modest array of pastry.
“What do you want?” asked the girl in the middy.
“Ginger-ale,” answered Ned. “Say, do you live here?”
“No, this is the shop,” was the reply. “I live upstairs.”
“Oh, well, you know what I mean,” muttered Ned. “Is this your store?”
“It’s my mother’s. I help in it afternoons.My mother is Mrs. Deane. The boys call her the Widow. I’m Polly Deane.”
“Pleased to know you,” said Laurie. “Our name’s Turner. I’m Laurie and he’s Ned. Let me open that for you.”
“Oh, no, thanks. I’ve opened hundreds of them. Oh dear! You said ginger-ale, didn’t you! And I’ve opened a root-beer. It’s so dark in here in the afternoon.”
“That’s all right,” Ned assured her. “We like root-beer. We’d just as soon have it as ginger-ale. Wouldn’t we, Laurie?”
“You bet! We’re crazy about it.”
“Are you sure? It’s no trouble to—Well,thisis ginger-ale, anyway. I’m awfully sorry!”
“What do we care?” asked Ned. “We don’t own it.”
“Don’t own it?” repeated Polly, in a puzzled tone.
“That’s just an expression of his,” explained Laurie. “He’s awfully slangy. I try to break him of it, but it’s no use. It’s fierce.”
“Of courseyoudon’t use slang?” asked Polly, demurely. “Who wants the root-beer?”
“You take it,” said Laurie, hurriedly.
“No, you,” said Ned. “You’re fonder of it than I am, Laurie. I don’t mind, really!”
Laurie managed a surreptitious kick on his brother’s shin. “Tell you what,” he exclaimed, “we’ll mix ’em!”
Ned agreed, though not enthusiastically, and with the aid of a third glass the deed was done. The boys tasted experimentally, each asking a question over the rim of his glass. Then looks of relief came over both faces and they sighed ecstatically.
“Corking!” they breathed in unison.
Polly laughed, “I never knew any one to do that before,” she said. “I’m glad you like it. I’ll tell the other boys about it.”
“No, you mustn’t,” protested Ned. “It’s our invention. We’ll call it—call it—”
“Call it an Accident,” suggested Laurie.
“We’ll call it a Polly,” continued the other. “It really is bully. It’s—it’s different; isn’t it, Laurie? Have another?”
“Who were those on?” was the suspicious reply.
“You. The next is on me. Only maybe another wouldn’t taste so good, eh?”
“Don’t you fool yourself! I’ll risk that.”
However, the third and fourth bottles, properly combined though they were, lacked novelty, and it was some time before the last glass was emptied. Meanwhile, of course, they talked. The boys acknowledged that, so far, they liked what they had seen of the school. Mention of the doctor and Miss Hillman brought forth warm praise from Polly. “Every one likes the doctor ever so much,” she declared. “And Miss Tabitha is—”
“Miss what?” interrupted Laurie.
“Miss Tabitha. That’s her name.” Polly laughed softly. “They call her Tabby,—the boys, I mean,—but they like her. She’s a dear, even if she does look sort of—of cranky. She isn’t, though, a bit. She makes believe she’s awfully stern, but she’s just as soft as—as—”
“As Laurie’s head?” offered Ned, helpfully. “Say, you sell ’most everything here, don’t you? Are those cream-puffs?”
Ned slipped a hand into his pocket and Laurie coughed furiously. Ned’s hand came forth empty. He turned away from temptation. “They look mighty good,” he said. “If we’d seen those before we’d had all that ginger-ale—”
Polly spoke detachedly. “You can have credit if you like,” she said, placing the empty bottles aside. “The doctor lets the boys run bills here up to a dollar. They can’t go over a dollar, though.”
“Personally,” observed Laurie, jingling some coins in a trousers pocket, “I prefer to pay cash. Still, there are times—”
“Yes, a fellow gets short now and then,” said Ned, turning for another look at the pastry counter. “Maybe, just for—for convenience, it would be a good plan to have an account here, Laurie. Sometimes a fellow forgets to put any money in his pocket, you know. Does your mother make these?”
“Yes, the cream-cakes, and some of the others. The rest Miss Comfort makes.”
“That’s another funny name,” said Laurie. “Who is Miss Comfort?”
“She’s—she’s just Miss Comfort, I guess,” replied Polly. “She lives on the next corner, in the house with the white shutters. She’s quite old, almost seventy, I suppose, and she makes the nicest cake in Orstead. Everybody goes to her for cakes. That’s the way she lives, I guess.”
“Maybe we’d ought to help her,” suggested Ned, mentally choosing the largest and fattest cakes on the tray. “I guess we’ll take a couple. How much are they?”
“Six cents apiece,” said Polly. “Do you want them in a bag?”
“No, thanks.” Ned handed one of the cakes to Laurie; “we’ll eat them now.” Then, between mouthfuls; “Maybe you’d better charge this to us. If we’re going to open an account, we might as well do it now, don’t you think?”
Polly retired behind a counter and produced a long and narrow book, from which dangled a lead pencil at the end of a string. She put the tip of the pencil between her lips and looked across. “You’d better tell me your full names, I think.”
“Edward Anderson Turner and—”
“I meant just your first names.”
“Oh! Edward and Laurence. You can charge us each with two bottles and one cake.”
“I like that!” scoffed Laurie. “Thought you were treating to cakes?”
“Huh! Don’t you want to help Miss Comfort? I should think you’d like to—to do a charitable act once in a while.”
“Don’t see what difference it makes to her,” grumbled Laurie, “whether you pay for both or I pay for one. She gets her money just the same.”
Ned brushed a crumb from his jacket. “You don’t get the idea,” he replied gently. “Of course, I might pay for both, but you wouldn’t feel right about it, Laurie.”
“Wouldn’t I? Where do you get that stuff? You try it and see.” Laurie spoke grimly, but not hopefully. Across the counter, Polly was giggling over the account-book.
“You’re the funniest boys I ever did see,” she explained, in answer to their inquiring looks. “You—you say such funny things!”
Before she could elucidate, footsteps sounded in the room behind the store and a tiny white-haired woman appeared. In spite of her hair, she couldn’t have been very old, for her face was plump and unwrinkled and her cheeks quite rosy. Seeing the customers, she bowed prettily and said “Good afternoon” in a very sweet voice.
“Good afternoon,” returned the twins.
“Mama, these are the Turner boys,” said Polly. “One of them is Ned and the other is Laurie, butI don’t know which, because they look just exactly alike. They—they’re twins!”
“I want to know!” said Mrs. Deane. “Isn’t that nice? I’m very pleased to meet you, young gentlemen. I hope Polly has served you with what you wanted. My stock is kind of low just now. You see, we don’t have many customers in summer, and it’s very hard to get things, nowadays, even if you do pay three times what they’re worth. Polly, those ice-cream cones never did come, did they?”
“Gee, do you have ice-cream?” asked Ned; eagerly.
“Never you mind!” said Laurie, grabbing his arm. “You come on out of here before you die on my hands. I’m sorry to tell you, ma’am, that he doesn’t know when to stop eating. I have to go around everywhere with him and look after him. If I didn’t, he’d be dead in no time.”
“I want to know!” exclaimed the Widow Deane interestedly. “Why, it’s very fortunate for him he has you, isn’t it?”
“Yes’m,” answered Laurie, but he spoke doubtfully, for the little white-haired lady seemed to hide a laugh behind her words. Ned was grinning. Laurie propelled him to the door. Then, without relinquishing his grasp, he doffed his cap.
“Good afternoon,” he said, “We’ll come again,”
“We know not how,” added Ned, “we know not when.”
“Bless my soul!” murmured the Widow, as the screen door swung behind them.
Back at school, the twins found a different scene from what they had left. The grounds were populous with boys, and open windows in the two dormitory buildings showed many others. The entrances were piled with trunks and more were arriving. A rattling taxi turned in at the gate, with much blowing of a frenzied but bronchial horn, and added five merry youths to the population. Ned and Laurie made their way to East Hall, conscious, as they approached, of many eyes focussed on them from wide-flung windows. Remarks reached them, too.
“See who’s with us!” came from a second-floor casement above the entrance; “the two Dromios!”
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee!”
“The Siamese Twins, I’ll bet a cooky!”
“Hi, East Hall! Heads out!”
The two were glad when they reached the shelter of the doorway. “Some one’s going to get his head punched before long,” growled Ned, as they started upstairs.
“What do we care? We don’t own ’em. Let them have their fun, Neddie.”
“I’ll let some of them have a wallop,” was the answer. “You’d think we were the first pair of twins they’d ever seen!”
“Well, maybe we are. How do you know? Suppose those trunks have come?”
They had, and for the next hour the twins were busy unpacking and getting settled. From beyond their door came sounds of much turmoil; the noise of arriving baggage, the banging of doors, shouts, whistling, singing; but they were otherwise undisturbed until, just when Laurie had slammed down the lid of his empty trunk, there came a knock at their portal, followed, before either one could open his mouth in response, by the appearance in the doorway of a bulky apparition in a gorgeous crimson bath-robe.
“Hello, fellows!” greeted the apparition. “Salutations and everything!”
“Hello, fellows! Salutations and everything!”“Hello, fellows! Salutations and everything!”
The twins stared silently and suspiciously for an instant. Then Ned made cautious response.
“Hello,” he said, with what must have seemed to the visitor a lamentable lack of cordiality.
The latter pushed the door shut behind him by the kick of one stockinged foot, and grinned jovially. “My name’s Proudtree,” he announced.
“You can’t blame us,” replied Laurie, coldly.
Proudtree laughed amiably. “It is a rotten name, isn’t it? I live across the corridor, you know. Thought I’d drop in and get acquainted, seeing you’re new fellows; extend the hand of friendship and all that. You understand. By Jove, Pringle was right, too!”
“That’s fine,” said Ned, with more than a trace of sarcasm. “What about?”
“Why,” answered Proudtree, easing his generous bulk into a chair, “he said you fellows were twins.”
“Not only were,” said Laurie, gently, “but are. Don’t mind, do you?”
“Oh, come off your horse,” begged the visitor.“Don’t be so cocky. Who’s said anything? I just wanted to have a look. Never saw any twins before—grown-up twins, I mean. You understand.”
“Thought you said you came to extend the hand of friendship,” retorted Ned, sarcastically. “Well, have a good look, partner. There’s no charge!”
Proudtree grinned and accepted the invitation. Ned fumed silently under the inspection, but Laurie’s sense of humor came to his aid. Proudtree appeared to be getting a lot of entertainment from his silent comparison of his hosts, and presently, when Ned’s exasperation had just about reached the explosive point, he chuckled.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“Got what?” Laurie asked.
“The—the clue! I know how to tell you apart! His eyes are different from yours; more blue. Yours are sort of gray. But, geewhillikins, it must be a heap of fun! Being twins, I mean. And fooling people. You understand.”
“Well, if you’re quite through,” snapped Ned, “maybe you’ll call it a day. We’ve got things to do.”
“Meaning you’d like me to beat it?” asked the visitor, good-temperedly.
“Just that!”
“Oh, come, Ned,” Laurie protested, soothingly,“he’s all right. I dare say we are sort of freakish and—”
“Sure,” agreed Proudtree, eagerly, “that’s what I meant. But say, I didn’t mean to hurt any one’s feelings. Geewhillikins, if I got waxy every time the fellows josh me about being fat—” Words failed him and he sighed deeply.
Laurie laughed. “We might start a side-show, the three of us, and make a bit of money. ‘Only ten cents! One dime! This way to the Siamese Twins and the Fat Boy! Walk up! Walk up!’”
Proudtree smiled wanly. “I only weigh a hundred and seventy-eight and three quarters, too,” he said dolorously. “If I was a couple of inches taller it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“I don’t think it’s bad as it is,” said Laurie, kindly. “You don’t look reallyfat; you just look sort of—of—”
“Amplitudinous,” supplied Ned, with evident satisfaction.
Proudtree viewed him doubtfully. Then he smiled. “Well, I’ve got to get rid of nearly fifteen pounds in the next two weeks,” he said, with a shake of his head, “and that’s going to take some doing.”
“What for?” Laurie asked. “Why destroy your symmetry?”
“Football. I’m trying for center. I nearlymade it last year, but Wiggins beat me out. He’s gone now, though, and Mulford as good as said last spring that I could make it this fall if I could get down to a hundred and sixty-five.”
“Who’s Mulford?” inquired Ned. “A fortune-teller?”
Proudtree ignored the sarcasm. “Mulford’s our coach. He’s all right, too. The trouble with me is, I’m awfully fond of sweet things, and I—I’ve been eating a lot of ’em lately. But I guess I can drop fourteen pounds if I cut out pies and candy and things. Don’t you think so?” Proudtree appealed to Laurie almost pathetically.
“Don’t let any one tell you anything different,” replied Laurie, reassuringly. Ned, evidently recovered from his peevishness, asked:
“What sort of football do they play here?”
“Corking!” answered Proudtree.
“I mean, Rugby or the other?”
“Rugby!” exclaimed Proudtree, scornfully. “I guess not! We play regular football. Nobody plays Rugby around these parts. Are you fellows going out?”
“Not just yet,” replied Ned.
“He means are we going to try for the football team,” explained Laurie. “Yes, we are, Proudtree; at least, one of us is.”
“You?”
“We haven’t decided yet. You see, we’ve never played your kind of football. Back home,at high school, we played American Rugby, and it’s quite different. But we decided that one of us had better go in for football and the other for baseball, if only to do our duty by the school.”
Proudtree looked puzzled. “How are you going to decide?” he asked.
“Oh, we’ll toss up or draw lots or something, I suppose. Maybe, though, Ned had better play football, because I know more baseball than he does. Still, I’m not particular.”
“That’s the limit!” chuckled the visitor. “Say, what are your names? I didn’t see any cards on the door.”
“Turner. His is Laurie and mine’s Ned,” answered the latter. “Do we put our names on the door?”
“It’s the best way,” answered Proudtree. “Well, I’ve got to be moving. I started to take a shower and got side-tracked. You chaps come on over and see me and I’ll get some of the other fellows in. You want to meet the right sort, you know. What’s your class?”
“Lower middle, I reckon,” said Ned. “That’s what we expect.”
“Too bad you can’t make upper. That’s mine. We’ve got a corking bunch of fellows this year. Well, see you later. Try for Mr. Barrett’s table when you go down. That’s the best. Maybe they’ll put you there if you bluff it out. You understand. So long, fellows.”
Proudtree withdrew with considerable dignity in view of his bulk, waving a benedictory hand ere the door closed behind him. Ned shook his head. “Sort of a fresh hombre,” he said.
“Oh, he only meant to be friendly, I reckon,” said Laurie. “You understand.”
Ned laughed. “I’ll bet they’ve got a wonderful football team here if he plays on it! By the way, maybe we’d better settle which of us is to be the football star. I suppose they begin to practise pretty soon. I’ll be the goat, if you like; though you had better luck with that book you bought in Chicago. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. I never saw so many rules for playing one game in my life!”
“Itwassort of difficult,” agreed Laurie. “I dare say, though, that you pick up the rules quick enough when you start to play. If you don’t really mind, I think you’d better go in for football, and I’ll do the baseball stunt. I’ve played it more than you have, you know, even if I’m no wonder.”
“All right!” Ned sighed. “We’ll get a bottle of arnica to-morrow. Nothing like being prepared. How about going to see Mr. What’s-his-name before supper about courses?”
“Might as well, and have it over with. I’d like to know whether we’re going to make the lower middle.”
“Don’t see what else we can make. They can’tstick us in the junior class. Where’s my coat? For the love of lemons, Laurie, can’t you find anything else to sit on? Gosh, look at the wrinkles!”
“Those aren’t wrinkles; they’re just creases. Come on!”
Half an hour later they closed the door of Mr. Cornish’s study on the floor below, in a chastened mood. Each carried a little buff card whereon the instructor had tabulated an amazing number and variety of study periods. Back in Number 16, Ned cast himself into a chair, thrust his legs forth, and gazed disconsolately at the card.
“I don’t see where a fellow finds time for anything but work here,” he complained. “Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one hours a week! What do you know about that?”
“Well, don’t be so proud of it. I’ve got the same, haven’t I? I wonder how many hours he thinks there are in a day?”
“I tell you what I think,” said Ned, after a moment’s thought. “I think he got it into his head that we’re very ambitious and want to graduate next spring!”
“Maybe that’s it,” agreed Laurie, gravely. “Shall we go back and tell him he’s wrong?”
“N-no, let’s not. He seemed a well-meaning old codger, and I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings—if he has any. Let’s go down and see what they’ve got for supper.”
Ned’s blandishments failed with the waitress, and they were established at a table presided over by a tall and very thin gentleman, whose name, as they learned presently, was Mr. Brock. There were four tables in the room, each accommodating ten boys and a member of the faculty. Diagonally across the dining-hall, the twins descried the ample Mr. Proudtree. Another table was in charge of a pleasant-faced woman who proved to be the school matron, Mrs. Wyman. Mr. Cornish, the hall master, and Mr. Barrett sat at the heads of the remaining boards.
The room was very attractive, with a fine big stone fireplace at the farther end, and broad windows on two sides. The food proved plain, but it was served in generous quantities; and notwithstanding that the twins were a bit self-conscious, they managed a very satisfactory meal.
Their fellow-students seemed to be a very decent lot. Their ages appeared to average about sixteen, and they had the clean, healthy look of boys who spent much of their time outdoors. At the table at which the twins sat, four of the boys were evidently seniors, and one was as evidently a junior. The latter looked hardly more than thirteen, though he was in reality a year older than that, and had the features and expression of a cherub. The twins concluded that he was a new boy and felt a little sorry for him. He lookedmuch too young and innocent to face the world alone.
No one made any special effort to engage either Ned or Laurie in conversation, perhaps because the returning youths had so much to talk about among themselves. Mr. Brock ate his supper in silence, save when one of the older boys addressed him, and had a far-away and abstracted air. Laurie saw him sweeten his tea three times, and then frown in annoyance when he finally tasted it.
The boy who had guessed their awful secret at luncheon sat at the next table, and more than once Ned caught him looking across with a half-bewildered, half-frightened expression that somehow managed to convey the intelligence that, in spite of temptation, he had kept the faith. Ned finally rewarded him with a significant wink, and the youth retired in confusion behind the milk-pitcher.
When the meal was over the twins went outside and, following the example set by others, made themselves comfortable on the grass beyond the walk. Near by, two older boys were conversing earnestly, and Ned and Laurie, having exhausted their own subjects of conversation, found themselves listening.
“We’ve got to do it,” the larger of the two was saying. “Dave’s going to call a meeting of the school for Friday evening, and Mr. Wells isgoing to talk to them. I’ll talk too. Maybe you’d better, Frank. You can tell them a funny story and get them feeling generous.”
“Nothing doing, Joe. Leave me out of it. I never could talk from a platform. Anyway, it’s the fellows’ duty to provide money. If they don’t, they won’t have a team. They understand that—or they will when you tell them. There’s another thing, though, Joe, that we’ve got to have besides money, and that’s material. We’vegotto get more fellows out.”
“I know. I’ll tell them that, too. I’m going to put a notice up in School Hall in the morning. Mr. Cummins says there are eight new fellows entering the middle classes this year. Maybe some of them are football-players.”
“Bound to be. Did you see the twins?”
“No, but Billy Emerson was telling me about them. What do they look like?”
“Not bad. Rather light-weight, though, and sort of slow. They’re from Arizona or somewhere out that way, I think. You can’t tell them apart, Joe.”
“Think they’re football stuff?”
“Search me. Might be. They’re light, though. Here comes Kewpie. Gosh, he’s fatter than ever! Hi, Kewpie! Come over here!”
It was Proudtree who answered the hail, descended the steps, and approached. “Hello, Joe! Hello, Frank! Well, here we are again, eh?Great to be back, isn’t it? Have a good summer, Joe?”
“Fine! You?”
“Corking! I was on Dad’s yacht all through August. Saw the races and everything. Bully eats, too. You understand.”
“Yes,” Joe Stevenson replied, “and I understand why you’re about twenty pounds overweight, Kewpie! You ought to be kicked around the yard, you fat loafer. Thought you wanted to play center this fall.”
“I’m going to! Listen, Joe, I’m only fourteen pounds over and I’ll drop that in no time. Honest, I will. You see! Besides, it isn’t all fat, either. A lot of it’s good, hard muscle.”
“Yes, it is! I can see you getting muscle lying around on your father’s yacht! I’m off you, Kewpie. You haven’t acted square. You knew mighty well that you were supposed to keep yourself fit this summer, and now look at you! You’re a big fat lump!”
“Aw, say, Joe! Listen, will you?” Proudtree’s gaze wandered in search of inspiration and fell on the twins. His face lighted. “Hello, you chaps!” he said. Then he leaned over and spoke to Joe. “Say, have you met the Turner brothers, Joe? One of ’em’s a swell player. Played out in North Dakota or somewhere.”
“Which one?” asked Joe, surreptitiously eying the twins.“Why, the—I forget: they look so much alike, you know. I think it’s the one this way. Or maybe it’s the other. Anyway, I’ll fetch them over, eh?”
“All right, Kewpie.”
Kewpie started away, paused, and spoke again. “They’re—they’re awfully modest chaps, Joe. You’d think from hearing them talk that they didn’t know much about the game, but don’t you be fooled. That’s just their way. You understand.”
“Oh, sure, Kewpie!” And when the latter had gone on his errand Joe smiled and, lowering his voice, said to Frank Brattle: “Kewpie’s trying to put something over. I wonder what.”
“Proudtree tells me one of you fellows plays football,” said Joe, a minute later, when introductions had been performed and Ned and Laurie had seated themselves. “We need good players this fall. Of course, I hope you’ll both come out.”
“Ned’s the football chap,” said Laurie. “Baseball’s my line.”
“I don’t know—” began Ned, but Laurie pinched him warningly, and he gulped and, to Kewpie’s evident relief, made a fresh start. “I’m not much of a player,” he said modestly, “but I’m willing to have a try at it.”
Kewpie darted an “I-told-you-so” glance at Joe and Frank.
“Where do you come from, Turner?” Joe asked politely.
“Santa Lucia, California. I was in the high school there two years. Everything’s quite—quite different here.” Ned spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to switch the conversation from football, and Laurie smiled in wicked enjoyment. “The climate’s different, you know,” Ned went on desperately, “and the country and—and everything.”
“I suppose so,” said Frank Brattle. “What’s your position, Turner?”
“Position?”
“Yes; I mean, where did you play? Behind the line, I suppose, or maybe end.”
“Oh, yes, yes, behind the line. You see, I—I—”
“There aren’t many fellows can play half-back the way Ned can,” said Laurie, gravely. “He won’t tell you so, but if you ever meet any one who saw him play against Weedon School last year—”
“Shut up!” begged Ned, almost tearfully.
Kewpie was grinning delightedly. Joe Stevenson viewed Ned with absolute affection. “Half-back, eh? Well, we can use another good half, Turner, and I hope you’re the fellow. I don’t know whether Kewpie told you that I’m captain this year, but I am, and I’m going to try mighty hard to captain a winning team. Youlook a bit light, but I dare say you’re fast, and, for my part, I like them that way. Besides, we’ve got Mason and Boessel if we want the heavy sort. Practice starts to-morrow at four, by the way. How about your brother? Glad to have him come out, too. Even if he hasn’t played, he might learn the trick. And there’s next year to think of, you know.”
“I think not, thanks,” answered Laurie. “One football star is enough in the family.”
“Well, if you change your mind, come on and have a try. Glad to have met you. See you to-morrow—er—Turner. I want to find Dave, Frank. Coming along?”
The two older boys made off toward West Hall, and as soon as they were out of hearing Ned turned indignantly on Laurie.
“You’re a nice one!” he hissed. “Look at the hole you’ve got me in! ‘Half-back’! ‘Played against Weedon School’! What did you want to talk that way for? Why, those fellows think I know football!”
“Cheer up,” answered his brother, grinning. “All you’ve got to do is bluff it through. Besides, Proudtree asked us not to let on we didn’t know a football from a doughnut, and I had to say something! You acted as if you were tongue-tied!”
“Yes; that’s so—you started it!” Ned turned belligerently around. “Said it would be a favorto you—” He stopped, discovering that Proudtree had silently disappeared and that he was wasting his protests on the empty air. “Huh!” he resumed after a moment of surprise, “it’s a good thing he did beat it! Look here, Laurie, I’m in a beast of a mess. Yow know I can’t face that captain chap to-morrow. Suppose he handed me a football and told me to kick it!”
“He won’t. I’ve watched football practice back home. You’ll stand around in a circle—”
“How the dickens can I stand in a circle?” objected Ned.
“And pass a football for a while. Then you’ll try starting, and maybe fall on the ball a few times, until you’re nice and lame, and after that you’ll run around the track half a dozen times—”
“Oh, shut up! You make me sick! I won’t do it. I’m through. I’d look fine, wouldn’t I? I guess not, partner!”
“You’ve got to, Ned,” replied Laurie calmly. “You can’t back down now. The honor of the Turners is at stake! Come on up and I’ll read that rules book to you. Maybe some of it’ll seep in!”
After a moment of indecision Ned arose and followed silently.
School began in earnest the next morning. Ned and Laurie were awakened from a deep slumber by the imperative clanging of a gong. There were hurried trips to the bath-room, and finally a descent to the recreation-room and morning prayers. Breakfast followed in the pleasant, sunlit dining-hall, and at half-past eight the twins went to their first class. There wasn’t much real work performed that morning, however. Books were bought and, being again in possession of funds, Ned purchased lavishly of stationery and supplies. He had a veritable passion for patent binders, scratch-pads, blank-books, and pencils, and Laurie viewed the result of a half-hour’s mad career with unconcealed concern.
“You’re all wrong, Ned,” he said earnestly. “We aren’t opening a stationery emporium. Besides, we can’t begin to compete with the office. They buy at wholesale, and—”
“Never mind the comedy. You’ll be helping yourself to these things soon enough, and then you won’t be so funny.”
“That’s the only way they’ll ever get used up! Why, you’ve got enough truck there to last three years!”
There was one interesting annual observance that morning that the twins witnessed inadvertently. At a little after eight the fellows began to assemble in front of School Hall. Ned and Laurie, joining the throng, supposed that it was merely awaiting the half-hour, until presently there appeared at the gate a solitary youth of some fourteen years, who came up the circling drive about as joyfully as a French Royalist approaching the guillotine. Deep silence prevailed until the embarrassed and unhappy youth had conquered half of the interminable distance. Then a loud “Hep!” was heard, and the throng broke into a measured refrain:
“Hep!—Hep!—Hep!—Hep!”
This was in time to the boy’s dogged steps. A look of consternation came into his face and he faltered. Then, however, he set his jaw, looked straight ahead, and came on determinedly.
“Hep!—Hep!”
Up the steps he passed, a disk of color in each cheek, looking neither to right nor left, and passed from sight. As he did so, the chorus changed to a good-humored laugh of approval. Ned made inquiry of a youth beside him.
“Day boy,” was the explanation. “There are ten of them, you know: fellows who live intown. We always give them a welcome. That chap had spunk, but you wait and see some of them!”
Two more followed together, and, each upheld in that moment of trial by the presence of the other, passed through the ordeal with flying colors. But the twins noted that the laughing applause was lacking. After that, the remaining seven arrived almost on each other’s heels and the air was filled with “Heps!” Some looked only surprised, others angry; but most of then grinned in a sickly, embarrassed way and went by with hanging heads.
“Sort of tough,” was Ned’s verdict, and Laurie agreed as they followed the last victim inside.
“It looks as if day students weren’t popular,” he added.
Later, though, he found that he was wrong. The boys who lived in the village were accepted without reservation, but, naturally enough, seldom attained to a full degree of intimacy with those who lived in the dormitories.
By afternoon the twins had become well shaken down into the new life, had made several superficial acquaintances, and had begun to feel at home. Of Kewpie Proudtree they had caught but fleeting glimpses, for that youth displayed a tendency to keep at a distance. As the hour of four o’clock approached, Ned became more and more worried, and his normally sunny countenance tookon an expression of deep gloom. Laurie kept close at his side, fearing that courage would fail and Ned would bring disgrace to the tribe of Turner. But Laurie ought to have known better, for Ned was never what his fellows would have called a “quitter.” Ned meant to see it through. His mind had retained very little of the football lore that his brother had poured into it the night before, but he had, at least, a somewhat clearer idea of the general principles of the game. He knew, for instance, that a team comprised eleven players instead of the twelve he had supposed, and that certain restrictions governed the methods by which you might wrest the ball from an opponent. Thus, you could not legally snatch it out of his arms, nor trip him up in the hope that he would drop it. Ned thought the restrictions rather silly, but accepted them.
The athletic field, known in school parlance as the play-field, was even larger than it had looked from their windows. It held two gridirons and three baseball diamonds, as well as a quarter-mile track and ten tennis-courts. There was also a picturesque and well-appointed field-house and a fairly large grand stand. To Ned’s relief, most of the ninety students were in attendance, though only about forty of the number were in playing togs. Ned’s idea was that among so many he might escape close observation.
He had, of course, handled a football more or less, and he was possessed of his full share of common sense. Besides, he had perhaps rather more than his share of assurance. To his own surprise, if not to Laurie’s, he got through the hour and a half of practice very creditably. Seasoned candidates and novices were on the same plane to-day. There was, first of all, a talk by the coach. Mr. Mulford was a short, broad, good-humored man of about thirty, with a round and florid countenance, which possibly accounted for the nickname of “Pinky” that the school had affectionately awarded him. His real name was Stephen, and he had played guard, and played it well, for several years with Trinity College. This was his fourth season as football coach at Hillman’s and his third as baseball coach. So far he had been fairly successful in both sports.
His talk was brief and earnest, although he smiled through it all. He wanted lots of material, but he didn’t want any fellow to report for practice who didn’t mean to do his level best and stick it out. Those who were afraid of either hard work or hard knocks had better save their time and his. Those who did report would get a fair trial and no favor. He meant to see the best team this fall that Hillman’s School had ever turned out, one that would start with a rush and finish with a bang, like a rocket!
“And,” he went on, “I want this team madeup the way a rocket is. A rocket is filled with stars, fellows, but you don’t realize it until the final burst. So we’re going to put the soft pedal on individual brilliancy this year. It almost had us licked last fall, as you’ll remember. This year we’re going to try hard for a well-rounded team of hard workers, fellows who will interlock and gear together. It’s the machine that wins, the machine of eleven parts that work all together in oil. We’re going to find the eleven parts first, and after that we’re going to do the oiling. All right now! Ten men to a squad. Get balls and pass in circles. Learn to hold the ball when you catch it. Glue right to it. And when you pass, put it where you want it to go. Don’t think that the work is silly and unnecessary, because it isn’t. A fellow who can’t hold a ball when it comes to him is of no use on this team. So keep your minds right on the job and your eyes right on the ball. All right, Captain Stevenson.”
At least, Ned could, to quote Laurie, “stand in a circle” and pass a football, and he did, and did it better than several others in his squad. In the same way, he could go after a trickling pigskin and catch it up without falling over himself, though it is possible that his “form” was less graceful than that of one or two of his fellows. When, later, they were formed in a line and started off by the snapping of the ball in the hands of a world-wearied youth in a faded bluesweater bearing a white H on its breast, Ned didn’t show up so well, for he was almost invariably one of the last to plunge forward. The blue-sweatered youth called his attention to the fact finally in a few well-chosen words.
“You guy in the brown bloomers!” he bellowed. (Of course they weren’t bloomers, but a pair of somewhat expansive golf breeches that Ned, lacking proper attire, had donned, not without misgivings, on Laurie’s advice.) “Are you asleep? Put some life into it! Watch this ball, and when you see it roll, jump! You don’t look like a cripple, but you surely act like one!”
Toward the end a half-dozen last-year fellows took to punting, but, to Ned’s relief, no one suggested that he take a hand at it, and at half-past five or thereabouts his trials came to an end. He went out of his way, dodging behind a group on the side-line, to escape Joe Stevenson, but ran plump into Frank Brattle instead.
“Hello, Turner,” Frank greeted. “How did it go?”
“All right,” replied Ned, with elaborate carelessness. “Fine.”
“Rather a nuisance having to go through the kindergarten stunts, isn’t it?” continued the other, sympathetically. “Mulford’s a great hand at what he calls the fundamentals, though. I dare say he’s right, too. It’s funny how easyit is to get out of the hang of things during the summer. I’m as stiff as a broom!”
“So am I,” answered Ned, earnestly and truthfully. Frank smiled, nodded, and wandered on, and Ned, sighting Laurie hunched up in the grand stand, joined him. “It’s a bully game, football,” he sighed, as he lowered himself cautiously to a seat and listened to hear his muscles creak. “Full of beneficial effects and all that.” Laurie grinned in silence. Ned felt experimentally of his back, frowned, rocked himself backward and forward twice, and looked relieved. “I guess there’s nothing actually broken,” he murmured, “I dare say it’ll be all right soon.”
“They say the first two months are the hardest,” responded Laurie, comfortingly. “After that there’s no sensation.”
Ned nodded. “I believe it,” he said feelingly. He fixed his gaze on the farther goal-post and after a minute of silence remarked:
“I’d like to catch the man who invented football!”
He turned a challenging look on his brother. Laurie blinked and for several seconds his lips moved noiselessly and there was a haunted look in his gray eyes. Then, triumphantly, he completed the couplet: “It may suit some, but it doesn’t suit all!”
“Rotten!” said Ned.
“I’d like to see you do any better,” answered Laurie, aggrievedly. “There isn’t any proper rhyme for ‘football,’ anyway.”
“Nor any reason for it, either. Of all—”
“Hi, you fellow!” interrupted a scandalized voice. “What are you doing up there? Have you done your two laps?”
The speaker was a lanky, red-haired man who bristled with authority and outrage.
“Two laps?” stammered Ned. “No, sir.”
“Get at it, then. And beat it in when you have. Want to catch cold, do you? Sitting around without a blanket or anything like that!” The trainer shot a final disgusted look at the offender and went on.
“Gee,” murmured Ned, “I thought I was done! Two laps, he said! I’ll never be able to, Laurie!”
“Oh, yes, you will,” was the cheerful response. “And while you’re doing them you can think up a better rhyme for ‘football’ than I did!”
Ned looked back reproachfully as he limped to the ground and, having gained the running-track, set off at a stiff-kneed jog. Laurie’s expression relented as he watched.
“Sort of tough on the kid,” he muttered sympathetically. Then his face hardened again and he shook his head. “I’ve got to be stern with him, though!”
Kewpie Proudtree obeyed the shouted invitation to enter Number 16 and appeared with a countenance as innocent as that of an infant. “Hello, fellows,” he said cordially, dropping into a chair with indications of exhaustion. “How do you like it as far as you’ve gone?”
Ned shifted in his seat at the study-table, choking back a groan, and fixed Kewpie with a baleful look. “Listen, Proudtree,” he said sternly. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”
“With me?” Kewpie stared in amazement. “What have I done?”
“You’ve got me into a fix, that’s what you’ve done! Didn’t you ask me—us—last night not to let on to Stevenson that we—I—couldn’t play football? Didn’t you say it would be a favor to you? Didn’t you say it would be all right and—and everything?”
“Sure! What of it?”
“Why, you crazy galoot, you must have told him that I knew all about the game! And you knew mighty well I didn’t! Stevenson thinksI’m a wonder, and I don’t know a touch-down from a—a forward kick!”
“Pass, not kick,” corrected Kewpie, patiently. “Look here, Turner— Say, are you Ned or Laurie? Blessed if I can tell!”
“Ned,” replied that youth, with much dignity.
“Guess I’ll have to call you Ned, then. Can’t call you both Turner. You understand. It was like this, Ned. You see, I want to stand in with Joe Stevenson. It—it’s for the good of the school. If they don’t play me at center this fall, who are they going to play? Well, Joe thought I—well, he seemed to think I hadn’t acted just right about keeping my weight down. He—he was sort of peeved with me. So I wanted to smooth him down a bit. You understand. That’s why I told him what I did.”
“Well, whatdidyou tell him?”
“Why, I sort of—well, it wasn’t what Isaidexactly; it was what he thought I meant!”
“Proudtree, you’re telling a whopper,” said Ned, sternly. “And you told one to Stevenson, too, or I miss my guess.”
“I only said that you were a swell football-player.”
“For the love of lemons! What do you call that but a whopper?”
Kewpie looked both ashamed and distressed. He swallowed hard and glanced furtively at Laurie as though hoping for aid. But Laurielooked as unsympathetic as Ned. Kewpie sighed dolefully. “I—I suppose it was,” he acknowledged. “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry, Ned, honest! I didn’t mean to tell what wasn’t so. I just wanted to get Joe’s mind off his troubles. You understand.”
“Well, you got me in a mess,” grumbled Ned. “I got by all right to-day, I suppose, but what’s going to happen to-morrow?”
Kewpie evidently didn’t know, for he stared morosely at the floor for a long minute. Finally, “I’ll go to Joe and fess up if—if you say so,” he gulped.
“I think you ought to,” responded Ned.
“Where’s the sense in that?” demanded Laurie. “What good would it do? Proudtree did fib, but he didn’t mean to. I mean he didn’t do it for harm. If he goes and tells Stevenson that he fibbed, Stevenson will have it in for him harder than ever; and he will have it in for you, too, Ned. Maybe he will think it was a scheme that you and Proudtree hatched together. That’s a punk idea, I say. Best thing to do is prove that Proudtree didn’t fib.”
“How?” asked Ned.
“Why, Proudtree—”
“There’s an awful lot of that ‘Proudtree’ stuff,” complained the visitor. “Would you mind calling me Kewpie?”
“All right. Well, Kewpie told Captain Stevenson thatyou are a swell player. Go ahead and be one.”
“Huh, sounds easy the way you say it,” scoffed Ned; “but how can I, when I don’t know anything about the silly game? I wish to goodness you’d taken up football instead of me!”
“You got through to-day all right, didn’t you?” asked Laurie. “Well, keep it up. Keep your eyes open and learn. You can do it. You’re no fool, even if you haven’t my intellect. Besides, you’re the best little fakir that ever came over the range.”
“You can’t fake kicking a football,” said Ned, scathingly.
“Look here!” exclaimed Kewpie, his round face illumined by a great idea. “Tell you what, Ned! I’ll show you how to kick!”
The silence that greeted the offer might have offended a more sensitive youth, but Kewpie went on with enthusiasm. “Of course, I’m no wonder at it. I’m a little too short in the leg and, right now, I—I’m a bit heavy; but I used to kick and I know how it ought to be done. Say we have a half-hour or so at it every morning for a while?”
“Wouldn’t Stevenson know what was up?” asked Ned, dubiously.
“He needn’t know. We’ll go over to the lot behind the grammar school. Even if he saw us, he’d think we were having some fun.”
“He must have a strange idea of fun,” sighed Ned. “Still, if you want to take the trouble—”
“Glad to! Besides, I owe you something for—for getting you in wrong. And I can put you wise to a lot of little things about handling a ball. We could do some passing, for instance. Wonder who’s got a ball we could borrow. I’ll find one somewhere. You understand. Now, what hour have you got free in the morning?”
A comparison of schedules showed that on two mornings a week the boys could meet at ten, and on two other mornings at ten-thirty. The remaining days were not accommodating, however.
“Well, even four times a week will show results,” said Kewpie, cheerfully. “This is Thursday. We’ll have the first lesson Saturday at ten.”
“I hope they don’t ask me to do any kicking before then,” said Ned.
“Not likely. You’ll get about the same stuff to-morrow as you had to-day. You’ll get by, take my word for it. That’s settled, then.” Kewpie referred to an ornate gold wrist-watch. “It’s after eight. You’re going over to Johnny’s, aren’t you!”
“Johnny’s?” repeated Laurie. “Oh, Doctor Hillman’s! I suppose so. What’s it like?”
“Oh, it isn’t bad. The eats are pretty fair. Anyway, he sort of likes the fellows to go, and he’s a good sort. You’ll be introduced to thefaculty and their wives, if they have any, and meet a lot of fellows whose names you’ll forget the next minute. Take my advice and sort of work in toward the dining-room. Last year, the harlequin ice-cream gave out before I could get to the table.” Kewpie sighed. “Tabby has bully cake, too, and I’m off of cake. Isn’t that rotten luck?”
“Awful!” laughed Ned. “You going over now?”
“Yes. Come on and I’ll introduce you to some of the fellows you ought to know. I’ll wash my dirty paws and meet you in two minutes.”
The principal’s reception proved rather enjoyable. The “eats” were excellent and, under Kewpie’s guidance, the twins reached the long table in the dining-room well in advance of the crowd. As Laurie remarked afterward, it was worth the amount of trouble involved just to watch Kewpie’s mouth water as he gazed soulfully at the chocolate layer-cake. To his credit be it narrated that he manfully resisted it. Besides consuming much delectable food, the twins were impressively introduced by their guide to a number of their fellow-students, the introduction being prefaced in each case by a sort of biographical note, as: “There’s Dan Whipple. The tall fellow with the trick collar, talking to Mrs. Wells. Rows stroke on the crew. Senior class president. Honor man last year. President of Attic, too. Goodchap to know. Come on.” In such manner they met at least a half-dozen school notables, most of whom were extremely affable to the new boys. Sometimes, to be sure, the twins had a suspicion that Kewpie was pretending a closer intimacy with a notable than in fact existed, but he always “got away with it.”
The only fly in the ointment of the evening’s enjoyment occurred when Kewpie mischievously introduced them to Mrs. Pennington, the wife of the Greek and Latin instructor, and sneaked away. Mrs. Pennington was tall and extremely thin, and viewed the world through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. She had a high voice and what Ned termed a “very Lake Superior” manner, and, since she confined her conversation to the benefits to be derived from an earnest study of the Latin poets, philosophers, and historians, the twins were not happy. Fortunately, very little was demanded from them conversationally, Mrs. Pennington being quite competent to do all the talking. But, unfortunately, she gave them no chance to get away. Ned descried Kewpie grinning heartlessly from the doorway and rewarded him with a terrific and threatening scowl. Kewpie, however, waved blandly and faded into the night. Release came to them at last and they scurried away, neglecting, in their hurried departure, to say good night either to the doctor or Miss Tabitha, a breach of etiquette which probablypassed unnoted by the hosts. Back in East Hall, the twins hammered loudly at Number 15, but Kewpie was either absent or discreet. At any rate, there was no response, and revenge had to be postponed.
To Laurie’s surprise, a notice on the bulletin-board in the corridor of School Hall the following morning announced that autumn baseball practice would begin that afternoon. He had supposed that his hour to offer himself on the altar of school patriotism would not arrive until the next spring; and later, when he strode down Walnut Street with Ned, in search of football togs for the latter, he broached the subject diplomatically.
“Funny idea to have baseball practice this time of year, I think,” he remarked carelessly. “Not much good in it. A fellow would forget anything he learned by next April.”
“Didn’t know they did,” replied Ned, uninterestedly. “Who told you that?”
“Oh, there was a notice on the board in School Hall. Don’t believe many fellows go out in the fall.”
“Thought baseball was a spring and summer game. Still, I dare say you can play it just as well now. Seems to me I’ve heard of having spring football practice, haven’t you?”
“I dare say. Crazy scheme, though, playing games out of season.”
“Ye-es.” Ned went on thoughtfully a momentThen he shot a suspicious glance at his brother. “You going out?” he demanded.
“N-no, I don’t think so,” answered Laurie, lightly. “There’s that building we had the bet on the other day. We never did find out—”
“Never you mind about that building,” interrupted Ned, severely. “I’m on to you, partner. You’re trying to renege on baseball. Well, it doesn’t go! You’re a baseball hero and you’ve got to get busy!”
“Aw, Ned, have a heart! There’s plenty of time—”
“No, sir, by jiminy! You got me slaving for the dear old school, now you do your bit!”
“Yes, but it isn’t fair to start the baseball season in September. You know it isn’t.”
“Cut out the alibis! You can get some baseball togs right now. Good thing you spoke of it. What’ll you need?”
“All I need is kindness,” wailed Laurie. “Ned, I don’t want to be a hero! I don’t want to save the dear old school from defeat in the ninth inning! I—I—”
“You’re going to do as you agreed to,” answered Ned, grimly. “Remember that the honor of the Turners is at stake!”
Laurie sighed deeply. Then, “You speak of honor! Say no more. I yield,” he declaimed dramatically.
“You bet you do,” answered Ned, unhesitatingly. “You for the baseball field!”