CHAPTER VIII
ORGANIZING THE NINE
Nobodywas late for chapel next day—a most unusual occurrence. But the news of the removal of the stone had early become known, and before the first call for breakfast almost the entire school was out on the campus, gazing at the work of the Smith boys and Whistle-Breeches.
“Say, that was a peach of a stunt all right,” was the general comment. “Who did it?”
“Well, if we find out who of you Freshies did it, there’ll be somethingelsedoing,” was the angry retort of the Seniors, since, just before leaving the stone, Cap had painted on it in hastily scrawled characters:
“COMPLIMENTS OF THE FRESHMEN.”
“Don’t you wish you knew?” demanded Pete, with a wink at his brothers.
“What would you do if you did know?” asked Bill.
“Make you fellows roll it back with your noses,” was the grim answer.
“How in the mischief did they do it?” some of the cooler-headed Seniors wanted to know.
“Why the little beggars must have used a platform, on long poles to carry it on,” decided one of the upper class. “Though how they got away with it, and so quietly, is a mystery. How are we going to get it back?”
“Have to hire a gang of men I guess,” said a companion dubiously.
The matter was spoken of by Dr. Burton at the morning exercises, and he requested whoever had perpetrated the “alleged joke,” as he called it, to make himself, or themselves, known. Of course no one confessed, nor did the good doctor expect them to, but he had done his duty, and then he hurried back to his study to resume work on translating some clay tablets, of early Assyrian characters, a friend had sent him.
It was Professor Landmore who solved the problem, by telling his class that day of a curious machine he had seen for applying the principle of the lever, and he described the big two wheeled affair he had noticed beside the road the previous evening. Then the secret was out, and the Seniors learned how the trick had been worked. It was even rumored that the Smith boys had had a hand in it, but nothing came of it, and the upper classmen had to endure the taunts and stings of the Freshmen until, by hiring some of the sewer contractor’s men, the stone was put back in its old place.
But the joke created quite a stir, and our heroes were considered “honor men” in the Freshman class, which had gained undying fame by so simple a means, for it was many years before the story of the removal of the Senior stone grew stale in the annals of Westfield.
But now matters were more or less settled down in the school, and our three friends gave at least part of their time to study. Meanwhile they had joined several Greek letter fraternities, and were having their share of college life. They wanted to make the Varsity football team, butfailed, as there was an overabundance of material that fall. However they did make the Freshman team, and proved themselves worthy of the honor. But as I intend to tell of the prowess of the Smith boys on the gridiron in a book to follow this, I will merely mention now that Bill, Pete and Cap did more than their share of work in winning the Freshman championship for the school, after many hard-fought battles.
The final game on the gridiron had been played, and the Westfield Varsity had won. Long hair was sacrificed to the barber’s shears, dirty suits and leather pads were laid away, and nose guards and helmets put upon the shelf until another fall. Then began a winter of more or less discontent, according as the lads liked or disliked study. Our heroes were about the average, neither better nor worse.
There was rather a more balmy feeling to the air than had been noticed in some time. The snow had gone, and the grass that had been brown and sear was beginning to take on a tinge of green. Cap Smith, mending a rip in his big catching mitt looked out of the window, yawned and stretched lazily.
“Too much study?” asked Bill.
“No, I think I’m getting the spring fever. How about you, Pete?”
“Same here. I’m tired of this measly Latin. Say, where is that new mushroom bat I bought the other day?”
“I don’t know, unless Whistle-Breeches borrowed it to prop his window up with. Jove! but it’s getting warm!”
“I like his nerve if he has,” and Pete made a hastyjourney to the room of the lad at the end of the corridor, returning with the stick in question, and followed by the culprit himself.
“I didn’t know it was anewbat,” said Whistle-Breeches in extenuation. “Besides there won’t be any baseball for a month.”
“There won’t, eh?” retorted Bill. “I’ll bet they’ll have the cage up in the gym this week.”
“I heard something about it,” admitted Cap. “Mr. Windam, the coach, said he’d soon be on the lookout for candidates.”
“Think we have any show?” asked Pete eagerly.
“I guess so. We had a good record from home.”
“That doesn’t count so much here,” was the opinion of Whistle-Breeches. “I’d like to make the nine, but I’m afraid I won’t.”
“Where do you play?” asked Cap, sizing up his chum with a professional eye.
“Right field.”
“Then you bat some?”
“I did a little better than two eighty-nine last year,” was the modest answer.
“Then you ought to get in all right. Now I want to catch, and Bill wants to pitch,” went on Cap, “and—”
“And I’d like to fill it at short,” interrupted Pete.
“And that’s the trouble,” came from Bill. “It would look too much like a family affair if we were all on the nine.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Whistle-Breeches. “If they want good players—”
“They’ll take us,” declared Cap with a laugh. “Well,even if we can’t make the Varsity, we’ll have some games. I wish the ground would dry up a bit, so we could get out and have some practice.”
Bill leaned forward and looked from the window, which gave a view of a path leading to the gymnasium. On a post not far away from the building was a bulletin board, and at that moment Forbes Graydon, captain of the Varsity nine, was tacking something up on it.
“Wonder what that is?” asked Bill idly.
“Let’s go look,” proposed Pete. “Come on, Whistle-Breeches.”
They hurried down, and after a hasty reading of the placard waved their hands to Cap and Bill, who soon joined them, together with a throng of other students.
For the notice gave announcement that all who wished to try for the baseball team were to report in the Gymnasium that afternoon, when matters pertaining to the organization of the nine would be talked over.
“Shall we go, fellows?” asked Cap.
“Go? You couldn’t keep me back if you hitched me to the Seniors’ meteorite,” declared Bill with energy.
“Going to try for it, Bondy?” asked Whistle-Breeches of their wealthy neighbor at Bill’s end of the corridor.
“Me? No. Baseball is such a rough and dirty game. But I shall cheer for our team, and back it with my money, of course. Do you think we have a chance to win the championship? I’d like to wager something on it.”
“Oh, you and your money!” growled Whistle-Breeches as he turned away in disgust. “We play ball at Westfield for thegame—not forbets!”
“Ah—really!” exclaimed James Guilder in supercilious tones as he wiped his glasses with his silk handkerchief.
There was a big crowd in the gymnasium that afternoon, when Mr. Windam, who occupied the platform with Captain Graydon and J. Evans Green, the manager, banged his gavel for order.
“You all know why we are here, so there is no use wasting time going over that,” said Mr. Windam. “There are several vacancies on the Varsity nine, and we shall be glad to have new candidates announce themselves. You new men will all be given a fair try-out, and those who do not make the team will become substitutes.
“I might add, though you probably all know it, that we won the pennant last year by only a narrow margin. It is going to be hard to keep it this year, for I understand Tuckerton College, our most formidable rival, has an exceptionally strong team, and they are after our scalps.”
“Well, they won’t get ’em!” Voice from the throng.
“Not if we can help it,” went on the coach. “Only I want to warn you that we expect top-notch playing from every member of the team. Financially we are in good shape, and just as soon as the candidates can be picked out we’ll begin work in the cage. This week, if possible.
“Now, Mr. Green, Captain Graydon and myself will take your names if you will come forward.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Cap Smith, with a look at his two brothers, arose and walked toward the platform. There was a murmur in the throng as Pete and Bill followed, and as Whistle-Breeches got up.
“The whole Smith family!” called a voice, and there was a snicker of mirth.
“Well, maybe we’ll be glad of more of the Smith boys before the season is over,” said Mr. Windam good-naturedly. “Now boys, your names, and the positions you’d like to have.”
The organization of the Westfield nine was under way, and as Cap and his brothers noted the number of candidates they began to fear that their chance of all being together on the team was a slim one.